By Emily Rosen

ERosen424@aol.com

www.emilyrosen424.com

I had never met David Eller in person; despite that, I’ve been writing a column for this paper since — actually I lost count, but my guess would be since the early 2000s when Judy Wilson was the editor. I’ve written about everything under the sun, except the thing I am most passionate about — politics. Pretty nearly early on, it was clear that my political beliefs were at the opposite pole from Mr. Eller’s and I was very politely asked to [refrain from expressing my personal opinion], which presented me with two options: to write about other “stuff” or to walk away on my “high horse” telling myself that I was standing up for my ‘principles.’ But, what was my most basic principle?

In truth it didn’t take long for me to come up with an answer, and the main belief that I had in common with Mr. Eller was that it is a good thing that we live in a capitalist society – and that citizens still had the freedom of choice. He owned the newspaper and had the right to set the rules. I was free to stay on his terms or go. I respected his wishes and stayed. I was free to express my opinions in other venues.

And in reading his obituary this past week, I was privileged to meet the human being who was more than his politics and who was such a positive and important influence on his community. This got me to thinking — continue thinking — how important it is for us, in this era of such turmoil, distrust and insidious vituperation on both sides — to cool it, to listen to opposing views as they are expressed with the same sincerity and passion as my own views and to respect our differences, without inserting the element of hatred. It is the “hatred” that is poisoning us.

We’re living in a cement mixer of societal changes and daily we are witnessing major differences between what is acceptable today and what was “then.” Some of it will be seen as good and some as bad, and even within that framework people will differ. And I so much believe that it is our differences that make us strong and innovative and creative as a society. A monolithic belief system creates a staleness that leads to decay. It is no accident that we are not a planet of clones.

And so, as the “Peace on Earth, Goodwill Toward Men” season descends once again, it is the last part of that prayer that we need especially to heed, before the first part will ever become a reality i.e. “goodwill,” especially, toward the humans with whom we have what seems to be incompatible belief systems. We need to understand that people aren’t all one thing. Let’s look for other qualities that make up their character, qualities we can admire and respect.

I send my deepest condolences to the Eller and Observer family, and my everlasting hope for “Goodwill towards men” and that includes a heartfelt Happy Chanukah, Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanzaa and good holiday time to all.

Per a new study from Harvard Medical School and Northwestern University.

The study conducted by Dr. Hans Breiter of Northwestern University compared the brain scans of marijuana users with brain scans of nonusers. The results showed a direct correlation between the number of times users smoked marijuana and abnormalities in the brain effecting motivation and emotion.

The study determined that pot users who smoke one to seven joints a week had negative changes in the volume, shape and density of their brain’s nucleus accumbens and amygdala, which are regions of the brain that regulate emotion and motivation.

“What we are seeing is changes in people’s core brain regions that you never ever want to fool around with. More studies are needed to determine how these changes may have long-term consequences and whether they can be fixed with abstinence,” said Dr. Breiter.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse and the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy helped fund the study, which was published in the Journal of Neuroscience by Harvard Medical School, in cooperation with Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Publisher’s Note: The people of the State of Florida are going to be voting on this issue in a few months. You may want to keep and distribute this information.

—David Eller

If you truly have Parkinson’s disease, glaucoma, multiple sclerosis or certain types of cancer (the main “legal” reasons now being mentioned), and your doctor recommends for you to smoke marijuana for relief, be sure to get it in writing from the doctor. That is so that when you suffer the negative consequences of smoking marijuana, such as emphysema or cancer, there is someone else to blame and perhaps sue.

It is shameful how this issue is being manipulated by certain politicians, especially a certain former governor, who is proving again that he has no shame, and will do or say anything to try to “win” an election.

Negatives far outweigh any benefits from people smoking pot, at least based on my experience as an employer. One of my first negative experiences a number of years ago was when I sent three of my young mechanics down to a Caribbean Island to install some of our equipment on a sugar plantation. The job should have taken a week.

