The Goodman DUI/homicide trial has temporarily knocked the campaign to stop All Aboard Florida off the front pages, but it will be back as soon as the judge declares a mistrial because of juror misconduct and postpones the matter for a few more years, by which time the defendant should be eligible for social security to help defray his considerable legal costs.
Meanwhile, while the debate rages over whether the Florida East Coast Railway should be allowed to be a railroad, the FEC doesn’t seem terribly worried about the outcome. Although it is making a big PR effort to meet with those who oppose its plan for high-speed rail between Miami and Orlando, assuring them that all the commotion associated with 32 new trains on its tracks will cause no commotion, it is going ahead as if it isn’t concerned about all the commotion.
It has announced plans to begin construction of a very big time complex, called Miami Central (pictured above), which will be the station for All Aboard Florida and Tri-Rail. The latter is anticipated to move some trains to the FEC tracks. Miami Central will be a lot more than a train station. The four-block complex on the site of the rail yard the FEC has owned forever will include a hotel
, apartments, office buildings and retail, plus a huge parking lot to accommodate all this activity. It is more like the underground stations in New York, where Madison Square Garden sits over Penn Station, or Philadelphia, where blocks of offices are above the busy downtown commuter stations.
, apartments, office buildings and retail, plus a huge parking lot to accommodate all this activity. It is more like the underground stations in New York, where Madison Square Garden sits over Penn Station, or Philadelphia, where blocks of offices are above the busy downtown commuter stations.If anyone hasn’t already guessed, this shows that All Aboard Florida is at least as much a real estate play as it is a transportation initiative. The ambitious Miami plan, a boon to that city – turning a depressed area into a financial asset – will face no opposition. Combined with announced plans for new stations in Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, the economic benefits to the FEC and surrounding communities are substantial. But the FEC needs the train to make it all work.
When Tri-Rail begins using the same tracks for commuter service, similar benefits could come to other locations in Palm Beach County. Not too many people up there seem to grasp this. We have noted before that All Aboard Florida initially will only serve West Palm Beach to Miami, but that could be a fall back plan if the Orlando route does not materialize. With a few more stations at key locations, the FEC would have a fast intercity service that by itself would justify the real estate investment.
.One way or the other, All Aboard Florida is going to happen, and in the long run – perhaps a very long run – give all of South Florida more than just a modern rail service. Given the way traffic is going, it is more than an asset. It’s a blessing.
Ever since the inspirational 1973 film, “The Sting,” in which Paul Newman and Robert Redford (with the help of screenwriter David S. Ward) took down a mobster, all America has admired great con men. Last week the Miami Herald’s Evan S. Benn reported on one of the current breed. Jimmy Sabatino apparently enjoyed his sentencing hugely, especially the revelation that even in jail he managed to rip off the government to the amount estimated (by him) at $247,000.
Sabatino, who loves publicity and calls the Heraldregularly, is serving time for fleecing hotels out of $594,000. According to Benn’s entertaining piece, last year, posing as a music-label executive, Sabatino enjoyed the good life at four Miami hotels, ordering $100,000 of booze to go with expensive rooms. He could not drink it all. Some $50,000 worth of Champagne was in his car when police arrested him.
While in jail, he talked his way into getting eye surgery, which he claimed cost taxpayers $247,000. Sabatino, who is only 37, has been conning most of his life, including a 1995 event in which, posing as a Blockbuster executive, he managed to get 262 free tickets to the Super Bowl, which he then sold. Unlike most con artists, who dislike being caught, Sabatino seems to crave recognition for his craft. Benn quotes the man’s father as saying he “needed attention like a drug,” allegedly the result of being abandoned by his mother.
What Sabatino does share with some other famous con men is a strange body. He carries more than 300 pounds on a 5-foot-6 frame. The photo in the Herald made him look like a smiling Humpty Dumpty. His girth, however, is far from a record for his profession. Back in the 1960s in the Philadelphia area, Sylvan Skolnick, whose specialty was bankruptcy for fun and profit, weighed 600 pounds. His nickname was “Cherry Hill Fats.”
