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Now We're Talking
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Author: |
Joe Byrnes |
Created: |
10/3/2006 12:31 PM |
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All about news and life in Marion County, Fla. |
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A map to save your life |
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By Joe Byrnes on
4/27/2007 10:32 AM
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Maybe it's a guy thing, but I love maps.
And the map of Marion County that Deputy County Engineer John Goodknight showed me Tuesday morning had the added attraction of being designed to save lives.
The spider's web of roads was loaded down with colored dots - including orange and red ones for fatal traffic accidents during the previous two years - and with traffic counts and little diamonds indicating dangerous shoulder drop-offs.
Tacked to Goodknight's office wall, it laid out a challenge and helped pinpoint areas where the county Transportation Department will make simple changes to prevent accidents: improved signs, rumble strips and reflectors, cleared sight lines and wider asphalt shoulders.
For example, a county crew of about 13 workers - armed with a grader, asphalt-laying road widener, roller, sweeper and several dump trucks - have added to the sides of County Road 25. Narrow roads with ...
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A second chance at a better life |
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By Joe Byrnes on
4/19/2007 7:16 AM
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The small, white-and-ginger kitty in cage S17 sat as proper as a porcelain statue, with his head tilted forward, his eyes half closed and his tail curling like a spring vine at his front paws.
And he had come from a scene of such ugliness - the wretched, feces-encrusted Florida Highlands home of Jonathan Terpstra, where investigators saw perhaps hundreds of cats, some of them wild, some dead, some barely alive. By Tuesday, the county recovered 90 live cats but euthanized most of them. They were sick, feral or otherwise unadoptable.
When Multimedia Editor Doug Engle and I visited the Marion County Animal Center on Monday, at least 24 were on the path to possible adoption. We found a quiet band of tattered survivors, looking more like kittens than cats, in their metal cages.
Christy Jergens, the center's animal program coordinator, was our guide, and she kept showing us disturbing pictures on the back of he ...
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Jenkins got a fair deal |
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By Joe Byrnes on
4/11/2007 4:42 PM
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The squirrelly excuse was a bad beginning – how he accidentally used the wrong debit card 67 times and gambled with a nonprofit agency’s cash. (You have to punch in the right PIN, for goodness sake!)
Now Whitfield Jenkins, a respected community leader, has admitted his gambling problem and his guilt and signed a Pre-Trial Intervention Program contract to avoid criminal prosecution.
Investigators said Jenkins took (and later returned) $10,043 from Ocala Leased Housing Corp. while he was its president. He was charged with grand theft.
But after perhaps six months, if he follows the PTI rules, the case will be dropped.
Jenkins has long stood up courageously for a lot of important things I believe in – voting rights, social justice, equal education – and I’m glad the law allows him to avoid a criminal record.
He should be thanking his lucky stars and patting ...
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Chasing my cheese |
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By Joe Byrnes on
4/5/2007 7:34 AM
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I won't pretend I like the dumbed-down fads of corporate culture or that it was not at all degrading a few years ago to be told I'm a mouse chasing its cheese.
Like the good little mouse from "Who Moved My Cheese?" - I'm chasing it still, right across the page and on to the Internet.
But last week my editor had her managers do a little company exercise that I found - and I mean this sincerely - quite eye-opening. Unless you avert your eyes now, you're going to read about it, and that could ruin some future corporate retreat, compromise someone's PowerPoint presentation or undercut a highly paid consultant's "aha" moment.
You're still reading, and that says something about you.
At the meeting, before we watched a short video, our boss told us the exercise was about counting basketballs. She gave us strict instructions to count the basketballs passed from one white-s ...
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'All things counter, original, spare, strange' |
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By Joe Byrnes on
3/28/2007 2:24 PM
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The young eagle coasted gracefully just 40 feet above Lake Wauberg. From my boat shortly after dawn, it seemed to me as if I held it by a kite string.
On dark, gray-flecked wings, it glided down, oh so slowly, to the rippling surface of the lake and, swinging its talons with an easy indifference, scooped up a squirming fish.
Then, with a few strokes of its wings, it rose and flew beyond the tree-lined banks.
