Never a dull moment in The Villages, Florida.

It certainly isn’t boring in The Villages, Florida, which has 120,000 senior citizens with a lot of fire in them.

I’m in the Publix supermarket parking lot where one guy has his car stopped, waiting for a parking spot to open up, but he’s blocking the guy behind him, who keeps honking his horn.

The driver in the first car, who could easily have pulled a car length to let the second driver pull around, yells: “I hear you honking, asshole!”

The driver in the second car responds, “You’re the asshole! Move your car.”

Finally, the driver of the second car pulls up alongside the first car and a shouting match ensues. I think I heard these old guys use the word “asshole” a half-dozen times.

Then the driver of the second car drove on, which he could have done in the first place.

A few days later I drive to Lady Lake Barber Shop to get a haircut. I’m sitting on a chair, waiting for my turn on a barber chair.

The customer in chair #2 (there are 4 in all) get up, says “You didn’t cut the hair the way I asked you to.”

The barber said, “I did cut it the way you asked me to.”

The customer pays and storms out. He comes back in a few minutes later and the barber in chair #1 says, “I’ll fix it for you.”

When it’s my turn to get a haircut in chair #2, with the cranky barber, the customer in chair #1 and the barber of chair #2 get into an argument again.

I had had enough.

I said, “Look, I want a haircut and I don’t want to be scalped because you two are arguing. Stop arguing and give me a haircut.”

Barber #2 says, “Well, he won’t stop arguing with ME.”

I said, “I don’t give a damn. I don’t want my haircut ruined because you two are arguing.”

The rest of my haircut was done in silence around both chairs.

I got out of my chair to pay and the customer in chair #1 said, “I want to pay for this man’s haircut. Thank you.”

I paid for my own haircut, but cut barber #2’s tip in half and said, “Mountaineers don’t take any crap.”

Outside in the parking lot, the outraged customer waved me over and said, “I don’t know what’s wrong with that barber today. I know the owner.”


I repeated my mantra: “Mountaineers don’t take any crap.”

And drove away.

He drove off in his truck with Tennesee license plates.

It sure isn’t boring in The Villages.

Dunphy’s mother-in-law passes away

Former BJ State Desk super reporter John Dunphy’s mother-in-law, Dorothy Jane Reed, passed away February 15 in New Mexico.

John has been married for 10 years to Dorothy’s daughter, Rebecca Reed Allen.

They live in Lakewood, California.

Dunphy survived BJ State  Desk editor Pat Englehart, who browbeat Ol’ Blue Walls reporters into a Pulitzer for the coverage he was in charge of over the 1970 Ohio National Guard killings of 4 students and the wounding of 9 others.

Dorothy’s obituary:

NRoswell, NM  88203
Sunday, February 18, 2018
1:00 pm



She lived for those who loved her.

That was the first line of Dorothy Jane Reed's favorite poem and her guiding principle in life.

Mrs. Reed, 88, passed away after a long illness on Thursday, February 15, 2018 at home surrounded by her loving family.

Memorial services will be held 1:00 PM Sunday, February 18, 2018 at LaGrone Funeral Chapel at 900 S. Main, where grandson-in-law Gary DeWayne Jones will officiate. Services will be followed by fellowship at Apostolic Bible Church, 2529 W. Alameda, Roswell, NM.

Mrs. Reed, a lifelong resident of Roswell, was born Jan. 1, 1930 to Tina Velma Goddard and Robert Daniel Ketner. She was a homemaker who loved cooking, knitting, crocheting and volunteering. She married Dan Lawson Reed in 1947 and they raised four daughters. She donated more than 5,000 hours as a "pink lady" to the Eastern New Mexico Medical Center Auxiliary.

She is survived by daughters Bonnye Fry (Jerry), Rebecca Allen (John Dunphy), Melissa Evans, Mary Skinner (Elmer); nine grandchildren: Kellye Fry, Mac Fry, Benjamin Allen, David Pierson, Meghan Portillo, Jennifer Jones, Jason Skinner, Kimberly Montoya and Kevin Skinner; sisters Willie Nickelson and Sue Luechtefeld (Leo); nine great-grandchildren and many nieces and nephews who considered her another mother.

She was preceded in death by her husband, Dan; sisters Bobbie Leslie and Jessie Lorain Ketner; and brothers Reford, JD, Robert and Bill Ketner.

 

Max Desor, 104, passes away

Won Pulitzer for bridge war photo

Former Associated Press photographer Max Desfor, whose photo of hundreds of Korean War refugees crawling across a damaged bridge in 1950 helped win him a Pulitzer Prize, died Monday. He was 104.

Desfor died at his apartment in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Desfor parachuted into North Korea with U.S troops and retreated with them after forces from the North, joined by the Chinese, pushed south.

Max near the North Korean capital of Pyongyang when he spotted a bridge that had been hit by bombing along the Taedong River. Thousands of refugees were lined up on the north bank waiting their turn to cross the river.

Desfor climbed a 50-foot-high section of the bridge to photograph the refugees as they fled for their lives.

