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McLachlan to perform with orchestra at zoo

By
Vicki Kroll
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Sarah McLachlan. Photo by Raphael Mazzucco.

Taking the stage with an orchestra wasn’t something Sarah McLachlan was eager to do.

“I had a terrible experience many years ago at the Vatican in Rome playing for the pope — that’s another long story,” she said and laughed. “It was with a symphony there, and it was just an awful experience; everything went wrong that could have possibly gone wrong, and it left a very bad taste in my mouth.”

Her agent persisted and convinced her to try it again last summer.

“I did four shows and I fell in love with it. It’s so amazing to have that incredible surge and power behind me,” McLachlan said during a call from her home in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Sarah McLachlan. Photo by Raphael Mazzucco

“I’ve been playing a lot of these songs for many years; to be able to reinvent them like this is really thrilling.”

“Possession,” “Sweet Surrender,” “Fallen” and “Loving You Is Easy” are songs the Canadian superstar may perform when her symphony tour stops at the Toledo Zoo for a 7:30 p.m. concert June 27, 2012. Tickets are $50.50 or $70.50.

Her music resonates with the masses. Think “I Will Remember You” and “Angel.”

“I’m always surprised that so many people love my music and so many people can take something that I created and make it their own, which is really one of the greatest validations one can have as an artist. That people come up to me all the time and say this song has done so much for them, it’s helped them through a hard time, you know, because that’s what music is.

“For me, it’s so powerful and it’s such a cathartic thing to listen to music, to play music,  and it’s helped me through so many hard times,” McLachlan said.

That power inspired her to start the Sarah McLachlan School of Music, a free program for youth in Vancouver who can’t aff ord music lessons. Th e goal: encourage confi dence and creativity.

“I really feel like music saved mylife in a lot of ways,” the singer-songwriter said. “There  were a lot of pretty tough girls in my school, and I became a target because I cried easily. I had no support at home. I was pretty much on my own with it.

“So I just disappeared into music, and I knew instinctively that I was really good at it. It felt really good; it made me feel good; it made me feel that I had something worthy to offer.

Rathbun: Buy the rumor, sell the news

By
Gary Rathbun
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Let me begin this column by correcting an error in my last column.  In the second paragraph I made the statement that GM took 50.2 million taxpayer dollars.  What I should have said was that GM took 50.2 billion taxpayer dollars.  This makes my calculations on dollars spent per job accurate.  Thank you, my readers for pointing out the error. 

This last week was a textbook case for a common thought process when it comes to investing, buy the rumor and sell the news.  Late last week we started to hear noise that Spain was going to ask for a bailout in their banking system — The rumor.  Over the weekend we got the word that Spain did indeed ask for a bailout and it was going to happen — The news.

On Monday after the market opened we got an initial bump up until all of the news was digested and then the market dropped. 

This week is more of the same in that the Greek elections are going to happen on Sunday.  There are many rumors going around as to which party is going to the get the majority and form a new government.  The speculation revolves around who wins the majority; will it be the party that believes in austerity measures or the party that wants to keep the status quo of borrowing and spending. 

The reason people buy the rumor is just in case it is true they don’t want to be left out if the market goes up.  Then they sell the news because most of the time, no matter what the news is, it doesn’t measure up to the hype of the rumor. 

The fact of the matter is that no matter what happens in Greece this weekend they are still in big trouble financially and will probably leave the Euro so they can inflate their way out of the debt.   

 The people of Greece see what is going to happen and have been withdrawing their money out of the banks to the tune of 125 million dollars of Euro’s a day.  The government is getting very desperate for funds since the tax collections are way down in recent months.  To this end, the Greek government has taken to simply pulling funds directly out of citizen’s bank accounts, if they are suspected of being a tax cheat. 

 Italy is even worse in that they have frozen people out of the accounts totally.  No ATM withdrawals, no bill payments, nothing.  Just locked out overnight. 

 These actions are what are known as capital controls.  These controls restrict the free flow of capital into, out of, through and within a nations border.  Can you say “Ex-patriot act”? 

 Capital controls can take many forms.  For example:  

Withdrawal limits, either amounts or timelines 

Forcing banks and/or citizens to hold government debt. 

