Village Spectator / Lady Lake Magazine

Results from our newspapers Questionnaire November

Question…What will you spend money on next year?

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By TomL

In The Early Days…

I have been reading accounts that Harold Swartz Dream is being changed. All these people talking about Swartz and Morris dream being changed. I met Harold Swartz in the first year he started the Orange Blossom Gardens. That was the Villages first name. In Dunnellon Florida it was Lake Tropicana and Rainbow Lakes Estates. I printed Villages first newspaper in Inverness Florida, Orange Blossom Gardens. I actually recommended an Editor-in-Chief to Harold Swartz that was more than qualified. She lasted about three months. She thought she was going to run a newspaper. Not true.

At that time I met Harold Swartz. Swartz Junior, yes I said Swartz junior and Morris. Swartz Junior was a millionaire playboy. He was not born to make the Villages grow. He wanted to play. They put him in charge of the Golf Courses before they were a big business.

Harold Swartz’ original dream was that he wanted his own city, his own bank, his own grocery stores, and all of his own retail stores. He wanted golf cart access to his whole city. He could not achieve all at once but he came pretty close at the end. The whole idea was to give people of all levels of wealth a millionaire life style. Continue reading →

By TomL

I’m almost happy it’s over. I don’t think justice was served. Half of the country feels that way and the other half feels the other way. Some are elated and the pro-Trumpers don’t seem to be effected. They continue to go to rallies because they like what he has done and where he is going. The United States is on one of the biggest upswings that it has ever experienced. More jobs than ever before, less unemployment, lots of people off food stamps, stock market is continuing to be driven by the middle class because Trump has created enough jobs that people are working, people are spending and manufacturing is up.

I have to hand it to Speaker Pelosi. She is using the Impeachment results as a bargaining chip. It could backfire when people start going to jail because of the real high crime by our top criminal Justice people that started this whole investigation. It will be measured by the number of people that go to jail. I’m pretty sure there will be more than a dozen. But I see the top four people are talking about seven layers of people involved. I don’t believe that.

The mainstream media is not doing the job that the reporters use to do. In fact a few reporters were manufacturing crisis or miss reporting on purpose. They have to create a headline to sell newspapers whether it is true or not. Continue reading →

What I believe was the last Rainbow Springs Cowboy, Dave Springer has passed away. He is survived by his wife Vicki Edmondson Springer. They were living in St Petersburg at the time of his passing.  He was known for his story telling about the history of local cowboys & cowgirls that competed in the rodeos. He will be remembered as a local historian. He remembered names, dates, events, who won, everything you would want to know about different events.

I first met Dave 30 years ago when we hired him to break a horse for us. At the time he was working at the Rainbow Springs attraction Daily Rodeo. He rode twice a day and made $10 per show. They would ride bucking horses and most of the time get thrown off because that’s what the audience came to see. He camped out in Rainbow Springs most of the time. He had a dog with him.

Dave knew everyone and everyone knew him. Some liked him and some did not. But I remember the stories he told about the cowboys and cowgirls. I also remember the stories he told about the local cowboys and their competing to win the top rider. Continue reading →