Welcome to Thinking Out Loud, a blog that contains postings from The Tampa Tribune’s Editorial Board and from various Tribune Community Columnists. Unlike the unsigned editorials that represent the newspaper’s institutional voice, the blog postings offer personal perspectives on the issues, personalities and events of Tampa Bay.
We invite you to participate by posting your comments. We’ll do our best to respond.
Contributors:
Joe Guidry
Joe Guidry is the deputy editorial page editor of The Tampa Tribune. He is a Tampa native and a graduate of the University of South Florida. He is married and has an adult son.
Jeff Stidham
Jeff Stidham grew up and lives in Bartow. He has been with the Tribune for nearly 22 years, the last 10 on the editorial board.
William Yelverton
William Yelverton is a Tribune editorial writer who has worked for the paper nearly 22 years. He lives in the Dade City area.
Jim Beamguard
Jim Beamguard is a Tribune editorial writer. He is a native of North Carolina and a graduate of Davidson College. He and his family live in Brandon.
Jackie Papandrew:
Jackie Papandrew is a freelance writer and editor. Her syndicated humor column appears in publications in the United States, Canada and India. She lives in Largo with her husband and children. Visit her website at www.jackiepapandrew.com.
Camille Beredjick
Camille Beredjick is a senior at Chamberlain High School, an avid musician and a scribbler with a quirky sense of humor. In the fall, she will be attending Northwestern University to study journalism, political science and music, and she plans to pursue a career in journalism.
Jim Harnish
Jim Harnish is in his 17th year as Senior Pastor at Hyde Park United Methodist Church in Tampa. He and his wife, Marsha, have two daughters and two grandchildren. He is a graduate of Asbury Theological Seminary and received the honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from Bethune-Cookman University. He is the author of six books and numerous articles and studies. He enjoys playing with his grandchildren and cheering for the Florida Gators.
Angela Hunt
Angela Hunt is a novelist living in Pinellas County with her husband and two 220-pound mastiffs.
Sheryl Young
Sheryl Young was a Tampa Tribune Community Columnist in 2005-2006. A freelance writer since 1997, including the Tampa Bay Business Journal, Tampa Style Magazines, St. Pete Times and nationally in Better Nutrition, Today’s Christian Woman and more. She’s received a First Place Amy Foundation national "Roaring Lambs" Writing Award, and has lived in Tampa Bay with her family for over 20 years.
Christie Gold
Christie Gold teaches English and journalism at Freedom High School in Tampa where she advises Revolution, the school newspaper. She has been both the Hillsborough County Teacher of the Year and Florida Journalism Teacher of the Year. She lives on a small farm in Wesley Chapel where she trains as a competitive equestrian.
Natalie D. Preston
Natalie D. Preston is a karaoke singing, only-child pouting, Seminole Tomahawk waving, newlywed bride blushing, 50-state traveling, girlie girl who loves to shop, read, run and jump up and down on her soapbox.
Fernando Figueroa
Fernando Figueroa is a researcher, educator and lives in Riverview.
Gary Beemer
Interests include humor, politics, economics, community and world affairs, finance, people, religion, music, sports, current events, the arts and education.
Nicole Yunger Halpern
Nicole Yunger Halpern is an undergraduate at Dartmouth College, where she studies everything she can get her nerdy little hands on. Desired major: life. No, not necessarily biology. Life.
Kris DiGiovanni
Kris DiGiovanni is a Tribune Community Columnist, Huffington Post contributor, Daily Kos diarist, and teacher, who recently moved from NW Hillsborough to another planet - a small beach community in Pinellas County. She also blogs at www.sandscript.wordpress.com
H. David Braswell Jr.
H. David Braswell Jr. is an Information Systems Professional. He is a native New Yorker and a lifelong NY Giants fan. He attended college in California (Cal State Northridge) and moved to Tampa in 1998.
Sean Marcus
Sean Marcus teaches creative writing, journalism and reading at Chamberlain High School. He has one son and is
expecting a daughter in early March. He can be reached at wuizabug@gmail.com
It doesn’t matter that it’s raining. There’s a Mocking bird on the telephone pole in full Phil Collins mode, warbling his greatest hits. Allie and I walk our familiar route. She stops now and again to smell some smelly smell, and I watch the raindrops make dimples in the puddles. An erstwhile earthworm slithers happily in the wet. A gull swoops. I cover my eyes.
The worm’s fate reminds me that I should be very happy today. I’m still above ground and pretty healthy, even though I’m old. Yes, I said old. After turning 60 last year, there was simply no more pretending I was still middle aged.
Still - can’t believe I’m in my 60’s already. Wasn’t it just a year or two ago that I was 30? And to make matters worse, my brain has not kept pace with my soon to be decrepit body. It still lusts after clingy low cut gowns in store windows. It still automatically thinks “Mmmm, mmmm,” when an attractive young man walks by. Of course I’m old enough to be the guy’s grandmother, but my brain reacts like a teenager’s, and I have to slap it back to reality.
If only our brains aged the same way our bodies did, things might be a lot better. It would put an end to old women in spandex and stilettos, and white-haired guys in red convertibles with blond bimbos. No more comb-overs. No more beer-bellies in Speedos. No more bubble lips on faces that look like they are perpetually experiencing a 3-G dive.
But on the other hand, if our brains didn’t stay young while our bodies aged, things might get awfully depressing. We’d know without a doubt that whatever we still fantasized might still happen in our lives, was not going to. No more dreams. No more hope. We’d lose our sense of the “possible.” Instead, we’d just feel that inexorable march towards the end, and hate that it was getting closer with every step.
Definitely not good.
OK, so I guess our brains mature slowly for a reason. Although logic tells me it’s a little late for me to write the Great American Novel, I still could. I might still lose those 20 pounds and be able to wear my favorite pair of jeans once again. I might… well, the possibilities are endless.
Suddenly I know exactly what to wish when I blow out the 61 candles on my cake tonight. I may be old, but I’m not dead yet. I can still dream.
