Harold Schwartz tagged posts

PLASTICVILLE-USA

THE HISTORIC SIDE…

Greek philosopher Plato is credited for uttering the old saying “necessity is the mother of invention”. Plato’s words have often come true, and when you get right down to it, it is this phrase that explains the beginning of TV.

Back in the day old Harold Schwartz was making a living selling chunks of real estate by mail. While it was perfectly legal, and there’s no indication that Harold was doing anything “dodgy” as they would say in England, but lots of others were and the Feds decided to step in one day and save the terminally stupid from those unscrupulous sellers who were promising cut-rate prices on ocean front property in Nebraska.

When this happened it left Harold with lots of acres in Florida and no easy way to sell them...

PLASTICVILLE-USA

IT DOES NOT FIT..YOU MUST ADMIT!

I have never made any bones about my complete dislike for Villagers. As a group they are the most spoiled, self-centered and obnoxious people that God ever deposited in America. On the other hand, while I am not in favor of what Gary Morse created, I applaud his genius for his ability to lay out such an amazing site and to anticipate the needs of his created community.

People in TV look at Gary as either saint or the earthly creation of Beelzebub himself. Gary’s father on the other hand, Harold Schwartz, is only spoken about in hushed tones as though he was the second coming of Jesus Christ. If there is anything bad to be said about TV it is ALWAYS said about that filth-foul-foul-filth Gary Morse! By the way....

PLASTICVILLE-USA

THE DEATH OF THE VILLAGES…

In the 1980’s and 90’s there was a very popular radio format called “The Music Of Your Life”. Actually “The Music Of Your Life” is a trademarked entity originally designed by a former record company executive named Al Ham. The format was essentially a big-band, 50’s crooners radio format that was designed to reach the children of the great depression and World War-2. A number of competitors sprang up also offering the same sort of package to local radio stations, and in many ways “The Music Of Your Life” essentially became the generic name of the format no matter who sold the various packages, much like “Coke” has become the byword for any sort of cola product.

While the format was extremely popular with the 50+ age gro...

PLASTICVILLE-USA

FOR THE GREATER GOOD???

Recently a thread popped up on my favorite web-board regarding a BBQ restaurant here in the area. The restaurant is located on the eastern end of Route-466A between TV and the little town of Fruitland Park.

The writer was upset that the restaurant wouldn’t agree to her request to wait 20 minutes after their closing time so her husband who was driving in from some place could pick up her order. The writer being a full-blast Villager decided to remind the restaurant that she was a VILLAGER and that she was of course entitled to her every whim being fulfilled.

The bottom line was that restaurant told them they were not going to hang around, and that they really didn’t care if she was a Villager and she could buy her ribs somewhere else.

This of ...

PLASTICVILLE-USA

THE VILLAGES THAT COULDN’T…

There are quite a number of 55+ adult communities in the sunshine state. Few are on the grand scale of TV, most of them resemble or are directly related to the Del Webb empire, and have populations that range from 4,000-10,000 residents. The vast majority of these retirement communities are located near larger cities such as Tampa, Ft. Myers, Miami or Jacksonville. TV and its various local cousins buck that trend by essentially being near NOTHING.

Back when Harold Schwartz went in search of Florida land to buy he picked an area in central Florida that had far more cattle and horses than people. This was land for grazing and growing oranges and watermelons...

PLASTICVILLE-USA

WHY US? WHY NOT??

My mother and father were born in the early 1920’s which meant that they did a lot of growing up during the years of the Great Depression. The parents and children of that time learned a lot of very hard lessons over that time. Lessons that stayed with them all the rest of their lives. Lessons that included thrift, saving and how to recycle just about everything.

The people who lived thru the depression years learned REAL..PRACTICAL recycling, not the kind that’s been adopted today by the politically goofy. These people saved every button and every scrap of cloth. They washed out and reused every tin, bottle and box that could be reused. They KNEW the value of a dollar, and they knew how to save.

One of the things that most depression people learne...

PLASTICVILLE-USA

HARRY COME GARY…

Many times an inventor with a great product can only take his idea to one level and needs someone to..as chef Emeril Legasse would say..”Kick It UP A Few Notches”. Coca-Cola inventor John Pemberton needed Asa Candler. The Mc Donald brothers needed Ray Kroc and in the case of Harold Schwartz, it was his son Gary Morse. Harold planted the original seeds of TV. It would be Gary Morse who would take it to the stratosphere.

Depending on whom you talk to in TV Gary Morse is either a saint among saints or Beelzebub himself. There’s a very odd schizophrenic view about him in TV, but that tends to go with the people who populate the place. Something we’ll talk about later.

In many ways, Gary might well be a modern day Howard Hughes minus the germophobi...

PLASTICVILLE-USA

HARRY…

The long-believed myth of Las Vegas was that one day while driving across old US-91 in Nevada, Ben “Bugsy” Siegel got a vision just outside of the city and decided that in that place he would build the world’s greatest casino, and Ka-Boom! Modern day Vegas was born. That myth got extra life from the 1991 movie “Bugsy”. A great story, but not a lot of truth to it. The myth of TV is much the same. Allegedly, one day out of the blue a lightning bolt hurled by the Almighty himself struck Harold Schwartz right between the eyes and he divinely downloaded the complete vision for what would be called “America’s Friendliest Hometown”..The Villages. And just set about building The Villages much like Noah building the ark...