"For People In The Middle"

(If you click on the picture it'll get large enough to read the fine print)

Shooting for the paper soon had me being a regular around city hall here in North Miami. A bit of political scandal in the early 1970's had pretty much cleaned out the old guard and we now had a new city manager and a bunch of new department heads, mostly about the same age as I was at the time. Mike Rozos, the new head of Parks and Recreation convinced me to join the Jaycees.

I was still long-hair and counter-culture for the most part at the time, but I already knew most of the guys (no women allowed back then) and I seemed to fit right in. As soon as the business part of the Thursday night meeting was over the bar opened and drinks were cheap. It was an ideal opportunity for networking as casual acquaintances turned into good friends. One of these was Ross McKelvey.

It had only recently become OK for doctors and lawyers to advertise, and Ross had this idea to market his firm to what we now call "moderate income" folks. I'm not sure exactly whose idea it was, but we headed over to the old downtown courthouse, found a vacant courtroom, and I took pictures of the empty jury box. They were all set up for twelve jurors back then. Now six is enough for all but murder trials.

I ran into Mike Rozos a few months back, but it must be at least thirty years since I last saw Ross. A google search turned up an attorney by that name in Pompano, maybe twenty-five miles north of here. Next time I'm heading up that way I'll have to check out as to whether it's the same guy or not. I hope that he's in better shape than this brittle yellowed newspaper clipping. None of us look thirty these days.

Another quaint thing about the ad is the Mastercard and Visa logos at the bottom. Yup, there was a time when not everybody took credit cards. Hell, most people didn't HAVE a credit card.