Cuban-born newscaster Belkys Nerey performs on Channel 7 at 5, 6 and 10 p.m., and we use perform here for good reason. If local TV news has slid into a hybrid form of journalism and entertainment, at least we can watch someone like Nerey have more fun on-air than others. She laughs her ass off and spurs her on-air comrades to join in. But when she's delivering serious news, Nerey also has the smarts and gravitas to pull it off. Not to mention with a great sense of style. She may not be quite the fashion plate she was while hosting Deco Drive, but when she rocks the designer threads and a boyish haircut, her edgy look makes us think we're seeing the newscaster of the future. And speaking of exotic, we never get tired of hearing everyone else on the set say that unusual name.
Like Johnny Cash, Tommy Hutton has been everywhere. After several years in the minor leagues, where he played in places like Albuquerque and Spokane, his 17-year-career in Major League Baseball took him to Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Toronto, and Montreal. But for the past ten years, the former reserve first baseman and emergency outfielder has been firmly embedded in South Florida, where he does color for Marlins games. You don't get any frills with Hutton; he's just a good-natured baseball guy with scads of trivia floating through his head. Want to know who pitched Game 3 for the Houston Astros during the 1980 National League Championship Series? Odds are Hutton could come up with it (Answer: Joe Niekro). That's what you get with Hutton, a guy who's been around -- and paid attention while he was at it.
Don Noe is the doyen of South Florida meteorology. And nowhere is weather forecasting more important than in the Sunshine State, where mysterious underground magnets seem to pull hurricanes toward our peninsula every year for a grueling, six-month showdown with Mother Nature. The chief meteorologist at Local 10, Noe -- an unassuming man with a bald pate and a broad smile -- has a reputation for good-natured humor coupled with down-to-business weather forecasting. It's an art he's crafted over more than three decades in the business. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin, Noe was a weather forecaster in the Great Lakes Region and Portland, Oregon, before moving to South Florida in 1979. And he's good. Need proof? In a time of television weathercasters with more looks than experience, Noe has proven that knowledge and expertise count. C'mon, when Wilma was bearing down on South Florida, were you really watching what's-her-name on the other channel? Thought so.
While chasing after that elusive first novel, Deerfield Beach author Heidi Boehringer supported herself with every kind of job, from bartending to loan processing. Following graduation from the creative-writing program at the University of Florida -- Gainesville, she went on to write Chasing Jordan, the story of a woman's life crumbled by guilt after accidentally running over her small son. While many of the area's newest novelists use South Florida's gritty and sometimes bizarre milieu for detective mysteries and whodunits, Boehringer mines the banality of the gated communities carved out of the Everglades. "Motherhood sinks to an all-time low in Boehringer's bleak debut, set in the soulless suburbs of South Florida," posits Kirkus Reviews. Despite the subject matter, the novel courses with an unpredictable sense of humor. "This is my kind of novel," Florida writing legend Harry Crews gushed in a blurb. "Whatever Heidi Boehringer writes next, I will read."
Asa Boynton deserves a spot in the South Florida Community Activist Hall of Fame. In his day job, the tall 59-year-old dresses in a purple gorilla suit and delivers singing telegrams throughout South Florida. Otherwise, he's a one-man gadfly, civic activist, and crime fighter in Hollywood's troubled south side. Ask Hollywood's city commissioners. They'll tell you how Boynton delivers the newspaper to their doorstep every time it has a juicy Hollywood story inside. Or ask the editors of those newspapers. They'll tell you how many letters to the editor they receive from Boynton. And Boynton is as brave as he is tireless. When he takes pictures of suspected drug dealers, he waves and smiles. He calls the cops to scenes of crimes he witnesses, times how long it takes police to arrive, and then distributes that information (often damning) to police brass, newspaper reporters, and other Hollywood activists. He once paraded through crime-ridden neighborhoods in South Hollywood with a sign that read: "Drug Dealers Suck." Even when Boynton is just being kind and generous, he can't get community activism off his mind. During Hurricane Wilma, a scared stray cat wandered to his door. He took in the feline and has since adopted him. He named the cat "Mr. Singley," as in Hollywood Police Officer Nick Singley, who was given a gun and a badge in Hollywood despite a psychological report that said he lacked "maturity and self-control." Boynton can tell you about that story. Just hope another distressed cat doesn't scratch at his door. Boynton's nickname for Hollywood Mayor Mara Giulianti -- likely the next cat's name -- just isn't fit for print.
Perhaps nowhere in the entire state exists a better spot to bear witness to the forces of change than this small strip of land in downtown Fort Lauderdale. A hundred years ago, someone standing at this spot would have seen a single structure -- the clapboard, cracker-box Stranahan House, where the city started -- and maybe a Seminole paddling a skiff down the river. The area was surrounded by thick undergrowth and wild, vine-filled jungle. Now, Smoker Park sits in a thicket of multistory condominium towers, on top of the Federal Highway tunnel, next to a massive, noisy ventilation unit. Instead of Native American traders, the river is choked with pleasure craft and tourists. The Stranahan House (now a museum) is still there, surrounded as it is by a Cheesecake Factory and every other abomination developers could envision -- just wait for the 45-story-condo where Hyde Park Market now sits. Take a trip to the Fort Lauderdale Historical Society and ask to see a postcard of Smoker Park in the early 1900s, and marvel at the old wood-frame homes. Then go visit today, for a dose of future shock of the present.
Better have a thick wad of bills or a sturdy stack of plastic if you want to spend much time on Fort Lauderdale's version of Rodeo Drive. Shopping and eating along this upscale quarter-mile, it's easy to burn through cash by the hundreds. Amid this, the Christian Science Reading Room is an oasis of solitude and thrift. By offering no more than a friendly "howdy" and a tip o' the hat to the manager, you can relax in a comfy chair and read the day's edition of the Christian Science Monitor. You save the $1 price on one of the best English-language newspapers covering world events. Hey, a buck is a buck. Open Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Saturday 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
The Atlantic Resort & Spa
Remember those driving vacations you took with your family as a kid? Motoring just outside Nothingville, USA, you'd spot a giant roadside sign touting "Miracle Hills" or the "Wonder Spot." You'd bully and sob your old man into making the detour, and he'd shell out the five bucks apiece for a tour led by an enthusiastic old man. Inside specially built hillside shacks that played with your senses, balls seemingly rolled upward, chairs balanced on two legs. You can recapture that childhood thrill at the Atlantic's dark-marbled restroom in the lobby, which also serves the adjoining Trina Restaurant and Lounge. As you gaze down at the automatic stainless-steel faucets, you realize that there is no sink basin beneath them. There is only a flat, faux-marble surface. It's obvious that water out of the spigot will have no place to go but over the front edge and onto your feet. Ahh, but the great joy of a potty pit stop here is the barely noticeable backward grade of that even top. The water is engineered to flow at just the right rate to not overwhelm the sink, and it drains out the back.

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