A change of pace today. Bringing some unexpected soulshine to Lake Worth Beach and remembering Irma.

October and November are a special time in the City of Lake Worth. And hopefully this will be a special time later this year in Lake Worth Beach.

In October and November are a lot of very special events and just one of them is the annual Lake Worth Has Talent show held at the Lake Worth Playhouse to benefit the Children’s Miracle Network. That event is the kickoff for the 2019–2020 Snowbird, Christmas and Holiday Season. It will be a Who’s Who and What’s What of Lake Worth Beach.

But in 2017 there was no Lake Worth Has Talent show. An L-Dub Film Festival scheduled for October 2017 was cancelled too. Planned events at the Casino and Beach Complex were rescheduled and a lot of people were busy putting their lives back together. City employees and our elected leadership and the administration were worked to the bone.

What happened is Hurricane Irma happened in September 2017.

Lucky him. Mr. Ed Liberty was hired in June 2017 to be the director of the Electric Utility. Talk of the unexpected and what would soon be churning off the Ivory Coast.

Not many people think much about things like the Lake Worth Beach Public Services Dept. But a whole lot of people were thinking about the Public Services Dept. in October two years ago. And a whole lot of people were thinking about the Electric Utility too.

The big news in August/September 2017 was about a marijuana dispensary on Dixie Hwy. It was front page news in The Palm Beach Post. But then came hints of an approaching storm.

Which delves into the unexpected soulshine today.

Have you ever seen the video of Jamie Brown and his rendition of Soulshine at the very first Lake Worth Has Talent show? See that video below.

It was this performance that brought the house down, a rousing standing applause by the crowd that stirred up the ghosts at the Playhouse too.

Who is Jamie Brown? He is the director of the Lake Worth Beach Public Services Dept.

For the time being the City’s website is shut down and will be relaunched soon. And there is a lot of complaining now which is typical anyway in every time of the year.

Today at 5:30 is the swearing-in of City Commissioner Herman Robinson and at 6:00 is a regularly scheduled City Commission meeting.

If you plan on showing up tonight and speaking at public comment please say something nice and positive about the City of Lake Worth Beach and the employees, staff, the administration and our elected leaders too.

None of them know what is going to happen when Hurricane Season begins and no one else does either. But everyone will have to work together if we do get hit by another major hurricane. Make no mistake. Irma was a major storm. But it was nothing like Wilma. Or Francis.

About the video: Mark Easton was in attendance that Sunday afternoon. Easton is the publisher of The Lake Worth Herald and he had to quickly switch cameras to get this performance of the Blues classic, Soulshine.

Hope you enjoy this video from 2015 at the Lake Worth Playhouse, one of the performances at the Lake Worth Has Talent show:

FYI: “Soulshine” is a song recorded by The Allman Brothers Band and released on their 1994 album “Where It All Begins,” written by guitarist Warren Haynes with vocals by Gregg Allman. Song’s title originates from Haynes’ nickname, given by his father. Although never released as a single, it still remains one of the Allmans’ best known songs among fans and concert-goers.