This was supposed to be an entry about Charlton Heston, the late actor who came to symbolize the very essence of the BIG, I tell ya, big epic movie.
Back in 1979, when I was the film critic for the Ministry of Truth, Heston, then 55, came to here to participate in a Canadian Club Pro-Celeb Tennis Classic event at the Bayfront Center. As a mega-star of his stature with “The Ten Commandments,” “Ben-Hur” and “Planet of the Apes” under his belt, the actor certainly didn’t have to make time for a scribbler of my humble journalistic bloodlines.
But he did and the result was a fairly wide-ranging interview in which Heston discussed his approach to roles, the art of move-making at the time and his own calculation of his worth to a fim, noting he never demanded the multimillion dollar salaries his peers insisted upon, preferring instead to take a percentage of the film’s gross.
“I think if the picture’s not a hit, then, I don’t deserve a million dollars,” Heston smiled. “Nobody is.”
Despite whether you agreed with Heston’s later image as an advocate for the NRA, the actor was classic, old-school Hollywood - courtly, gracious and unpretentious. Indeed, not long after my piece ran, Heston sent a handwritten letter, thanking me for MY time to talk to him. It was a very classy gesture.
In preparing to write this, I had to pull the actual newspaper clipping of the story from our archives.
Since about 1990, everything you have read in The Tampa Tribune has been electronically preserved. But prior to that year, the history of this newspaper has been kept in a series of massive vaults - on the original paper it was first printed upon.
As you might imagine, given Charlton Heston’s career, his clip file was thick with entries, including one yellowed story from 1953.
But it was first clip that fell out of Heston’s file, which brought back a flood of memories.
It was dated, Dec. 19, 1978, a wire story written by Jane Gregory for the Chicago Sun-Times Wire Service about Charlton Heston and a book he had authored, “The Actor’s Life.”
By-lines are fairly innocuous things in this business. Most people pay very little attention to them, unless, of course, what they just read had royally peeved them off and they want to know who to blame.
I had probably even read Jane Gregory’s piece on Heston at the time and forgotten about it. Many years later though, as fate would it, I would work with Jane Gregory, work with her up until the day she died in the newsroom.
Jane was one of those people you run across in this racket from time to time, a true jack of all trades. She had covered breaking news and crime, entertainment and fashion, a little bit of everything.
But she was hardly the stereotypical hard-boiled Chicago reporter. This was a gracious, elegant, soft-spoken woman of great wit and literacy.
In 1984, I joined the staff of the Chicago Sun-Times and a year later became the paper’s television critic, where I had to pleasure to get know Jane back in the features department.
In the late 1980s the do-gooders at the Sun-Times successfully lobbied to have smokers like Jane and me banished from the newsroom and exiled to a small, windowless room complete with some ashtrays and a couple of computers.
The decor was lousy. The camaraderie was golden.
One afternoon, the smokers were taking out their invective on Henry Kisor, the book editor and truly lovely man, who in the opinion of the smoking room had writtten a somewhat too chummy, too flattering profile of Scott Turow.
As the barbs about Henry’s piece flowed back and forth, Jane gently acknowledged that she too, had found the piece boring and feigned falling asleep with her head in her hands.
Several minutes passed as everyone continued to gab about Henry’s story when someone noticed Jane was still pretending to be asleep.
Jane, though, was dead. Dead without a sound. Dead without calling the slightest attention to herself. Dead, as only Jane could be dead - understated literally to the very end.
Several hours later, after the body had been removed. One reporter ventured into the smoking area and after proceeding to sit down for a cigarette, realized about half-way into settling into chair, this had been where Jane was sitting when her heart simply - stopped. The reporter quickly straightened and found somewhere else to perch.
Jane died doing what she loved doing most, working in this often silly, insane, threatened business of newspapers.
No one was ever quite sure what caused Jane’s eerie demise, but after a while, we all agreed to blame her death on Henry Kisor.
