Marcophiles: New Years ‘toast’

By Keith Dameron / Special to the Eagle

This piece of art stands proudly on Marco Island. Do you know what it is and where it is? First to answer (see item in this column for details) wins a $50 U.S. Savings Bond, courtesy Orion Bank.

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Professional theater is in play at the Gulfshore Playhouse in Naples. Next up: 'Singing Down the House' with performer Brian Lane Green.

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Professional theater is in play at the Gulfshore Playhouse in Naples. Next up: 'Singing Down the House' with performer Johnny Rodgers.

If you’re new to our Macrophages column you may not know that every other week we give you a chance to win a $50 U.S. Savings Bond from Orion Bank on Marco.

Here’s how it works: We print a photo of a place or thing on Marco or nearby. The first person to e-mail us with the correct answer wins the savings bond.

We’ll contact the winner and publish his/her name in a subsequent Marcophiles column.

The winner of this “Sneak Peek” secret photo contest last time correctly identified the object in the picture as the time capsule pyramid at the San Marco Catholic Church.

Several of you got it right but the first to reach us was Jay Polson. Orion Bank General Manager Keith Dameron has contacted Mr. Polson to arrange for the savings bond prize.

We only have a couple of rules. One is that no employee or family of employees of Orion Bank and the Marco Eagle can enter the contest. Another is that once you win one, you can’t win another for a while. We haven’t figured out how long a while is.

Also we welcome photos you think would be good candidates for the Marcophiles Sneak Peek contest. E-mail them to us please.

Now, look at the photo accompanying this column labeled Marcophiles Sneak Peek.

What is that and where on Marco Island is it located? First right answer wins one of those cool $50 U.S. Savings Bonds from Orion Bank.

To win, you must send your guesses to chris@chriscurle.com and/or don@donfarmer.com.

Lively and live

If your January is a let down from the blizzard of holiday activity, check out the upcoming stage production by the Gulfshore Playhouse at the Norris Center in Naples.

It’s “Singing Down the House — Brain Lane Green and Johnny Rodgers in Concert,” Jan. 16 and 17, a show done in a cabaret-style setting.

These guys have resumes and experience that may exceed their status as celebrities, but that won’t last long.

Brian Lane Green has a Tony Award nomination from his work on Broadway, where he appeared in “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” among other shows.

TV soap opera fans may recognize him from roles on “Days of Our Lives,” “Another World” and “All My Children.”

Johnny Rodgers is an award-winning songwriter-singer-pianist, who most recently played the Palace Theater on Broadway with Liza Minnelli.

Gulfshore Playhouse is professional theater with performers coming here from around the nation. For more information about “Singing Down the House” and to buy tickets, phone 213-3049.

A penny pinching tip and ‘The Tale of the Toaster’

When economic times are tough, some Americans accustomed to buying stuff pretty much whenever they want are struggling to conserve money and limit their purchases.

Now comes an idea on how to do that from a Remax Realty newsletter.

“Master the Thirty Day Rule,” it’s called. “Whenever you are considering making an unnecessary purchase, wait 30 days and then ask yourself whether you still want that item.

“Quite often you will find the urge to buy has passed and you’ll have saved yourself some money by simply waiting.

“You can even keep a ’30 day list’ writing down the item and the day you’ll reconsider it, but perhaps you should keep this one in your head. That way, you might just forget about the unimportant things.”

For some of us, putting off things, such as chores, is a way of life. Trouble is, the need to do the chores usually doesn’t fade in 30 days.

When things are involved in one’s delayed gratification, nobody was better at that than my late parents.

They got a toaster for a wedding present in 1934 and it was still in their Marco condo, in working condition, when Dad passed away in 1999. That’s a lot of toast, almost every morning for 65 years.

Every time someone would see that heavy hulk-of-a-toaster and wondered why Mom and Dad didn’t get a fancy new one, they’d say something like, “Why? Toast is toast and this thing still works OK.”

We bought a spiffy new toaster about five years ago. We think it could toast everything from bialys to Wonder bread but the up-down handle fell off within a year.

One more example of delayed consumer goods gratification involves our clothes washer and dryer. We bought them new when we built our house here in 1993. They still work, even thought they sometimes sound like we’re washing or drying tires or conch shells in there. Moreover, I’m guessing these ancient appliances use more water than a car wash and more electricity than Times Square at night.

But they still work and may outlast us.