However, three weeks went by and we had not heard from them. This was before cell phones. Therefore, I called the customer, who checked on them and complained that my guys were just sitting around smoking “pot.” I ordered them back home, fired them immediately and sent a supervisor with some others to finish the job. That one incident cost us tens of thousands of dollars and lost a multi-million dollar customer. Lunch time started becoming a problem as some of our folks began indulging themselves in their pot smoking during lunch and came back to work causing accidents. Our workers compensation rate doubled, then doubled again before we figured out what was causing the accidents and took proper action with drug tests, etc. However, just one of the after lunch “accidents” put a man in the hospital for several months and cost over a million dollars in medical costs.

As a final example, a few years ago thousands of brochures on our products had to be thrown away when our man in charge got high on pot and changed the instructions to the printer to weird colors which made them unusable. We fired him, of course, but thousands of dollars were lost, as the brochures had to be corrected by others and reprinted.

These are just a few examples, and we are just one small company. The Florida Supreme Court recently agreed to put the issue on an upcoming statewide vote requiring only 60 percent approval. Certain special interest entities who will make big money are positioning themselves already to finance pushing it through. If it passes, and I’m being told there’s a good chance it will pass, many people will lose their jobs as many employers will simply “throw in the towel” and invest elsewhere.

—David Eller, Publisher

Since our family, the Eller family, has lived in Deerfield Beach since 1923, I’ve often been asked to put in writing some of the history of the area, either experienced personally, or that I heard from my parents or grandparents. For some of you old timers that might be worried about certain old “scandals,” don’t worry, I won’t be writing about those (smile).

David Eller, Publisher

My most memorial Christmas yet my wife’s best and worst

For a Christian, having your birthday on Christmas Eve is a bummer. People can give you a present and say, “This is your birthday and Christmas present. This actually happened to my wife’s father, Arthur, and her mother’s father, Edward, both of whom were born on Christmas Eve. Therefore, when my wife, Deborah, was pregnant with our first child in 1971 and the doctor predicted our baby would be born toward the end of December, we all laughed about it making some sort of record if our baby was also born on Dec. 24.

However, on Dec. 23 about 4.30 p.m., our baby son, Dana, decided he wanted out of his mama’s belly and started kicking hard. This was before cell phones. My wife was at home, and I was driving around locally delivering Christmas gifts to some of our customers and calling her from a customer’s office every hour. I’d just talked to her about 4:15 p.m. and she told me everything was fine. Therefore, I was having a good time at Consulting Engineer John Grant’s office party in Boca Raton. But, when I called home about 5: 15 p.m.and no one answered, I knew I was in trouble. My wife, shortly after talking to me on the phone had suddenly gone into hard labor. Not able to reach me, she called my mother who lived nearby, who rushed over to drive her to Bethesda Hospital in Boynton. My mother, very excited, got lost a couple of times trying to find the hospital, but they finally got there just a few minutes before my wife gave birth. I also arrived to the hospital just in time to also welcome our first born, son Dana, into this world. It was 42 years ago this week. He weighed 7 pounds 11 ounces and was 20 inches long.

The next day, Dec. 24,I went to the store and bought a little boys’ red outfit 20 inches long with Santa and reindeers on it. It turned out to be way too big, as I had forgotten to adjust the length down for his head sticking out of it.

However, unbeknownst to me, the “fun” had just begun. The next day, Christmas, Dec. 25,1971, the Miami Dolphins were playing the Kansas City Chiefs in Kansas City for the AFC divisional championship.

Both had identical 10-3 records. I just had to watch this game and figured I could visit my wife and new son in the hospital as soon as the game was over. I had no idea that this game would ultimately go down as the longest professional football game in history.

Meanwhile, two of my mother’s brothers arrived in town to visit my grandmother in Boynton. They were big Kansas City supporters and they invited me to watch the game with them and make a $100 bet for the Dolphins to win. I agreed since I figured I would still have time to visit my wife and new son after the game. Big mistake. Miami spent most of the game playing catch-up to Kansas City. Miami tied the score at 24-24 with just 1:25 left in regulation when Bob Griese threw a 5 yard pass to Marv Fleming.