 Criminalizing the purchase and ownership of precious metals 

 Fixing an official exchange rate. 

Criminalizing market-based transactions. 

Very quickly, capital controls eliminate most of your liberty and generally makes your money worthless.  The completion of capital controls essentially makes the citizen a slave since you no longer have free access to your money and you cannot barter for anything without breaking the law. 

I am often asked why I spend so much time talking and writing about the European situation.  It is because this is the path we are on, they are just a few years ahead of us.  We have time to avoid this disaster.  We need to have the right leadership in Washington, D.C. and, more importantly, we need to have individual leadership. 

We, as individuals, need to educate and be aware of what is happening over there so we can recognize it happening over here.  What would you do if all of your accounts were frozen at the bank?  Do you have an alternative medium of exchange? Important questions to be sure. 

In the coming weeks we will answer some of these questions.  In the meantime, hope for the best but prepare for the worst. 

Gary L. Rathbun is the president and CEO of Private Wealth Consultants, LTD. 

Treece: Don’t elect idiots

By
Dock David Treece
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What’s going on right now is perhaps the biggest case of “I told you so” in the
past half-decade, and it’s far too relevant to ignore.

Before Barack Obama was ever elected president I wrote that he was not equipped for the office. As a junior senator and former community organizer, he simply didn’t have the working knowledge of an enterprising private sector required to make an economy work.  The man had never run anything in his life.

So when Obama moved into the White House and Democrats gainedcontrol in both houses of Congress, I knew it was going to be a long four years. Here was perhaps the most left-leaning administration ever, coupled with probably the most liberal Congress since the New Deal — not exactly a great mix when the economy was in the toilet and businesses were struggling to stay afloat.

But I gave them a chance. Week after week, month after month I watched things develop. I weighed in here and there on little tweaks that ought to have been made to keep
the recovery going.

After all, I, like the rest of the global business community, was looking for sustainability.

Not surprisingly my warnings — like those of the entire private sector — went unheeded. While Obama and Nancy Pelosi campaigned for Obamacare and cap and trade, no changes were made in policy to allow the struggling economic recovery to maintain itself.

Now, as predicted, we’re starting to see things stall; and as with most major changes in economic circumstances — especially within an industrial economy, which the U.S. is, like it or not — it all starts with steel. A recent article in The Wall Street Journal points out that steelmakers are now bracing for problems, and many are closing plants.

What’s really startling about this development is that just six months ago U.S. automakers literally couldn’t get any more steel from their distributors, because the distributorscouldn’t
get any more from their mills. There was, it seemed, a real shortage in steel — which is a great sign in any industrial economy.

Now it’s clear that there has always been a shortage — of intelligence in Washington. The past several years have made it abundantly clear that most of our so-called “leaders” in Washington, D.C., are absolutely incompetent. Many literally don’t have a clue; they couldn’t run a dishwasher, let alone an economy.

All I can do at this point is pray that, come January, Mitt Romney can provide some real leadership.

At this point I can safely guarantee that Obama won’t win re-election.

He simply can’t get the economy moving quickly enough to lower unemployment and raise GDP growth before November. But until then, we’re stuck.

Thankfully, this is likely a short-term setback; the long-term, post-Obama prospects still remain very bright for the U.S. economy. Another Journal article recently showcased a surging number of companies lining up to issue bonds so they can lock in interest rates as low as they’ve been in a half-century or more.

With the money they accumulate from issuing bonds, many of those companies will (hopefully) finance expansion projects, just as I’ve predicted. Their rush has been to lock in low rates before they begin creeping back up and borrowing becomes more expensive.

What businesses have been waiting for — and they are now finding — has been some kind of certainty. Right now, they’re becoming increasingly certain that Obama won’t win a second term, and that the outlook for business in this country will improve.

As more businesses and investors become certain of that the market — and the economy — will begin to move in the right direction.

Dock David Treece is a partner with Treece Investment Advisory Corp (www. TreeceInvestments.com) and is licensed with FINRA through Treece Financial Services Corp. He provides expert content to numerous media outlets. The above information is the express opinion of Dock David Treece and should not be construed as investment advice or used without outside verification.

