Volume 2 . Issue 6
June 2009
Delivered free each month to the residents of Hypoluxo Island, Manalapan, Ocean Ridge, Briny Breezes, Gulf Stream and Coastal Delray Beach
Along the shore
Up at dawn, John Fletemeyer uses an ATV to cruise the length of Delray Beach in search of sea turtle nests. Photos by Jerry Lower
Improving the odds for sea turtles: A labor of love By Ron Hayes Bright and early Mother’s Day morning, Joan Lorne climbed aboard an ATV and tore down Gulf Stream beach on a rescue mission for countless mothers who will never know how many of their children’s lives she saved. Turtles are mothers, too, after all. Loggerheads and leatherbacks, greens and the occasional hawksbill — on moonlight nights between March and September, female sea turtles crawl from the ocean to bury their eggs on the beaches of Palm Beach County. By sunrise, they’re gone, with only flipper tracks in the sand to recall their visit. And then the dangers arrive.
Beach walkers and picnickers, foxes and raccoons that forage for the eggs, human poachers who sell them as rumored aphrodisiacs. Three mornings a week, Lorne patrols the beach, before the tides and human traffic wipe those flipper tracks from the sand, to mark the newly laid nests with Do Not Disturb signs, reminding beachgoers that stealing turtle eggs is a third-degree felony. She is not alone. In Manalapan and Ocean Ridge, Lantana and Delray Beach, dozens of licensed permit-holders and volunteers mark and monitor the nests. “To me, it’s the beauty of it all, and the fact that these turtles are still See TURTLES on page 16
Jackie and Joan Lorne record nesting data for a loggerhead nest found along the beach in Gulf Stream
Delray Beach
Father’s Day
Pharmacy’s father found prescription for success By Emily J. Minor
In the days of scattered families — one kid in Boston, another in Seattle, the aging parents retired to Arizona — these people are downright odd. “They all came back,” says the patriarch, Bill Strucker. “I think they missed their mother.” Perhaps. But there is something else that has drawn all three of Strucker’s daughters home again, back to this place along the ocean with the ringing telephone and the familiar
Inside Meet your neighbor FAU Coach Howard Schnellenberger reflects on football — and living in Ocean Ridge. Page 21
smell and the Fanny May candies stacked neatly in the front freezer. It’s the family business, Gulfstream Pharmacy Inc., where their dad has been the handsome, compassionate face behind the prescription counter since 1957. So all-knowing is this guy that customers have been known to call him Dr. Bill. He’s a pharmacist, of course, learning the profession back in the 1950s when pharmacists did things like grind and mix and measure. See PHARMACY on page 7
Economy stalls redevelopment By Thomas R. Collins
Gulfstream Pharmacy’s Bill Strucker with daughters Allison Goodridge and Erin Craig, and son-in-law Tom Craig. Photo by Jerry Lower
Aaah, the sights, the sounds, the smells. The chatting coffee-sippers at an outside table. A delicious Asian fusion scent tempting you from a fine restaurant. Rollicking music coaxing you from a bar and grill. On Federal Highway at Atlantic Avenue, the good Federal Highway times always seem to roll. An occasional series A few blocks up the road, though, you might as well be in another city. Aging strip malls sulk behind mostly empty parking lots, with auto shops, car dealerships See FEDERAL HIGHWAY on page 4
Thrill of the grill
Pros offer dad a clue or two on perfect barbecue. Page 18 The Beer Guy picks summer brews. Page 19 Obituaries: Red Sox great Dom DiMaggio. Page 27
Record Sale
$9 million sets new sale price record in Ocean Ridge. Page 29