This section of the website will be designated to Milestones in the lives of classmates. Please send in your news of graduations, weddings, births and deaths of your loved ones.

BIRTHS

Peg Dunn-Snow with her three grandsons 2006
Eric, Evan and Baby Brendan

Tom Snow and grandson Brendan 2006

Bella's Proud Paternal Heritage 2009

Isabella Rex Bixler 2009

Jeff and Trish Christmas 2010 with their first granddaughter,

CONDOLENCES

7/1//06

Condolences to classmate Harriett Brooke. Monday night after the reunion Harriett Brooke's mother died suddenly. Please join me in sending Harriett your deepest sympathy
8/13/06

Condolences to classmate Tuillo Proni. Tuillo lost his father recently.

We grew up with the threat of nuclear war. In grade school they had us drill at getting under our desks as if that would help. We did experience the Cuban missile crisis firsthand in south Florida - I can remember the military convoys heading south to Homestead AFB and the Keys. I also remember neighbors installing bomb shelters in their backyards. I wonder how many of those are left.

We saw our president assassinated within months of starting our careers at Nova. Luckily, we had journalists like Walter Cronkite to help us get through it with darn good journalism.

We witnessed the civil rights era more in the news than first hand. We were the first integrated high school in Florida as far as I know. In hindsight, I think we could have done that a bit better, but I think we did pretty well. I know we handled it better as students than some of the faculty and staff did. I seem to remember some ruffled feathers from some chaperones at a dance when a black male student and a white female student shared one dance. I don't think any of the students had a problem with it, but apparently some of our faculty and staff did. We still have a ways to go in achieving an appreciation for diversity, but we have made a lot of progress.

In 1969 we saw the first man walk on the moon when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed the Eagle in the Sea of Tranquility. To get there, we also saw the crew of Apollo I - Virgil (Gus) Grissom, Edward White, and Roger Chaffee - die on the launch pad in a fire in January of 1967. I mourn their loss, but I celebrate their quest.

While we were in eighth grade we could hear the Mercury launch with Alan Shepard making the first sub-orbital flight in Freedom 7. All six mercury missions were complete by the time we entered Nova for the first time. Most of the Gemini missions took place while we were students at Nova, finishing with Gemini XII in November 1966, just three months before the fire on the pad for Apollo I.

We grew up in a time when if you got in trouble at school and got you bottom whacked with a paddle there you could probably expect to get the same thing at home - rather than have your parents sue the school district for hitting poor Johnny.

We (well most of us anyway) did not know much if anything about drugs in high school. Scoring a six pack on Saturday night was about what we had in mind as far as illicit drugs/alcohol.

Vietnam happened. Some of us volunteered. Some of us were drafted. Some of us with high draft numbers or medical excuses avoided military service altogether. All the guys in our high school class who did not volunteer can probably tell you what their number was in the first draft lottery. Some who received orders for induction just never showed up at the AFEES station. That still blows me away that you could just ignore orders for induction with no repercussions. A good friend of mine did just that. I could not have done that. I expected growing up to spend some time in the service of my country, regardless of my feelings about the war my generation had. I respect my friends who made other choices that were right for them at the time and am happy that they did not suffer any consequences. They quit sending draftees to 'Nam while I was in Basic. All I wanted was to do my two years and get out, so I declined the opportunity to extend for another year to go to 'Nam. Maybe I should have. Not having been over there, I can't expect to understand how it may have affected those who did go.

Being color blind kept me from joining the Navy, but it also kept me out of all the military occupational specialties where folks might shoot at you in any branch of the service. I'm not aware of anyone from our class who died in 'Nam. Let me know if I'm wrong.

1964 - Four long haired lads from Liverpool come over and sing a few tunes on Ed Sullivan. The girls are crazy for them. Next thing you know, crew cuts are out and long hair is in. Darn near ended the careers of a lot of barbers. Also changed the music scene forever. Forty years later, their tunes are still as good as they were then. We'll need to revisit the music scene some more, from Dylan and Baez, to Pete Seeger, to Janis, Cream, The Beach Boys, Jan and Dean, PP&M, the Kingston Trio, and too many to name them all.

Speaking of tunes in the '60's. Compact disc players, tape players in autos? When we were in school, if your car had a radio at all, it probably only had an AM tuner. FM was out there, and maybe your parents car had an FM tuner, but who cared? There was nothing there. 560 WQAM was where the radio stayed. Rick Shaw was the man as far as DJ's in South Florida. And he signed off every night with "Goodnight My Love" by ??? I'll have to think of a prize for the first person who can tell me they know whose recording Rick used. Hint: They were once known as "Two Girls and a Guy".

Just like 9/11, Kennedy's assassination and the Apollo 1 fire are events that I will always remember where I was and what I was doing when I heard the news.

In spite of all the events that we experienced first hand or through the media; all the changes we witnessed, I can't think of any time that I would prefer to have grown up. Values, while not exactly black and white, were, I think better defined - maybe they were black and white or either right or wrong with no middle ground. South Florida was not so darn crowded and over-developed. You could still find a fairly un-crowned section of beach (like north of Dania Pier) to have a party in the '60's. Maybe knowing that the bomb could be dropping at any time made us appreciate the moment? I don't know. I do know that I'm glad to have grown up in south Florida in the '60's when I look at all the stuff that today's adolescents have to deal with.

We did grow up in a wondrous time! I'm amazed when I realize how few years before we were at Nova that Watson and Crick had figured out the structure of DNA. And look at where we are now!
Later, George

(Editor's Note:) This section of the website is dedicated to featuring articles written by classmates. Send us your thoughts, ideas or memories.

In Memoriam
This website is delicated to our classmates and teachers who have died.

Classmates
Laura Accomando(aka Leane Line)
Fletcher Allen
Irmgard Bocchino
Bev Geisinger
Jim Holmes
Jill Ingertson
Trevor McAninch
Bernice McLacklan
Ray Recchi
Bob Remington
Fred Scheidler

Teachers
Mr. Kaufman
Mr. Kitson
Mr.Viens

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