Andrew Z signs multiyear contract with Star 105

By
Jeff
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Andrew Z, left, AND Morning Crew members (from top center) Calen Savidge, Danny Palicki, Michelle Z and Brandon Doriot. Toledo Free Press photo by Joseph Herr.

The Vibe was a test Andrew Z and his morning radio crew passed with flying colors.

Last July, Cumulus Media took a risk, offering unemployed radio host Andrew Zepeda a morning slot on its new low-wattage station 100.7 The Vibe, despite Zepeda’s ongoing legal issues.

In March, Cumulus promoted the show to higher-wattage Star 105 (105.5 FM), displacing “Tim and Jeff in the Morning,” which moved to Cumulus’ Northwest Arkansas market. Now Zepeda and his team have signed a multiyear contract to keep “Andrew Z in the Morning: The People’s Show” on Star 105 through December 2015. Th e morning show airs from 5:30 – 10 a.m. weekdays.

“[The Vibe] was basically a tryout to see if this town could support another Top-40 radio station and if this station would support me again and overwhelmingly the answer was yes,” Zepeda said.

Listener support

Matt Spaulding, Cumulus Media vice president and Toledo/Monroe market manager, said Zepeda is correct in feeling Th e Vibe was a test.

“That’s absolutely a true statement,” Spaulding said. “He did a tremendous job on The Vibe. The public, the listeners, they truly supported him even though he had some minor signal-related or coverage issues. He still had a tremendous following at that station. It was only a matter oftime, I guess I would say, before he earned the right to move over to Star 105.”

The Vibe, now known as 100.7 The Zone, is 87 watts while Star 105 is 4,300 watts.

“You can’t even describe how small that is,” Zepeda said of The Vibe. “It didn’t even cover all of Toledo. When the wattage is that small, even the weather can affect it tremendously. There were days where we couldn’t even get it [at home] in Perrysburg. Now we’re playing on a fair plane with all the other signals in town.”

Spaulding said he is confident Zepeda’s show will be competitive.

“There’s really no doubt in my mind,” Spaulding said. “We’re already starting to see the effects of it, where various features, components, ideas, concepts he launches on his station are being mimicked with competing stations right here in the market, which I think it is a tribute to him.

“His energy is infectious. It’s a rarity in this industry to have somebody who’s so hands on. It’s not as if he shows up to a shift , gets on-air, does his shift , a little prep work and heads home. He lives it, he breathes it, he sleeps it. He’s constantly calling my phone, at least three to four times a day, with new ideas or new ways of doing things or concepts, you name it. I mean, you want to talk about an aggressive competitor, Andrew Z is absolutely it.”

Nothing changes

Listeners won’t notice any changes to the show as the result of the new contract, Zepeda said.

“Nothing changes; it’s just more permanent now. Th ey don’t want us to change anything, which is why they signed everybody to make sure everyone stays together,” Zepeda said. “They’re also talking expansion (syndication), possibly into other cities so that we’re excited about that.”

Cast members Brandon Doriot, Donny Palicki, aka “Donny P,” and Calen Savidge said they are proud to have earned a multiyear contract, but know they can’t stop striving.

“Just because we have a contract doesn’t meant we have job security,” Doriot said. “If wearen’t good, they’ll fire us regardless of whether  we have this contract.”

“It feels good knowing they want us to be in it for the long haul, but just as in anything else, there’s no guarantees,” Palicki added. “If we don’t kick some serious butt we won’t behere in threeyears, so it’s just more of an incentive to kick some serious ass.”

The contract boosts Zepeda to earning “a considerable amount more” money than he was making at Clear Channel’s KISS FM, Zepeda said.

Clear Channel did not renew Zepeda’s contract in December 2010 shortly after he pleaded guilty to three felony charges related to failing to pay sales taxes and orchestrating an October 2010 break-in at a pizzeria he formerly owned at Levis Commons in Perrysburg.

Zepeda avoided prosecution by entering an intervention program for alcohol abuse. All charges will be cleared from his record if he successfully completes the two-year
supervision program, which ends Feb. 4, 2013.