They were still tied after the first overtime. But, midway through the second overtime, Miami kicker GaroYepremian, with shoe laces still untied, kicked a 37-yard field goal to win the longest game in NFL history.

I collected my winnings from my uncles and headed off to the hospital. I arrived just as visiting hours were over. But, when I explained why I was late, I was able to convince them to let me have a short visit with my wife and new son. My wife was not a happy camper, but our new son didn’t seem to care, and, now, he has four sons of his own.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Appropriate personnel should be armed and assigned the responsibility

The first time I had to fire someone (it was for drinking alcohol on the job while running heavy machinery), I was told by the recipient of the firing: “You can’t fire me!”

My father, who owned the company and had taken a well deserved vacation, had let everyone (about 20 employees at the time) know that I was “in charge,” and asked them all to cooperate with my leadership.

I knew that one of our main foremen had a drinking problem, and sometimes drank an alcoholic lunch. My father knew it, but put up with it for some reason. I was not inclined to do so, and asked Dad to tell him in my presence not to be drinking while I was “in charge.”

Dad had only been gone a few days when I smelled booze on the foreman’s breath. I immediately told him to go home and not come back until he could follow the “no drinking on the job” rule. He refused to leave and brought the other foremen over to confront me and back him up.

After a short heated discussion, I told them both that since Dad was gone, I was the only one who could sign the paychecks, and I didn’t intend to sign any for either one of them, so they may as well go home. They both stormed off alter inquiring when Dad would be back.

I then called a general meeting of the rest of the work force and explained that I would temporarily be doing the job of both the foremen, and asked everyone to cooperate. They did, and by the time Dad got back, I had identified replacements and restructured our workforce in a positive way.

Dad was pleased, as though I had taken a couple of thorns out of his side, and he didn’t hire either one of them back.

What has this got to do with protecting our schools? Nothing, except for the good management principle of solving problems as they become obvious.

Today we have a problem of providing security for our schools in a cost-effective manner.

Why don’t we seek out teacher volunteers who can be armed and specially vetted and trained to provide security at our schools? They would be “on call” within the school as needed, and receive a modest “bonus” for assuming that responsibility.

We tried it at our company, and it worked well.

David Eller, Publisher

A couple of years ago, about 2 a.m., I was peacefully sleeping at home here in Deerfield Beach when, suddenly, I heard a noise at the window close by. At first, I thought it was the wind blowing a tree branch up against the window. But as I became more conscious, I realized we did not have a tree branch that close and it was someone actually trying to get into our window. My heart started beating fast as I realized the situation.

Suddenly, the noise stopped, but I woke up my wife, whispered to her what I had heard, and we both lay there listening intensely.

A few moments later, we both heard the sound of the sliding glass door in the adjoining living room being pried open by someone. Whispering confirmations of the sound to each other, we both slid out of bed to get our guns.

We keep a 12-gauge pump-action shotgun and a 36-caliber short barrel pistol conveniently close by. I grabbed the shotgun and passed the pistol to my wife, who is an excellent shot (we go to the gun range occasionally).

We quietly opened our bedroom door and, leading with the shotgun, I flipped on the living room light. Suddenly, we heard our patio furniture being knocked over as the home invaders, who obviously had seen us, decided to run rather than confront the mad man who had a big gun and was ready to shoot them at 2 a.m. in the morning.

The loud “ca chunk, ca chunk” sound as I applied the pump action to my shotgun, which loaded the 12-gauge shells into my gun’s shooting chamber, definitely helped to get their attention. I was starting to aim in their direction when I realized they had turned and were running out the door knocking patio furniture in every direction.

If I had pulled the trigger at that point, I could have shot them both in the back, which I knew to be against the law, and they may have been able to sue me. According to my son-in-law lawyer, you can’t shoot someone who is not an immediate threat to you, i.e. running away.

However, if they had been running toward me, I definitely could have, and would have pulled the trigger to shoot them.

This brings up another important point — if you know you would not pull the trigger in such circumstances, you’re probably better off not having the gun because they could then take it and use it against you.

The above described incident is the third we’ve had in the 40 years we’ve lived in this house.

