Niceville, Florida

saying good bye to Florida...

Yesterday, I went to Niceville High School, the school I graduated from in 1972. 37 years ago. There were 2 young women in the parking lot chattering about the day and I asked them to take my picture in front of the school. Was I ever that young?

I only attended this High School for 1 year. It was a pretty awesome year. Being the only one of my friends with a car, I was the designated driver all the time.
I met my husband that year at Eglin Federal Prison, neither of us were inmates. I was part of a 21 member chorus - 4 civilians (suprano, alto, bass and tenor), 17 federal prisoners. (That would be 2 females, 19 males. I was 18.) He was a friend of one of the other civilians.

So yesterday, I crammed a year of memories into 2 hours and took a side trip back in time. The interesting thing is there was so many things that were the same and this triggered memories long ago filed away - like some crazy google search on random words.

I remembered :
being editor of the literary magazine
being kissed by someone I loved
the cheering section at my graduation
the death of a good friend in a car accident
my sister taking my car in the middle of the day with my books in it
traveling around the panhandle (sorry, emerald coast) on the prison bus performing at churches
all the laughter - swimming in the afternoon, driving too fast, packing 7 people in my Pinto (yes...my pinto with the eight track tape player)
playing Led Zeppelin too loud.

and what I felt was grateful for all of it, and for all of those people who touch me and shaped me and shared their lives with me then. I don't miss those times because they are incorporated into my being, into the way I see the world and to some extent into the way the world see me.

I will probably never return to Niceville, Florida. But in so many ways it will never leave me.