One of South Florida’s most notorious con artists was also a bit of a freak. Phil Wilson, who masterminded the Bank of Sark fraud from a Fort Lauderdale office, was a tiny fellow. His specialty was producing beautiful documents that fooled even sophisticated investors. His bank, which actually had been chartered but never activated, was in the Channel Islands off Great Britain. It was a room above a gas station. It operated for four years until exposed. In the 1970s he wrote us from jail after Gold Coast magazine described his work:
“When you said I was a small con man, did you mean small in stature or small in the money we took? We took $40 million.”
By the 1980s, Wilson was out of jail and arrested locally again for running a scam based on taking fees from troubled businesses in return for phony certificates, which theoretically would help get them legitimate loans. Compared to Sark, it was minor league.
Although people such as Sabatino and Wilson enjoyed using their wits to take people’s money, at least they did not kill. The same can’t be said for Michael Raymond (aka Michael Burnett). Raymond attracted attention when he was suspected in the disappearance of Adelaide Stiles, a social writer for the old Fort Lauderdale News. Raymond, another fat guy whose lack of physical assets was offset by smooth talk, romanced the lonely Stiles. After he took what money she had (not nearly as much as he thought), he was suspected of murdering her aboard a boat and dumping her dismembered body in waters off the Florida Keys. It was later discovered that two other Florida business associates of his had similarly disappeared in the 1970s.
Raymond’s special gift was his ability to con the federal government, sort of. He managed to stay out of jail by convincing federal authorities that he could help them in various stings to catch bigger fish, especially political figures. He was a key player in the parking collections scandal that rocked Chicago and New York City in the 1980s. It was a story that began in South Florida when Gaeton Fonzi, a partner in Gold Coast at the time, began looking into Adelaide Stiles’ disappearance. The law finally caught up with Raymond when he was convicted in the mid-1990s of ordering the murder of a New York bank employee who was a witness in a fraud case against him. He died in jail.
Whether their physical appearance had anything to do with turning these men to crime, or whether their mothers are to blame for their unusual bodies, is a mystery. Maybe there is no connection at all. Certainly Paul Newman and Robert Redford did not seem to have any problems with their appearance.
At this time of year, when football season is about half over and many of the players on all levels have yet to be indicted, it is traditional for us to rate the uniforms and fight songs of the teams. Normally, we vote for the best uniforms, mostly on the college level, but this year there have been so many uniform changes, most of them nauseating, that the spirit of public service dictates that we rank the most awful uniforms.
Keep in mind that by tradition we favor tradition, so such teams as Notre Dame, Penn State, Alabama, Texas, Oklahoma, Southern California and Harvard have an unfair advantage. They know what they look like and, like the Marine Corps, take great pride in their traditional look, and never change it, unless there is a lot of money involved. So forget them for the moment and let us focus on schools that have such bad taste that they should give up football, and in fact close their doors for good.
Starting close to home, the University of Miami gave away 10 points last weekend when they came out looking like clowns against a Georgia Tech team that wore a novelty uniform for what they call “white day.” The uniform was white, gently accented with gold, the Papal colors. By tradition, we oppose such novelty uniforms, but this one looked elegant. Miami, in contrast, gave fans stomach cramps with awful green helmets and bilious green pants. The helmets lose the impact of Miami’s “U” logo, one of the most distinctive and recognizable symbols in football. It goes back to the early 1970s before the Hurricanes became a national power. But that logo, orange and green, demands a white background. Green against green just doesn’t work.
How could a team that won national championships wearing white helmets, where the logo stood out majestically, and usually white pants with orange jerseys, have fallen so far in taste? Especially when Coach Al Golden came out of Penn State, which prides itself on a classically conservative look, with hardly a stripe to be found on its blue and white livery. You would think a Nittany Lion would resign before letting his team dress like buffoons.
Notre Dame appalled its alumni (even the TV guys mentioned it) with novelty uniforms against Purdue. But they came back, reportedly at the insistence of the Pope himself, to their storied unadorned blue and gold uniforms to go 5-0. They were helped when Syracuse gave them 10 points by coming out in putrid ash and Prussian gray uniforms. That a team, which once featured Jim Brown, Ernie Davis and Floyd Little with orange helmets and blue jerseys, could lose its sense of history is a failing matched only by a dozen other teams that have given up classic uniforms to look like drunks on Halloween.
