I Remember When…again

These blogs I write are for you …they are things I remember and may serve in some small way a doorway to the past long after I am gone….

In 1968 I was appointed city manager of New Smyrna Beach. During the course of events I was reunited with Harold Cole, founder and president of Truxmore Industries. We first became acquainted in Princeton, WVa. He was a traveling salesman for a truck building corporation and made a lot of money..enough to start his own company. He specialized in garbage trucks and had a plant in Richmond, Va.

In New Smyrna he presented the city with a side loading unit at a modest price to get us started on his system. It worked well and we bought more. Some of my ideas were used in the trucks he later manufactured. We became close friends and June and I often shared dinner at his house. We also visited him in Richmond and toured his factory.

Harold liked New Smyrna and built a mansion on the beach (north side).  During Race Week he was host to the sister of the Shah of Iran. Many Iranians were in Daytona Beach taking flying lessons at Embry-Riddle, part of the state department’s policy to prop up the Shah militarily in his troubled land. We had a feast….Oysters and crab claws flown in from Chesapeake Bay, shrimp, steak and lots of booze.

I found the Iranians to be a warm and friendly people and am dismayed that our relations have soured since the revolution . I still believe today that most of the ordinary people of Iran like Americans. The religious nuts who have taken over the country rule on uneasy terms with the populace.