Zepeda said staying out of establishments that serve alcohol — one of the stipulations of his intervention — was difficult at first, but getting easier.

“Oh my gosh, it was so hard, but you have to accept it. Otherwise it will drive you crazy and there’s nothing you can do,” Zepeda said. “It’s easier for me now because I’m so used to it. I’ve missed so many big fun events, I’m just kind of over it. It doesn’t faze me. I’m just chugging along. I’m about three-quarters of the way done. Of course I still have to pay the restitution and then it will be completely over with.”

More to prove

Zepeda said he feels somewhat vindicated, but isn’t finished proving himself.

“We still have roads to go. It’s only been a couple of months. We’re starting to get some success. That’s why they moved us. But until we’re back at No. 1, to me, that’s when it will fully hit,” Zepeda said. “There’s going to be people that like you and there’s going to be people that don’t and you’re not going to change anyone’s opinion. All we can continue to do is do what we think is good radio and fun and just have a good time.

“The worst time was not having an outlet to do what I’ve done for over 20 years. Th at was the hardest time, but now that we get to do this every day and just have a good time and hang out with my friends, everything else will fall into place and it has.”

Zepeda has already lived in Toledo longer than anywhere else in his two-decade radio career. By the end of his new contract, it will be 10 years.

“In this business, it’s hard to find any stability. You’re always moving around,” Zepeda said. “It’s nice to know you’re going to be stable and you’re finally at the point where you’ve reached enough success that you don’t have to move around anymore. We love it here. Our kids were born here,we have a house here, our family moved here. We’re going to be here a long time.”

Szyperski: Spring Break 2012

By
Shannon Szyperski
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I sometimes wonder if teachers have any idea what they start when they send home certain assignments.

For example, we recently encountered a bit of homework-induced family upheaval from a seemingly innocuous exercise in using future tense.

The homework’s prompt was simple enough at first: “Write a paragraph telling what you and your family will be doing over Spring Break this year. Be sure to make your verbs future tense.”

Yet, what is simple for some turns into a rather touchy situation for others. My family would be the “others” in this scenario. Since my husband, Mike, and I hadn’t mentioned anything, our son, Jack, immediately inquired about our spring break plans so that he could bang out his paragraph and get on with more important things like playing video games and arguing with his sister.

My guess is that he was secretly excited to hear what fantastic, well-planned adventures we had in store for him during his academic hiatus. However, I’m quite certain my confused and nervous stammering quickly doused his hopes of a surprise Disney-type vacation.

“Hmm, let me go talk to Daddy for a minute.”

At least we weren’t caught completely unprepared. In fact, Mike and I had already discussed a few regional getaway options. However, after some debate about whether we were ready to leave our new dog at home alone overnight and whether our getaway options would be better summertime activities, we had semi-decided on a more unconventional option.

In an unprecedented move, we had agreed to possibly take the money we would have spent on travel and buy a new TV with it.

Before judgement is passed on the legitimacy of our idea to trade family togetherness for a 40-inch flat-panel LCD, let me at least introduce our current TV.

The front panel broke off when we hauled it to a restaurant for my mom’s 60th surprise birthday party, which was seven years ago. No doubt that such a thing is only a minor cosmetic issue and, despite that little abdominal scar, the TV has continued to function in an acceptable manner.

Indeed, there have been times when we thought we might be losing her. A weird light spot here and there or an odd flip of the screen and we assumed we might finally be headed for flat-panel land.

Yet, she has always seemed to make a miraculous recovery, which I hate to admit has been increasingly disappointing as the years go by.

As much as I usually advocate for the appreciation and preservation of an object with history, I can’t help but want to put the ol’ girl, aka our 27-inch Panasonic, out of our misery. At this point, her remote is long gone and she is missing three of her six on-set buttons, the only pieces we had left of her original control system.

We can still flip through the TV/Video options and turn the channel, but it now takes a pencil, some surgical skills and a bit of patience. I have to be honest, the use-a-pencil process has grown tiresome.

Furthermore in our defense, had we known that televisions would become significantly thinner and produce a superior picture just a couple of years after we bought ours, we wouldn’t have spent so much time making sure we picked out the most reliable model. Still, we accepted that we were stuck with our once-stellar choice. Until now.

