A Dangerous Publisher

I always considered John Carroll a good friend and pleasant companion, especially when we traveled to Paradise Island or Gulfstream Race Track to gamble. But in retrospect, he was one of the most dangerous publishers I ever worked for.

Carroll owned Weekday, a weekly newspaper that operated out of Lake Park, FL., a suburb of West Palm Beach. Weekday was a typical community newspaper in many ways. It covered city government, local sports, restaurant reviews, and had stories about activities for his readers, who included many senior citizens in the area. John even taught a square dance class that he advertised in his newspaper.

Anytime I was between jobs; I would head down to Florida to get a little sand in my shoes. Carroll always had an editorial job open for me. Sometimes the work was part-time, sometimes it was full-time, but there was always something to do.

Aside from covering major stories in the community, I wrote a weekly column for the newspaper. Although most of the stories focused on local events in Lake Park and Jupiter, Carroll was also interested in trends and cultural events. In the late 1960s when the Rolling Stones made their debut in a concert in West Palm Beach, John came over to me and dropped a ticket on my desk.

'What's this?' I said.

'There's a new British group called the Rolling Stones that is setting the hearts of teenage girls afire,' he said, smiling. 'They'll be arriving at the airport this afternoon. I want you to interview them and then review the concert tonight. It should be fun for you and it will make a nice story.'

That was how I met Mick Jaggers, Charlie Watts, Keith Richards and the other Rolling Stones as they exited a commercial jet at Palm Beach International Airport. The Stones were young, brash, smirking and profane. Every other word out of their mouths was 'F' this or 'F' that. It was disconcerting, to say the least.

I later discovered the profanity was the idea of their manager. He thought the Stones could get more publicity and create controversy by having the band members show a disdain for the press. Jaggers admitted this in his book, by the way. The group actually turned out pretty personable and I enjoyed meeting them.

That night I covered their concert in West Palm Beach. A large crowd turned out for the event. The Stones bounded on stage, did six songs -- and the concert was over.

I was hugely disappointed and I showed my disappointment in the page one review we published in the newspaper. My lead paragraph went this way: 'The rude Rolling Stones ruined the evening for 6,500 fans in a West Palm Beach concert last night when they did just six songs and then skipped town with the cash for their night's performance.'

The day the column appeared, I was seated at my desk when half a dozen girls stormed into the building. They were members of a local Rolling Stones Fan Club and they demanded to meet the reporter who had written the review on the Stones' performance.

Carroll greeted them with a warm smile. I was trying to cower beneath my desk. John simply pointed to me and said, 'Why, he's sitting right over there. Didn't you like the review?'

One of the girls waved a copy of the newspaper and said, 'We hated it!'

John had the girls gather around me with copies of Weekday in their hands -- beating me on the head with the newspapers. Then he ran the photo in the next edition.

On another occasion, he came by my desk and asked if I had written my column for the week. I admitted I had not.

'Here's an idea for you,' he said. 'This feminist movement is kind of getting out of hand. Why don't you write a tongue-in-cheek column about women? Make it controversial. Suggest that women walk six paces behind their men like the Indian women used to do, and let's see how that goes across to the readers.'

'John, do you want to get me killed?'

He laughed. 'It should generate some controversy and you'll have fun with it. Give it your best shot.'

I wrote the column. I figured I had to justify why women would walk six paces behind their men, so I suggested they should do it in order to be protected from danger. Hey, if there was another Indian tribe in the area, arrows could fly, right? The men would be there to protect their women from the arrows with their own bodies and blah, blah, blah.

The day the column appeared, Weekday was swamped with phone calls. The following week, hundreds of letters poured in denouncing me. Some demanded that I be tarred and feathered, while others said they would be satisfied if Carroll simply fired me. Instead, he published their letters and gave me a raise.

No, John Carroll was a dangerous publisher. H was also a formidable gambler and played blackjack and shot dice when we flew down to Paradise Island in the Bahamas on Chalk Airlines, a seaplane service that operated out of Miami. We loved those little seaplanes and the brief flight to the tropical island where gambling was legal, palm trees swayed, and beautiful island girls waited to greet a dangerous publisher and his gullible columnist.