This post originally appeared on my professional website, philipspitzer.com. It was a bit different than the usual investing thoughts or educational ideas that I shared there. This is more personal. It is for fun. My team asked if this would not just be better as a post on a personal site. I explained that people don’t only seek a competent advisor who has the skills and services they need. They also look for someone they can relate to. As I would love to have more clients interested in socially responsible investing, I think this will appeal to my kind of people. It will be told in two parts. It will explain how the postcard came to be!
I was born in Brooklyn, but in the 50’s there was a mass migration to Miami, and that is where I grew up. In the 60’s Coconut Grove in Miami was Greenwich Village South, with the famous Gaslight South Coffee House. I was a fan of folk singing.
Between college years I worked on a research team in the Everglades from 1967 to 1969, the Hydrobiology unit of the US Geological Survey, Department of the Interior. When I left the research team, I became a full-time environmental activist for the next two years before returning to college in 1971. I felt that we had all the knowledge we needed to save the Earth. All we needed was the political will to act on it. Remember, this was before we succeeded in passing the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act.
I thought the folk singers were cool because they were folk singers. They thought I was cool because I was saving the Earth. I was recruited to help found Earth Day. Organizing the observance in Miami that first Earth Day was wonderful. Miami Dade Community College hired me to create an environmental education program called Man and His Environment. A politician I had helped with his campaign for city commission in Miami proposed to the commission that they create the Environmental Research Advisory Council. They agreed. He recruited an architect, a landscape architect, an environmental law professor, and me as the ecologist. There were many other efforts locally and nationally during those two years that I was involved in.
In 1968 a business friend of my Dad’s hired me to help him open up a coffeehouse across from the famous Flick, on US 1, Dixie Highway, next to the University of Miami. When I was at Florida State University, I helped create the Club Down Under music venue in 1972. I booked the acts. The opportunity to create these music venues further cemented my relationships with many of the folksingers of the day.
The picture on the left was me with my dog Lady when I was going to Boston University in 1973 as a doctoral candidate in Anthropology. After I came back to Miami, Gamble Rogers, an iconic Florida bard, was fronting the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band at an outdoor concert put on in 1976 by the Performing Arts for Community and Education organization. So, after the concert Gamble is packing up his guitar. He sees this straight looking guy (clean cut, that is) coming across the field straight at him. He gave me a quizzical look. When I was within hearing, I said:
“Don’t even try to guess who it is! It’s Phil Spitzer!”
“What happened to YOU, man?”
I asked how he was getting home to St. Augustine. He said he was flying. I then asked how he was getting to the airport. He had not figured that out yet. Since there was enough time before his flight, I said let me take you to dinner so we can catch up.
While we were at dinner I asked about another folk singer, George Blackwell.
“Does George Blackwell still live here? Is he still performing?”
Gamble said yes, he still lived in Miami, but was working in a recording studio.
“Making albums?” I asked.
“No, making radio commercials.”, Gamble replied.
“George Blackwell is making radio commercials!” I responded in a shocked manner.
“Hell,” Gamble said, “You’re selling insurance!”
And it dawned on me. The 60’s were over.
Tune in to my posts two weeks from now when I will explain how the postcard came to be.