STARBUCKS REGULAR CATALINA MORALES was disappointed that I couldn’t attend her graduation last week at the Stella Maris Academy in La Jolla. I told her I really needed more than three hours notice. I made it up to her by inviting her and her mom, Sterling, to boys’ night out for Tuesday Night Tacos at Good Time Charlie’s. Jeff Dalrymple went up to G-Whiz in Bird Rock and got an appropriate card and a helium balloon. Charlie’s signature brownie sundae was a big hit after we finished our tacos. Catalina passed around her class yearbook and proudly showed us where her friends had signed. At that point the boys played “Pomp and Circumstances” on kazoos. I’m not sure I’ll have enough energy to do it again next year when Catalina graduates from first grade. I’VE SEEN THE LICENSE PLATE often around town, but last week was the first time I was able to pull alongside and ask the driver if “JU 6 44” meant what I assumed — that he’d been at Normandy on D-Day, June 6, 1944. “Yup,” the driver said, “I went ashore on Omaha Beach.” “How about you?” he asked. “I was nine months old,” I replied, “but I haven’t aged well.” It got me thinking about heroes. My friend John Finn, who was the oldest Medal of Honor recipient when he died on May 27 at age 100, didn’t think he was a hero. He raced to his duty station at Kaneohe Bay and took a bunch of shrapnel trying to shoot down the attacking Japanese airplanes. I suspect there are a whole lot (well, actually a dwindling number) of Pearl Harbor survivors who are being feted as heroes — and God bless them — even if they were washing dishes when the attack occurred. Wading ashore at Omaha Beach has got my hero vote. Those guys knew what they were in for and had months to think about it. WELL, I’VE GOT A NEW CAR AND A NEW IMAC COMPUTER. I took the Corolla over to Mossy Toyota last week for its first oil change. I think I was standing about where I bought my first Apple II. It was in a little shop next to Chicago Brothers’ Pizza. I shelled out $5,500 for that computer, half of it for Peachtree accounting software that I never could get to work. I’m thinking this was about 30 years ago and there were no on-site computer experts. That being the case, a crowd often gathered at the computer store around three in the afternoon to ask for help from a student from Mission Bay High named John Gregory. That’s the earliest he could get from school on his bike. Hey, I wonder if it’s the same John Gregory that’s editor of this paper? ANYONE INTERESTED in a free 8-year old eMac computer — give me a call. — John Fry may be reached at 272-6655 or [email protected]