Birthdays are a Drag… Even in Key West
Lesson learned: Always check your actual mail.
One of the very first things they taught us on the very first day of class at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications (which, by the way, is always ranked in the top five in the country) was to check your actual, real mail.
You never know what might come over the transom.
This paid off the first time around I worked at The Key West Citizen.
Every year, on the same day, four years in a row, I would get an envelope sent through the mail (no return address, the equivalent of today’s anonymous email) containing the same single-page letter each year.
After year.
It looked like it came from a mass murderer in a Hitchcock film.
The entire page was cut and pasted with individual letters from magazines and newspapers.
The letter was different each year, but its contents were the same.
It always came on the anniversary of C.B. Harvey’s death and talked about what a “saint” he was.
The letter spelled out old grievances between two warring families on the island.
Conch families.
I will not discuss the accusations made, only that they involved a glass table and some rather unsavory personal acts between a consenting adults.
Oddly, the year that Wilhelmina Harvey died, the letters stopped coming.
Somewhere, I still have one.
Even writing this creeps me out a bit because I know both families.
Anyway. My point is that if you are in the journalism profession, you should always check your mail.
And I did.
And I got this gem, unsigned… with a postmark from North Palm Beach.
The only people I know in North Palm Beach are the Rybovitches. The family continues to build some awesome custom sport fishing boats, but I am not even sure how they got my address.
Or if it was them.
But there in lies the importance of checking your actual mail.
The scribe asked me to pay homage to one of the Bubba Bozo Trio (my term, not theirs) on his special day.
Allegedly (and we hear that word a lot in the same sentence with his name) yesterday was the birthday of now-retired Code Enforcement Director Jim Young.
I'm not sure how old he is, but based on the letter's contents, I am guessing that he can add social security to the two public pensions he is receiving.
For now.
So, check your snail mail.
You never know what might show up.
Like this gem.
I wish I could give credit where credit is due, but alas…
Happy birthday to you.
