Out Of The Past And Into The Future

I'd gone over to see the Veterans Day celebration, wandering around with my camera and one of those little American flags they always give out tucked in my shirt pocket. I heard my name being called. It was Mike Rozos in a can't miss bright red shirt! I hadn't seen him about thirty years, since he'd left his position as head of North Miami's Department of Parks & Recreation, moving away to take a bigger and better job elsewhere.

We chatted about what had gone on in our lives since the days when we were in the Jaycees together and I did a lot of photography of the city's recreational programs and the completely revamped parks, the brainchild of Mike. He really brought some big changes to the parks and the city is better off for them.

We talked about our kids, how they were now probably older than we'd been back then and about the fact that other than some grey hair we were both in pretty good shape for a pair of dudes who could order off the senior citizens menu at Denney's.

He remarked about my curly hair and beard looking pretty much the same as it was back then and that I was still wearing jeans. It took some explaining to convince him that the hair style and beard were new, that I'd run across some photos of myself from 1973 and decided it might be neat to grow it out again and get a different look to myself in my self-portrait project.

I told him about the twenty-five years or so when I was clean shaven and wore a suit and tie, served on various city advisory boards, and even made a run for city council twenty years ago. That election cycle also saw a young man of only 18 run for council. Well, Scott Galvin lost big time but came back a few years later and won. That's him, Concilman Scott Galvin, in the black suit chatting with Mike.

Mike is back in South Florida, now the Vice President of Recreational Design & Construction, Inc. of Fort Lauderdale. He's hoping to convince the city to use his firm to redo the parks again. Well, it's been thirty years! We entered into an agreement with the county school board to build some newschools onexisting park land and then build new parks where the old schools had been. Mike seems like the right man for the job. I'm really looking forward to renewing our friendship after all these years. We're meeting for lunch next week..