Max Desor

Desfor was born in the Bronx on Nov. 8, 1913, and attended Brooklyn College. He joined the AP in 1933.

During World War II, Desfor photographed the crew of the Enola Gay after the B-29 landed in Saipan from its mission to drop an atomic bomb on Hiroshima in August 1945.

He photographed Mahatma Gandhi and later covered the assassinated leader’s funeral in 1948.

He retired from the AP in 1978, then joined U.S. News & World Report as photo director.

Desfor and his wife, Clara, raised a son, Barry, of Wauconda, Illinois. She died in 2004.

In January 2012, when he was 98, Desfor and his longtime companion, Shirley Belasco, surprised guests at a party celebrating her 90th birthday by marrying in front of their guests. They had been friends since the 1980s.

To read the entire article, click on https://apnews.com/c5ae198557264a049101ce1caf74c3c7  

Friedman goes to the mat with Trump

Thomas Friedman of the New York Times, whose credibility includes three Pulitzers, has taken on President Trump head-on.

Friedman’s theme: Either Putin has damaging evidence against Trump or Trump is an incompetent President protecting a Communist dictator.

Trump probably finds Friedman much tougher to deal with than Benjamin Netanyahu.

Check it out for yourself:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/18/opinion/trump-russia-putin.html

Sharon with sons Mark, Ben, Chris and Jonathan

Hugh at first job in Galion, Ohio newspaper

Sharon Downing, John Olesky, Paula Tucker reunite in Florida

Another BJ reunion

Sharon Downing, widow of former BJ printer Hugh Downing, had a reunion in The Villages, Florida with former Ol’ Blue Walls staffers John Olesky and Paula Tucker.

Hugh passed away in 2016. Sharon lives permanently in her home in The Villages. Paula, a 1970s State Desk reporter, has a home in The Villages. Paula and John co-own a residence in Tallmadge.

Sharon will be getting visits in March from some of her children. Sharon and Hugh have four sons:

Hugh and Sharon’s children are Mark Downing, who lives in Erie, Pennsylvania; Chris, who lives in Hudson; and Ben and Jonathan, who live in Toledo and Vienna, Virginia.

Sharon and Hugh both attended Galion High School, but didn’t get together  until Sharon’s mom retired and moved to Florida.

Four guys from the Galion factory, who called Sharon’s mother “Mom,” showed up at the Florida home.

 

That was the beginning of a beautiful friendship and marriage. They were wed in 1960.

 

Hugh and Sharon moved to The Villages in 2000. The Downings lived in the city of Medina during Hugh’s BJ days.

Hugh worked at Ol’ Blue Walls for 37 years, retiring in 2000, four years after John retired from the 44 E. Exchange Street domain of John S. Knight.

John and his late wife, Monnie Turkette Olesky of Cinderella, West Virginia, got together with Hugh and Sharon on Siesta Key, adjacent to Sarasota, Florida, when Hugh and Sharon were staying in the late printer Bill Gorrell’s former Poor Bill’s rentals just across the street from the beach and the Gulf of Mexico.

 

Mike and Jane Williams, Mike and Cynthia Morley


Mike Williams Mike Morley

1. 
   

   BJ reunion served up in Naples, Florida

   
   

   BJ Advertising Art retiree Mike Williams (BJ 1968-2012) and wife Jane drove from Sanibel Island, Florida to Naples to meet a former Akron neighborhood couple . . . and wound up across the Bob Evans restaurant aisle from from Ol’ Blue Walls photoengraver Mike Morley and his wife Cynthia.

   
   

    

   
   

   Let Mike Williams, John Grimm’s former right-hand man, tell it:

   
   

    

   
   

   “John,

   
   

    

   
   

   “Today, Jane and I arranged to meet a West Akron neighborhood friend of ours who moved to Naples FL in 1995.  We'd been staying with my sister Cinda at her rented house on Sanibel Island and it was only another hour's drive to get to the Bob Evans at Immokalee Road and I-75. 

   
   

    

   
   

   “We were seated by the hostess right across the aisle from ABJ stereotyper Mike Morley and his wife, Cynthia.

   
   

    

   
   

   “Mike left the Beacon Journal in 2000, went on to be a career counselor for three universities:  the University of Akron, Kent State and Youngstown State.

   
   

    

   
   

   “He's retired now, but his wife Cynthia still commutes from their home in Youngstown to First Energy, out on White Pond Drive. She's thinking about retiring, too.

   
   

    

   
   

   “Cynthia and Mike were visiting her family in Naples. That's how we

   
   

   met serendipity head-on.”

   
   

   Later, Mike added:
   
   

   “We've really enjoyed our time on Sanibel with the anhingas (nicknamed the Water Turkey), the Great Blue Herons, the brown and white pelicans, the Willets, the ibis, even my own sister and her husband Rod. 

   
   

   “We start back tomorrow for the snow and cold and the wintry mix. Took our last

   
   

   dip of the trip in an outside swimming pool on the property this

   
   

   afternoon.  It was really a surprise to run into Mike Morley the other day.

