Pablo Alvarez:
CLASS OF 1970
Miami Edison Senior High SchoolClass of 1970
Miami, FL
Miami - Dade Community CollegeClass of 1972
Miami, FL
Miami Edison Junior High SchoolClass of 1966
Miami, FL
Shadowlawn Elementary SchoolClass of 1964
Miami, FL
Buena Vista Elementary SchoolClass of 1960
Miami, FL
Pablo's Story
There is so much it is hard to tell what to write! I'll just try to hit the highlights.
As many of you know, I had become involved in the martial arts in 1968 (seems so long ago now) while I was at Edison and eventually became an instructor. I met my first wife at the school where I taught and we were married while I was still at Miami-Dade Community College. We lived in Miami at first, but then began our migration somewhat Northward to Miramar, Ft. Lauderdale, and finally Pompano Beach.I taught Kempo Karate for several years and eventually opened my own school in Hollywood. I ultimately closed it due to a law suit involving an employment contract with a previous school. Business is brutal.
After the school closed I went to work for Broward County Animal Control. This lasted for about 5-1/2 years and I acted as the Field Operations Supervisor and Assistant Director for a while. As part of my many duties I picked up animals off the street, investigated animal bites, and
prosecuted people for cruelty. We handled pretty much anything that walked, crawled, or flew in South Florida. From poochy woochy that ran out the door every time his owner opened it, to alligators consuming pets, animals in distress, wild pigs, cattle, snakes, pelicans in trees, skunks in the closet, 'possums in the trash can, and stupid people everywhere.
I attended Broward Community College for a time and then Florida Atlantic University. I couldn't settle on a single course of study so I never graduated.
However, I had expanded my martial arts traing to include Kung Fu, Iaido, and Aikido. During the late '70s I had the opportunity to vist Tokyo and study Aikido at the great Hombu Dojo for awhile. Japan is probably the cleanest country on the planet.
In 1977 I went to Spain (and, briefly, France) with my then father-in-law to act as his interpreter and as a technical consultant on some products
that he was having manufactured there. We were almost killed by an out of control truck full of scrap metal and later ended up in the middle of a
Basque Seperatist (ETA) demonstration. A great time was had by all! Spain is amazingly beautiful.
My wife had a soft spot in her heart for cats (and in her head too I surmise) and we had 15 cats. So, between them and putting my wife through medical school at the time I had my hands full. We married too young and were growing in different directions and after almost ten
years we divorced and went our separate ways. Some years later I heard from her mother that she had graduated, married the guy she had been seeing while we were married, and had three children and a medical practice. Good luck to her and good riddance.
Just after the divorce, finding myself with an abundance of free time and a minimum of responsibilities, I did something that I had always wanted
to do, I took up skydiving. I believe that skydiving is one of the most remarkable experiences that a person could have. I enjoyed it so much that I spent ten years in the sport, eventually becoming an instructor and rigger and successfully throwing several hundred students out of airplanes and myself along with them.
During much of this time I was supporting myself by doing security work at a nightclub. The Agora Ballroom in Hallandale was the largest
rock-and-roll club in South Florida at the time. We would typically have 1500 customers at one time during the weekends. It was owned by Cellar
Door Enterprises who also put on most of the area concerts. On the weekends our security group would act as back-stage security and secure the talent
during these concerts and I had occasion to meet many of the stars (if only briefly) such as David Lee Roth, Joan Jett, and many others.
I also did security for the movie industry and worked on several movies including Smokey and the Bandit 3, Porky's 2, and Masterblaster. I spent
a couple of weeks doing personal security for Jackie Gleason during the filming of Smokey. I didn't think that either movie was very funny, but they
made money and paid the rent.
Eventually, after a few less than enthusiastic personal relationships, I packed up everything that I owned and left Florida for California. I went out to visit my best friend who was living in Humboldt County at the time. Dave briefly attended Edison in '69 but he graduated from Hialeah. After a stint in the Army he had subsequently moved to Eureka where he had been a cop for a while. He had since left the force and become a high school English teacher.
I just needed to be as far away from Florida as I could for a while so I ended up staying for about a year in Humboldt County. During this time I met the eventual second Mrs. Alvarez, Kate. We dated for much of the time that I lived there but wanderlust took hold and I eventually left "to see
the world".
Dave and I traveled to Thailand and stayed for a while in Bangkok and Chang Mai, partaking of the local entertainment and wildlife in the city and elephant rides in the jungle. Then we went on to Bali in Indonesia. Again, more local color and fabulous beaches and snorkling. I met a local girl there who had never been in an elevator in her life. Most buildings in Bali are only one or two stories.
When we eventually returned to the states Dave went back to Humboldt and I went back to Florida. There I primarily went back to teaching
skydiving. A friend of mine was a movie producer and I started working security on the movie sets for him again. This time I was inspired to work in front of the camera to some extent and I performed as an extra on Miami Vice on a couple of episodes. I also performed parachute stunts in two
other films, Where The Boys Are '84, and Opposing Forces, and also several TV commercials.
I had been in regular contact with Kate during my absence (almost a year). One thing led to another and I decided to go back and vist her out
west. During my visit I realized that I was in love and I proposed to her and she accepted. I returned to Florida to get my affairs in order and promptly drove back to California where I became employed as manager and baker at a local deli in the town of Arcata a few miles North of Eureka. I can assure you that getting up at 3:30 AM every day is not my idea of a good time! However, jobs there were (and still are) few and far etween and most of the economy is driven by the pot growers. I became an expert at baking bread and bagels.
