Category: Tampa Bay

Permit me to share something. It’s personal, yet universal. I hope it helps somebody.

This column was on hiatus last week. My mother was grievously ill; there were ventilator scenarios; she finally passed away.

Some of you have been there. For others, the biological inevitability of a loved one in a clinical, life-tethering setting awaits. As does the accompanying roller coaster ride of emotions, ethics and psychological anguish and irony. Those longest-of-long-shot hopes; that ultimate decision to uncouple a patient from the myriad of life-support tubes that contort features and convert life to existence. The vigil, the doubts, the tears, the sighs, the end.

There will be times when you can’t help but feel like an accomplice – or worse. And that’s not fair to you. The quality-of-life crucible is unique: a haunting, daunting dynamic.

On one hand you preternaturally root for a miracle – the kind that defies the reality of why an 83-year-old with emphysema and heart failure is in the critical care unit to begin with.

On the other hand, you perversely root for the heart-rate and respiratory numbers to head south to end the ordeal. And part of the ordeal, you well know, is the enervating impact on you. You feel selfish. Once again, not fair to you.

You see that a patient at the opposite end of the CCU has died. There’s a long family queue and audible crying. You begin to envy the closure crowd. It’s a normal reference point on the emotional continuum.

Despite the obvious solemnity of the situation, some visitor exchanges are veritable reunions – especially if it’s a Florida family member in a Doylestown, Pa., hospital. As hours turn to days and eventually into a fortnight, you can forget to take every such exchange into the corridor – or the waiting room. You feel like an infidel for disrespecting the patient who can’t participate.

You also find yourself jealous of those nearby patients who can interact normally with their visitors. You know that for them, there’s life after the CCU. You hear them weigh their dessert options as the nurse reads from the menu. You’d love for your mom to have to ponder the merits of vanilla pudding vs. orange sherbet. High-protein-nutrition-with-fiber diets — via those ready-to-hang, enteral feeding containers — don’t demand such decisions.

You come to welcome diversions – especially in the form of all the good people who volunteer. There were lay ministers who were generically consoling and — in the case of Doylestown Hospital — even a strolling harpist.

But most of all there were the CCU nurses. Theirs is an obvious, special calling. They know their nursing, but no less important, they know their empathy. If anyone feels another’s pain, it’s CCU nurses.

And they treated my mom with dignity; so don’t settle for less. She was often unresponsive, but she was never less than an adult human being who had lived a long, productive life — and didn’t deserve to be “honeyed” and “sweet-hearted” in her final days as if she were a child in a car-seat.

Critical communication

My mother didn’t have a living will. As it turned out, it didn’t matter. Some people sign them when death still seems largely an abstraction. Staring into the abyss and/or focusing on the imminent afterlife matters more. A meaningful, right-now sense of the patient’s deathbed wishes matters most.

So, make sure you ask.

Somebody needs to step up — in those intervals between morphine and Ativan injections — and communicate with the patient. Where there are discernible head gestures – as well as eyebrow arching – there are wishes that can be conveyed. But it’s no time for ambiguity in the name of compassion. Be precise as well as tender and loving.

As the oldest – and with a window of opportunity – I asked my mother what needed to be asked. My brother Tim accompanied me. Context was critical. I prefaced the line of inquiry with reminders of her legacy: children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and special friends across the years. A life that mattered in so many ways to so many people. She was there for us, and now we were here for her.

In the end, it came down to: “Ma, do you want us to continue to do all this for you? Is this worth it?”

The answers, not unlike the responses to the previous questions, were clear. In this case, emphatic “No” gestures.

I swallowed hard, sobbed quietly and looked behind me. My brother’s head was bowed, his shoulders heaving.

Then we made sure everybody was on board. Hospitals don’t want a consensus or a super majority. They like unanimity when it comes to families’ quality-of-life calls.

No abstraction

My mother was as feisty and opinionated as she was classy and dignified. She wanted, I knew in my core, to go out on her own terms, having lived a full 83-plus years. She wanted to go out pain free – and with as much dignity intact as possible. As a young woman, she was strikingly pretty; as a septuagenarian widow who frequented seniors’ dances, she was always the woman most frequently asked to dance by all those outnumbered men. Quality of life was no abstraction to her.

I knew that. She knew I knew. But I made sure.

It was enough to remind me of that Will Rogers line: “It’s only the inspiration of those who die that makes those who live realize what constitutes a useful life.” And Ida Rita O’Neill led one of those.