Death by boredom. Jane would have liked the simplicity of that. But we never told Henry.
Now some members of the Tampa Art Museum’s board want to put up a rooftop terrace on the new art museum about to be constructed downtown on the river. The pitch is that it would act as a fund raiser for the museum, hosting weddings, bar mitzvahs and the like, providing an open air facility overlooking the minarets across the Hillsborough River. It sounds romantic, moonlight over Monet and all that ,but the more cynical out there might see it as just a venue for the artsy fartsy set that most of us would never see.
I say build it but, except for a designated number of occasions, open it up, put in a few potted palms and call it a public park.
These days Wright Gres is a tugboat captain living on a bluff over the Altamaha River in southeastern Georgia. But he is a Tampa native, who grew up sailing and working on anything that floated around Tampa Bay.
Now Gres has written a novel, “Macedonian Passage: Dangerous Cargo.’’ It’s a good read and for a first novel a very good read. He’s back in town and will be at the Inkwood Bookstore in Hyde Park Thursday at 7 p.m. He’s a likable guy tells some great stories.
The bad news is that legislators are still meandering around Tallahassee. The good news is about the most important on their agenda these days seems to be the state song. After spending a few months holding an online contest to come up with a new song to replace “Old Folks At Home,’’ they have finally concluded that the winner sounds more like background music at a Disney attraction and are trying to salvage the current one.
Their solution is to keep the original with revised lyrics that replace the original words done in mock slave dialect. That’s OK by me except that some legislators apparently want to write their own, brand new lyrics. You have to figure if a legislative committee gets hold of that, they will spend the next six months trying to come with a verse that rhymes with “Seating the Florida delegation.’’
John McCain turning to former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush for advice on education is a bit like hiring the Donner Party to cater the inaugural ball.
But there was the presumptive Republican presidential nominee the other day extolling the Bush Junta years as some sort of golden age of education
“He’s very well-respected on many issues, but education is probably one where he has a national reputation,” McCain said, which makes you wonder if he was immediately led away with a shawl draped around his shoulders for a nice nap and some warm milk.
A “national reputation”?!?!?! Oh really? Good grief, Bush may well have a “national reputation,” but it is much more likely for turning Florida schools into the Jack Kevorkian of the Three Rs.
Over the course of eight long, insufferable years in Tallahassee where he spent his days posing for holy pictures, Jeb Bush managed to leave office with Florida public schools ranked behind Chernobyl, the Planet Zircon 9 and the Paleolithic Period.
And John McCain treasures Jeb Bush’s counsel on education? That’s like looking to Uday and Qusay for guidance on how to pick up women.
During the Bush regime, the Florida Supreme Court ruled the governor’s ham-handed private school voucher plan unconstitutional.
At the end of his term, high school graduation rates ranked anywhere from 48th to 50th in the nation.
And while Jeb Bush, turned into the Paula Dean of cooked books, claiming 75 percent of the state’s classrooms were A and B schools, his own brother’s U.S. Department of Education noted some 72 percent of Florida schools failed to meet federal standards.
During his governorship, Jeb Bush turned the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test into a weapon against teachers and students.
And now John McCain portrays Jeb Bush as some sort of perverse champion of education?
Oh dear. Isn’t that like turning to the Grim Reaper for advice on stand-up comedy?
As great moments in press flackery goes, this was a classic case of a profile in porridge.
It is the sad fate of the political press apparatchik to occasionally attempt to transform the complete hooey of the boss and try to turn their mealy-mouthed blubbering into something sounding even semi-bold, partly visionary, almost coherent.
Here, in its entirety is the press release sent out earlier today by the Florida Democratic Party under the guise of “News From The Florida Democratic Party.” You might want to get a strong cup of coffee.
“Joint Statement from Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, Florida Democratic Party Chairwoman Karen L. Thurman and Florida’s Democratic Congressional Delegation on Seating Florida’s Delegates.”
And that was just the headline. Here’s what followed.
