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.
DEDICATED TO BJ ALUMS FOUNDER HARRY LIGGETT 1930-2014, BJ NEWSROOM LEGEND 1965-1995, AND TO JOHN OLESKY JR., 1932-2024, BJ MAINSTAY 1969-1996 AND BLOG EDITOR 2014-2024. Blog for retired and former Beacon Journal employees and other invited guests.
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Monday, February 26, 2018
Wednesday, February 21, 2018
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.
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.
Tuesday, February 20, 2018
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
Monday, February 19, 2018
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:
Monday, February 12, 2018
Sharon with sons Mark, Ben, Chris and Jonathan |
Hugh at first job in Galion, Ohio newspaper |
Saturday, February 10, 2018
Friday, February 09, 2018
A reunion with Bob Page
Bob and Vickie Page, Paula Tucker, John Olesky |
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.
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 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’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.
Wednesday, February 07, 2018
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.
Monday, February 05, 2018
Newsweek fires staff
who wrote about magazine’s problems
https://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek-guts-its-top-edit-staff-amid-legal-turmoil/
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.
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/