After some very quick discussion, Mike and I decided to reveal our whole mini-vacation-turned-TV-staycation plan to Jack. His reaction was mixed. While he was excited at
the prospect of a new TV, he was disappointed that it still didn’t come with ESPN.

While he was glad to finally have something to write about, he rightfully declared, despite my urging, that he would not be explaining what we were originally going to do as part of his paragraph. In his words, “that would be the past tense.”

In attempting to keep with his future tense instructions, he instead went with: “My family and I will be getting a flat-screen TV on Spring Break. I will be watching a lot of TV shows when we get the TV. I will also be having a great time when I get my new TV.”

Please tell the award committee to send our “Parents of the Year” prize to our home next month, as we will no doubt be there “watching a lot of TV shows.”

✯ Shannon Szyperski and her husband, Michael, are raising three children in Sylvania. Email her at letters@toledo freepress.com.

Miller: Disservice with a smile

By
Michael Miller
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Customer service is a fascinating topic. Given the wide range of human emotion, intelligence and civility, there is no single approach to customer service that is going to be successful 100 percent of the time.
The Golden Rule (“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” for those unfamiliar with that timeless advice) should be foolproof, except for the fact that  there are so many fools aggressively seeking to prove it isn’t.
Many of my jobs throughout the years have depended on customer service skills, which is the primary reason my current employment revolves around many hours spent alone with a computer. When it comes to dealing with hostility, stupidity and the deadly cross section of the two where so many people dwell, my people skills fall somewhere between wolverine and mockingbird.
For example, when I open the rare email from someone seeking to stop their newspaper delivery, there are generally two paths.

The first path is an email that reads, “Thank you for delivering Toledo Free Press each week, but for Reason X, could you please take me off your distribution list?” Even though I have no hand in delivery, I try to personally respond to such emails and quickly guide the customer through the process.

The second path is an email that reads, “STOP LITTERING MY DRIVEWAY, YOU SUCK AND I’M CALLING THE POLICE!!! $@#@^&#%.” I pass those emails to Circulation without comment, then carefully record the email address of the sender in my copy of the Necronomicon.
I experienced an interesting customer service interaction June 2, 2012, at the Busch’s grocery store in Saline, Mich. It was a quick stop to get Sunday breakfast. My wife and I had a rare at-home night without our little boys, so on impulse, I stopped by the adult beverage case and picked up one of her favorites, Mike’s Hard Lemonade, black cherry flavor.

At the register, the clerk rang up the few items from my cart, and the woman who was bagging groceries asked, “Paper or plastic?” to which I replied, “Plastic, thanks.”
“Would you like your milk in a bag?” she asked.
“Please,” I said.
“Would you like your girlie drinks in a bag?” she asked.
I stopped in mid-credit card swipe, looked at the clerk, whose eyes had gone wide, and said/laughed/choked, “Wow.”
The clerk said something I didn’t quite catch and the bagger replied with something along the line of “Well, it’s a fruity drink,” a phrase which can be interpreted in at least two ways: “The drink itself is fruity” and “The purchaser of said drink is fruity.”

Since these are not mutually exclusive propositions, that’s at least three possible interpretations.
I was more amused than offended, but I could see the clerk was not comfortable.

“Tell her you bought them for Shannon,” she said. That threw me off for a second — how did she know my wife’s name? — until I realized my credit card must have brought up our customer loyalty information.
The bagger was grinning mischievously, and I studied her to make sure she was a stranger and not someone who knew me well enough to push her luck with her oddly aggressive comments.
I was still more amused than offended.
After all, a hundred years ago, when I was acting like a lone wolf, circling around women like I was shopping and assuming every one of them was a member of the Coalition of the Willing, my drink of choice was Zima, so I’ve never confused heterosexual
prowess with manly drinks like whiskey or Two-Buck Chuck.
Still, it wasn’t mutual sparring — I wasn’t speculating on her sexuality or returning her vollies.
I paid and walked the short distance to pick up my plastic bags. As the bagger handed me the last one, she leaned in and asked, “Did you want the little pink umbrellas to go with your girlie drinks?”
I had not engaged in her game — it’s a dangerous dynamic for an older male to make playful or mock-aggressive comments to a young woman, especially when lured into innuendo/sexuality territory. Especially for me, as I tend to go from zero to nuclear, seeking permanent, scarring damage instead of gentle ribbing. But she continued to take shots, and I thought, “Now you’re kind of crossing the line.”