“WASHINGTON, D.C. - After a joint meeting today among Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, Florida Democratic Party Chairwoman Karen L. Thurman and Florida’s Democratic Congressional Delegation, the participants issued this joint statement:
“We are all committed to doing everything we can to ensure that a Florida delegation is seated in Denver. We all agree that whatever the solution, it must have the support of both campaigns.
“While there may be differences of opinion in how we get there, we are all committed to ensuring that Florida’s delegation is seated in Denver. We’re committed to working with both campaigns to reach a solution as soon as realistically possible.
“We are laying the groundwork to ensure we win in Florida in November and spent time here today talking about how to do just that. We will continue to work towards a solution to ensure delegates are seated and logistics in place for a Florida delegation in Denver.”
Let’s see here. Thurman, Dean, along with the Florida congressional caucus, which includes U.S. Senator Bill Nelson, along with House members, Allen Boyd, Corrine Brown, Kathy Castor, Alcee Hastings, Ron Klein, Tim Mahoney, Kendrick Meek, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and Robert Wexler ALL met to resolve the primary election debacle and this four paragraph pile of public relations claptrap was the best these towering political minds could come up with?!?!?
As well the press release announcing the Democrats had nothng to say was co-issued by three (count ‘em, three) party press minions, Stacie Paxton and Mark Bubriski and Alejandro Miyar. This wasn’t like drafting the Magna Carta. This was a yada-yda-yada-blah-blah-blah press release supposedly reflecting the combined views of 12 Democrats and the best they could come up with was: “we’re committed.”
Now there’s a “Ask not what your country can do for you,” moment.
Is it a relatively nice thing Cuba’s newest dictator, Raul Castro decreed the other that day that the island’s residents may now possess cell phones?
Probably. Maybe. We’ll see.
Yes, it is certainly true Cubans now armed with their cell phones will be able to call their exiled families in the United States and that is obviously a positive development.
But let’s face it, it’s pretty evident Raul Castro has no idea the techno-monster he has unleashed across his impoverished country.
Fidel’s younger brother probably felt he was enabling his countrymen to be able to call their families in America as well as each other across the nation.
Isn’t that precious?
We all know that once Cubans start getting their cell phones, well, they will start using them by insisting on calling people to talk to them.
No good will come from this.
In time, the streets will be clogged with Cubans in their 1957 Fords, blissfully gabbing away while traffic backs up behind them. Movie goers will be interrupted by ring tones. Young Cuban teenage girls will spend hours blabbing away with their friends - who happen to live next door! - yapping and yapping and yapping and yapping about nothing, absolutely nothing at all.
And, of course, with cell phone technology will come the ability to text message one another, which while Raul Castro might naively believe will enhance the flow of information among his citizens, we know from experience that texting merely streamlines the ability to send bad jokes, funny pictures and porn to one another.
If Raul Castro is going to permit cell phones, clearly access to the Internet can’t be far behind.
That means Havana will soon see a proliferation of Internet cafes, thus making it easier for Cubans to exchange bad jokes, funny pictures and, of course altogether now! - porn with one another.
Thus, we know now, the communist regime in Cuba won’t be brought down by a popular uprising, or an invasion. The Castro Brothers are ultimately going to be brought to their knees by the ultimate Capitalist weapon - the cellphone, which opens vistas for good and evil and don’t forget - porn, too.
Viva Nextel!
The 10 judges were lined up on stools at the bar. Unfortunately the bar, like the Channelside restaurant where it was located, had closed its doors a few weeks back. We were using it as the secret chambers for judging this the 21st annual Steve Otto Chili Cookoff.
We were into our 20th or maybe it was the 21st sample cup and things were getting hostile. Chili is an iconic American dish. If you want a true bowl of red, you have to come to this country to get it.
The problem was, we weren’t getting it. Team after team, after sweating for hours outdoors in the Channelside courtyard, had turned in concoctions that sort of resembled chili, but tasted more like grout cleaner mixed with beans.
