PRESENTS
32nd ANNUAL FESTIVAL OF GLASS
AND
ANTIQUE SHOW AND SALE
AUGUST 19 & 20, 2006
Gene
Florence, born 1944, in Lexington, Kentucky, was gifted with an
exceedingly fine memory for facts and figures, until a gym prank at school
in seventh grade resulted in a concussion which had him looking for glasses
he didn't wear. After that, his memory was never quite the near photographic
level as before, but still better than average. As a child, his parents
said that he could do complicated math sums in his head faster than they
could do them with a calculator. He collected marbles, comics, baseball
cards, and coins and could quote in detail all data relevant to those collectibles.
His interests were myriad, his reading voracious, and when soundly beaten
at checkers by a girl (later his wife) during a recess break, in junior
high, he proceeded to the library to check out the writings of masters of
the game and ultimately employed that knowledge to a successful and more
satisfying (to himself) conclusion.
He gained a Kincaid scholarship and, briefly, opened and operated a coin shop in Lexington, before graduating from the University of Kentucky with majors in math and English. He married his childhood 'checker playing nemesis turned sweetheart' and they had two sons. He, subsequently, taught school for nine years at gifted and high school levels in a Kentucky school system paying enough to qualify his children for the free lunch program! He decided at that point that he'd paid back his societal dues and needed to better provide for his own family. One known teaching success he treasures: A student returned from a stint in the army and looked him up and invited him out to lunch to express his appreciation for "turning him onto math and interesting him in computers" which he'd pursued in the military. He said he was married, had been offered a great paying job as a civilian, and would probably have been in the penal system like two of his friends had it not been for that particular class in high school.
He left teaching to pursue a burgeoning interest in Depression glassware, first publishing a book on the collectibles in 1972, and later opening his own Grannie Bear Antique Shop in 1976 which specialized in those wares. Later, when the economy suffered a downturn, it was his recently gained knowledge of beer can collectibles that carried the shop over that three year rough patch where most businesses fail.
He has now authored, in all their editions, over 80 books on subjects from glassware to baseball cards. He enjoys gardening and hunting and fishing for game he likes to eat. When asked by a customer if he played golf, he replied that though he "liked hunting and fishing," those golf balls were too chewy to eat; so he saw no reason to "hunt" golf balls hiding in the rough or to "fish" for them in the lakes on the course.