The lake is just north of Marion County in Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park, but I hope this scene from my trip there a couple of weeks ago will help make a point about the experience of nature in this county and this part of Florida.
It can surprise you any ...
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They know the Lunsfords' loss, pain |
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By Joe Byrnes on
3/22/2007 5:27 AM
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Dooley Hopper and I sat talking on Monday afternoon in her lovely parlor, with its floral wallpaper, piano and fine, upholstered furniture.
Hopper, who is 81, savored the memory of Christmastime 1977 and her granddaughter Trisa Gail Thornley at a church service. The pastor had asked Hopper to tell the Christmas story.
As she did, Trisa, who was 8, clung to a chair in front of her and listened with rapt attention, tears of joy glistening in her brown eyes.
Afterward, when Hopper returned home, Trisa hugged her tightly around the waist, Hopper recalled. "She said, 'Mamaw, your story about the baby Jesus was so good I cried.'"
I had gone t ...
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Ocala pilot earns a new set of wings |
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By Joe Byrnes on
3/14/2007 4:58 PM
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Among the many particulars — be they chance or providence — to which Bob Hughes, of Lakeville, Mass., owes his life, you can count the fact that one courageous Ocala teen is hooked on flying.
As a toddler, Jason Schappert watched planes at the Ocala airport. At 16 he took lessons. At 17 he got his pilot's license.
So it was that last year, after graduating from West Port High School, he entered Bridgewater State College in Massachusetts to study aviation.
On Feb. 10, he was out on frozen Long Pond in Lakeville with his landlady, Pam Perrotta, and her friend Ted Dubois, watching small planes touch down and take off from the lake. Schappert fell hard and bruised his hip.
But the next day, a Sunday, the two friends coaxed him back on the ice, where he shuffled about in his bedroom slippers. Dubo ...
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Legislation would help safeguard Florida springs |
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By Joe Byrnes on
3/8/2007 1:41 PM
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Any day on the Rainbow, someone said, doesn't count against you.
Photographer and underwater filmmaker Glen Lau, the award-winning creator of "Bigmouth," quoted that line to me recently at the dedication of the Florida Bass Conservation Center near Webster.
Lau should know. He has recorded more than 15,000 hours diving in Rainbow Springs. So even though the west Marion resident is 71, you've got to subtract about two years.
The next day at dawn, I was on the Rainbow myself, holding against the current of time, watching a huge sun ascend between the cypress trees and casting my line into a golden mist rising from the water.
The river, however, isn't holding its ground, especially not against increasing levels of nutrients from farming, golf courses and housing developments. How much, indeed, will be lost when the crystal-clear Rainbow loses its luster!
At ...
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Don't judge the press, Your Honor |
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By Joe Byrnes on
3/1/2007 2:58 PM
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Circuit Judge Richard Howard has a bully pulpit at the trial of John Evander Couey, the sex offender charged with kidnapping, raping and murdering 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford.
That doesn't mean Howard should act like a bully.
I'm talking about how he went off on reporters and the Star-Banner's lawyer Monday when she urged him to stop the private questioning of prospective jurors. Video excerpts of that hearing can be viewed on ocala.com.
Howard, red-faced and argumentative, seemed to feel the media doesn't have proper respect for his office.
I don't believe there's any disrespect. The reporters are obliged to know and report what's going on at the trial, and Howard's strategy essentially closed part of the proceedings and made their job impossible.
He and the trial lawyers were interviewing each prospective juror at his bench, where the press and other jurors coul ...
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Nature's landlord on burrowed time |
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By Joe Byrnes on
2/22/2007 4:19 PM
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The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission on Friday announced a draft management plan to protect the state's gopher tortoises.
They are, ironically, the housing developers of natural Florida, building 15-foot-long, underground, temperature-controlled burrows for themselves and about 360 other native species. That's where the gopher frog lives, the eastern indigo snake, the Florida pine snake and the Florida mouse.
Florida still has perhaps 750,000 of the lumbering little tortoises, the long-living, late-mating, leaf-chomping landlords of upland forests. But their numbers have declined 60 to 80 percent in the past century.