It had happened before in earlier contests, where the teams, maybe with too much time on their hands, saw other competitors dumping peppers and unknowns in the chili pot and figured they had to do the same. By judging time many of them were practically inedible. I think it was the 21st first cup that one of the judges suggested might make a good putty for bricks. Not only would it hold the bricks together, the aroma would kill any termites that dared come close.
Despite the pain, the judges pressed on and finally came up with a credible winner. I’ll probably give you some more on the contest in Wednesday’s column, but it did raise $13,000 for the Judeo Christian Health Clinic and that’s a good thing.
The winner
The winning team was The Krewe of Zingaro, which placed second last year. Here’s their recipe:
INGREDIENTS: 6 POUNDS LEAN BEEF, SIRLOIN TIP ROAST, CUT INTO HALF-INCH CUBES
4 POUNDS PORK TENDERLOIN , TRIMMED OF ALL FAT AND CUT INTO HALF-INCH CUBES
1 AND A HALF POUNDS PANCETTA, OR OTHER SMOKED BACON, CUT INTO STRIPS
2 LARGE VIDALIA ONIONS, CHOPPED
12 LARGE CLOVES OF GARLIC, MASHED INTO TWO TABLESPOONS OLIVE OIL , DIVIDED
6 TABLESPOONS GROUND CUMIN, DIVIDED
7 TABLESPOONS REGULAR CHILI POWDER
8 TABLESPOONS HOT CHILI POWDER
4 TABLESPPONS SMOKED PAPRIKA, DIVIDED
1 TEASPOON MEXICAN OREGANO
1 SEVEN OUNCE CAN CHIPOLTES IN ADOBE SAUCE, STEMS REMOVED, CHOPPED, SEEDED
2-3 TABLESPOONS OF MASA (OPTIONAL)
3 28-OUNCE CANS CRUSHED iTALIAN TOMATOES
16 OUNCES BEEF STOCK
1 12-OUNCE BEER, WARM
2 TABLESPOONS FLAVOR ENHANCER
4 TEASPOONS SEA SALT
1 TEASPOON CAYENNE PEPPER
OLIVE OIL
PROCESS:
Put the chopped bacon into a heavy-bottomed skillet and cook over medium high heat until the fat is rendered.
With a slotted spoon, transfer the bacon into a 15-quart heavy bottomed stock pot.
Saute the chopped Vidalia onions in the heated iron skillet with the bacon drippings until soft, about five minutes over medium high heat, then transfer the onions to the stock pot.
Put one tablespoon of olive oil in the skillet and brown the meat in batches, alternating between the beef and pork. adding a little oil each time. When each batch is browned, add to the stock pot. When about halfway through the browning process, add half of the garlic, half of the cumin, one tablespoon smoked paprika, the regular chili powder, Mexican oregano, tomatoes, beer, beef stock, flavor enhancer, and two teaspoons of the sea salt to the stock pot and begin to cook over medium heat.
Continue to brown the remaining meat and add to the simmering pot.
Cook over medium heat, covered, stirring occasionally, to maintain a good simmer, about one and a half hours.
When the meat is tender, add the reamaining cumin and garlic, hot chili powder, remaining three tablespoons smoked paprika, the chipoltes in adobe sauce, and remaining two teaspoons of sea salt and the cayenne pepper.
If using masa, mix with some of the liquid, and re-introduce into the pot. Continue cooking for at least thity minutes to combine spices.
Invite the fire department over and eat.
While it is certainly true Barack Obama needed the Jeremiah Wright brouhaha about as much as Nick Nolte needs an open bar tab, it would appear all the hand-wringing by the drive-by bloviators on the right-wing media airwaves have had precious little impact on the Illinois senator’s presidential campaign.
Despite a seeming “All Obama/All Jeremiah Wright/All The Time” preoccupation with the Democratic Party presidential nominee’s silly preacher on the Faux News Channel, as well as the dyspeptic fulminations of Rush Limbaugh his associate lap dogs like Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck, none of the foaming at the mouth phony indignation seems to have had much of an effect on the candidate’s polling numbers.
