Palm Beach Post Archives

August 1, 2013

I Hate Cell Phones

What did people do before they had cell phones? When I became telecommunications manager at The Post in 1991, the company had exactly six cell phones – the original Motorola brick. They were part of a pool that could be checked out as needed. I quickly discovered that four of them were on permanent assignment, so that left only two in the pool.

Not long after that, I put our business out for bid and got a sweet deal from a carrier who would give us free phones and 60 minutes of local calling for $10 a month. Departments were happy to have an electronic noose around their employees for ten bucks a month and, since 60 minutes was more than anybody would ever need for business, they were permitted a “reasonable” number of personal calls for carrying the unit and being reachable.

Fast forward to 2007

By December of 2007, those six phones had multiplied to 577 phones, which racked up 302,166 minutes of talk time a month at a cost of $31,211.84.That’s a MONTH, not a year.

In comparison, our landline phone switches in 13 locations supported about 1,500 extensions and about 425K minutes of talking. The total BellSouth and ATT landline bill ran us about $16,500 a month, half of the wireless tab.

Every year I would negotiate a better contract which would give us more minutes at a lower cost and the usage would STILL go up. At one time, as you can see on the shelf in my office, I tried to hang on to one model of every phone we used, but the models changed so quickly that I never could keep up with them. The phones were only part of the equation. If we changed carriers or the carrier offered us “new and improved” phones, then all of the batteries, chargers, cases and accessories had to be changed out, too.

The Verizon Wireless bill ran 1,844 pages long. I always wondered how many of those minutes were actually used talking to advertising customers and news sources.

Did I mention I hate cell phones?

When I was working, I carried a cell phone on each of the two carriers we used. After all, if the message is, “Nextel’s down,” how is anyone going to call you if don’t have a phone from the other guy?

After I retired, I was persuaded to switch to a “smart phone:” a Verizon HTC Droid Incredible. I have to confess that it was pretty neat: I no longer had to have a laptop on the seat next to me if I wanted to check my mail on the road or get a weather report. Having live traffic data on the Google map was even better than using my Garmin Nuvi 760 for navigation. I hardly ever use the camera feature. If I want to take a picture, I’ll use a REAL camera.

DROID!!

All was going pretty well until last year when I made the mistake of letting it do a software upgrade. As part of the start-up process, the thing hollers “DROID!!” in a loud tone that becomes increasingly annoying when it goes into a reboot cycle at 2 in the morning. Every morning. The only way short of heaving it across the room is to take the battery out and reinstall it. A factory reset solved the problem, but that meant that I had to download and re-install all my applications from scratch.

I noticed several weeks ago that the phone was getting sluggish: stuff wasn’t loading as quickly as it once did and phone calls weren’t dialing as soon as I selected a name. Then, while I was in Ohio, aps started dropping off, starting with Navigation and going from there. It was like my whole smart phone had gotten dumb or had gone on strike. Soon, about the only thing that worked was Gmail. Facebook went belly-up yesterday morning.

Andrea pulled out her magic wand

Andrea at the Verizon store just over the hill from Mother said she had a magic wand she’d wave over it. After plowing the same ground I had, she said I had two choices: start with a factory reset (remember that?) or have an accident that would cause insurance to replace the phone. I assured her that if the factory reset didn’t do the job, there would definitely be an accident that would probably involve plastering a wall.

The factory reset (knock wood) looks like it solved the problem for now. Maybe my phone is smart enough to have taken my threat seriously.

April 24, 2013

1964 Jackson Primary

The photos were taken in August 1964 in the Cape County Courthouse in Jackson. The sleeve says “Jackson Primary,” so the workers must have been counting ballots while the candidates chewed their fingernails. I would have been working at The Jackson Pioneer at the time. In the background are name plates that seem to read Rada Lou Kamp, Rusby C. Crites and Marie H. Bradford when I blew them up.

