Below are a few of the 1,500-plus "Stray Thoughts" newspaper columns I wrote for The Town-Crier Newspapers serving Wellington Royal Palm Beach, Loxahatchee and The Acreage. I Hope you enjoy some of them!

Bob Markey, Sr.

You Really Can't Go Home Again!

As I drive or walk around Wellington, it always reminds me that you can never really go home, even if you are home. What I mean is that things change, often without our realizing it. A community is always changing. Residents come and go and suddenly you realize that so many important people are no longer here and you wonder where they are and what is going on in their lives.

Having lived in Wellington for 20 years, I’ve had the privilege of getting to know so many fine people and I miss them when they have moved on to other places, to do other things.

And then, I find myself somewhere and a familiar face appears.

It happened Sunday. My son Bob II and I went to the equestrian event, which was wonderful. We enjoyed watching the finest riders in the world compete on beautiful animals that cost anywhere from $50,000 to the unbelievable price of up to $1,000,000.

We had a great time in the press tent, watching the competition, and then it was over and Bob II suggested we go over to the polo fields and catch the end of the match.

I watched the end of a good game from the sidelines, where The Town-Crier had a private parking space for many years. I expected to see John and Marilyn Derby there, and the Baileys, but they’re gone, the Derbys to the Tampa area and the Baileys to Jupiter Island. The others we knew for years and with whom we enjoyed the game were also absent.

Except of course for the Pendergasts, who still have the same space but were, I was told, in Europe.

I strolled across the field when the game ended and saw a few familiar faces but not many. It’s odd, just the other day I was wondering if Helen Boehm still attended the polo matches, and suddenly, there she was, looking younger than ever and smiling as she always does at scores of people who came up to her to say hello.

But the field and stands were mostly filled with strangers, at least strangers to me. And I felt a little melancholy.

I drifted to the cocktail tent to have a drink, and almost fell over. Standing there were two faces from long ago, Peter Winkelman and Walt Kuhn.

I remember Peter’s dad, who was an outstanding gentleman and a very successful person. He was always so kind to everyone.

And Peter is a successful builder, developer and business executive.

Now Walt Kuhn should be know to everybody but probably isn’t, though there was a time when virtually everyone in Wellington knew the Kuhns.

They were probably the first real equestrians to move here, though I doubt that Walt would use that term for himself. I think he would simply say he was a horseman, and he is indeed and one of the greatest.

Walt and his family established Fairlane Farms, and the road that leads to Pierson road at the entrance to Wellington was surely named after the Kuhn stables.

It was there that we went on weekends to watch the Kuhns and their sons give our sons and daughters riding and jumping lessons. And it was at Fairlane Farms that we went on trail rides once in a while, if we weren’t really horse folks.

You would find Walt everywhere in those days and he was and is one of the finest gentlemen I have ever met.

He sold the place some years back as his children went into professions and began chasing their own careers.

Walt not only taught people to ride and play polo, but he also built a small polo facility on the property and there were a lot of good games played there. Maybe not as fancy as the matches at the polo stadium, but darn good polo and a lot of fun.

Walt promised to call me one day for lunch, so that we can gas about the old days in Wellington and about our experiences in the service, a subject we never really got around to telling each other.

It was so nice to see those friendly faces.

I wonder about so many who served this community well in the early days of Wellington.

One of the most important people here then was Ed Dickerson. He managed the Wellington club in the days when everyone was a member. Hell, it was only about $200 or so for a full membership for the entire family. But still there were not enough residents to fill it up.

Ed not only managed the club. He managed Wellington. He was its first and best public relations person, the one who got us all together, who organized events, who trained a great staff and who kept us all very happy… at least most of the time

Ed’s assistant was Candy Watkins, and she was a fine and beautiful young woman who works her tail off for al of us.

Donna Horton White, thank God, is still with us. She doesn’t go on many pro golf tours anymore, but raises her family and now is head golf pro at the new Okeeheelee Park course.

Donna is one of the finest women I have ever known and she did so much for this community.

There were so many others too, and eventually I hope to get around to telling you about all of them

Too Old, Too Bold, And Unemployable?

Oct. 9, 1999 - I must admit that I have never been terribly concerned about purported discrimination and prejudicial hiring practices. I suppose it’s because throughout my lifetime I have been hired, almost always on the spot, for just about every job for which I had applied.

It’s because I had a great resume and even greater references. And many of my former employers were magic names that opened doors for me wherever I wished to enter.

Consider my resume, in brief. I bring to the interview table a four-year, successful cruise as a US Navy Seabee with service in a combat area, a prep school and college education, and early career with two of the largest advertising agencies in the world, BBD&O and Benton & Bowles, and ownership of my own advertising and public relations company in New York City.