Washington, which used to dress pretty well, is catching up with neighbor Oregon in making its players look like demons from the lower regions, but neither compares to Maryland, which has taken one of the most attractive state flags and desecrated it by sprawling it all over sterodic uniforms. The only thing for Maryland to do at this stage is give up football and design a new state flag.
Let us abandon this depressing subject, and move on to fight songs. Fortunately, great fight songwriters come along only once in a century, so you don’t have much to change. The only additions are an occasional theft of a tune written for a different purpose, as when Texas A&M appropriated the stirring theme from the film “Patton.”
Years back, when he was coaching the Tampa Bay Bucs, we asked John McKay if he liked fight songs. “Notre Dame has the best,” he said with authority. This is a man who regularly beat Notre Dame while he was the coach at the University of Southern California. We suggested “Fight On For USC,” Michigan’s stirring “Hail To The Victors," “Fight On Brave Army Team” and Georgia Tech’s “Ramblin’ Wreck” as worthy of consideration.
“No, Mac,” he said, “when you lead USC into South Bend and Notre Dame’s fight song inspires your team, that’s a great fight song.”
But the fact is, this event isn't the worst day in the history of the Secret Service. We have written this before, but in the context of the times it is worth repeating. The worst day in the history of the Secret Service was Nov. 22, 1963, when it went on vacation the day President John F. Kennedy was murdered in Dallas. Most people don't know that. The impression reinforced over the years is that of agent Clint Hill running to jump on the rear of JFK's car to protect Jackie Kennedy. The Secret Service seemed heroic. Clint Hill certainly was.
The facts are different. It took almost a half century, but revelations in recent extraordinary books tell us what some Secret Service people knew 50 years ago. However, they remained silent or were ignored by investigators. James W. Douglass, in JFK and the Unspeakable gives the details. Normal precautions to protect a president in public were absent. There were no snipers on buildings surrounding the motorcade, no surveillance to keep people from windows overlooking the street. Agents normally alongside the limousine were pulled off. The Dallas police took almost no part in the security operation.
Most remarkable, is that there were no Secret Service agents in the most dangerous location, Dealey Plaza, where the shooting occurred. Several people lurking behind the fence on the “grassy knoll” identified themselves as Secret Service when confronted immediately after the shooting, but they were obviously part of the plot. The Secret Service said it had nobody at that location. These phony agents may have been the shooters. Years later we learn that when some Secret Service people asked what was going on, they were told it was the President’s wishes. Others heard simply that their unusual instructions came from Washington.
None of this was known at the time. Had it been, the nation would have been shocked. The notion of a conspiracy would not have been dismissed, as it was initially. It would not have taken decades, and the slow building of a mountain of information to convince most people that the Warren Commission got it wrong, and got it wrong on purpose.
There are two major differences between the recent Secret Service performance and the Kennedy Assassination. Almost surely, these deplorable gaffs of recent days were not intentional, nor part of any plot. What happened 50 years ago almost surely was part of a plan. Secondly, it took only weeks for the truth of recent actions to become known. In the other case, it has taken 50 years, and some people still don’t buy it.
In Palm Beach County there are people, apparently a legion, who don’t like a railroad being a railroad. This is the opposition to All Aboard Florida, the fast train being planned on the FEC tracks from Miami to Orlando. The subject is getting almost daily coverage in the three South Florida papers. The common folk are being supported to a surprising degree by public figures who value the next election over the good of the region.Some of the objections are legit. Marine industries have a concern over frequent railroad bridge closings affecting a major part of local industry. That must be addressed, and as we previously wrote, the final solution is rebuilding this critical transportation asset, including possibly tunneling under Fort Lauderdale’s New River. That is long range and expensive.
But many of the opposition’s qualms are shallow. People cite a delay of a few minutes getting to a hospital because a crossing that never should have been built in the first place is being closed. They also cite horn noises at crossings, which the FEC is working to reduce. Why do people move next to a railroad if they don’t like the railroad’s inconveniences?
One of the complaints from Palm Beach County is the fact that All Aboard Florida is scheduled to stop only in West Palm Beach. People say why should we approve a train that does not serve us – us being all the turf from Fort Lauderdale to West Palm – a 40-mile stretch without any stations.