The first incident 40 years ago we slept through as thieves came right into our bedroom as we were sleeping and took the wallet from my pants and my wife’s purse.

We were young and had less than $20 between us in our wallets so maybe the thief world was told not to bother with us again. However, I put in an alarm system after that, and the second break-in, about 20 years later, scared the thieves away when the alarm went off.

The last incident, which was described at the beginning of this article, occurred after we had become lazy about turning on the alarm system at night. The moral of this story, therefore, is if you have an alarm system, use it.

Attention thieves: We now turn on our alarm system every night and both our guns are still loaded.

David Eller, Publisher

David Royse, with the News Service of Florida, reported over this past weekend that the Florida Division of Elections plans to verify the eligibility of nearly 180,000 registered voters in the state. Earlier last week, state election officials forwarded the names of about 2,600 registered voters whose citizenship is questionable to local supervisors of elections for further scrutiny.

Whenever a foreign citizen who is a resident in Florida applies for a driver’s license, they are automatically asked if they wish to register to vote. No attempt is made to confirm that the person is a U.S. citizen and many of them respond in the affirmative – without understanding the question – and suddenly become registered voters. When election time rolls around, they receive a ballot to vote by mail and if they do not know any better, they may then vote illegally.

I recently attended a party at a neighbor’s home and I met a young man originally from Nicaragua who has an application for U.S. citizenship pending. Somehow we got on the subject of politics and he told me that he was once sent a ballot to vote, even though he was not yet a citizen. He knew better and, therefore, did not cast the ballot. He wondered out loud how many other noncitizens may have received the same ballot and ended up voting.

Over 30 percent of the residents in Broward County have come here from a foreign country. Many have become citizens and many have not. Our democracy is in jeopardy whenever a non-citizen casts a ballot in one of our elections. This is potentially a big problem that needs to be fixed immediately.

If you agree and love this country, you need to get involved. Tomorrow may be too late.

David Eller

Publisher

He needs to decrease taxes … for everyone!

The politicians used to say, “It’s the Economy stupid.” Now Business owners are saying, “It’s the high Taxes (stupid)!”

The formula is really quite simple:

Increased taxes = increased costs = increased prices = decreased business = decreased jobs

Decreased taxes = decreased costs = decreased prices = increased business = increased jobs

Therefore, it should be obvious to the President and his advisers that if they want more jobs, they need to decrease taxes on the people who produce the jobs.

He apparently is willing to consider that, but stubbornly wants to limit it to those making less than $1,000,000. That probably sounds reasonable to most people. However, what he and “they” don’t understand is that if a businessman is fortunate enough to “make” $1,000,000, very little may be left for him to live on after he pays his taxes and, typically, a bank loan from those funds.

For example, assume a businessman or woman borrows $5,000,000 for a business to employ 100 people. First, he would probably need to have saved at least $1,000,000 to invest in the business in order to get a $5,000,000 loan. So he has $6,000,000 invested in the business. But now, he must make enough money from the business to pay back the bank loan and interest. Assuming the loan is at 6 percent, and he has 10 years to pay back the bank, he has to make $300,000 just to pay the bank interest, plus another $500,000 to pay the bank loan principal. If he is successful and “makes” $1,300,000 from the business, he pays the bank $300,000 in interest leaving him $1,000,000 in taxable income. He pays income taxes to the U.S. government of approximately $330,000, leaving him $670,000. From that, he has to pay the bank $500,000 principal on the loan, leaving him $170,000 to live on. To some, he may look rich. However, in order to get that big loan, he probably had to sign away everything he owns, including his home. If business slows down and profits are squeezed, he may lose everything he owns to the bank, including his home. That actually happened to a good friend of mine recently.

However, under Obama’s current plan, it gets worse. If someone grows their business and hires more people, their tax rate will increase from 35 percent to 39.6 percent, for a 13.1 percent increase in tax rate, which equates to a $46,000 tax increase, reducing his net income to $124,000. The employer has taken a lot of risk to try to make that money, and the risk goes up as the tax rate increases, which also decreases the amount of money the employer can pay their employees.

Thus … increased taxes increase costs, which increases prices, which decreases business and decreases jobs.