Humboldt county is a somewhat depressed area as the logging industry is no longer viable due to the so-called "environmentalists". It is primarily known for being part of the Emerald Triangle where, allegedly, the best marijuana in the US is grown. It also has the highest spousal abuse rate in the state. So af...Expand for more
ter a couple of years of this Kate, our five year old daughter, Cara, and I packed up and moved back to Miami. This is now about 1986, I think.
Guess what I did? Of course, I went back to teaching skydiving and doing security. I did this for a couple of years before getting out of that line of work and going to work for a parachute manufacturing company in Hialeah. There, I was the rigger, test jumper, manager, and interpreter. The
president of the company spoke no Spanish and most of the 35 employees spoke no English and there I was in the middle, fluent in both languages. I also became really good at repairing industrial sewing machines.
Kate and I were married in Coral Gables in '87. Being a Berkeley girl, Kate hated the heat and the humidity while I, on the other hand, was indifferent to it. She wanted to return to California where her roots and parents were, so we packed everything up once again and she flew back with the kids while I drove cross-country.
My son Shane had his first birthday the day before we left.
Kate's brother-in-law owned a garbage company in Grass Valley, a small town in the gold mining area outside of Sacramento. We moved there simply because I had sure employment. I started out on the trucks picking up garbage but eventually became the manager of the recycling facility and ran that until they decided to down-size. I suddenly found myself unemployed again.
I am a yard-sale junkie. Often my weekends were spent looking for bargins and finding treasures. I would occasionally find computer equipment
during my travels and, as I had always been facinated by them, began purchasing bits and pieces here and there and learning about them. I built
my first computer from the parts that I scrounged at the yard sales. I learned a lot about computers including how to kill them inadvertently
I guess I managed to learn enough because when I applied to MCI Telecom in Sacramento they hired me, among others, to provide Internet Technical
support for them. I spent my time on the phone talking to the customers, most of whom knew virtually nothing about computers, through the steps
necessary to get them connected to the internet. Some were not even conversant with the operation of a mouse ("when I say left click, that means that you press and release the left hand button on the mouse...") While many of my fellow employees were surfing the Net and looking at porn, I
researched and wrote a manul on troubleshooting modem probelms which was adopted by the company as a troubleshooting reference manual for the techs.
This got me noticed by the upper management and with my previous management experience I was promoted to Team Manager. About a year after that MCI divested themselves of the Internet portion of their business and closed the facility laying off 800 employees. I suddenly found myself unemployed again.
I then went to work for Providian Financial (the 5th largets credit card company in the world, at the time) as a Team Leader at the call center for
the Collections Department. My team spent their time on the phones calling customers that were in arrears and cajoling them to make their payments. It was quite interesting work and I had to intervene on a frequent basis when the customers got out of hand.
Later, due to my computer knowledge, I became the Dialer Manager and eventually was promoted to Senior Manager of Operations for the sales department. I had my own office with a view, a sectretary to handle my paperwork, and I worked 60-70 hours a week.
One day the president of the company pulled a mini-Enron, sold all his stock just before it tanked and left the country. The stock price dropped from $78 a share to $1.78 a share! This forced Providian to downsize and close the Sacramento office, among others, and lay off 1500 employees locally and 3500 more across the US. I suddenly found myself unemployed yet again.
I tried a variety of selling jobs; roof repairs, burglar alarms (the worst job that ever existed!), and water heaters but ended up in the garbage business yet again. I am now the site manager for a staffing agency that provides the labor for a recycling facility. We process more than 900 tons of material each day and I currently supervise about 130
employees, the majority of which do not speak English. A challenging situation dealing with people's foibles in multiple languages.
This recent situation in Arizona is of particular interest to me as most of my employees are Mexican. I have first hand knowledge of the issues in question.
We have a turn-over rate of about 200% per year. I have discovered that many people want a job but some of them do not actually want to work.
Our daughter is now 28 and married with two kids and our son is almost 21. Kate is a gourmet chef at a retirement community. I commute about
110 miles round trip every day to Roseville. I also do a fair amount of business selling on Ebay.
I have had a variety of pets over the years; dogs and cats, rats, iguanas, boa constrictors, pythons, chickens, canaries, turtles, and ferrets but we now only have three (and only three) cats.
We live in a place called Lake Wildwood. It is a gated community and wildlife sanctuary in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. We are
less than an hours drive from where the infamous Donner Partty experiened their catastrophic winter. The Bay Area is two hours away, Reno
about the same, and Sacramento about an hour. Close enough to the "City" for convenience and culture and far enough away to avoid the crime
and congestion. The humidity rarely gets above 30% though it can get into the triple digits in the summer.
My big "problems" living here in LWW are that the deer eat my roses and the flocks of wild turkeys clog the streets when I try to drive anywhere. They can be rather beligerent.
We have a championship golf course (I even learned how to play, but I am just not a golfer and much prefer the shooting range over the driving
range) and, what a surprise, a nice lake. It is big enough for boats, skiing, and fishing. We also have a swimming pool, tennis courts, movie stars, and a baseball field. It even snows here on rare occasions. Life is good. It is the kind of place where I dreamnt about living while growing up in the flatlands, the gators and flamingos, and the tropical heat of Florida.
I visit Miami periodically, my mom and sister still live there, and I always enjoy it. In fact, I'll be back this November as my cousin is getting married.
And, yes, I still shoot pictures. I have tens of thousands of photos that I have shot over the years starting back at Edison. I even still shoot film, though I do use my digital cameras considerably more.
Pablo
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