And not that it needs underscoring, but here’s literally the last thing she uttered at the hospital — to my brother Mike: “Don’t forget about the chicken soup I made; it’s in the refrigerator.”

Translation: “I’m still your mother; you’re still my child. The soup won’t last much longer. Eat it. It’s good for you.”It’s what mothers do.

To the very end.

He came. They saw. He conquered.

The Barack Obama “‘O’ Train” made a whistle-stop appearance in Tampa last week – at a private, $2,300-per-person fund-raiser and a later $25-per-person gathering at Ybor City’s Cuban Club. Things could not have gone any better for the Illinois senator and prominent presidential candidate – including threatening weather that turned benign just in time.

“Beyond our wildest expectations,” assessed Frank Sanchez, the CEO of Tampa’s Renaissance Steel who, as a member of Obama’s national financial committee as well as an adviser on Latin America, was the go-to guy for the fund-raising doubleheader.

“The campaign gave us a date, and we put it together in five weeks,” said Sanchez, who was working with about 100 volunteers and a core executive committee of seven members. “I felt tremendous pressure to deliver a good event,” he acknowledged. “We were hoping for 1,500 (at the Cuban Club) and we got 2,000. We were hoping for $200,000 (overall) and we raised $250,000.”

Up first was a noon Hyde Park assemblage hosted by Norma Gene Lykes. Contributors paid $2,300 apiece for mimosas, brunch fare and intimate Obaman sound bites and photo-ops. Sanchez was struck by the crowd’s composition.

“That definitely caught my eye,” noted Sanchez. “It was such a diverse crowd – whites, African-Americans, Hispanics, members of the Muslim community. And then it was the same thing at the Cuban Club. It’s one of the reasons Obama’s candidacy excites me. He quite literally has the capacity to bring people together — no matter what the differences.”

According to those present, Obama’s sense of humor and timing were impressive at the brunch. He also proved a patient listener. He worked the room as well as he worked that podium at the 2004 Democratic National Convention.

The Cuban Club scene could not have been orchestrated any better had Buzby Berkeley been directing. The candidate was in full deus ex machina mode as he descended the iconic building’s fire-escape steps to the courtyard below — to the strains of “Stars & Stripes Forever” performed by members of the Florida A&M Marching Band. A demographic olio of ages, genders and hues awaited. As did a sea of signs (“Follow your heart, Bama,” “Hop on the ‘O’ Train”), t-shirts (“Barack & Roll”), souvenir hand fans, and uplifted cameras, autobiographies and spirits.

Then that inimitable, infectious smile. And that back-at-ya hand clap.

And that impassioned, populist message with those well-received applause lines.

The rhetoric of inclusion – delivered authentically enough by someone with roots in Kenya and Kansas, was front and center. He pivoted from retelling his recent political pilgrimage to Selma, Ala., to underscore that America needed another epiphany, another defining moment to rethink what Americans have in common and re-commit to a sense of community.

“Because of that march,” he stated, “I can run for president.”

This was not a crowd for whom Obama was not black enough or angry enough or experienced enough or specific enough. It was a crowd for whom Obama was not one of the usual suspects.

“We are all connected as people,” he told his animated audience. The reality of the uneducated, the unhealthy, the economically unhinged “diminishes all of us.”

To Sanchez, the Obama appeal transcends race. “I really don’t think they see a black person or a white person,” he observed. “I think they see a person with something to offer.”

They certainly saw a person who spoke forcefully against the sort of cynicism that has voters, declared Obama, too often sizing up their electoral choices as the “lesser of two evils” and settling for a government that “will do us no harm.”

“We can do better than that,” intoned Obama. “I feel the winds of change coming. I hope that this campaign becomes a vehicle for your hopes, for your dreams, for the aspirations you have for your children and grandchildren.”For historical perspective, he referenced the Boston Tea Party, the abolitionists’ fight against slavery, the struggle for women’s suffrage, the battle to unionize, the Selma freedom marches and John F. Kennedy’s determination to put a man on the moon–when it was less than certain it could be done.

“We’ve turned the page before,” he said. “Now let’s do it again. People are tired of the old okey-doke.”

What, presumably, they are not tired of is hearing about the next incarnation of the FDR social compact. It’s part of the basic Obama boilerplate — from “universal health care” to “an economy that serves all” – not just some.

“We’re at a crossroads in our history,” said Obama – from health care to energy to foreign policy. He wants this country’s entrepreneurial bent applied full bore to affect a “green economy” that would make America much less dependent on foreign oil and no longer susceptible to scenarios where “we end up funding both sides of the war on terrorism.”