Indeed both a NBC/Wall Street Journal and a Pew Research Center national poll in the wake of the Jeremiah Wright kerfuffle showed Obama with a 49% to 39% lead over Hillary Clinton.
Indeed a California Public Policy Institute poll, found that 61% of the state’s voters held a positive few of Obama, compared to 45% for Clinton.
And while all polls this early during a presidential candidate are merely snapshots in time and hardly indicative of how the numbers will ultimately fall in November, a case could certainly be made that after two weeks of fairly relentless critical reporting about his controversial minister, Obama appears to have weathered the storm pretty well.
Why is that?
Well for starters, it is rather doubtful the Limbaugh Axis of Demagoguery has much juice beyond his fellow travelers. Really now, can you imagine some liberal Democratic voters suddenly deciding to switch allegiances away from Obama, simply because Rush Limbaugh and his little friends got their bloomers in a wad?
And there is this. It’s merely a guess, but do you think it’s possible most people following Obama’s ministerial pickle concluded it was entirely possible that, like many churchgoers, Obama sat in that pew when he attended services and simply zoned out once Wright started ranting?
Quick now. If you attended church last Sunday, do you remember a single word your preacher uttered?
In the end the Jeremiah Wright dust-up may be remembered not so much for anything the crazy cleric said, but that anyone was paying any attention to notice in the first place.
And that’s the God’s honest truth.
As a keen piece of political strategy, this had to rank somewhere between Gary Hart telling reporters, “If you think I’m fooling around, fee free to follow me,” and Michael Dukakis riding around in that tank looking like a complete goofball.
Of allllllllllll her numerous and sundry shortcomings as a presidential candidate, what would you say would be Hillary Clinton’s greatest weakness? The voice that sounds like a badger in heat doesn’t count.
Would there be any great debate Hillary Clinton’s most daunting hurdle to overcome is that she has all the credibility of Fredo Corleone?
And yet, over the course of the last few days the former first lady has managed to step on her ..., well on her, ... uh, her Achilles’ Heel again and again and again.
Repeatedly, Clinton went out on the stump and plainly lied about a make believe experience in being shot at by snipers while on a trip to Bosnia in 1996.
In a tale that sounds almost like a sequel to “Air Force One,” Clinton recounted a harrowing landing in Tuzla while shots rang out, requiring her and her entourage, which included daughter Chelsea to race to the their vehicles braving a hail of bullets.
And it all a huge, steamy, stinking pile of ... phooey.
It didn’t take long before news footage of her actual landing in Bosnia emerged, portraying Clinton and her group casually strolling across the tarmac, greeting well-wishers and even pausing to listen to a small child recite a poem. And a vast array of witnesses who were present that day recall not the slightest hint of danger in the air.
Which brings us to a question. Is a candidate this delusional, this mendacious, this dense, fit to the president of the United States. I know, I know, we already have one of those.
A simple point. You’re Hillary Clinton. You already know one of your biggest negatives is that the public views you as someone they would not leave their bar changed unattended to if they found themselves sitting next to you in a saloon and nature called.
And yet you still insist on telling a whopper of a tall tale about snipers and bullets and DANGER, when you have to have known those snoopy reporters would check out the story.
Hillary Clinton, of all people, didn’t stop to think there would be video of her arrival in Bosnia. She had to know there was no proof of her and Chelsea making a mad dash for cover. It never dawned upon her that no one would believe the Secret Service would have allowed a First Lady and her daughter to be exposed to sniper fire?
Good grief, the dreadful comedian Sinbad (an admitted Barack Obama supporter), who was also on the trip has said the only drama that occurred in Bosnia was trying to decide where to eat at night.
