Ann and Albert Thornton

I met Ann and Albert Thornton maybe 40 years ago. Eating at my pancake house, playing on the beach, then years later serving them and their wonderful family in Cagneys and Flamingo Grill. Albert walked in opening day May 1976. introduced himself and became the first customer who ever dined at Cagneys.

It was my pleasure to watch the wonderful Thornton family grow from adorable, adventurous tots to beautiful people. Ann passed away suddenly last week. A classy, stylish and great lady and loving mother. Words to soothe loss always sound inadequate.

Carolyn, Dee, Greg...we remember your mom and your dad with smiles and respect.

Good people as we say down south.

Can I Get an Apology?

It's a New Year. What do we wish for? We wished for 2011 to end and we wished for an apology from somebody, from anybody for causing this mother of all downturns.

An apology from...

1. The completely oblivious congressional and banking committees.
2. The mortgage-bungling-bundling brokerage houses.
3. The mealy-mouth FDIC.
4. The liar-loaners and the get-a-loan liars.
5. The pork-addicted congress who dig passing laws that don't effect them.
6. The see-no-evil regulators.
7. Every Presidential administration since Truman.
8. The last five treasury secretaries.
9. The fill-in-the-blanks appraisers.
10. The ponzi-schemers.
11. The endless GOP/Dem pissin contest.
12. The toothless, testicle-less SEC.
13. The sub-prime factories like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac who are now monkeyed under a manure load of mangled mortgages.
14. The ethanol boondoggle.
15. Every egghead economist with a title.
16. From any congressman who served during the even-odd gas rationing days and swore on a stack of Guideon bibles they'd solve this energy crisis.
17. And for whoever invented Credit Default Swaps and Collateralized Debt Obligations and every other snake-oil commodity, I want an apology and a bumpy bunk in San Quentin.

And I'd like an especially glib apology from all the TV talkin savants who kept us posted on the Kardashians bra sizes, Charlie Sheen's latest rant, The Donald's comb-over, Tebowing, Gaga's girdles, Bieber's bowlcuts, Ashton's tweets and Simon's t-shirts...but completely missed the oncoming economic tsunami.

Can't someone somewhere just man-up and say "My bad! Not only did I not say anything but I helped cause this mess."