The biggest concern is "habitat destruction, fragmentation, and degradation," according to the FWC.
Our sprawling cities, housing developments, farms and mines - the same kinds of human progress that, for other reasons, imperil the freshwater springs - are bu ...
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Two roads, 2 paths of honor |
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By Joe Byrnes on
2/22/2007 4:17 PM
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What's in a name?
In this case, two names signify just a little bit of the honor and recognition due two young Marion County men who gave their lives for their country.
In January, the County Commission designated County Road 42 from Pedro to Weirsdale as the Robert E. Blair Memorial Highway. Blair's parents, Allen and Karen Blair, had requested it.
"This would be a great honor as our son grew up and lived right on Highway 42," they wrote to the commission.
The family has a long history along the highway. Blair's great-great-grandfather ran a grocery at CR 42 and County Road 25 in the 1930s and '40s.
On May 25, 2006, the U.S. Army specialist was killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad.
"As Robert grew up in the area and is well-known and respected by many residents, who still reside along the highway, we feel this [should be] deemed appropriate," h ...
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Victim’s mother shares thoughts on alligators |
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By Joe Byrnes on
2/20/2007 4:11 PM
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Dawn Marie Yankeelov -- whose daughter, a talented artist, was killed last May by an alligator while she was snorkeling in Juniper Creek in the Ocala National Forest – has sent an e-mail to the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission on its review of alligator management.
Yankeelov agreed to share that letter with all of us. The well-written thoughts of a former journalist who lost her daughter on Mother’s Day speak for themselves. Here's a picture of her daughter, Annmarie Campbell:
I urge you, also, to share your views on alligator management — whether your concerns are conservation or public safety, or both – with FWC Alligator Management Program Coordinator Harry Dutton by e-mailing him at h ...
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Striking a balance on gators |
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By Joe Byrnes on
2/15/2007 3:28 PM
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Back in January 2001, editors in the Star-Banner newsroom received a bizarre tip: Orange Lake, the 12,500-acre body of water at Marion County's north end, had practically disappeared.
It had shrunk to 5,000 acres during a drought, losing almost 12 square miles. Reporter Joe Callahan could see water flushing down the sinkholes at Heagy Burry Park.
Photo Editor Alan Youngblood returned with stunning panoramic pictures showing a mere trickle where the western edge of Orange Lake had been and images of fish crowding a small pool, gulping for oxygen.
The drought devastated local businesses. After a couple years, though, Orange Lake came back - with improvements - and now the fishing is good.
After all that, I should have known Orange Lake is way too big for me to navigate by canoe. Nevertheless, on a blustery spring day almost two years ago, I put in at So ...
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Crist proves public servant after storm |
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By Joe Byrnes on
2/10/2007 3:31 AM
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Tess told me she turned 80 on Sunday. When I saw her that morning, she was toddling slowly down the middle of the Lady Lake street where she lived. She was wearing a bright yellow coat and had a stunned look on her face.
Her mobile home had been damaged - and made uninhabitable - by Friday morning's tornadoes. Relief workers came and went around her, like bees around a yellow rose.
"There's going to be people coming to help you," a woman told her. "It's going to be OK."
Tess hardly seemed to notice.
Up and down nearby Alma Street, Dana Brennan and her girls - four of her own and a neighbor's child - carried a black satchel of Styrofoam cups and muffins and thermoses of coffee, milk and cider.
On either side of the narrow lane, homes had been crushed or shredded by the winds. Deputies drove by, volunteers cleared rubble and an elderly woman huddled in her ...
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Don't like state law? 'Cretool' it |
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By Joe Byrnes on
2/3/2007 3:39 PM
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As a newspaper writer for years, I have done plenty damage to the English language. So I am glad of this opportunity to give back.
My contribution is a two-syllable verb, a combination of "cronyism," which means bias toward one's pals, and "retool," which means to reorganize.
Here's the word and its definition: cre•tool \kree-TUL\ vt [fake word]: to change the rules to benefit a close associate; esp.: to revise a law to make sure a crony's legally questionable conduct is legal in the future.
