Commentary, 27th December 2011: In 1976, when I was 13 years old, we moved from Harrington Park, New Jersey, to Pembroke Pines, Florida, a brand-new suburb near Hollywood, Florida. Moving from a very small town where I knew everyone - and had since nearly birth! - to a relatively large community with very crowded classrooms, traffic, and hot weather I never adapted to was very challenging for me. However, one opportunity presented itself to me that I relished and enjoyed for nearly four years straight: volunteering as a "Candystriper" at the local hospital, from 1978 to 1982. I received several awards for my service, two of which are posted above, and donated more than 4,000 hours of volunteer work during that time.I adored volunteering at Pembroke Pines General Hospital. Some of my favorite duties included delivering flowers to patients and helping patients read and write letters. One fun tidbit was the fact that all us volunteers were always "at lunch" from 3:00pm-4:00pm every day - that was the time we all gathered in the volunteer office and watched the soap opera, General Hospital, on an ancient 13" tube-based television that always took around 10 minutes to warm up enough for the picture to stop spinning vertically! I'll never forget the day Luke and Laura got married - one of the other volunteer ladies baked a wedding cake for us to all eat, and several others snuck in some champagne for us to toast their wedding with! Alas, it was sparkling apple juice for those of us under 18 years old (still the drinking age at the time).
Above and beyond everything else, though, my favorite thing about my time here was the time I spent with the other volunteers, especially the adult ones. So many of the older volunteers, especially those in their 60's, took me under their wing and mentored me in more ways than I can ever describe - many of the life lessons and sage advice I learned from them continues to affect me to this day.
Speaking of Luke and Laura's wedding...how could I resist?