The solution to this complaint is so obvious we would be surprised if the FEC/All Aboard Florida group is not already considering it. Tri-Rail has already announced a wish to expand its service on the FEC (it currently uses the CSX track to the west) all the way to Jupiter. It has even identified locations for Palm Beach County stations. All Aboard Florida has already said its first stage, scheduled for 2016, will only go as far as West Palm Beach. So why not put a few stations in Palm Beach County in places Tri-Rail has already identified? Not six stations, as they already exist on the CSX corridor along I-95, but perhaps every 10 miles, in prime traffic areas such as Delray Beach and Boca Raton. That would still permit a very fast train to be able to take advantage of the improvements already begun on the FEC tracks.
This would be a temporary, but very useful line, especially if stops were included at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, downtown Hollywood, and perhaps Aventura, before heading into downtown Miami. When the link from West Palm Beach to Orlando is ready (planned for 2017), All Aboard Florida could revert to its original plan and turn the stations over to Tri-Rail, which by then should be ready to expand some service to the FEC. Tri-Rail will have inherited, at little cost, the base for its commuter trains, plus a market study on the potential of the FEC route.
Again, this is so obvious we think it may be already in the works. At the very least, it would help All Aboard Florida with its PR problem in Palm Beach County.
The biggest problem producing an army to fight ISIS is finding an army to fight ISIS. Apparently everybody wants to provide air power that can hit prominent targets from the stratosphere, but nobody wants to be the boots on the ground. We are told you can’t win without boots on the ground. By that, it is not meant that we can get Gucci or somebody to set up a bunch of boots on the desert. These boots need real feet in them, or at least they do for now. Maybe in a few years science will give us the boot equivalent of drones, which can run around booting butts without needing an actual person in them.
The solution to this is obvious, and not without precedent. Fans of old movies are familiar with foreign legionaries who hung out in arid places, dressed for arid weather, ready to defeat whoever the movie was about. The most famous outfit, which apparently still exists today, is the French Foreign Legion (pictured above), once composed of foreign fighters who joined an elite group. They seemed to specialize in Arab stuff, at least in the movies, although they were also the hapless outfit that lost French Indochina to the Viet Minh in the 1950s.
Obviously, the French don’t want this unit to be the boots on the ground in Iraq and Syria. So why not set up a clone? Call it the Arab Legion, not to be confused with the Arab Legion that fought with Germany in World War II. This would be an elite volunteer force composed of anybody who wanted to fight the barbarians now on the prowl in the Middle East. There must be a ton of young dudes around the world who would, for religious purposes, or pure adventure (as in the French Foreign Legion), be willing to sign on for the noble purpose of saving civilization.
We are speaking here of young tigers who can’t see enough of the film “Patton” and George C. Scott’s speech about greasing the treads of our tanks with the guts of these dumb sons of bitches who want to die for their country. We would bet there are 10,000 such good men, and maybe some women, in our own armed forces who would volunteer to be such heroes. Add in the rest of the gutless world, and we would have more troops than we would ever need to be a permanent force in the Middle East. The big problem would be providing enough bars (in a place that discourages such) to keep these wonderful guys happy when not on duty.
PROVIDING: We paid them very, very well, perhaps using the money saved when all these NFL criminals are executed. And, THIS IS MORE IMPORTANT, they must have great uniforms. Here we get back to the iconic suits worn by the French Foreign Legion. They feature, even today, the kepi headgear. We all know it. It was a cut down version of the shako, invented in Hungary and worn by European armies in the early 1800s. The shako was a round, tall hat that made 5-foot-3 soldiers look 6-foot-7, often decorated with absurd plumes which made it even taller. Later, sobering up, the French cut it down and we used the HO version in our Civil War. Much later, the U.S. Army called it the “Ridgeway Cap” – a softer, olive drab version named for a Korean War general who fancied the style. It was worn by great military figures (including this author) in the 1950s and '60s. The same cap survives today on Fidel Çastro’s aging skull.
The kepi would of course have a neck cloth as in the old movies, giving it some Arab empathy. The uniform would be tropical and khaki with flourishes of crimson and blue, with a serious leather belt and of course, knee-high boots, which would thrill a Texas A&M cadet. It would be one sexy uniform, and men would love it because girls love guys in sexy uniforms.