Whereas … decreased taxes decrease costs, which decreases prices, which increases business and increases jobs.

Bottom line is you can’t increase, or threaten to increase, taxes on the people who create 90 percent of the jobs in America and then wonder why they don’t go out and hire more people. No wonder folks are worried. They ought to be.

Our political gurus need to study the effects of the Kennedy and Reagan Tax decreases. In both cases, the U.S. economy took off, the government income increased substantially, and we obtained essentially full employment for everyone who wanted to work.

David Eller, Publisher

Since our family, the Eller family, has lived in Deerfield Beach since 1923, I’ve often been asked to put in writing some of the history of the area, either experienced personally, or that I heard from my parents or grandparents. For some of you old timers who might be worried about certain old “scandals,” don’t worry. I won’t be writing about those (smile). To read previous historical essays, go to www.observernewspaperonline.com and click on “The History of Deerfield.”

David Eller, Publisher

While I’m Away at College, Observer  newspaper is born – In Deerfield –

Some of you may have noticed that there has been a pause in my Historical articles for a few months and may have wondered why? It is quite simple. I’ve only written about things I personally knew to be true. How our family came to South Florida in 1923, after having first immigrated to North Carolina from Switzerland and Germany some 150 years earlier.

How my grandfather, Hoyt Eller, a skilled carpenter and farmer in his early 30s brought his wife and five children here to live in a tent next to the Hillsboro River/Canal and Dixe Highway. How he worked directly for the famous architect Addison Mizner to do the finish carpentry work for the Boca Raton Hotel. How he saved his money and went to farming land he bought for $1 per acre at what is now Quiet Waters Park, and later on $15 per acre in what is now the City of Parkland.

I wrote about some of the farm families like the Butlers, Wiles and Jones, who were already in Deerfield at the time.

How my father, Marlin Eller, quit farming with his father at age 21 to start his own business manufacturing large water pumps to sell to local farmers and government agencies for irrigation or drainage.

I wrote about the fact that when I started first grade at Deerfield Elementary School in 1947, there were only six students, and I was the only boy. Now I’m informed that first graders in Deerfield are measured in the hundreds. Stories about other local families were included along the way, as I wrote many stories trying to share what it was like growing up here in north Broward County in the 1940s and ‘50s. The ‘60s began with me at Stetson University in DeLand, Florida, and then onto the University of Florida in Gainesville, which I graduated from with an engineering degree in 1964.

However, when I wrote the story about college, I suddenly realized that I was getting away from my original objective of writing about the history of this area, the north Broward County/South Palm Beach area. Therefore, in order to stay true to my initial objective, I will attempt now to combine the two, by telling some of what was going on in my life at college and, at the same time, to tell what was simultaneously going on back home in Deerfield (using the Observer archives). Eventually, the two storylines will merge when I graduate from college and come home.

For instance, while I was away at college, in 1962 the Observer newspaper first began publishing under the direction of Margaret Moore (the mother of my good friend from high school, Adrian Moore) and the first Publisher, Bill Beck of Delray Beach.

Meanwhile, in the morning of my first day at college in DeLand, we freshmen engineering students found seats in the auditorium before the head of engineering, Dr. Lowry entered. Very distinguished-looking with a white beard and wavy white hair he told us to “Look at the student sitting in front of you. Now look at the one to your left. Now look to the right. Only one of you will ever become an engineer. The others will flunk out … or become a lawyer… or something else.” That was my first day and introduction to college. And he was right.

David Eller, Publisher

A Guest Editorial from a famous Historian and our Publisher

In 1887, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years prior:

“A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship.”

“The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:

From bondage to spiritual faith;

From spiritual faith to great courage;

From courage to liberty;

From liberty to abundance;

From abundance to complacency;

From complacency to apathy;

From apathy to dependence;

From dependence back into bondage.”

Therefore,the question for each of us today as Americans  is — “What am I going to do about it?” (With an emphasis on the “I”). Everyone who loves this country needs to get involved. It will require a massive effort.

We need you!Get involved!

David Eller, Publisher