Gold Coast in review

by Bernard McCormick Tuesday, June 10, 2014 No Comment(s)

The great advantage of having beautiful 25-something editors is that they know how to run all the high-tech gadgets that dominate the publishing field in this young century. They understand terms such as Pinterest, the Cloud, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat. They also like likes.
The disadvantage is that when it comes to producing a 50th anniversary issue, which Gold Coastis planning for early next year, such skills are seriously compromised by the fact that the same people are often clueless about the local history and the people who made it. Such anniversaries are, by definition, a remembrance of people and their times, or places and the people - pretty much the same thing. And that can be tricky to do when hardly anybody on our juvenile-laden staff remembers events and people who altered and illuminated our times.* A further complication is that those who do remember are often below ground, or can't remember what they forgot.
Thus, it comes to pass when it comes to passing, our young folks will recognize the name Dan Marino, and maybe Bob Griese or Larry Csonka, all of whom kept their names current on TV. But, the people to whom they passed  - such as Paul Warfield, Marv Fleming, Howard Twilley or the Marks brothers, just draw blank stares. Almost none of the young’uns knows Dr. Doug Swift, an Amherst grad who played on that undefeated team, and went on to become a distinguished anesthesiologist in Philadelphia. They may recognize Joe Robbie, largely because a few of us loyalists insist on calling it the former Joe Robbie Stadium, no matter how many times they change the name. The same goes for Chris Evert (pictured above in 1979) because of a medical facility, George English (park), Brian Piccolo (ditto) or Virginia Young (school).
When you glance at our archived issues from the 1960s and '70s, there aren't that many around who relate to people who often graced our issues. We speak of Gov. R.H. Gore (no, he wasn't governor of Florida) or Lewis Parker or Theresa Castro or Milton Weir or Yolanda Maurer (she made every issue when she owned the book) or Hamilton Forman or Lambert and Paul Holm or Joseph Taravella or Tom and Foy Fleming or Elliott Barnett or Dr. Kenneth Williams or the Radice brothers or Jim Bishop. And the younger set may even have trouble identifying figures who stayed in the limelight, meaning our pages, for years later. Don McClosky, Bill Farkas, Dr. Abe Fischler, Frank Borman, Bob Cox, Nick Sindicich, Prince Michael of Austria, also known as Michael Waldbaum – after he got arrested for running a stolen luxury car ring.
As you might guess, all these storied figures, and literally hundreds more, will figure in our anniversary issue. If we can just remember their names.
* This phrase is an obvious theft from a once-prominent TV show. Anyone who can identify it will get a free drink at Nick’s, except it closed in 1987.

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