For her part, Clinton has blamed this whole kerfuffle on being sleep deprrived on the campaign trail and simply, innocently misspeaking. And if you believe that, you probably also believe that stain on Monica Lewinsky’s dress was spaghetti sauce.
You could make a case the biggest threat to Hillary Clinton aren’t Bosnian snipers. It’s Hillary Clinton standing in front of a microphone.
Running for president is hard enough work, without the candidate deciding to shoot herself in the foot.
Now there is a study to see if teachers are having more sex with their students than in the past. This come after 10 Hillsborough County teachers in less than three years have been charged.
Last night I asked my third-grade teacher wife if there was something to this sex thing. She looked at me and said she had a headache and rolled over.
You may not realize just yet, but you just got sold down the river - on a rail.
Earlier this week, the Florida Legislature, otherwise known as a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Tallahassee lobbyist corps of buffet tables, agreed to provide the choo-choo company, CSX Transportation freedom from being held responsible for any passenger train accidents, which might occur on its rail lines - even if CSX is at fault for the mishap.
And just whom would be left holding the bill for damages? Why that would be you, dear taxpayer, of course.
The CSX gift basket is part of a larger $491 million cooked up in secret deal in which the state will purchase 61 miles of rail tracks in Orlando, thus freeing up the company to expand its freight hub in Polk County.
So, let’s see here. CSX gets the secret $491 million. And if anything goes wrong, even if it’s the result of the company’s own misconduct, they are still free and clear from any liability. Sweet deal.
Which brings us to another issue the legislative lotion boys pondered this week.
For years now those crazy, wacky, fun-loving folks at the National Rifle Association have been pushing for a law, which would permit employees to bring their guns to work, as long as they remained locked up in their cars.
The move has long been opposed by another powerful lobby, Associated Industries of Florida, which has argued private business owners ought to have the right to dictate what can and can’t be brought onto private property. It’s a perfectly reasonable point of view.
And thus those profiles in courage in Tallahassee have found themselves caught between two very influential special interest groups, both quite capable of extracting tons of political flesh should they get annoyed.
So this week, state Sen. Michael Bennett introduced and won approval of a provision, which would protect private business owners from legal liability should an employee go a little wacko-mondo and start shooting people at work.
You know, when you have to anticipate bloody mayhem as a consequence of legislation you are about to pass, that alone might suggest perhaps this proposed law might be just a tad - insane.
Nevertheless since the bring your lethal weapon to work bill seems to be gaining momentum among the NRA lemmings in the Florida Legislature, one aspect of Bennett’s liability amendment has been overlooked.
If companies will be held harmless in the event a worker decides to start shooting, who should be eventually responsible for paying damages for allowing all this bloodshed to occur?
Since the taxpayers are already obligated to bail out CSX, perhaps Bennett might want to introduce language that would obligate the National Rifle Association and all the individual members of the Florida Legislature who voted for this hooey to be the ones to pay damages to the victims of workplace violence as a consequence of the Body Bag Act of 2008.
That would only be the fair thing to do, although admittedly the common sense train left the station in Tallahassee a long time ago.
This is probably about as close as you can get to “journalistic groping.”
So there was Jeb Bush subjecting himself to a reportorial full body massage by the Florida Baptist Witness, which was asking the former junta leader about his life and opinions.
Jeb Bush insisted he didn’t enjoy being a “pundit” as he went on to commit first degree punditry on a wide variety of issues, which were about as revealing as a burka.
Except for one thing.
At one point, the Mandarin of Miami was punditzing about “21st Century” conservatism, when he dropped this load of ..., well, balderdash.
Conservatism in this century, Bush noted, should be a “... multi-faceted philosophy, including a progressive foreign policy that affirms the ‘Bush Doctrine,’ reforms government institutions, recognizes the global nature of the economy and cultivates a culture that supports the family.”
Of course, it was insane enough that the younger Bush sibling was promoting his brother’s foreign policy, which may well go down as one the great international relations failures in American history.