Of course, such snappy garb is not for a fight. In combat, our Arab Legion would have the latest equipment and the soldiers would look like creatures from outer space, just as they do now. But one hopes that the mere existence of such a ready force, always camped near the next crisis, would perhaps deter that crisis, and give the lads more time to dance in their finery with beautiful ladies in gleaming palaces drinking whiskey and rye, as in the movies of old.
It has been 20 years. We were returning from a mother-in-law’s funeral in Philadelphia. As we entered Florida we made a decision to not continue on our usual route down Interstate 95, with all of the potential hazards that entails. Let’s just take our time, we thought, go on back roads and enjoy the ride through a part of the state we saw little of. This was before GPS, and our map showed that the most obvious route was U.S. 301, which meets I-95 north of the busy Jacksonville area, and heads toward the center of the state, going close to Gainesville. It looked like a relaxing route after a sad time in Philadelphia. We figured if it took too long we could always hook up with Florida’s Turnpike for the rest of the journey.
For an hour or so the decision met expectations. The road was not crowded and it was mostly through pleasant, undeveloped land. We congratulated ourselves on our choice. We had the van on cruise control at 55 mph, rolling along like a duck toward paradise.
We saw a sign with a lower speed limit and tapped the brake. There was a stop light in the distance and we glided toward it. It seemed an odd place for a light, or for a slower speed limit. There was nothing there to warrant either. That thought had barely crossed our mind when we saw the flashing light of a police car parked in the median ahead. As we stopped at the light, the police car made a U-turn behind us. We were caught speeding.
We did not even know where we were. It turned out to be the town of Lawtey, which we soon learned was a notorious speed trap, where the limit drops quickly so that anybody traveling at a normal speed does not have time to slow down. We protested that day; the wife even said we were coming from her mother’s funeral. The cop was not into sob stories. Lawtey is a town that has so little crime, the cops have to commit their own, which is how we felt about it then, and still do, 20 years later. We regard this as organized crime and it should be illegal for a hick town to support itself on traffic tickets. Especially when the victims are seeking a slower, calmer route than the busy interstates.
Our story got even more complicated. As furious as we were, we paid the ticket, which was something like $130 at the time – or at least we thought we had paid it, until we got a notice that our license had been suspended. We worked that out, but not without a lot of hassle. We called the state attorney general’s office, where we threw our press clout around. We told them we were close friends with Bob Butterworth, attorney general at the time. That wasn’t true, but we did meet him once. The chap we spoke to was most sympathetic. He knew all about Lawtey and other towns who preyed on drivers. We got the impression he wanted to do something about it. We expected to read any day that the cop who stopped us, and every other public official in the town, had been burned at the stake or suffered more severe punishment.
Nothing happened. We wrote about it and have revisited the subject over the years with the least provocation. Some time later, we called the Lawtey police, basically asking if they still had the speed trap. The lady who answered pretty much said yes, but she had to get off the phone suddenly. We heard somebody shouting in her office. It was undoubtedly the latest victim of this corruption threatening to shoot somebody.
We bring this up now because last week the Town of Waldo, a place near Lawtey with a similar speed trap, suspended its police chief after complaints from officers that they were forced to meet quotas in writing tickets. That is illegal and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating. The incident drew attention to Waldo’s (and Lawtey’s) reputation as two of the country’s worst speed traps. That reputation is so bad that Wikipedia, in its description of U.S. 301 in Florida, identifies those speed traps, in effect warning motorists to avoid those towns.
Too bad we did not have Wikipedia 20 angry years ago.
In case you missed it, Monday's Miami Herald carried another winner from the independent investigative unit Broward Bulldog. This is the operation, headed by former Herald reporter Dan Christensen, that for the last five years has been filling the void left by the cutbacks in newspaper staffs. It is the outfit that reported on the mysterious Saudi Arabians who blew out of Florida just before Sept. 11, 2001. Their disappearance disturbed former Florida Gov. and U.S. Sen. Bob Graham, who has been pushing to learn what the FBI knew about this situation, and especially why the committee investigating Sept. 11, that he co-chaired, was never advised about it. And, just as interesting, the government has been stonewalling.
