Old Yeller
Thank you for the article about the water in Palma Nova, the trailer park formerly known as Silver Oaks ("Drink Up," Amy Guthrie, November 20). I grew up in that park. We moved there somewhere around 1986, and I lived there until 1997. This article has scared me to death! My whole family at some point lived in that park, and almost every friend I have to this day I met from living there. I am going to inform everyone I know of this. I think my next step is to head to my doctor. I'm 27, and I do remember being a kid in that park, and I remember the water. It was disgusting. And it had a yellowish tint to it.
Isn't there something that can be done to help these poor innocent families? I just don't see how this can just be swept under the rug. It's obvious that the Formans know of the problem. That's why they are forcing people to sign that waiver. I know a few people from that park who had cancer as well, and one died just about a year ago. I feel so sorry for those people still living there.
Christina Addis
Deerfield Beach
I was a resident of Palm Trace Landings while I attended law school at Nova. My two boys were always sick with parasites and other things during the time we lived there. This makes me sick! And pissed.
Name withheld by request
Via the internet
Ghost of Panther Past
Loved your recent article re the Panthers ("Iced," Thomas Francis, November 13). I think it's the best summary of the team I have ever read. The only problem is that Panthers fans are an endangered species! I think about ten of us pay attention to the team. Jay Boumeester's image is slowly fading from the Panthers' team picture... much like Michael Fox's siblings in the movie Back to the Future.
I have been a Panthers fan since the Stanley Cup run. Initially, I had a share of season tickets, had Panthers license plates, and watched every game on TV. However, after the past ten years, the tickets and the auto plates are gone. After the start of this season, I stopped watching games.
The Panthers are what the Marlins would be without Larry Beinfest. They are the Detroit Lions of hockey. They have been mismanaged like a government program. Years ago, there was a great movie called Mister Roberts, starring Jack Lemmon and Henry Fonda. Fonda was the lead character, who only wanted to get transferred from a Navy supply ship to a battleship so he could fight in the war. Boumeester has become the Panthers' Mister Roberts and rightfully only wants to play in a playoff series. Unfortunately, he is stationed on a supply ship!
Frank Kessler
West Palm Beach
Equal Opportunity Bigotry
Bob Norman's article was long overdue ("Fear of the Queer," November 13). America today is as totally changed from the America of the civil rights era, as the country of Rosa Parks' day was itself a completely different world from that of Teddy Roosevelt. Today, too many African-Americans have come to embody the same pattern of bigoted attitudes that were common among white rednecks or educated dinosaurs who tormented their ancestors. Not only against gays — they get it the worst — but against immigrants, against non-Christians, and especially against black/white interracial couples.
These damned fools need to realize that it is only because Third World immigrants are here in large numbers and because the votes of naturalized citizens are courted by politicians that civil rights laws are taken seriously today. If this country's population were still 92 percent white, bigoted whites would still be easily able to tell them, "Get to the back of the bus, boy!"
Vivek Golikeri
Dania Beach
