THE IMPORTANT OF BEING APPRECIATED

 I run an active Facebook for the alumni of my high school, Newtown High School in Elmhurst, Queens NY.  It still makes me chuckle that in the early days of my time on Facebook, I joined an alumni group for my year, 1985, and quickly made a post asking if anyone was playing whatever word game I was addicted to at the time.  In those early days, I play games tied to the Facebook ecosystem.  I think it took some effort to play non-friends, or maybe it wasn't even possible.  I already had some friends but they were not playing the word game I was interested in.  So I was looking for new players in an alumni group.  Nowaday, in groups I run that's an automatic decline.  Keep the topic relevant to the group.  Occasionally, I let things slide, perhaps on a Friday evening, but most of the time I run a tight ship.  No spam, no politics, everyone needs to play nice, etc.  We should just reminisce about the good old days, pay homage to some teachers who helped you, better thank them now before they die.  Many people appreciate my work and told me so, but this week two nice things happened.

I am helping to bring about the 40th Reunion of my Class of 1985.  One person, not even from my year, asked me if I would go.  I have to go, I am an organizer.  He went ahead and paid for my admission ticket!  It's over $100!!!  A day later, I made a car trip from Brooklyn to Elmhurst to pick up a bulk order of gym shirts.  The Internet is full of spammers and scammers offering school shirts for purchase.  I keep in touch with the Principal at my high school and according to him only Target is the official sellers of the school's ware.  Or by some stretch, Funky Otter or something.  I know that it's not these fake accounts that lament nobody like their shirts so they come to the alumni group to show the shirt and conveniently list a link.  They usually like their own posts too, maybe to fake activity.  I wish my high school would have an online store for alumni to buy merch but right now the only way to do so is via my volunteer effort.  I would setup a Google form to collect info like what shirt sizes, what colors, where to send the shirts.  When there are enough requests, I send the order to the school and they get it ready in a week or so.  I would then make the trip to pick up the shirts, laboriously pack them for mailing via USPS.  I only charge the school price plus USPS fee.  It's a slow process but the alumni get the real thing, good quality for a low price.  The school subsidizes the cost of the gym shirts and we alumni also reap the benefit.  During this most recent trip (yesterday or Feb 25, 2025), I was given a zippered hoodie by the school as a token of appreciation.  I suppose it has a value of $30 or so.  It is a very nice gesture, thank you very much, Newtown!