Monday's story, bylined by Francisco Alvarado, deals with a lobbyist close to Gov. Rick Scott, who managed to quickly reverse the state's position on the controversial Watson Island development in downtown Miami. This is a project long opposed by environmentalists, who seemed to be winning until the developer hired a lobbyist friendly with Scott. Like most things political, it requires some reading, and a dash of thinking, so check out the report.
This is not the first time Broward Bulldoghas embarrassed Scott. It also broke the story of the governor’s “blind” trust for his investments after he took office, an operation actually being run by one of his cronies, whose eyesight is pretty good.
Coincidentally, today’s Herald also addresses the campaign ads run by Scott accusing his opponent, Charlie Crist, of selling judicial appointments in return for large contributions from Ponzi master Scott Rothstein. The Herald called it “half true,” meaning that Crist appointed Rothstein to a Judicial Nominating Commission, but the Herald, after interviewing other members of the commission, found no evidence that Crist appointed any judges because of Rothstein’s influence.
Actually, compared to Scott, Crist’s term as governor was largely free from scandal, whereas almost everything Scott does seems tainted by political influence, the Watson Island incident just being the latest example.
Crist’s problem is that he is perceived as a man who changes parties, and will say anything to anybody to get elected. If Scott were opposed by any of our past political notables, this would not be a close election. And, by the way, what happened to Florida along the way? We had the recently buried Reubin Askew (pictured above) in the 1970s, a man of impeccable integrity, eulogized as perhaps the best governor in the state’s history. And then there was Bob Graham, in the same league, and still a force for truth and sanity in American government. And there’s Lawton Chiles. We can’t recall any controversy during his terms as U.S. senator and governor. And most recently, Jeb Bush, who appears to be sorely missed, even by those who may not have voted for him.
Where are our men of honor today? Has Florida become suddenly a dumb place, or do our people just not give a damn?
She was trying to find a Dunkin’ Donuts all along the Jersey Turnpike, for that is the only coffee she drinks, at least on the road. Fortunately, we had our favorite snack aboard – a package of pistachios in the glove compartment. Nobody keeps gloves in a glove compartment, but we keep there almost everything else that alters and illuminates our times.
The idiot girl on the GPS had specific instructions to take us the fast route in midday through New York City, en route to the eastern tip of Long Island, specifically Shelter Island. We thought idiot girl would choose either the Verrazano Narrows Bridge or the George Washington, and because she had gained our trust over 1,000 miles, we accepted her route – until suddenly we found ourselves inexorably driven into the Lincoln Tunnel and downtown Manhattan. The tunnel was jammed.
“This is crazy,” we said. “Idiot girl has done exactly what we didn’t want. Now we have to cross Manhattan.”
The only sensible way to cross Manhattan is on foot. It is about three times faster than any vehicle except a bike or skateboard at midday. For the occasion, George Washington chose a horse. Alas, we were stuck in a SUV, and we were stuck behind 3 million crazy vehicles practically stacked on top of each other on 34th Street. The miracle on 34th Street is that anyone crosses between the two rivers and lives to tell about it.
“Watch out,” she screamed. “That truck is not stopping! Look out for that kid! You almost hit that cop. Watch out for that woman with the baby! You’re driving crazy!”
“I’m not driving crazy. Everybody else is driving crazy. Damn, they keep closing lanes. Get me a pistachio. They’re in the glove compartment.”
“You can’t eat a pistachio driving like this. Are you crazy?”
“No, I’m trying to avoid a heart attack. Pistachios are good for heart health. Studies show that volunteers in a double-blind study saw their LDL bad cholesterol drop by about 14 percent. HDL for good cholesterol rose by 26 percent with a 12 percent decrease in total cholesterol. Give me a pistachio quick. I’m having chest pains.”
“You can’t break these open while driving. You’re in the bus lane! Move out. Watch out. That guy’s not letting you in. Watch out for those kids! You have a red light!”
“The cop is telling me to go through. Open the pistachio for me.”
“I can’t.”
“Try another one. Some of them are easier than others.”
“You can’t eat and drive. Watch out for that guy on the bike! You’re gonna kill us!”
“Get me another pistachio. You’re screaming is making me nervous. The vitamin B6 in pistachios has wide-ranging effects on the nervous system. Messaging molecules called amines require amino acids to develop. B6 plays a crucial role in the formation of myelin, the insulating sheath around nerve fibers that allows optimal messaging between nerves.”
