A brief recap of the past 40 years or so.This Web Page is an opportunity to say more about where Ihave come from and what I have experienced, in addition to throwing in some related links.
I am originally from Washington,D.C.,one of the few people you will meet who was actually born there.The area where I was born is just off of East Capitol Street as you cross the Anacostia River-very\different now than how it was during 1955-60 when I was living there. From the end of my street you could see R.F.K.Stadium which was built in the mid to late 50's. My mother is a retired teacher who got her Masters in Teaching from George Washington Univ. and we used to travel the buses and streetcars back and forth from Minnesota Avenue in S.E. to Pennsylvania Avenue to there. They got rid of the trolley cars 10 years later, but I am witness to the fact that they did once exist.
In August,1962, my family moved to Miami,Fla. just in time for the Cuban Missile Crisis and other events of that day and age.I remember the times being charged and I remember where I was when I heard that JFK was shot (right at the end of the school day at Everglades Elementary School in West Miami), but my childhood memories tend to center around the Venetian Pool in Coral Gables, the Coral Gables Youth Center (now a country club). When I went back in April,1995, I found that Everglades Elementary was still there!
Three years later, my family moved to Norfolk,Va.,home of the Norfolk Navy Base. My dad was in the Navy so we lived in navy housing the first year we were there, then moved to an apartment complex right across the street from the Naval Amphibious Base where we lived for the next two years. I have fond memories of Norfolk-my dad would take me and my sister Regina to the Ocean View Amusement Park and we would do things as a family like travel to the restored area in Williamsburg and go to Virginia Beach and Nags Head on the Eastern Carolina shore. I had the chance to go back to Norfolk in 1987 and it seemed smaller than I remember as a child.
The Annandale Years
The third and final move during my childhood was back to the Washington, D.C. area to the Virginia suburb of Annandale near the Capital Beltway.Annandale High School is known for its high school football teams and I actually did play on the Junior Varsity team (halfback) my sophomore year.I spent most of my time there on the school newspaper,The A-Blast. I had a very good high school journalism teacher (Dorothy Olin) and we did things like go to Columbia University,home of the Pulitzer Prize in New York for high school journalism conferences. One of my classmates who I worked with on the A-Blast, Sue Robinson, continued with a career in journalism. After high school, I spent a summer as a journalist\correspondent for a local newspaper called the Annandale News and Advertiser. But for some reason,I didn't stick with journalism. I wonder what would have happened if I did.
A word about the Class of 1973. Forty years later, there is an active alumni network and regular class reunions. This is not a common thing in Northern Virginia. Thanks to Jennie, Lorraine, Brad, Danny, Mike and everyone else for keeping the threads together.
I went to college at George Mason University which was about eight miles down the road from where I lived. GMU was a commuter school of about 4500 students then-it doubled in population by the time I graduated in Jan.1978 to almost 9000 students and at the moment, there are between 25,000 and 30,000 students going there. The place has grown exponentially and after making the NCAA Final Four in 2006,George Mason is going to be even more popular. I lived at home, was involved in campus life off and on, graduated with a Sociology degree, thought I would be doing urban planning or academic research. Wrong-I started just after college into my present-day Social Work career.
...the 'burbs (not the actual house, though)
..... life near the Big City, U.S. East Coast
New Brunswick, Boston and beyond
I went into VISTA three months after college and lived in New Brunswick,N.J. for the next three years.Being the home headquarters of Johnson and Johnson,Inc., New Brunswick was doing some serious shaking and moving while I was there. But because New Brunswick is also the home to Rutgers University, which is right across the street from J&J, there has been some counterbalance to J&J's grand schemes.For awhile,I was part of the counterbalance. Then I went off to graduate school in Boston.I went to Boston College for Social Work school.
I currently live in Weymouth, Mass but I lived in Taunton, Mass for seven years. Closer to Boston, I have lived in Quincy, Cambridge, Newton and in Dorchester and Jamaica Plain in the city itself. There is always something to do in the Boston area and that is what keeps me here. I have visited Seattle , San Francisco , and also lived for a summer in Nashville,Tenn. during my college years.
I'm an East Coast person. My mother now lives in Roanoke,Va. and my sister currently lives in Lynchburg, Va. with her two children, Justin and Ashley.
