Jacksonville's Original Boner

Did you know that UNF's original plan was nestling its campus downtown? In the 70's, when UNF was first opening, it was trying to work with the City of Jacksonville to open downtown. It's needless to say that this would have been tremendously beneficial to both UNF and the city of Jacksonville.

UNF was stopped in their tracks when COJ began giving incentives for another organization. Can you guess who? If you have been in Jax for a while, and have seen tragedies (for example) such as Einsteins be shut down for no apparent reason, then you will know the answer... The First Baptist Church. This wonderful bunch of enlightened Baptists received the properties that UNF wanted in the end. This leads me to wonder, very much like Britney Spears did in her methed-out home video, is time travel possible?

The land that UNF is currently on was given to them by two prominent Jacksonville families (the kernan and hodges families.) Because they were very savvy and resourceful people they knew that in 15 to 20 years the land surrounding UNF would skyrocket in value. Try imagining what downtown life would be like right now if we had a university campus plopped in the heart of Jax... I bet their would have been a hell of a lot more people at those Cadets shows at the Moto Lounge and Milk Bar.

On another note, I have attended a few meetings about parking and there seems to be little movement forward. One of the topics being discussed at these meetings include digital parking meters... this "smart" meter seems like a great idea. It would solve quite a few problems... and I really love the idea of making the parking enforcement officers obsolete. Thank you to Owen holmes for your exposé on the negligent parking officials plaguing this city. I had quite a few people come into the store on tuesday, when the most recent publication of Folio hit stands, and offer their support. Thanks again Owen for the supportive article.



Speaking of meetings, during the last one I attended, I walked up to Jenkins, Stephen Dare, and Owen after the meeting and noticed Owen looked uncomfortable with their conversation. I overheard "gaming rooms" and realized they were talking about the article about my dad's place on Emerson. When I chimed in about my opinion, I noticed Jenkins quickly dismised the conversation and walked away after a few of my interjections. I later discovered that Jenkins lives in the community that my dad's gaming room is located... if that was in the Folio story I either overlooked it or I didn't pick up on it because I had not met Jenkins on a personal basis. This makes me question a few things about the campaign against my dads store... There was a cover story in the Folio a couple months ago about a gaming room opening in a community where it's not welcome. My dad opened this place. He opened in an available building right beside a strip club and an adult video store (thats two seperate stores). The "community" was in an uproar because they wanted a "Moe's" or some sort of family-oriented business to go in the available space. Do I really need to hypothetically ask what-in-the-fuck-kind-of-family-business would open between a strip club and adult video store, a short walk away from the conglomeration of hookers working the Philips Highway/Emerson area?

There was supposed to be a city hall meeting about this very subject yesterday (which had been postponed from the previous week). My dad responded to his customers request to speak/defend him at this meeting by having a bus for all of them to go to the meeting together. The meeting was postponed again. I'll keep you posted on the postponements...



As for the title of the post, Nick and Max and I were talking about how the word boner has integrated itself in our daily vocabulary. Though we usually use it in the vulgar sense the use of that word in the title is the use that means a mistake.

bon‧er2  /ˈboʊnər/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[boh-ner] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun
a foolish and obvious blunder; stupid mistake.