Time changes for no one by Tony Green

Time waits for no one

I found myself in Orlando, Florida for the IEEE PES trade show last week. This visit was my first time in Orlando since I completed Navy Nuclear Power School 15 years earlier. I remember enjoying being stationed in Orlando and wish I had more free time for fun and frolicking in the sun.

I  vividly recall memories of climbing off the bus at the Recruit Training Command in March 1994 to begin my transition from my previous life as a civilian into a seaman in the worlds finest Navy.

I questioned what happened to the old Naval Training Center after I left. During boot camp and began the first part of my Nuclear training the Navy the process of shutting down the Naval Training Center. The base closure resulted from cutbacks in the DOD budget in the aftermath of the Cold War. Now all the new recruits would complete basic training at Great Lakes near Chicago. 

In the years I since I left the area had been converted to houses, shopping centers, and schools. In the end I …….. to tell a base had ever existed at all.

Upon heading downtown the landscape looked different than I had imagined. The landmarks proved to be unchanged such as the TD Waterhouse Center and the Disney Resort but the feel of the people was not how I remembered. When I thought about the matter perhaps my perception of Orlando has changed over the years since I am a much different person now.    

What did I expect? Indeed time waits for no one, why should I have expected Orlando in 2012 to be the same city it was in the mid-nineties?