Additionally, I have had significant and successful experience with newspapers such as The New York Times (13 years in New York City), New York World Telegram & Sun, Brooklyn Eagle (don’t laugh, it won a Pulitzer or two), Palm Beach Post, a few other papers. I also founded a six community newspaper chain in Palm Beach County.

If that’s not enough to impress an employment interviewer, I also mention authoring 1,500 newspaper columns, a couple of thousand editorials and many thousands of news stories.

For a little gravy, I toss on the application plate experience as a teacher, lecturer, computer professional, staff trainer, graphic artist, page designer, and highly experienced general executive.

Hell, I’d even hire myself if I didn’t know myself better!

And so, throughout my life I have eased my resume in front of all sorts of interviewers and watched them being impressed by my blue-chip background. It would not take long until they were practically begging me to take the job.

I never even had to apply for some of my best jobs. The job-grantors came to me. That’s how I arrived in Palm Beach County. I was called (I like the sound of that!) by former West Palm Beach Post president Larry Sartory, who told me he had interviewed about a dozen good people for the general advertising manager’s job at his paper, but finally decided the applicant he wanted to hire was me… and I hadn’t even applied for the job.

Yes, I’ve been lucky. But finally I arrived at the point where my now lengthy resume is no longer an employment asset. Truthfully, it is the kiss of death.

I am, you see, no longer the capable, experienced pro that I was for decades. I am now not worth a serious look as a job applicant. It’s not that I screwed up anywhere, got myself fired, ran off with the bosses’ daughter or anything dumb like that. It’s simply that I now, am too damn old!

If it were not stupid, it would be amusing. I am in excellent health except for a hearing problem which I have had since the service when I was in my teens, still look reasonably professional (Hey, I wouldn’t apply for a modeling job!), I have an abundance of energy, keep up to date, know more about computers than most young people do, and still enjoy beating the hell out of whatever competition comes my way.

But no one, ever, offers me a job. To be more specific, employers for the past few years do not even respond to my resume submission. My extensive and once considered terrific experience today pegs me as an old goat no one wants in their firm.

So I took early retirement, I’ve almost finished one book and am working on three others, and I once again resurrected my real estate license to bring in a few more bucks.

But isn’t it stupid that no newspaper or corporation would want to hire me simply because my life clock has ticked a beat or two too long?

I know many things that can solve major and minor problems for an employer. I’m a great teacher who could motivate and equip young people to learn and achieve. I’m a very good presenter and public speaker who could woo audiences and attract business. I’m a problem solver, understand budgets, and am a highly skilled communicator. So why am I unemployable?

I’ll just skim over the pint that what almost all employers are doing is against the law. No firm may dismiss my application because I am older than they would prefer. Not one would be honest enough to say, "Bob, if you were 10 years younger I’d hire you in a minute."

What they say is, "Bob. Your resume and experience is impressive. I’ll run your application by my boss and see what he thinks. But we have had many applications from strong people. I just want you to know what you are up against."

Hell, I know what I’m up against, Discrimination! When it was happening to all those other guys and ladies, I could care less. I never really believed it, you see. But when it started happening to me, it was a terrible travesty of justice.

I can make it on my social security pension and part-time real estate sales. But I think, once in a while, about how much I have to offer a local business, if they were to hire me, and it makes me angry that all I am apparently suitable for any more is becoming a bag boy at Winn-Dixie.

And that’s an honorable job too. I’m not knocking it. It may just be my future.

But what I also might do is send a host of employers an application for employment. One will be my complete resume, which dates me back 40 years of employment. Another will be virtually the same resume, but leaving out jobs I have had more than 20 years ago and leaving out dates of my college experience, etc.

Then I’ll total the number of invitations to interview that come from each of my applications and I’ll take them to the appropriate government organization dealing with job discrimination and file complaints.

It’s about time someone did something about the rank discrimination that is being waged against men and women of a certain age, who need a job and are well qualified to perform it.

Think of it this way, young recruiters: the next job you withhold from the next senior applicant may be the one that costs you your own job.

Not because you are too young, but because you are too stupid to recognize a solid applicant without counting the gray hairs on his or her head.

I may just start a new career. Catching people who discriminate against the so-called elderly… like me!

Bink Glisson, 85, 'Father of Wellington'
Dies at his home after long illness

Arthur "Bink" Glisson, who has frequently been considered by many to be the Father of Wellington, died Tuesday afternoon at 4:20 p.m. in his home on South Shore Blvd. in Wellington, the extraordinary community he helped to create.

