Turn up the Heat

Around here, it was obvious they take care of business first.

I was headed into Lakewood Ranch for the first time to take over as the East County Observer’s new managing editor when a sign caught my attention.

No, not the Lakewood Ranch sign, but the one immediately before it.

This one had the look of an official, green road sign and it said, “Tax Collector” with an arrow pointing that-a-way.

Alrighty then, so on we go.

Fortunately, I didn’t drive much farther before I saw a pizza joint that sells by the slice along with a fresh seafood market. Oh my gosh, tax collector aside, I’m in heaven.

We all judge our quality of life in different ways. For some, it’s about food, others like the serenity of a home that nestles up to a pond or the ability to party all night to live music. You might judge the area you live by the schools or the health care that is available.

Hopefully, you have a spot in your heart for the local newspaper, and that’s where I step to the plate in my new job with the East County Observer. I want to tell your story, or at least as many stories about local people as possible.

I can write about fires and money and awards and politics, but when it comes right down to it, newspapers are about people, just like you. And when you pick one up, you love seeing something about your quirky neighbor, the doctor who fixed your broken left arm or the kid down the street who is headed to the Olympic Trials for wrestling.

As we travel this road together, I hope you trust me to tell those stories. I’m going to be out there pulling you aside, asking for story ideas. OK, I am a newspaper guy, so I have a little snoop in me. It kind of goes with the territory.

Most of all though, I love telling stories of people who overcome adversity, who put themselves on the line for a neighbor, who pour out their heart to someone who just had their heart crushed.

In order to tell those stories, I have to earn your trust, and I will try to accomplish that one beginning today. Sure, I am going to whiff at times, but I do hope you enjoy the result of my work most of the time.

Since I just took this job, today’s column is going to be about me. I want you to get to know me, and in that regard you are going to see me around a lot. I am going to live in East County, work here and enjoy all it has to offer. Down the road, at times I will tells stories about my travels and experiences in other places.

Once I wrote a column about an experience I had growing up. One of my readers sent me an email slamming me because he didn’t want to read the Jay Heater biography. I called him and I explained that those columns are not about me, they are about you, His answer was "Huh?"

But the stories are intended to spark a memory of a similar occurrence in your own past, perhaps one that makes you smile.

Do we have anything in common? We might, because I’ve been around. I grew up in Middletown, New York where my dad used to take me to Bruni’s Bakery for Italian bread. He would have butter in the car because we couldn’t get all the way home with that smell taking over the car.

As a kid, I worked on dairy farms, in the greenhouses, in restaurants and at Woolworth’s. Those of you have lived a little probably remember Woolworth’s.

A wrestler in high school and college, I eventually earned a degree from the University of Arizona and landed a job at the Richmond Independent. I was planning my move to Virginia when a friend of mine informed me that the Richmond Independent was in the San Francisco Bay Area.

That job came in 1981 and it has been an interesting ride since. I have been a sportswriter, sports editor or managing editor in places like Tucson, Arizona, Walnut Creek, California, Crawfordsville, Indiana and Pocatello, Idaho. For those keeping score at home, I have lived in the East, West, Southwest, Northwest, Midwest and now Southeast. We've got to have something in common.

For years I covered University of California basketball and football, pro boxing and horse racing. Through the years I have written about the World Series, the Super Bowl and about the factory down the street closing and leaving hundreds without a job.

Whether it’s been a town grieving the death of a soldier, or a family celebrating their son overcoming paralysis to hit a golf ball, I have been privileged to report to communities just like this one.

Now I hope I can do the same for you.

So please, call me at 941-755-5357 or send me an email at [email protected].  Let’s get to know each other.

More than anything, to produce a good newspaper, I need your help.