   
   

   “We leave on the 23rd of February for an abbreviated two-week trip to

   
   

   Mexico, back about the 8th of March. 

   
   

    

   
   

   “If you are over at the Villages, make sure you remember your sunscreen.   Jane and I drove through the parking lot of the Roy Hobbs headquarters here in Ft. Myers, and most of

   
   

   the parking spaces were full.  Tom Giffen seems to have a lot of saucers in

   
   

   the air this week of February.”

   
   

    

   
   

   Giffen runs the Roy Hobbs World Series for Seniors in Fort Myers. He took it over when he was sports editor of the BJ, then switched to Florida when he moved there. Newsroom retiree Tom Moore usually helps Tom Giffen, with the tournament newsletter and interviewing players from around the nation and even from other countries.

    
   
   

   
   

   Indeed, Mike.  I frequently encounter former BJ co-workers or fellow WVU Mountaineers in my travels across this nation or around the world.

   
   

    

   
   

   Mike and Jane do a lot of traveling, just as I have with my 56 countries on my passport.

   
   

    

   
   

   They’ve been to Ecuador several times. And enjoy journeys to Mexico even more often.

   
   

    

   
   

   Mike and Jane, married 25 years, have two sons, independent trucker Nathan Williams (they keep track of via SmartPhone’s locator) and chemical engineer Trevor Williams. Mike retired in December 2012 after 44 years, including coming under John Grimm’s wing in 1976.

   
   

    

   
   

   Mike’s sister, BJ information technology retiree Linda Williams Torson, lives in Doylestown with her husband, Akron-Summit County Metroparks retiree Tim Torson. Linda was with the Beacon Journal for 42 years, retiring in 2012.

   
   

    

   
   

   Former clinical dietician Cindy Williams Chima, worked in the BJ classified phone room in the 1970s and writes fiction novels for young adults. She lives in Chagrin Falls but was staying on Sanibel Island during Mike and Jane's visit.



Bob and Vickie Page, Paula Tucker, John Olesky



A reunion with Bob Page

Bob Page and John Olesky, who once worked on the BJ State Desk together in the 1970s, had a reunion in The Villages, Florida.

Bob and wife Vickie live in The Villages full-time. Paula Tucker, a reporter on the State Desk in the 1970s, owns a home in The Villages and Paula and John also share a home in Tallmadge.

Bob went to Green Valley, south of Tucson, Arizona, in January to help a church there train its leadership.

Pastor Bob came to the Live Oaks Community Church in The Villages, which has 120,000 senior citizens, in 2013 after 37 years in pastoral ministry in the Evangelical Free Church, most recently as senior pastor in Crystal Lake in the Chicago area.

He was Free Church district superintendent in Nebraska and Kansas and in the pastoral ministry in Nebraska, Fargo, North Dakota and Crystal Lake, Illinois.

Bob’s wife of 41 years, Linda, passed away in 2009.  Bob remarried in 2015, to Vickie Hubbard.

Bob has 3 children and 5 grandchildren in Nebraska, Fargo, North Dakota and Crystal Lake, Illinois.

The Kent State graduate worked his way from custodian of the Ashtabula newspaper to its assistant sports editor and, in 1968, the BJ, where his beats were Barberton and Cuyahoga Falls. He left Ol’ Blue Walls in 1973 to join the ministry.

Bob Downing, who kept BJ readers informed about how to enjoy our parks, recalls that “Bob was my first editor as a full-timer on the State Desk many years ago.”
Bob and John used to play golf in The Villages with the late BJ printer Hugh Downing, whose wife, Sharon, still lives there.

Bob’s church constructed a new building a year ago that includes a drive-in theater-like outdoor space for church-goers praying in their golf carts plus the usual indoor church.

If you want to contact Bob, call (847) 917-0551.

 

L.A. Times sale for $500 million

The Los Angeles Times will be purchased by L.A.-based billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong for $500 million.

Soon-Shiong is the founder of Culver City-based NantHealth and a major shareholder in Tronc (once Tribune Publishing), which owns the Times, is also expected to purchase the San Diego Union-Tribune.

The L.A. Times demoted its top editor Lewis D’Vorkin after less than four months on the job.

The Michael Ferro-controlled Tronc owns The Chicago Tribune, the Baltimore Sun and New York Daily News.

Ross Levinsohn, the L.A. Times’ publisher since August, has been on unpaid leave after reports last month of his “frat house” behavior and previous allegations of sexual harassment.

The newsroom voted to unionize in January.

Newsweek fires staff who wrote about magazine’s problems

Apparently at Newsweek Magazine it’s OK to report the problems at every company in America except Newsweek.

Editor in Chief Bob Roe, Executive Editor Ken Li and reporters Celeste Katz, Josh Saul and International Business Times editor Josh Keefe were fired. All published articles outlining Newsweek’s problems.

Newsweek went to an all-digital format (nothing in print, on paper) and it's been downhill ever since.

Read about the retaliation that must have John S. Knight spinning in his grave by clicking on

https://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek-guts-its-top-edit-staff-amid-legal-turmoil/