If you had the privilege to know Bink Glisson, you will understand how difficult it is to condense his fairy-tale life into a few sentences, as he was undoubtedly one of the most respected and admired men ever to influence the growth of Palm Beach County and the Village of Wellington, specifically.

Bink only was able to find the time to acquire a few years of elementary school education, yet he educated himself and became a very wise and talented man. He was a sailor, a boat captain and yachtsman, a poet, author, surveyor, painter, developer, water district manager, real estate professional, fisherman, elected government official, planner, futurist, horseman, pilot and a legend in his own time.

Bink was born in what is now called the Everglades, where he spent his childhood in poverty, living with his family in rough houses in a vast swamp-like area in The Glades. His family largely lived off the land, hunting, fishing, trapping and trading, and Bink learned not only how to exist in a tough world but also to make it what he wanted it to be. He traveled through his boyhood world to areas only reached by horseback or small boat. He absorbed every experience into his agile mind, where he stored them, one day to be painted by Bink so that all might know what life in these parts were like almost a hundred years ago. His paintings featured the land, Seminole Indians with whom he shared his Glades, infant industries that began to sprout up, men, women and children of his youth, and of course views of the lakes and streams and pathways of his life.

After a tour in the US Navy during World War II, Bink came back to his beloved Florida and became a Jack-of-all-trades and a master of many. He fished, ran boats out of Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach, obtained a real estate license, and did whatever he could to make a living.

Asked if he were a Florida native, Bink once answered, "I don't know, but my mother was a Seminole Indian and my father was an alligator.

He was deeply close to his big brother Roy Glisson, who would become Wellington's first Realtor. Roy, who died in 1998, was also a highly respected individual, loved by many but especially by Bink. Roy was quite a hero. His military decorations and WWII memorabilia were acquired by his brother Bink, who displayed them proudly on the walls of his residences. Bink too began to collect memorabilia of South Florida, old tools, farm implements, an ancient canoe, even a home-made helicopter. In recent years his historic possessions grew so vast that his friends began a fund drive to create the Bink Glisson Museum, now proudly in place at Yesteryear Village at the South Florida Fairgrounds on Southern Blvd. not far from his home.

Bink eventually became a friend and associate of a wealthy Connecticut man, C. Oliver Wellington, who hired Bink to skipper his boat and to do odd chores for him when he was not visiting Florida. Soon Wellington, noting the growth that was beginning to take shape in South Florida, asked Bink to find some investment land he might acquire. Bink found about 15,000 acres of mostly swampy land west of West Palm Beach, available for very little, less than $50 an acre, Bink has said, and Wellington bought the property. Bink then began the process to turn the and into a water improvement district and when that was accomplished, Bink had canals dug to drain the land and turned it into valuable pasture and farm land, certain to make Mr. Wellington a great deal of money.

Bink bought some for himself, including a 20-acre parcel south of what now is Palm Beach Polo and Country Club's polo stadium. He moved to Little Ranches and built a grass runway on his new property, acquiring a number of small aircraft that he flew personally until the 1980s.

When Jim Noll, a developer who was very successful in South Florida decided to find a large piece of land where he might build a special community, he went to Ralph "Mac" McCormack and told him to find the land. McCormack found Bink and he and Mac sold Mr. Wellington on the idea of selling about 7,500 acres to Nall who promised to build a planned community featuring neighborhoods for people of modest means as well as wealthy families, and Wellington, Florida was born.

Bink became director and later manager of the water district. It later became the Acme Improvement district and a few years ago the village of Wellington. And as Wellington grew, Bink was always there to convince the various early developers that Wellington must always respect its pristine land, its farmer and equestrian citizens as well as its commuting resident executives. He encouraged the growth of the polo facilities and later the equestrian jumper facilities, even establishing the Palm Beach Hunt, where scores of horse owners would ride chasing trained dogs, not to kill a fox but to chase a rope treated in fox urine to fool the dogs.

Bink was a great person in the social life of the community, eventually a very wealthy man, always a conservationist. He loved two things, Wellington, and his devoted wife Joan. He never forgot his humble beginnings and was always ready to tell anyone about the original Florida of his youth and how wonderful it was. His stories were marvelous and it would not take much to get his started on another one.

Bink was gently and tough, one to use totally appropriate language in the company of women and children, but could cuss a blue streak when on a small boat with friends fishing or watching alligators, usually with a comforting jug of wine and a stock of cold beer.

