The Kwaj Kat Blog

Hot on the heels of Wanda’s Kwaj Kids Reunion in Dallas a few months ago, Shermie Wiehe is cooking up a general Kwaj Reunion 2008 to be held in Colorado Springs. There are a LOT of people signed up for this one, but most are folks who spent their adults years on Kwaj and not kids that I would know so I’m not likely to go myself. I’m posting a note about it here, though, to help Shermie spread the word.

Of perhaps more interest to me was some recent email from John Fiske that many of you probably got as well. In it he raised the idea of a Kwaj Kids reunion focused on classes from the 1980s, possibly in the 2008 or 2009 timeframe. The location of this reunion is not set, but he mentioned some ideas like Cancun or various hot spots along the US Gulf Coast. I really like this idea, but will probably be prevented from participating unless it’s somewhere REALLY cheap. We’ll be in the poor house starting next year when my son begins his college years, and probably won’t have much time or money to spend on a reunion event.

Anyway, these are two good ideas that I felt were worth passing along here to the small audience I have. Every little bit helps spread the word.

This blog is certainly not under consideration for any awards bestowed on websites for burning up the Internet with sheer volume. While the first month or two was fairly active, the post rate quickly dropped back to an average of one a month, which doesn’t really even qualify it as a blog at all since most bloggers post daily, if not hourly. Still, when you look back since last year when it first went online, I have slowly collected a respectable number of Kwaj anecdotes that more or less define my island experience. What I don’t often think about is how young I was, and how unique and significant an experience it must’ve been to have made this kind of lasting impression on someone my age. (more…)

As with my previous post about the photo gallery, I’m now beginning to get bogus registrations on this blog. I’d hoped to have others register here and post their own recollections on Kwaj life, but aside from Kevin’s single post last year no one else has stepped up. I’m still hoping some of you may consider adding your experiences to this website, but for now I’m going to disable the automatic registration process to avoid any further spam registrations, most of which don’t even come from this country.

If you don’t plan to post, you don’t need to register anyway since anonymous visitors can see everything there is to see here. However, if any of you decide to add your flavor to what I’ve started here, please just email me and I’ll create an account you can use to post your own thoughts about Kwaj life. I hope some of you will.

Those of you on Kwaj in the early to mid-70s probably remember that Colonel Russell was the island commander at the time. His son David was in my grade, and we were good friends in high school when we both returned to Huntsville. I got word yesterday that Colonel Russell’s wife Gloria (David’s mom) passed away this week. I didn’t know her especially well, but I used to see her whenever I’d drop by David’s house during my high school years, and she always made me feel welcome. Her funeral will be tomorrow in Huntsville at Good Shepherd Church.