By the time you read this on Friday morning, I’ll be on an airplane to deliver a travel-phobic, strongly-sedated black cat named “Littles” to my step-daughter who recently moved to Nashville. That experience is probably going to be fodder for a future blog post. (As I write this, I’m not sure who will need the Xanax more – me or the cat!)

And last night – Thursday – when I would normally be writing this blog, I will have been reading a chapter of my memoir-I-promise-to-publish someday. Reading it out loud – to an audience of people! That, too, might be the subject of a future blog post.

So, not having time to write my blog this week, I challenged my team to come up with a “collaborative blog.” While devouring birthday cake in celebration of Whitney’s 29th birthday on Wednesday … we deliberated about a topic. It was almost unanimous that we write about our “unsung hero,” Howard Wise, who – unlike the rest of us – shuns the spotlight. He’s a great employee: loyal, competent and dedicated, and I’d love to feature him, but he was adamantly opposed to this idea. Howard is one of the funniest people I know, and such a good sport . . . providing no shortage of humorous moments in the office. He somehow got the idea that we were going to embarrass him!

We tried to twist his arm, but he was not having it!

So, instead of potentially embarrassing Howard, we decided to blog about where we were on or around this date in 1987 – the day Whitney was born . . .

WHITNEY CHEN

Doesn’t remember much….

HOWARD WISE

“In 1987, I was in my second year of college and needed a job.  The career center had a posting for “Flight Coordinators.”   Wasn’t sure what that was but I applied.  Turned out that Flight Coordinators was an airline ticket consolidator.  Back in the days before the Internet, a consolidator was one of the only places to find discounts on international airline tickets.  I started working there and have been in the travel industry ever since.  I taught myself SABRE, the travel agent airline booking system (which we still use today at The CTP Group).  Luckily, the technology has come a long way from what it was back then…

GABRIEL HAIGAZIAN

So in 1987 I was just getting ready to graduate from high school. I went to a private Armenian school in Canoga Park. Our class was really small; I mean really small. If I’m not mistaken, we had about 10 people in our class.

Right around graduation, I was starting to get an itch for travel. It was in my blood and I knew I wanted to pursue it as a career. Right after graduating, I took a 3-week trip through Europe. By then it was official, I had the travel bug and it was clear I wasn’t going to stop traveling anytime soon.

I had a few friends but we were extremely close. A few of these pictures show how much fun we had during the 80’s.

ELLEN GRUETZMACHER

“Ah yes, 1987… some very beautiful people were born in 1987: Zac Efron, Hillary Duff, Maria Sharapova and, of course, our very own Whitney Chen!
I imagine, like every other 23 year old American, white female in 1987, I was, most likely watching 21 Jump Street (ah yes, who didn’t love a young Johnny Depp!), wearing my acid wash jeans and fingerless gloves, futzing with my hairspray to get my hair as big as possible, listening to Whitney Houston belt out “Dance with Somebody,” driving my Ford Escort (although I actually drove a Subaru wagon – and paying $.89 per gallon!), glued to the tv watching Jessica in the well, and getting ready to go see the buzzed-about block-buster “Fatal Attraction.”
I was still a newlywed – married in September of 1986, living in Santa Barbara in a 21-foot travel trailer with my surfer-boy husband, our dog and new kitten, and excited to see what life had in store for us. I was only a couple years out of a 31/2 month solo travel adventure around Europe and was already planning OUR next adventure; even though we truly lived a life that most dreamed of – boating out to the Channel Islands for scuba diving and surfing, living in the “Riviera” of Santa Barbara, and exploring up and down the California coast.
My, how time flies and life changes over the course of almost 30 years! And, while life was simpler in 1987, I am STILL excited to see where life will take me in the future. Seems like it’s time to start planning that long-awaited and oft-deferred travel adventure!”

MARILYN MURPHY

By the year 1987, I had assumed ownership of Creative Travel Planners for two years – and had probably not yet taken a breath for fear I would screw something up. I would have been spending hours in front of an IBM computer – trying to learn how to operate the (faulty-but-I-didn’t-know-it) hardware and the (faulty-but-I-assumed-it-was-me) software. Cussing and swearing about technology that wasn’t my friend.

Some things never change. (But at least we have Apple to make it much less frustrating these days!).

Where were you in the summer of ’87?