Perhaps some of us might take a lesson from this legendary ball club. ![]() It is the type of gesture I will never forget. They responded promptly and empathically. How impressive that the Red Sox organization has a culture of caring about its fans. Within hours, I received a reply from Sue Denny who is the Customer Service manager, to assure me that a game ball would be coming my way. ![]() I intended to give my ball to my grandson who is a baseball player and avid fan.This Sunday morning I wrote to the Red Sox organization to share my sad story. I know that people scurry for these balls, but he was beyond decent behavior. He told his wife, seated next to him, and she said he was wrong and they even argued. I objected and he told me I was obnoxious. But, the man seated next to me grabbed it instead and kept it. I stood up, raised my seat and reached for the ball. A foul ball came towards me and ultimately landed under my seat. This past Friday I attended a spring training game at JetBlue stadium. ![]() Just maybe they would put down their video game for an afternoon and get interested in creating something real. These are the biggest, most impressive radio-controlled planes you will ever see - gas, electric and real jets. at Seahawk field on Wilmington Parkway in Cape Coral. I doubt if any young people are reading this in a real newspaper but if they are and they would like to see what they might be able to do, the "Gathering of the Giants" is Saturday, March 18, 10 a.m. It was not a high game score somewhere in space - it was real. But at the end of the day, we had created something we could see, play with, hold and be proud of. We learned to repair them when they did crash and our allowance was spent in the local hobby shop every week. Many of us built model cars, played with model trains, built planes from balsa that required us to follow plans, use glue and paint, and assemble the planes in the hope we wouldn't crash them the next day at the school yard or park. The realization that we come from a time before cell phones, video games, social media, selfies and computers, we had to do other things for fun. Of the 35-40 pilots that day, only two were younger people. I had an interesting insight the other day at the field. I'm an old guy and I fly radio-controlled planes. But as we forge a hurricane recovery plan, we need to at least consider all of our residents - the rich and the “regular.” We must acknowledge the very real threat of becoming an island inhabited exclusively by the staggeringly wealthy.īill Mason, Naples Come see radio-controlled planes Maybe there isn’t a viable way to nurture economic diversity post Ian. If these entrepreneurs don’t get help soon, they will be forced to relocate off the island. Can the city do anything to help these people, the ones who can’t immediately afford to remodel according to newer, more stringent building codes? And what about plans to replace the affordable units operated by Community Housing Resources (CHR), which were devastated by Ian? I’ve also heard from several shop owners who want to reopen, but have been stymied by landlords, who have their own storm-related headaches to negotiate. But what about those who live in (relatively) inexpensive homes, or Periwinkle Park. Rich people can afford to get their houses fixed, can find a way to make them as storm-resistant as possible, can opt to self-insure. As we recover from Ian, I have not heard anyone in a leadership position talk about protecting the island’s more vulnerable population. ![]() It is not solely a playground for the One Percent. But it is also a “real” city, with a school, small, locally owned shops and fixed-income retirees. No doubt about it, there is a lot of wealth here. But another - equally compelling - reason I fell hard for this place is that it is economically diverse. The Sanibel Plan, drafted so many years ago, has presciently protected us from the high-rises and chain stores that could have spoiled the island. Like most of us, I fell in love with Sanibel’s natural beauty - the spectacular beaches, the spellbinding sunsets, the vast swaths of undeveloped land.
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