Covering elections fun, frustrating

Covering election night could produce some good images, unfortunately, the best pictures often didn’t run because they were of minor candidates or of relatively insignificant races. Photographers would be frustrated because they wasted a lot of time and editors were frustrated because they didn’t have key photos.

We finally came to a compromise at The Palm Beach Post. We would determine in advance what races we wanted to focus on, then reporters were responsible for finding out where the candidates were likely to be when the results came in. (The good old days when everybody gathered at election central had given away to elaborate parties.)

I played air traffic controller

Each photographer was given a master list of candidates he or she was responsible for covering, along with the size and shape of the photo that had been laid out in advance. (We could make a limited number of changes on the fly, but tight deadlines meant we had to stay to the script most of the time.)

I coordinated moving the shooters from place to place based on results that were being relayed to me from the newsroom. I also arranged for film to be picked up so the photographers wouldn’t have to come back to the office. We’d have been lost without two-way radios. I handled the logistics of getting the photos taken. Chief Photographer John Lopinot edited the film and saw that the pictures got in the paper. It wasn’t unusual that I would realize that I had juggled bodies all evening without seeing the results until the paper came off the press.

Wife Lila key player

Wife Lila was a staff favorite because she’d brew up a huge pot of her special chili to fuel the staff before they headed out to chase candidates. We joked that it was not only filling, but that about two hours into the evening, it would produce gas that would keep the TV crews from getting too close to you.

Gladys Stiver and Gary Rust

I recognize Gladys Stiver, Friend Shari’s grandmother, and a young Gary Rust in this photo. Gary was the subject of my first big political story.

Primary night photo gallery

Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the side to move through the gallery. Call out anybody you recognize.

January 17, 2013

Freezing a Floridian

I’m pushing hard to get a bunch of stuff done so I can head back to Cape via Athens, Ohio, this weekend. One of the tasks was to cold-proof my former coworker and bike partner Jan Norris. See, Jan has heard so much about Cape that she volunteered to go along to keep me company. (OK, wormed her way in might be another way to put it.)

This is going to be interesting because Jan is one of those rare birds – a Florida native. You can click any of the photos if you want to see her before her nose freezes off.

Wife Lila, taking pity on her, reached deep into the back of the closet to outfit her for frigid temperatures. “Long underwear? Those are real? People REALLY wear them?” I left the room while Wife Lila explained the rear trap door. I wasn’t sure whether Jan is one of those folks who can learn by explanation or if she needed a practical demonstration, and I sure didn’t want to find out.

You should have seen her try to figure out how earmuffs work.

Here’s how you wear a scarf

Jan was food editor at The Palm Beach Post. There was a time when she and I were exiled into the deepest bowels of the building. Her office was right across from the telecom switchroom where I lived. Our location was sort of like the geographic equivalent of the shortest day of the year: any step you took in any direction put you closer to sunlight.

Newspapers get an incredible amount of swag. Our book reviewer would get close to 5,000 books a year. PR people would send food, wine and other products they hoped would serve as bribes or fodder for product review. Our ethics policy said it had to be turned over to charity. Jan and I co-chaired a twice-a-year book sale and silent auction that raised from $10,000 to $20,000 a year for little-know charities that were below the radar of United Way and the Palm Beach balls.

Working closely together on those projects led me to try to convince Jan that THIS is the proper way to wear a scarf. {Note to Friend Mary: this is the scarf you knitted when I worked at The Jackson Pioneer back in 1964. It’s as good as ever. You did good work.]

Jan and Mother

When a bunch of us rode our bikes from Key Largo to Key West, Jan shared a houseboat room with Mother. Shortly after writing the sad story about my mother’s arm, I was talking with Jan about it. “No, that can’t be true. I spent the night with that woman. She didn’t have anything wrong with her arm.”

“You don’t believe me? Let’s call my brother Mark. He’ll tell you the same story.”

“Let’s call Lila. Lila can’t lie.” She had me there.

I dialed the number and handed Jan the phone. “You won’t believe the crazy story Ken was telling me about his mother….”

“You mean about her arm?” Lila asked.

