October 30, 2025. Saying Goodbye to Friends and Point Clear. October 30, 2025. Saying Goodbye to Friends and Point Clear. Yesterday, after rising, we left our lodging and headed for the Battleship Alabama and the park in which it now resides. The USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park is quite a place, and there are a large number of military aircraft of all kinds displayed from a Blackhawk to a WWI biplane. There also is a submarine located there, the USS Drum, which is a World War II diesel boat and which can be explored by park visitors. We took that in. Then we went onto the battleship USS Alabama (BB-60), which is the last of the South Dakota type battleship made during World War II. That doesn’t mean much to me because they’re all enormous. I served on the USS Fletcher (DD-445), which had a crew of about 150. The Alabama during World War II had a crew of over 2000 men. That’s a lot of people on one ship that is not an aircraft carrier. We then assembled at Felix’s Fish Camp for lunch. Most of us ate more than we needed. Nevertheless, in the evening we had one final dinner, began to plan for next year’s gathering and began bidding each other farewell until next time. We watched a video that contained photos of previous gatherings over the last 10 years and relived those events. It was poignant to see the faces of friends and classmates who are no longer with us: David Swann, Mackey Tilman, Chuck Vance and Holmes Morrison. We miss them. Nevertheless, our assembly in Point Clear has been a great success.