Happy Anniversary Weekend !

This is a huge anniversary weekend for me. I’ll observe one in this blog post, and then I’ll observe another one in tomorrow’s blog post, and then I’ll observe yet another one in Sunday’s blog post.

On November 30TH 1987 – the Monday after Thanksgiving that year – I boarded a plane in the Washington D.C. area (my original hometown) – for Miami Florida. I had never been there before, and I knew very little about it other than the fact that the weather would be much sunnier and warmer than the Washington D.C. area. I arrived in Miami that night, and I awaited my military transportation from Miami to Homestead AFB. It eventually arrived, and I arrived on the base during the wee early morning hours of December 01ST 1987. I was Active Duty in the USAF back then – an A1C / E3.

Hurricane Andrew destroyed Homestead AFB on August 24TH 1992, but then it was partially rebuilt. (Its geographic location ultimately saved it.) I returned to the base almost 19 months later upon its grand reopening as Homestead ARS (and then Homestead ARB). I still work on the base today. Nowadays (and for the past 11 years) I crunch numbers and count money.

So Happy 31ST Anniversary to me at the airbase near Homestead Florida. I arrived when I was 20½, and now I’m 51½. I wasn’t expecting to spend most of my life working there, but that’s what’s happened. I thought that I had seen the last of the airbase after Hurricane Andrew in 1992, but here I am 26 years later. I think I have another 5 good years in me before it’ll be time to pack it up, retire, and move away from this Homestead.