“Now you’re kind of crossing the line,” I said out loud, as she turned to help the next customer. I already knew she had gifted me with a column idea, so I stepped back and
asked, “What’s your name?” and saw “Kimberly” on her plastic name tag as she jokingly tried to cover it.
Her last words as I walked away were a mock (I assume) “I know people.”
“And I’m going to introduce you to 200,000 more people next Sunday,” I thought to myself as I walked out.

There’s no way for me to know if Kimberly is Saline’s version of Chelsea Handler or if she just took one look at me and decided I would either be amenable to her jokes or incapable of firing back.

I was neither, as she now knows. Good for Kimberly that she is comfortable enough in her role as grocery bagger to playfully question a customer’s manhood and sexuality based on his drink purchase. Good for Kimberly that she must feel her jabs can be separated from what a more sensitive person might construe as a bullying form of homophobia.
Kimberly’s comments certainly won’t stop me from shopping at Busch’s.

But the next time I’m buying Mike’s Hard Lemonade, maybe I’ll stop a mile down the road at the Country Market.

They may even sell little pink umbrellas.

✯
Michael S. Miller is editor in chief of Toledo Free Press and Star.

Happy Father’s Day, Dad: Can I have the car keys please?

By
Toledo Free Press
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It’s become an epidemic, just as we thought it might:  Baby Boomers became a sandwich generation and, while we fondly recall trying to convince dad to loan us the car keys, it is becoming more necessary and problematic to actually coax keys away from aging parents.

.

Noticing the increasing number of dings in our folks’ car fenders, doors and bumpers makes us shudder at the thought of having “the talk.” Families argue over whether or not it’s really necessary. They mimic dad and mom’s excuses: “There hasn’t been an accident … yet.”  “I’ll know when to give up driving.” “You’ll take my car keys out of my cold, dead hands.”

It is a rite of passage, a badge of freedom, when we earn that driver’s license, and it is the beginning of the end of independence when we have to give it up. Public transportation being all but nonexistent in this area is one of many issues. And fear of our parents’ wrath seems to stand in the way of doing what we know is the right thing.

When is it the right time? Well, kind of like Alcoholics Anonymous tells you: If you are wondering if there’s a problem then there’s probably a problem.

Talking to your parents’ physician is a good place to start.  Often the response from the physician will be, “You mean they still drive?” Doctors don’t notice who brings someone to the appointments, whether the patient is driving themselves or not, and might not want to broach the subject event if they are reaching an age when driving may become problematic.  In Ohio, a physician can write a letter or fill out a Bureau of Motor Vehicles form recommending a person be retested, regularly tested or not be allowed to drive.  But how can he or she objectively come to that conclusion, unless there is a clear and definitive diagnosis which precludes driving — such as advanced dementia?

Options for objectivity

In Toledo we have two programs for evaluating a person’s ability to drive: One at Flower Hospital, (419) 824-1968, and one at University of Toledo Medical Center, (419) 383-5040, in which occupational therapists evaluate a driver’s reflexes, cognition, problem-solving and on-road driving ability using a vehicle with a brake on the passenger side.

Medicare covers 80 percent of this evaluation and a secondary insurance should pick up the remainder.  This evaluation results in a written report and recommendations by the therapists to the physician, client and family, and may include suggestions such as driver’s retraining, limiting driving to certain conditions (daytime, close proximity to home, good weather) or may recommend no driving.  The program cannot revoke a person’s license, but the recommendations go to the physician.

If your physician is reluctant to make such a referral or address the issue, consider putting your request in writing and copying the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. One reluctant physician contacted the daughter of a client and told her, “Now that it has been put into writing, I am legally responsible if your father should have an accident.” Transportation solutions

So mom and dad can no longer drive.  Now what?