The next time a teacher modifies the grading system to help the teacher's pet - you have the word for it. When the boss drop kicks the vacation policy because the office darling has plans, you know what to call it.
I am still smarting from an extreme case of cretooling I experienced as a boy during a 4-H meat-identification contest.
The week ...
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A park where peace reigns |
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By Joe Byrnes on
1/27/2007 3:31 PM
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As a kid in rural southern Louisiana, I liked to roam through the countryside, sometimes without a destination, for a whole summer afternoon.
I remember once hiking down a long forest trail and finding at its end a graveyard grown mossy, full of wildflowers and the hum of honey bees. It was, to my eyes, a secret, mysterious place ablaze with sunlight and haunted by many untold stories.
To this day, I see it as a metaphor for moments of wonder and transcendent beauty that break through the tired routines of our lives - and a metaphor, as well, for a quiet, sunny place of love and sadness and hope hidden in the wilderness of the human heart.
This comes to mind because on Sunday afternoon my wife, Lauri, and I visited Sholom Park.
The 45-acre garden at 6602 S.W. 80th Ave. - established two years ago by On Top of the World founder Sidney Colen - is managed by the nonprofit Horticultural A ...
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'Idol' chatter about Pickler in Ocala |
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By Joe Byrnes on
1/20/2007 3:05 PM
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Well, I know what my household is doing on Tuesday and Wednesday nights for the next few months.
That's right - "American Idol" is back.
My wife and I aren't the only Marion County residents who'll get caught up in the Fox reality show, cheering for our favorite singers and voting for them by phone. The Dotsons, for example, haven't missed an episode since it all started.
After an Ocala concert Monday evening by "American Idol" finalist Kellie Pickler, Tom Dotson, his wife, Anne, and 9-year daughter, April, sought me out for an interview.
They are big Pickler fans. Anne Dotson usually does the "American Idol" voting, but one night last year her husband took over and voted 142 times for the disarmingly sweet country singer. It's a family affair for them - and many others around here - and K-Country's free concert at Paddock Mall was a tremendous treat.
< ...
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Are we ready to realize the dream? |
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By Joe Byrnes on
1/18/2007 4:26 PM
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I watched the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech on YouTube.com last week, and it got me to thinking -- about Marion County and where we're headed.
"I have a dream," King said, "that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.'
"I have a dream that one day . . . the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood."
King dreamed of a nation where his four children would "not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." He spoke of the faith needed "to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood."
Amen.
The King holiday this year has parti ...
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Debra Vazquez Memorial Poetry Series |
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By Joe Byrnes on
1/13/2007 10:06 PM
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Central Florida Community College is offering a great opportunity to see and listen to an extraordinary poet.
Li-Young Lee will discuss and read his poetry, as part of the Debra Vazquez Memorial Poetry Series, at 7 p.m. on Feb. 1 at the CFCC Fine Arts Auditorium.
Here’s a little of how Alison Granucci describes his poetry on www.blueflowerarts.com: “Through the observation and translation of often unassuming and silent moments, the poetry of Li-Young Lee gives clear voice to the solemn and extraordinary beauty found within humanity. … Anyone who has seen him read will add that Lee is also one of the finest poetry readers alive.”
The Web site includes an example of his po ...
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Glimpses of Ocala in Time's past |
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By Joe Byrnes on
1/13/2007 4:51 PM
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Star-Banner reporter Rick Cundiff pointed out to me Monday that Time magazine has a free online archive of its stories since the beginning of Time.
This was an opportunity, I realized, to glimpse Ocala's moments in the national consciousness during the past 84 years.
So I searched the magazine archive for "Ocala."
- In 1925, during the newsmagazine's third year, we showed up in a real estate item about silent film actor Thomas Meighan discovering Ocala -- "a hamlet charming, provincial, discreet, situated well inland on the Dixie Highway" - as a rural, Southern locale for the movie "Old Home Week."
The news item claimed this caused new interest in local real estate.
"The rude forefathers of Ocala found that their acres had become valuable," Time reported. And Meighan himself cashed in to the tune of $500,000.
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