“I spent the NIGHT with that woman. I never noticed.”

I can’t wait to see Jan giving Mother long, furtive glances the whole time she’s in Cape.

We’re staying at the Meth Motel

My definition of a good trip is when you end up with as many people as you start out with. It’ll be interesting to do a head count at the end of THIS trip. Our first area of conflict may deal with lodging. She was talking about making reservations. I said I don’t do that because I don’t know how far I’m going to drive on any particular day or if I may decide to change routes at the last minute.

She said she likes to stay at a place with chocolates on the pillow. I told her I never look too closely at black objects on my pillows because I’m afraid they may have legs at the places I stay.

I tried to reassure her by telling her the kind folks at the Athens Historical Society had booked us a couple of rooms at The Meth Motel. “That probably means Methodists run it.”

She set the standard for messy

One great thing about Jan was that any time someone poked fun at MY office, where everything was in a carefully crafted state of chaos, I’d say, “Let’s go for a walk.” It was common knowledge that one newsroom staffer’s job description included “distract fire inspector if he starts anywhere near Norris’ office on the annual walk-through.”

In fairness to Jan, not ALL of the clutter belonged to her. I put the Hula Parrot on her desk when I was giving it a tour of the paper.

I’m sure Jan will have a much different perspective on our trip, but history belongs to the survivor who writes it down. I hope we hit at least one day when it’s cold enough to freeze the hair in her nose.

October 1, 2012January 29, 2016

Decorating the Gym

No telling what dance these students were preparing for. I started to put names to faces, but realized the only one I was sure of was Jim Stone. These look like they were shot for The Tiger or The Girardot, but I don’t think any of them were ever published. (Click on the photos to make them larger.)

Since Jim was Class of 1965, it was unlikely he was decorating for the Class of ’66. Ditto the Class of 1967 Senior Prom.

Where are the coaches?

I can’t believe there’s no coach around to complain about abuse of hoop. When we visited Central at the last reunion, we kept expecting someone to chastise us for walking across the basketball court in our STREET shoes. Of course, by 2010, it was a junior high school and it was the practice gym, so maybe nobody cared.

Okeechobee High School Prom

I wish I had been able to put my hands on a photo story I shot at the Okeechobee High School Prom. I had a shot very similar to this in it. I decided I wanted to shoot an old-fashioned prom held in a gym, not a fancy coastal one held at the Flagler Museum or someplace equally high falutin’.

Okeechobee is a rural community about an hour west of West Palm Beach and on the north rim of Lake Okeechobee. I liked it because it had real trees and real people living there.

The two biggest industries were cattle and dairy farming and supporting retirees who came from the Midwest for the bass fishing. The high school advisor was very protective of her students. “I don’t want you coming out here and making these kids look like a bunch of hicks. This is a big deal for them.:”

I assured her that wasn’t my style and that I had grown up in a town not much bigger than Okeechobee.

I had to sell the story

My next task was to “sell” the story. Photographers worked for both the conservative afternoon paper, The Evening Times, and the liberal morning paper, The Palm Beach Post. The Post generally gave us much better picture play, so it was my first stop. The features editor was interested and threw out the name of the reporter he was thinking about assigning to do the words. His approach would have been exactly the one the advisor feared, so I said that I’d get back with him.

The two newspapers were separated by a walkway and a five-foot wall that was painted, we said, affectionately, Post-Times Puke Green. I crossed over.

The Times, being the underdog, liked to stick it to The Post whenever it could, so its feature editor loved the idea of snatching a good story out from under the morning paper. The only problem was they didn’t want to send a reporter. No problem, I said, give me a section front and I’ll shoot the pictures, write the copy and lay it out.

It was a blast. The student body was divided into the hippies and the cowboys. I knew immediately that I had made the right choice in not having The Post’s writer come out. He wouldn’t have been able to resist turning the kids into caricatures. I ended up with a couple of shots I like to this day. The best part was the advisor was happy when she saw the paper. I didn’t want to disappoint her.