Senior Centers Inc. offers transportation services for seniors, (419) 242-9511, is a low-cost option that can help seniors and disabled persons receive cab and ambulette rides twice a month to physician appointments. Some senior centers have transportation to and from activities. TARPS is another option, (419) 382-9901.

If your parents are fortunate enough to have some assets available, hiring a companion service can be a good option, especially since they probably should have someone in attendance at physician appointments.  The number of companion home health agencies in this area has tripled in the past 10 years. Shop around and interview several before settling. Cost can vary from $15 to $22 per hour with two- to four-hour minimum scheduling. The companion can also provide some light housekeeping, companionship, cooking assistance and other services.

The important thing is not to play ostrich on this issue. Too often we see people driving who should probably not be. Road rage remains problematic, putting seniors and others at even more risk if they are not vigilant drivers.  The Bureau of Motor Vehicles often passes someone’s driver’s license renewal by giving prompts on the vision portion — the only real screening portion of the renewal process (“Don’t you see the flashing light on the right side there?” I’ve heard with my own ears while standing in line at the BMV).

Here’s a clue: If a person has trouble walking, is suffering from short-term memory loss, has a progressive chronic illness or falls frequently, they might not be safe driving.

Please, talk to someone.  Call the Area Office on Aging at (419) 382-0624, your parents’ physician or contact a private geriatric care manager (www.caremanager.org).

While it may not be the Father’s Day gift he was expecting, showing your love by protecting your dad and others could be the best gift of all. The only thing worse than living through taking dad’s car keys away would be attending his funeral, or another’s, caused by a fatal auto crash.

Debra Roidl, MSW, is a certified care manager in the Toledo area.

Renowned painter’s work to be displayed Downtown

By
Toledo Free Press
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You might not have heard of Robert Heindel, but he’s a household name for the Royal British family and members of Japanese royalty.

The Toledo native, who graduated from Central Catholic High School in the 1950s, rose to international fame in the 1970s with his paintings of ballet dancers and opera actors and actresses. Andrew Lloyd Webber commissioned him to paint scenes of “Cats” and “Phantom of the Opera” during dress rehearsals. He painted depictions of dancers in Kabuki theater in Japan. Princess Diana collected a number of his paintings.

His work is permanently on display at the Smithsonian Institution, the Glasgow Museum and the National Portrait Gallery in the United Kingdom, and elsewhere. Before his death, his paintings sold for as much as $55,000 and now they’re selling for $130,000 in the UK, said Colin Rawlings, Heindel’s former agent.

“He’s America’s best-kept secret,” Rawlings said. “He’s celebrated in Japan, he’s celebrated in Europe, but for one reason or another, America never really got it.”

With the goal of telling Heindel’s story so Toledoans can “get it” too, Sur-Saint Clair, at the corner of Washington Avenue and St. Clair Street, will display 25-30 of Heindel’s paintings starting July 18. The gallery will also have original paintings for sale during the course of the exhibition.

The gallery’s goal is to raise $7,000 to cover shipping costs and other fees, as his paintings are coming from all over the country. Richard Rideout and his wife Janet Albright run the gallery.

Major donors will have the opportunity to meet Heindel’s wife, Rose, at the VIP gathering on July 18, Rideout said.

Heindel broke into the art industry by illustrating cars for automobile companies and drawing for magazine covers including TIME and Ladies’ Home Journal.

Rose dragged him to a ballet performance in Detroit shortly after they married and left Toledo in 1963. Although initially unenthusiastic about attending, Heindel was instantly drawn to the dancers’ figures and form.

From then on he became known for painting subtle yet emotional depictions of dancers during rehearsals. But he didn’t just paint their movements, Rawlings said, Heindel took care to weave the subject’s mood and personality into his art.

“He got under the skin of the person he was looking at,” Rawlings said. “If they were having a bad day, you could see it in the drawing.”

Contact Sur-Saint Clair at (419) 241-7100 for more information.

Pounds: Sad hiatus

By
Tom Pounds
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Just days after it released a significant report on how local courts handle domestic violence cases, Independent Advocates (IA) announced it was suspending its operations.

