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Jan's game uncovers respect for his name
© St. Petersburg Times, Some things I have always wanted to write but never quite was able to: Jan Glidewell is a nice person, soft-spoken with a voice that is always highlighted with the hint of a not-quite-realized chuckle. Jan Glidewell is community-oriented, a hard-working person who puts in 12-hour days working at three different jobs. Jan Glidewell has strong family ties and is a dedicated public servant who always works with the best interests of the community at heart, so much so that when a public office was vacated, Glidewell was the name that jumped right out at those making the appointment. Jan Glidewell is 41 and sounds younger. She also lives in Arkansas. But at least I got the chance to say, on the telephone, "Hi. Jan Glidewell? This is Jan Glidewell speaking," without having one of my co-workers call my shrink and report that I was talking to sock puppets again. I was doing what I call a vanity search, which means I run my own name through a Web search engine to see which nut-case bulletin boards my columns have been posted on so I can be ready for the next week's onslaught of crank mail from people who get their political and social philosophies off of bumper stickers. Although the name Glidewell is fairly unusual, there are several thousand of us (scary huh?) across the country and many of them are respectable in fields that bring their names onto the Internet. (I don't search prison sites; the results might be too depressing.) And every once in a while I will hear from another Glidewell who has done the same thing and wonders if we are related. I usually don't know the answer other than that, if they are respectable, they usually come from what we call the "other side" of the family. My side, to the best of my knowledge, consists of horse trainers, journalists and others not always found in society's mainstream. Still, I was surprised to see my own name come up attached to a place called Malvern, Ark. I have never been to Arkansas and am not wanted there for any reasons that I know of. So I checked further and found out that Jan Glidewell is a City Council member in the fine city of Malvern, population just under 28,000, and apparently a good representative of the folks who live there and their work ethic. For one thing, she really does put in 12-hour days working as a dental hygienist, managing rental property and helping out at a family-owned automobile dealership. She is a Glidewell by marriage, being married to a freelance property appraiser named John Glidewell to whom I am not related, at least not closely. She has a 21-year-old daughter in college. A Democrat, she is serving her first term on the City Council and is obviously a one-woman booster for Malvern and the entire Hot Springs area. "We're turning our little town into a more progressive area," she said, pointing to the recent acquisition of a 2,000-bed prison, a natural gas power plant, an industrial park and other high points. Other than the name and the fact that I suspect we both have good senses of humor, hers considerably less demented than mine, the only other thing we seem to have in common is geographical propinquity to unpronounceable rivers. She was apologetic for having to spell the name of the Oachita River on which Malvern sits. I told her I lived near the Withlacoochee and not too far from the Pithlachascotee and Chassahowitzka rivers. "I see," she said. All of this is probably important only to Jan Glidewell and me. I just wanted you to know so that, if you find yourself in a strange place and hear someone with a Southern accent talking about what a great person Jan Glidewell is, you should ask which one before calling him or her a liar.
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Times columns today Jan Glidewell John Romano Elijah Gosier From the Times North Suncoast desks |
