Donald Coker:  

I am the second from the left in the Gator picture. I went grey right around my 39th birthday so I have looked older than I am for a long time now. I remember when looking older was a good thing back in 79, I was the tallest (6' 2" 170 pounds, red hair, braces, pale as the driven snow - thus the nickname Aztec as in Aztec sun god) so they always sent me in for the beer. That ended when we discovered Michael's drive thru liquor store on Johnson Street across from the Winn-Dixie and near the Farm Store. You could always count on Michael's to give you an ice cold six back of your favorite adult beverage even at the tender age of 16. We used to drink the champagne of beers (Miller) because it was cheap but when we came into the big bucks, $5 or more, we would splurge for some Michelob or Mickey's wide mouths. The guy to the right of me as you look at the Gator picture is John Eder, he was in our class and he was (and is) my best friend. Chances are if we were at Michael's John was behind the wheel of his Matador. You had to have a quiet secluded spot to enjoy your adult beverages so we would head over to Crystal Lake, tucked back near TY Park, and begin consumption and swim in Cystal Lake. I did attend classes at HHH. I always enjoyed Mr. Wilson's history classes and he is one of the reasons I ended up teaching high school history and middle school social studies. It has been a long strange trip since 1979. I dated Teri Hauser back in high school (if anyone knows of her whereabouts I would like to say Hi) and we continued to date through college. Teri got her Nursing degree and I got my Master of Education degree from UF and we lived together during our first jobs out of college. Women do mature faster than men so when it came time to settle down, marry and have kids I was not ready. It was probably a good thing for both of us because after that I bounced around from job to job and it wasn't until 1997 when I came to work at FAU that I finally found myself. I had sporadic contact with Teri and I know she married not long after we split up and she has at least 2 kids. I hope she is doing well. In 2002 I joined an online dating service to try and scare up a date. I scared them up alright, I had a series of dates from hell that all ended with "I'll call you." After 3 months of excruciating dates my membership lapsed and I sighed with relief. About 1 year later I got an e-mail from someone that was using the same service I used (we'll call her Melinda). I was asked to re-join so I could respond to Melinda's e-mail. Smelling a scam I re-joined for just 1 month and I e-mailed Melinda back along with about 15 other women. I learned real ...Expand for more