“Damn it, I broke a fingernail on your freakin’ pistachios! What are you doing? You’re stopped in the middle of the intersection. You’re blocking traffic! Back up.”
“I can’t. That cop is waving me through. Hey, there’s a Dunkin’ Donuts. You can get your coffee.”
“I can’t get out now. I’ll never find you.”
“We aren’t moving. I’ll only be a few cars away in a half hour.”
“Watch out for that taxi! You nearly hit him. Are you blind?”
“Pistachios contain carotenoids, called lutein and zeaxanthin, which function as protective antioxidants, defending tissues from damage from free radicals. They have been linked with a decrease in the risk of developing age-related macular degeneration, a leading cause of visual impairments in the United States.”
The ordeal probably lasted 40 minutes, but it seemed like a month before we finally reached the Long Island Expressway, where we were rewarded with bumper-to-bumper traffic for the next 20 miles.
For the record, our GPS system advises that we blew more than an hour getting on and off interstates looking for Dunkin’ Donuts, which were not where they were supposed to be. But that was in North Carolina and a good many pistachios later. By then, we were immune to traffic travails. B6, which pistachios abound in, helps the body make healthy red blood cells, and maintain the health of the thymus, spleen and lymph nodes, ensuring the production of white blood cells that defend the body from infections.
We first met back in the 1970s or early ‘80s. Rosemary Jones, who had freelanced for Gold Coast magazine, introduced us to Fred Ruffner, for whom she did some work. He was a low-key, gracious reference book publisher who had a lot of money. He soon would have a lot more, when he sold his company, Gale Research, for $66 million.
Coast magazine, introduced us to Fred Ruffner, for whom she did some work. He was a low-key, gracious reference book publisher who had a lot of money. He soon would have a lot more, when he sold his company, Gale Research, for $66 million.Thus, it happened that in 1992, when we won a long lawsuit and were seeking investors to return Gold Coast magazine to its former glory, Rosemary Jones suggested we talk to Fred Ruffner. He had started another reference book company, Omnigrahics, but wasn't nearly as busy as in the past. We were looking for small investors, but Ruffner, it turned out, had always wanted to own a magazine. He wanted to buy the whole magazine. He did.
Coast magazine to its former glory, Rosemary Jones suggested we talk to Fred Ruffner. He had started another reference book company, Omnigrahics, but wasn't nearly as busy as in the past. We were looking for small investors, but Ruffner, it turned out, had always wanted to own a magazine. He wanted to buy the whole magazine. He did.Fred Ruffner, we quickly discovered, was a first-class guy who did everything first class. We had one of the fanciest offices in town on Las Olas Boulevard, with a boardroom that could host a basketball game. He owned one of Fort Lauderdale's most spectacular Intracoastal homes, and opened it up for lavish parties. He used only the best paper and photographers. He tied the magazine into his various philanthropies, including the Gold Coast Jazz Society and anything to do with libraries. His business was built on libraries – every reference book had a built-in market of thousands of libraries – and he never forgot it.
Coast Jazz Society and anything to do with libraries. His business was built on libraries – every reference book had a built-in market of thousands of libraries – and he never forgot it.He spent way too much money on the magazine. He paid people, including us, too much. He had an expensive consultant who knew nothing about the magazine business. He insisted on using a printer in Detroit where he had built his company. The result of his lavish spending was that within months of his first issue the quality he achieved made people forget that the magazine's reputation had been tarnished during the 10-year legal fight. The other result was that Fred Ruffner lost more money quickly than he had ever lost. After always wanting to be in the magazine business, after only three issues he wanted to get out.
than he had ever lost. After always wanting to be in the magazine business, after only three issues he wanted to get out.We tried to convince him it was only a matter of time before success came. He had done the hard part. He was not interested. We had joked that the worst thing that could happen to him was that we would buy the book back. In late 1993 he asked us to do exactly that. Thanks to the excellent product he had produced, we were able to put an investment group together in months.
We knew his health was slipping, but we had hoped he would be around next spring when the magazine he helped save celebrates its 50th anniversary. That did not quite happen. He died last week at 88. The good he has done lives after him.