Since 2007, the local organization has primarily been identified with Rebecca Facey and Rachel Richardson, who have worked to improve the community’s response to domestic violence.

“It is amazing to see how much this grassroots organization has been able to achieve with minimal funds and resources,” Facey said in a May 31, 2012, news release. “The passion and commitment of myself and Rachel Richardson as well as countless volunteers, board members and concerned community members has helped create a lasting impact on how Toledo thinks about domestic violence. We have been honored to serve hundreds of survivors of domestic violence in Lucas County.”

IA recently released a report that said of the nearly 1,600 domestic violence cases seen by Toledo Municipal Court in 2011, 79 percent were completely dismissed or reduced to lesser charges while just 2 percent actually went to trial.

“The prosecution relies on the victim to show up in court and testify and, if they don’t, the court doesn’t have a case,” Facey said. “I can say as an advocate having worked with women, their primary goal when they call the police is for the violence that is happening right now to stop. When they come to court, they’re looking for the person to be held accountable so that it doesn’t happen again, and so that the person just doesn’t get away with it. But unfortunately, the message both the victims and defendants are getting is that, ‘If you can get the victim not to come to court, the case goes away.’”

The volunteer-based Court Watch program that assembled the report will continue to operate and collect future data, according to a news release, and Facey said she will continue her schooling so she can continue fighting for domestic violence victims.

“We felt there was a need for comprehensive court advocacy services for victims of domestic violence and we generally felt that the community response to domestic violence needed to be improved drastically,” Facey told Toledo Free Press in 2010. “We want to try to bring domestic violence to the forefront of community members’ minds and the courts’ minds.”

That need still exists, and while the community owes a debt of gratitude to Facey, Richardson and IA, let us hope others will step up to meet that need and continue the legacy of IA’s important work.

 

Thomas F. Pounds is president and publisher of Toledo Free Press and Toledo Free Press Star.

Toledoan chairs Ohio Restaurant Association

By
Brittany Craig
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On June 9, Roger Parker, the operating partner of Toledo’s Mancy Brothers’ Catering was inducted as chairman of the Ohio Restaurant Association (ORA), a trade association of 2,400 members.

Roger Parker of Mancy Brothers’ Catering was recently inducted as chairman of the Ohio Restaurant Association. Photo Courtesy Kris Berger Long

“In itself, [the appointment] brings more attention to the community,” Parker said. “I can facilitate conversations and by doing that, certainly there are issues and concerns local restaurants have and I can certainly put it on the agenda.”

Parker was honored at the Toledo Museum of Art on June 9 at a celebration attended by Dawn Sweeney, president and CEO of the National Restaurant Association. Parker joined the ORA board of directors in 2006 and became a member of its executive committee in 2007. He was also president of the Northwest Ohio Restaurant Association from 2006-08.

The ORA board has sought to promote membership benefits in recent years. The ORA offers legislative advocacy for the industry, an education fund for those in culinary career paths, attorney services, social networking, cost-reducing energy programs and marketing materials to its members.

Parker, a Florence, Kan., native, worked at restaurants and hotels as a youth, but majored in finance at Farleigh Dickinson University. To make money in college, he continued working at eateries.

“The next thing you know, I’m coming out with a degree. I walked into a bank and said, ‘How much can I get paid?’ And I looked at what I was making as a bartender and thought, ‘Wow, wait a minute, this doesn’t make sense.’ And I just stuck with [bartending],” he said.

Parker eventually became assistant beverage manager at le Parker Meridien Hotel in New York City. Over the course of his career, he has worked at the New York Helmsley Hotel, Vista International Hotel and the Grand Hyatt New York.

In 1989, Parker left the Big Apple to manage the largest catering association in Maryland. In 1993, he joined V/Gladieux Enterprises, Inc., which brought him to Toledo. After 17 years with the company, he came on with Mancy’s in 2010 to run the catering division of the company.

Mancy’s Restaurant Group, a Toledo staple since 1921, operates Mancy’s Italian Grill, Mancy’s Steakhouse, Shorty’s and Bluewater Grille. Although Shorty’s already offered catering, Parker worked to expand the catering services of the other three restaurants.

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