Scott Metheny leads off:
Been a long time. Sorry to hear about Jim Wei – great guy. Well, I retired from the Navy as CDR a long time ago after 22 years. I recently retired from working full time. The hassle just wasn’t worth it anymore. Spent some time with the Cunningham crew in Jupiter. Coons, Ratighan, et al. Great seeing you all and catching up. When I worked in NOLA a while back caught up with Quern, McAloon, Liantonio, and others. Good time. On to the family. Wife still as beautiful as ever. Oldest Jake is an ICU nurse at Tampa General and will be starting CRNA school in January, then possibly Air Force. Nick is a Navy doctor and just shipped out to Yokosuka, Japan for two years. He speaks Japanese! Katie is an L2 law student at University of Virginia. She’s made the dean’s list and is crushing it, but doesn’t want military, despite being JROTC cadet of the year (she had more ribbons than Patton). Guess they get their smarts from their mother (also a nurse). She should write a book. Anyway, that’s what’s keeping me busy. All for now. Big hello to all my classmates!
Brian Foy reports:
Include are a few photos of me with ‘83 classmates at various events. At the National Maritime Strategy Workshop in DC in October, I got to catch up with John Rhatigan and Willie Barrere. John is President of the Marine Machinery Association and Willie is President of the American Maritime Officers (AMO) Union. Willie has settled in the Space Coast area of Florida but you are more likely to catch him on the road than at home.
The other two pictures are from the AAF Golf Outing in New Orleans on November 11 – Veterans Day. The Class of ‘83 dominated the volunteers for the Outing. It was great to see Frank Liantonio, Jim Quern, Skip McAloon and Rick Boudiette. Needless to say, there were a lot of laughs. Quern’s socks stole the show. It always amazes me how we can all just pick up where we left off, whether it’s been a few years or thirty years!
On the home front, Karen and I celebrated our 34th Anniversary in August. While my daughter Melissa, son-in-law and granddaughter (who is now a junior in college) still live in OKC, my three boys all live nearby. James and his fiancee are both JAX police officers and my youngest, Connor, is in the Florida National Guard. My oldest son, Vincent works in JAX and spends most of his time hanging out at EverBank Field mingling with the Jaguars’ players.
“Greetings from the Blue Ridge Mountains. Hurricane Helene really took its toll on the mountain communities of North Carolina. We retired full time two years ago and moved to our mountain second home in Ashe County, NC. We have owned and loved it for 17 years but have really cherished living here full time. Helene brought the worst flooding in the mountains in over 100 years. First, let me say that the Bucherati home was blessed despite 70+ MPH winds and 26”of rain. We only lost one tree and our home, which is situated on the crest of a mountain at 3,500 feet, was safe. Many other homes and properties on our mountain were, unfortunately, not so blessed. Four power poles and at least 100+ trees came down on our mountain alone. It took 13 days to fully restore power in our community. I had a whole house generator installed about seven years ago and I supplemented it with a large battery back up system two years ago. Both performed flawlessly and we sort of became the Cool Ade house for our neighbors offering hot showers, hot coffee and hot meals to all who needed. My neighbor, who is a retired Marine and I spent almost three weeks behind our chainsaws and wood splitter helping our neighbors recover. It was inspiring to see how those in our community pulled together to help each other out.
In balance, we were still fortunate compared to many areas of the mountains around us. Our County of Ashe, population of 24,000, lost 700+ power poles and 30 bridges were washed away. The New River, which runs through the middle of our county, overflowed its banks by 22 feet causing tremendous damage to low lying homes. Parts of our county near the towns of Lansing and Creston, were absolutely devastated. Our neighboring county of Watauga, which is home to the town of Boone, was also hit very hard. King street, which runs through the middle of Boone and Appalachian State University, was turned into a river.
It will likely take a few years for all of the communities to recover and the remaining damage to be cleared. Sara and I thank God for protecting us and our home. The Blue Ridge Mountains are a beautiful place to live and we cherish every day we have here.”
Bravo Zulu to my KP roommate Mathew for helping his community! It always warms my heart to hear that my classmates are people of action, trying to make the world a better place. Email me a note and photo of your news for the next column, especially if classmates are involved. Peace!