I recent years Bink he suffered from Parkinson's disease and many times was believed to be living his last moments. He was cared for by Joan and by his great friends Darell Bowen whom Bink considered a son, and Father John Mangrum, perhaps the only other Wellingtonian who could stand alongside Bink and not be outclassed.

They were both with him at the end, faithful and true. And Bink closed his eyes for the last time Tuesday, March 14, 2000.

The world is a sadder place today at his passing. But heaven has acquired a special citizen and the saints and angels are surely sitting at Bink's knee this moment as he tells them of the Florida he loved and his beloved Wellington.

Bob Markey, Sr., former owner-publisher of The Town-Crier newspapers.

What’s Really Wrong With Our lives Today?

It's almost impossible to turn on our TV sets or pick up a newspaper or magazine without our senses being bombarded with descriptions or views of a latest human tragedy, a daily review of what someone long ago described as "man's inhumanity to man."

There truly is nothing very new about the misdeeds of humans, even the viciousness and incalculable cruelty being perpetrated by one person or persons against another or others. Cain, after all, hardly blinked as he murdered his only brother and Adolf Hitler apparently lost little sleep over millions of fellow humans he had tossed into deadly ovens. Much of the mayhem that troubles us today is but a continuation of the history of human tragedy and whatever happens on this and coming days will be no worse than what has happened in the past.

It's probably the incredible immediacy and the overall reach of today's news that so traumatizes us, more than the dread deeds that occur.

What is surprising is that we are shocked and horrified at all. One does become deadened to pain if it occurs often enough. And brutality and inhumanity certainly occurs often enough for most of us to dismiss with a few trite words and a shake of our heads.

Police officers and rescue personnel, for example, learn quickly to put themselves emotionally at rest while doing the work of their trade. After witnessing a hundred murders or a thousand terrible auto accidents, our protectors usually find a way to do their jobs without coming apart emotionally.

But the rest of us lately walk through life horrified at news events profiling the murder of children by children or shootings of tots simply because they are members of a certain race or religion.

Certainly recent social tragedies ought to sadden us. But it would be socially productive if we learned something from them that might lessen the chances of the same sort of tragedy occurring again.

It's interesting that our television editors and producers, in their rush to outdo their media brothers and sisters by showing more sensational coverage, backed up by expert opinions from everyone able to sound knowledgeable in front of a camera, have not, in depth, considered the only course of action that can change the course of human conditions, prayer, repentance and observance of religious principles.

Or to put it a simpler way, we ought to turn back to God and obey his commandments.

Our world is a cesspool and almost all of us are wriggling in it like worms who can only proceed in one direction.

We have allowed our lives to be infested with everyday garbage that would have been inconceivable to our grandparents.

Our newspapers, radios and television sets our filth and pornographic messages over our children hour by hour, and we either do not see or hear them or don't give a darn.

Meanwhile, we cheat each other when we can, spend our hours chasing the almighty dollar and abuse ourselves with alcohol, drugs or other degenerative behavior.

We take sacred vows of marriage and in a short time, cast them aside to take up with another life traveler with a younger face and body or a healthier bank account.

We ignore our children and are amazed when they neither like us nor respect us.

We cast aside the older citizens in our life because they remind us of what we do not wish to remember, that we too will soon be old and hurting. Soon our elderly will become as disposable as our unborn and we will be able to dispatch them to the next life with neither guilt nor embarrassment. We will be able to abort our old folks the way we abort our unborn children. It will happen!

None of us want to hear all this, of course. It's neither modern nor socially acceptable. God is indeed dead to most of us, and we do not want anyone preaching to us, even though the wages of evil, as old-fashioned preachers still remind us, is death!

Yes, we are dying with our society. We are burning ourselves out and driving ourselves down, always down, to the depths of depravity and the heights of constant greed. And even though we certainly, somewhere down deep, must know that only by turning to God and reestablishing old, positive values can we save ourselves.

But the reestablishment of a healthy society could be accomplished quickly and easily.

We could start by vowing to achieve simple things. Like taking the children to church or temple each week. Like resurrecting family dinner, every night in the week, no excuses of work or social obligations permitted.

Like taking to our children, mom and dad to son and daughter, while no television set blinks at us trying to lure our though somewhere else.

Like having our children's grandparents become part of our daily lives, even moving to where they live or helping them move closer in order to again become part of our family.

We could do much more. We could throw out all the booze in our homes and rid ourselves of that addiction. We could stop smoking and start breathing cleaner air.

We could respect the environment and insist our children respect it as well.

We could make sure our kids have good companions.

We could speak more quietly and behave more courteously.

We could criticize our kids less and compliment them more often.

We could devote our every waking hour to them.

We could, with God's help, stop the insanity.