Sort of a “where are they now?”, this is a list of some friends that I once had - some good friends, some just acquaintances, that I’d like to hear from. I made a token effort to Google them but didn’t find much. Yes, of course, if I had the time, I could probably hunt them down like rabbits! But I always hate that first question, “How in the world did you ever find me?” and then, if I tell them truth, it is always a little scary to them since they realize that my mind is perhaps more cunning than most of the people on the FBI’s Most Wanted. Always a tough hurdle to overcome when you first get back in touch with someone - ha ha. So, I figured, I’m busy anyway, so I’ll just post this and see if anyone contacts me over the next year or so. Another friend of mine did this on his blog and I thought it was a pretty cool idea.

I’ll update this from time to time.

From University Park Elementary

Bowen Garrett - I was with him the day Ronald Reagan was shot. I’ll never forget him yelling to me from down the street, “The President has been shot, The President has been shot”. Well, the Garrett’s had an ant farm and I kept thinking all the way to his house that he was yelling “The present ant has been shot”. I had no idea why he was so excited or what he was talking about.. all this hubbub over an ant? And how can an ant be shot? I figured he meant with a slingshot or something by one of his crazy brothers who were always bothering us.
Johnny (Coyner) Gilger - was my best friend. Only he knows what I know. We used to hang out every second it seemed. We had forts all over the place - in trees on the Melbourne Golf Course and in drainage pipes that ran underground. Why did my parents let me crawl under the Melbourne Golf Course in drainage pipes? I have no idea what they were thinking. Maybe they never knew. We even had a complete “detective” office buried behind food storage containers in his parents basement - and his parents didn’t even know it was there. My worst memory is getting a belting from Dwight (his dad) when I was like 10 years old. My parents didn’t use belts (just their hands), so when Dwight caught us fishing with his fishing poles - fishing over his truck and pulling the weighted hook over the other side of the truck, scraping huge guages of paint along the way - he called my parents and they told him to give me the same punishment as Johnny. Wha? I was betrayed! Seriously, I more than deserved it, but you always remember that first belting - especially by a professional belter. I think I got two swats and broke into hysterics. Johnny got about 20 and didn’t flinch. Man, was I wimp or what?
Mike Nichols - Mike was into dirt bikes I think before anyone else. He had a cool cousin, Karen (a redhead) who I was seriously in love with. Mike lived in Crown Heights and we did a bunch of stuff together.
Christine Terranova - Overall, a cool person and a nice girl. I think we went all the way from K to 6th grade together. We were on “safety patrol” together in fifth and sixth grade. I doubt she even remembers me. Heard she got married a long time ago. I even vaguely remember that crazy sea world trip where it rained and the park turned into lakes. UPDATE 10/2/2006: Was at a friend’s house the other night who brought out his Mel High yearbook to show me his crazy high school picture. I started flipping through the pages and saw a picture of Christine of all people. I could pretty much see that I would never have had a chance with her anyway if I had stayed in the states.
Jenny Sasso - Proving it is a small world. Jenny was “my first kiss” (in second grade) and my only kiss for a long, long time after that. (Sad, but true!) We also went through all the grades together and then her family even moved to Saudi and we visited them once. Of course, we were both teenagers then, forced together for the sake of our parents, so it was about as awkward as being interrogated by communist guerillas: you are always afraid you will say the wrong thing and be shot. Never did get back in touch after that horrible episode.

From “The Neighborhood”

Candace Hodge - almost got reacquantied with her when she was working at Space Coast Credit Union. Can’t even recall what happened but we lost touch (again) and that was that. Might still be roaming around Melbourne for all I know. A very nice girl who everyone was always trying to hit on - not me! She was just my cool next door neighbor. My parents still swear she used to spy on them kissing on our back porch. Good for her!
Gaylin Reed - the guy used to terrorize us! His dad owned like, a bunch of stuff, and I thought for sure he would kill me one day. Of course, we used to call him “Gaywad” and “Gaylord”, so maybe we deserved it. So help me find him and get him back for making me take “shortcuts” on the way home from school — shortcuts through drainage canals and Florida overgrowth! Ha ha. Seriously, I’ve always noticed that the folks who you feared in school turn out to be pretty cool folks later on. But then, again maybe he’ll still push me off the swing into the dirt!

From Ras Tanura, Saudi Arabia

Nicholas Bozadzis (probably butched the spelling!) - he may be hacking this website once he finds it. I’m very nervous.
Rahilla Abbas - a very nice girl that I failed to get to know too well. I’m sure she is doing very well today.
Sissy Holtzclaw - Boy, did I really like her. Everyone always picked on her - I have no idea why. I thought she was very nice, and very cool. Always wondered what happened to her.
Audrey Alexa - Played saxaphone next to her. In fact, she was the reason I took up saxaphone. She lives in Canada and I had an email address for her about ten years ago - she was married with three children. Super! I’ll have to post my “me and Audrey” picture sometime - it shows what a total geek loser I really was back then. Why she agreed to it, I’ll never know. Too nice, I guess.
Mike Markee (from Philadephia) - Okay, so here’s a secret about me few folks know. I, with the help of Mike and his pipe-smoking dad’s VHS (and BETA!) bootleg video collection, memorized the entire movie of Superman. Yes, we even made an audio tape of the movie, that I’d listen to in bed - which actually now thinking about it is way hip before it’s time. I might do this with Office Space sometime. Anyway, Mike was a cool guy despite his scary yearbook photo which rivaled only mine in its geekiness. And I know he was a huge Eagles fan.

From Stony Brook

Ken Quarshie (i.e. The Quarshmeister, The Quarshinator) - a man of few words. Heard the FBI recruited him for something and so he may be in deep, deep, deep undercover. Hopefully still playing penny and nail poker - and chess!
Dawn Williams (ah, I’ll put the married name here eventually - I’m lazy and I have to look it up). Won’t say too much here, except that I always had the highest respect and admiration for her. Too bad I abused it like a fool. A great girl from Tulsa, Oklahoma who got married a long time before I did. Also, a beatiful singing voice.
Jack Raplee — FOUND!! - Check out his blog at http://foresthillschurch.blogspot.com/.
H. J. Hahn - a legend of Long Island and one of my personal heroes in high school. I have no idea why and I’m sure he even has less idea why. But a cool guy none the less - unless he’s been arrested for something dastardly in which case, I really never knew him.
Frank and Karen Jordan - my history instructors - they were awesome!
Bill Cooper and Mike Fine - I was too geeky to really be close friends with them, but they were the ones who got me into music more so than anyone else, especially Bill who introduced me to Chicago, Boston, and Yngweigh. How can you not appreciate that? It was only a short leap into Megadeth and SOD before I was transformed. And even very recently, I just bought Chicago’s XXX (30th album - awesome!). Wonder if Mike ever became a pro musician - he was pretty good. I remember he could play the opening to Ratt’s “Lay it Down” flawlessly - at least to my then untrained ears - not an easy task!!!

From Camelot Music in Orlando (actually the old Winter Park Mall)

Lynda Liggett - my store manager and a cool person. Ran into a district thug for Camelot music in O-town (actually now it is called FYE - how lame is that???) who said she had just quit a few months before. She was a cool manager. One of the few in my employment history. I was probably a terrible employee, but hey, at least I knew music.
Mike - Man, I wish I could remember his last name. He lived in some ritzy gated community in Lake Mary and was always fun to hang out with. “Is this the bookstore?”

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