Answering some of your questions
Reader queries: How’s Toni Jennings? What’s up with Orlando’s clock? Why are brick streets so bumpy?
Scott, not long ago I spotted Toni Jennings and her family in a restaurant. It reminded me of a time when I sometimes voted for Republicans. What is she doing these days? (Toni looked great, by the way.) Susan
She does indeed look great. We sometimes see each other at the YMCA pool (making her the only lieutenant governor I’ve ever greeted in my swimsuit).
Jennings still helps with her family’s construction company, Jack Jennings & Sons. She just wrapped up a 14-year stint on the Nemours Foundation Board of Directors and still serves on several other business and nonprofit boards.
Jennings said she’s less involved with politics nowadays but will visit Tallahassee this fall for the swearing-in of Senate President Kathleen Passidomo — the first woman to lead the chamber since Jennings did so from 1996 to 2000 — saying: “Way too long to wait.”
From what college did College Park derive its name? Brian
For this, we turn to Central Florida’s queen of history, the Sentinel’s own “Florida Flashback” columnist, Joy Wallace Dickinson. Joy explains: “There’s no one college behind College Park. The name is a great example of Florida real estate developers’ fondness (during the 1920s land boom and since) for choosing names they think will appeal to homebuyers — names that dazzle and sound classy. In this case, the names invoke Ivy League colleges.”
So if you go looking for Edgewater University, you’ll be disappointed.
Is there a single restaurant in Orange County serving our “signature dish” honey nougat glacé?
Ryan
Touché on the glacé question, Ryan. For background: Orange County and Visit Orlando teamed up five years ago to select a “signature dish” for our community and settled on this one … which just about no one had ever heard of before, much less associated with Orlando.
The head-scratching only intensified after the one Winter Park restaurant
known for serving it closed three years ago. I asked two local food writers if they knew of any wellknown places still serving the Italian meringue; they did not. So while it may still be somewhere, the glacé seems passé.
Why do police departments give silly names to big arrests involving serious crimes?
Jan
Fair question, Jan. It almost seems to trivialize heinous crimes — like when Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd recently announced he was holding a “March Sadness” event. Cute name, right? Except it involved charges of human trafficking and child sex. Judd says he does it “to catch attention.”
While cute wordplay may not seem inappropriate to discuss dark deeds, I can’t disagree with the sheriff that media eat it up.
How do you still have a job? You’re awful. John
My understanding is that every time a new billionaire or hedge fund buys the Tribune chain, the new owners pour scotch, light cigars and throw darts at a board to see which journalists they’ll lay off. By luck, my little board bed hasn’t been struck yet, but there’s always the next round.
Does Florida still have a law that requires car lights be turned on when it’s raining? If so, can we get a reminder somehow from the government? J.H.
Consider Florida Highway Patrol Lt. Kim Montes your reminder. She says state law requires car lights running in any inclement conditions, including rain, fog or smoke.
Montes also noted that headlights — not just daytime running lights — activate your car’s tail lights, helping the drivers behind you see your car better as well.
Why can’t we have a two-state solution? Chuck
Some people have long suggested Florida seems more like multiple states, since South Florida and the Panhandle have about as much in common as peas and carburetors. But that’s what makes us unique. And you can’t just give North Florida to Georgia. (I contacted the Georgia governor’s office just to be sure.)
Besides, what sane person would want to absorb the portion of Florida with our Legislature?
Are brick streets unrepairable? It
seems so in my neighborhood. Doug
Doug, I believe you’re referring to the surface inconsistencies common to brick streets known as “differential settlement.” OK, I had no clue what that meant, but after Orlando’s public works director Rick Howard used the term, I wanted to sound smart too.
Howard says brick streets are designed to slow down drivers but aren’t supposed to be intolerable. Still, some seem to rattle the teeth right out of my mouth. Howard said that can be because of the aforementioned settlement where, over time, some bricks sink deeper into the ground than others.
If you think your bricks have settled beyond reason, call your city’s or county’s transportation division. (In Orlando, the number is 407-246-2238.)
Why don’t you run for office?
Jack
Jack, that sounds about as appealing as drilling holes into my skull with a rusty bit. Also, I’m not sure I could get elected chief plate passer at my own dinner table. The kids would probably vote for their mother … and be right to do so.
When will the Orlando clock be put back together? Candice
The iconic clock that stood watch over Orange Avenue in
front of the Orlando Sentinel’s former office came crashing down last year when a motorist plowed into it.
Fortunately, instead of trashing it, the city of Orlando took possession of the pieces with the hopes of resurrecting it somewhere. I heard talk this past week that some ideas are being pitched, but nothing’s formal yet.
Recently, a new stoplight was put on East Colonial Drive near the WMFE building. The cross street is called “Oberry Hoover Road.” I’ve searched to find out who this person is with no luck.
Troy, I ran your question by Orange County’s transportation division, the regional history center and the Sentinel’s Dickinson. No one had a definitive answer, but their best guess is Oberry Hoover probably wasn’t a he or she but rather a they — two different families that owned land nearby.
Dickinson found 1935 newspaper clippings that referred to a Union Park civic leader named J.S. O’Berry, whose name will never be forgotten … even if the apostrophe in it apparently was.