Editorial

Connecting, escaping -- 2005-style

By Phil Lewis, Editor

If you get a chance to catch "The French Connection" on one of those late-night, cable TV movie channels, pay close attention to a scene that comes relatively early in the award-winning film.

Gene Hackman, who portrays police detective "Popeye" Doyle, is asleep, face-down on a New York City bar. Dawn is breaking through a window partially blocked by a neon bar sign and a barkeep is wiping things down from the night before.

There's no dialog as Hackman lifts his head, straightens his porkpie hat and takes one last drink. A radio is keeping the bartender company and is playing an advertisement that goes like this:

"Florida's Mackle Brothers invite you to join the great escape. You can say goodbye to air pollution, commuting, high prices, rising taxes and cold, depressing winters. Mackle Brothers will show you the way to Florida and fresh, clean air, warm and sunny year-round weather and a home that you will be proud to own. Call Mackle Brothers right now...."

Before the radio pitch finishes, the detective walks out into the gray, cold morning and climbs into his unmarked car beneath the Manhattan Bridge. The movie's famous chase scene is still an hour away.

"The French Connection," which won five Academy Awards in 1971, was based on a true story, and that radio ad was no piece of Hollywood fiction.

In the late 1960's, the Markle Brothers were using newspaper ads and radio throughout the major cities of the north to sell "Florida, the Great Escape."

They developed subdivisions in various parts of the state, but perhaps the gem in their portfolio was Marco Island. They built the Marco Beach Hotel, dredged canals, platted streets (Elkcam Circle on the island is Mackle spelled backwards) and sold homesites from the air.

The Mackle Brothers were central to the land boom that transformed Collier and Lee counties into thriving and desirable destinations for retirees and those planning for retirement.

Fast forward 35 years ahead and marvel at how things have changed.

This winter, land developers are advertising in Southwest Florida newspapers and on radio stations selling another great escape.

A full color, 16-page advertising insert on a recent Sunday in the Daily News asked the following: "Is Florida a little too far South?" The insert was paid for by Woodland Property Partners Inc., developers of Houston Springs, an "active adult resort" 500 miles north, near Perry, Ga.

The sales pitch urges retirees to say goodbye to Florida's traffic congestion, high prices, and depressing weather (hurricanes) and head to southern Georgia for fresh air, affordable homes, and a leisurely lifestyle.

One page of the advertising section--headlined "Do you recognize yourself in this story?"--goes like this:

"My wife and I, after years of careful planning and savings, left the cold northern winters and retired to Florida.

"We purchased a dream home on the golf course for which we paid cash.

"In 2005, we found ourselves with very little of our nest egg left and frustrated that we had lost our dreamed-of retirement lifestyle.

"Since we paid cash for our home, we were sitting on a huge amount of unrealized equity.

"We realized that we could recapture our lost savings and regain our lifestyle by selling our home and buying a home in Houston Springs where homes start from the mid-$100's."

It will be interesting to see how many Floridians are enticed to re-retire in Georgia. It just might be our wake-up call after a long period of over-imbibing.

Phil Lewis is the editor of the Daily News; his e-mail address is pplewis@naplesnews.com