Gulfshore resident captures memories in autobiography

For 15 months, Don Whiston kept a notebook next to his bed. He filled it between the hours of 3 a.m. and 5 a.m.

He wasn’t testing his sleep patterns or recording dreams. He was writing a book.

“Well, that is when your mind is clearer, and things I hadn’t really thought about popped up,” Whiston said.

At 87, Whiston wanted somewhere to put his memoirs. Whiston’s first book, “Winning Silver,” is something of a tribute to his life — one that he calls crazy. From his family life to his time at the Winter Olympics to his financial career, the book is a track of his successes and challenges.

“My life has so much to it,” he said. “It’s almost impossible to put it all together.”

Still, he wrote a 142-page book that begins with the story of his parents, sisters and early life. From there, we learn about his childhood at Little Neck, a peninsula off Great Neck in Ipswich, N.J. In Chapter Three, Whiston shares the story of his journey to Oslo, Norway, and the 1952 Winter Olympics, where he helped the U.S. hockey team win silver as a goaltender.

“Hockey shaped my whole life, and the Olympics gave me a chance to dream an impossible dream,” he wrote in the book.

In 1951, Whiston, now 89, was asked to try out for the Olympic team. He was newly married to his late wife, Marie, and just beginning his professional career at a Boston investment firm, but he couldn’t turn down the opportunity.

“I grew up on the ponds,” he said. “I had a pair of skates when I was 5, but there was no formal hockey. There was in the high school I went to, and I played there. That’s where my career started.”

Before the Olympics, the team played 53 games in Europe and the United States in 45 days. The team placed second in Norway that year, finishing behind Canada.

Following the Olympics, Whiston coached for three seasons at Brown University, his alma mater,  and had a long financial career, including 15 years at P.W. Brooks Co. He made the switch to banking as president of First National Bank of Ipswich. 

It’s these stories and memories of his life that Whiston captures in his autobiography. “When I think of my life, I think “Oh jeez, why was I selected to do all these things?’” Whiston said.

But aside from his life, he wants to capture stories of other people. The eighth chapter of his “Winning Silver” book is dedicated to Longboat Key and the Gulfshore community.

Whiston used to visit Sarasota as a kid because his father was a big Boston Red Sox fan. The team held spring training there from 1933 to 1942. In 1948, his parents bought a mobile home at Gulfshore, and Whiston kept the trailer when his father died. Now, at 89, Whiston is the second-oldest resident at Gulfshore.

In the book, he talks of the people he’s met and how they gather around an oak tree most nights to catch up. It’s a refuge for him. Now, he’s looking to pay tribute to the community.

“I’m attempting to write a book, another book, on Gulfshore,” he said. “The irony of that is Gulfshore is unique itself. I don’t think people realize what it is. I call it an aberration.”