But then came this delusional line as Bush said he would “defer on these matters to Newt Gingrich, who I consider to be one of the more thoughtful, thinking conservatives in the country now who is doing a lot of work in these areas.”
Oh really?!?!?
Ahem, isn’t deferring to a bumptious windbag like Newt Gingrich on an issue like cultivating the family, a bit like looking to Uday & Qusay for guidance on how to pick up women?
Isn’t this the same Newt Gingrich, R-Family Man, who broached the topic of beginning divorce proceedings with his first wife, while she was being being treated for cancer?
Indeed, is this the same Newt Gingrich, R-Walton Mountain, who while running for Congress in 1978 using the campaign slogan “Let Our Family Represent Your Family” was carrying on an affair?
Oh and is this the very same Newt Gingrich, R-Ward Cleaver, (then married to Mrs. Gingrich Number Two) who led the impeachment charge against Bill Clinton, feigning moral outrage against the then president’s infidelity, while at the same time carrying on his own affair with a 33-year-old congressional aide?
Now this is the same Newt Gingrich, R-Daddy Dearest, Jeb Bush wants to defer to as an authority on cultivating a culture of family?
What family? The Borgias, perhaps? The Bushes?
Curtis Wienker wrote in to comment on last week’s column that mentioned the excativions in downtown Tampa and the “lack of proof’’ about whose bones we found.
Wienker is actually Dr. Curtis Wienker, Emeritus Profesor of Anthropology and Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of South Florida. The man know his bones.
“I contact you regarding your column of today (3/17/08). You wrote that there was “never really any proof’ that the bones found at the site of the Fort Brooke Parking Garage were from American Indians. I am the physical anthropologist that studied the remains of more than 100 of the graves that were excavated during the project, which was under the direction of then Piper and Piper, a private archaeology firm. I studied them ‘blind’, in the absence of any archaeological information aside from whatever artifacts might have been included with the remains that were brought to the physical anthropology laboratory at USF , oh so many years ago. Then, near the end of the project, I was given a description of the cultural artifacts found in each grave.
“It was one of the more interesting projects I have been involved with since first coming to USF in 1972. Indeed, you are almost certainly correct that some of the remains probably were derived from early settlers of the village of Tampa. The site dates approximately to the time of the Second Seminole War, roughly 1824-1848. Historical records suggest that the cemetery (all interments appear to have been in wooden coffins) contained the remains of Seminoles, settlers, US military personnel, and American Indian scouts associated with Fort Brooke.
“That some of the remains were American Indian is virtually incontestable. Some had dental characteristics definitive of American Indians and Asians and some were buried with typical Seminole artifacts. While not proof, the scientific evidence is incontrovertible, in my professional experience and opinion.
“My final report, and the comprehensive project report of Harry M. Piper and his wife Jacqueline are in the USF Library. It is almost certain that there are more graves in land immediately adjacent to the area that was excavated.
Sincerely,
Curtis W. Wienker, Ph.D.
There was a memorial service today in Sun City Center for Merrill Pratt Thomas, who died last week and who was the subject of a column last Sunday. A lot of of are tourists on this planet. We pass through life like we’re on one of those tour buses, never getting out to meet the people. Merrill, who died at the age of 100, having led a life that took her from rural Mississippi to Shanghai and Manhattan, was one of those who got off the bus and got to know the local surroundings.
Merrill was full of life practically to the end. It was only last year we went out for a rich Indonesian meal full of spices. She was involved with the Community Foundation and a generous donor.
At the memorial service her close friend Sister Rosalie Hennessey mentioned that at the age of 97, she had come to the nun and asked her to read a two page mission statement. “At the age of 97 Merrill decided she needed a plan and so wrote what had to be the only mision statement ever done by a 97 year old,’’ said Hennessey.
The last line of Merrill’s stement reads, “My mission now at age 97 is to be as kind and loving as I can be. and try not to be miserable around the people who love me.’‘
Sounds like a mission statement we could all use, and not wait until we’re 97 to start trying.
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