August 2010
By Mick Lochridge

Shear horror at the barbershop

Mike McKinley was a long drink of water, as my old man used to say, with a head of snow-white hair. Mike had the hair; the old man was bald. Mike and I moved to Texas the same summer of 1968, two Deep South rednecks (me, Mississippi; he, Alabama) in the same Dallas suburb subdivision.

June 2010
By Mick Lochridge

Journals give us the inside scoop

The idea was for the 26 plein-air artists of the Winter Park Paint Out to keep daily journals of their week, sharing their thoughts as they worked, their choices of locations, interactions with onlookers.

June 2010
By Mick Lochridge

What to collect? It can be an easy pick

Myrtle Lochridge kept two metal woodpecker toothpick holders on her dining room table. Each bird sat on a log that held the toothpicks, and to retrieve one you pushed the two sharp points of the beak into the pile of picks, forking one. It was momentary entertainment for a kid at his grandmother’s home. When Granny passed away, my mother inherited the house and asked if there were anything there I wanted. That’s where the collection started…

May 2010
By Mick Lochridge

For rubber-neckers, sinkhole was a ‘hole’ lot of fun

Jake Vest and I were working on the newsroom copy desk at the Orlando Sentinel that weekend in May 1981 when the Winter Park sinkhole gobbled up a woman’s home, a swimming pool, a chunk of roadway and several fancy cars. Sinkholes in Florida were nothing new even then, but this was no run-of-the-mill sinkhole in the middle of a cow pasture. This baby was huge, and it was smack in the middle of busy Winter Park. It was one of those things you just had to see for yourself…

April 2010
By Mick Lochridge

The scene: A crowded restaurant on a Saturday night.
The occasion: A one-year anniversary dinner for the new Baptist preacher and his wife.
The tale: There were six hungry couples, waiting patiently for a birthday party to finish and leave so we could have the two tables. Unfortunately, the birthday girl and her pals were in absolutely no rush to vacate the premises. They lingered after they finished eating. They lingered after she opened her presents. They lingered after they paid the check. In fact, they lingered while ignoring the waiters who were leaning against the wall waiting for them to go. Did I mention the restaurant was packed?

February 2010
By Mick Lochridge

Skinny dipping at Lake Claire when Roach was BDOC
Technically, Roach was my brother’s dog. A mutt terrier with a wink and a smile, he was not one to be left behind when I set off for the UCF campus on my bike. Or even when I went to class.  Here’s a years-later thanks to all the professors that semester who let Roach lie quietly and still under my desk.  What’s the chance of that happening today at UCF, the largest university in Florida and the third largest in the nation?

January 2010
By Mick Lochridge

Radio can build a tuned-in, connected community
Paul is dead. That’s when I started listening to a radio late into the night to hear DJs debating the supposed clues of McCartney’s fate. It was 1969, and a six-transistor AM radio was a good friend to a pimply kid in a new high school. AM stations played Dylan and the Doors. Tell the parents goodnight, click on the radio and put it under the pillow...

December 2009
By Mick Lochridge

Reap what you sow… It’s true in the garden and on the job
A year ago I was pulling out the last okra from the garden and thinking about what to plant for fall and winter … greens, onions, potatoes … it was October. The economy was on the verge of disaster, and I was still drawing severance after 32? years at the Orlando Sentinel.

November 2009
By Mick Lochridge

The past is our present to you this month: Consider Winter Park’s historical roots
George Conger was a true Georgia cracker. A farmer who had made his way to Central Florida before Disney World and before the East-West Expressway, he was my boss for most of 1973 at a USDA citrus farm on Hiawassee Road. He and I made up the labor crew for the PhDs from the federal agency’s Horticultural Research Laboratory on Princeton Street.