365 Days of Impacts

When I graduated college in December 1987, my dad also retired that month in that year. Mom and Dad had always planned to move back south. My Mom wanted it way sooner than my dad. When we moved to Detroit, Dad always said it was only for a few years. 17 years later my mom was about to leave and go back herself. The winters were killer, and my mom missed her family in Athens. We piled in our brown van and took off for Florida. They originally thought they were going to move back to Florida. That was the plan. While we traveled around Florida from the east coast to the west coast, we visited old friends of theirs like the Filippi's - we stayed in their RV in their driveway. It was GLAMPING at it's finest, and it was fun. I looked at this as a sort of a college graduation trip - back to the old stomping grounds. We went to Ron Jon's Surf shop in Cocoa Beach, saw the old house in Titusville. We would drop dad off in the morning to golf, then mom and I would go on a...

When I left Detroit, it was to attend the University of South Carolina. The USC Fighting Gamecocks. This was a turning point in my life. Not only culturally, but in so many coming of age ways. I originally had a scholarship to be a manager on the volleyball team because Coach Drake from Chippewa was the girls Volleyball coach there my freshman year, so I got a discount on my tuition. Christy was also a manager. A few weeks into the season, Coach Drake decided to go back to Michigan, leaving me and Christy without "jobs" and our break on tuition. Thus, my first jo b in college was in the Bates House cafeteria. Eventually, I moved up to working at the school paper.  USC is where I met so many friends that are still with me to this day. Many here in Atlanta, and others scattered all over the US of A. Thank GOD for the "FaceBook" that enables us all to keep up with each other in all parts of the country. I went in without a major, claimed Fine Arts at...