On Iraq, per se, which induced his loudest crowd reaction, he reminded everyone that he was opposed to the war from the start and as president would “end the combat presence there.”He labeled it “a war that should never have been authorized and should have never been waged

This much we can all agree on. The status quo of Ashley Drive is unacceptable for anyone wanting to cross it. At rush hour it’s beyond daunting.

Now fast forward a few years. There’s the new Tampa Museum of Art, the new Children’s Museum, the new Curtis Hixon Park, the regional library and a finished, pedestrian-attracting Riverwalk. Then put actual people into the nearby SkyPoint and Element condos and the Twelve Hotel and Residences.

What had been merely unacceptable is now impossible.

That scary scenario has prompted Tampa city council member Linda Saul-Sena to recommend putting Ashley on a “road diet.”

In Saul-Senaspeak, that means reducing the six lanes to four and then weaning Ashley off of excess, cut-through traffic by diverting it to a redesigned Tampa Street.

To that end, she wants Mayor Pam Iorio to get her transportation consultants to reconfigure Tampa Street. Expect her to use her city council forum aggressively.

“We are spending over $100 million in public and private money on the west side of Ashley Drive and $100 million in private money is being spent on the east side,” pointedly notes Saul-Sena. “Let’s redesign this critical boulevard so that we can cross the street and live to tell!”

Suffice it to say, Saul-Sena wants Ashley more aesthetic as well as safer. She wants a real boulevard, one that would be an inducement to visitors and a signal to drivers that this is no longer the fastest, most expeditious route through downtown.

“Drivers are smart,” observes Saul-Sena. “If they move slowly on Ashley Drive and rapidly on Tampa Street, they will select the experience they want – scenic or speedy.”

An inaugural is a unique event. Take this city’s most recent one.

It’s part civic pep rally: celebrating the avatar of the democratic process – even if many voters elected to stay home.

It’s also a most welcome respite, however brief, from the purely political. A time reserved for swearing in, not swearing at. For this freeze-frame moment, public service is not a glib euphemism for politics. And all things are possible again.

And who doesn’t love some gratuitous pomp? A poet laureate, judges, the presentation of the colors, oaths, an invocation, a benediction, the Pledge, the National Anthem, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

We’re also reminded, often movingly, that among Tampa’s natural resources are poet laureate James Tokley, historian Gary Mormino and the First Baptist Church of College Hill Choir.

In her inaugural address, Mayor Pam Iorio picked up where her state of the city speech left off. She outlined her priorities — and notably underscored the need to develop a mass transit system. It’ll be a political hot potato, to be sure, but bully pulpits are overkill on inauguration day. That’s why this one wasn’t prosaically presented. Inaugural presentations always deserve better, and Iorio’s was rhetorically framed by Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken.”

Afterward, the new city council convened to pick a new leader and put an abrupt end to the kumbayah interlude. Four rounds of votes later, the new chair was the same as the old chair: that consummate compromise candidate, Gwen Miller.

The political respite was history. Indeed, so much for another opportunity for the city council chair to project a substantial, professional image. A city of Tampa’s stature deserves no less.

And then there was the fiasco about who Miller would appoint to the Hillsborough County Metropolitan Planning Organization, a key transportation policy group.

Notably included: New Tampa’s Joseph Caetano, who’s no fan of rail, and had to have been surprised by his assignment. Notably excluded: Linda Saul-Sena, who has served on the MPO for two decades, and had to have felt blind-sided by her exclusion.

The “road not taken” moves on a lot of levels. And that makes all the difference.

For last week’s city council run-off, the turnout (15 per cent) was higher than expected. But, then again, we didn’t have any expectations. Anyway, that’s the good news.

The bad news is that the District 7 seat on city council went to a guy, Joseph Caetano, who doesn’t much like being part of the city and was endorsed by — and campaigned with — Charles “White Chocolate” Perkins.

Recall that Caetano introduced “de-annexation” to the political conversation. He will represent the Duchy of New Tampa the way it wants to be represented – reluctantly until secession.

Then there’s the District 1 seat that was retained by the incumbent, 72-year-old Gwen Miller. If ever an election made the case for undervoting, this one did.

For 12 years Miller has been the beneficiary of a political conspiracy of silence: She’s the nice, quiet lady of color that no one wants to be seen as beating up on. She’s less than conversant on the issues and doesn’t speak well when she tries. But she does have people like Jim Davis, Dick Greco and Les Miller speaking up for her.

As it turned out, Miller Lite also benefited by having Joe Redner, 66, as her run-off opponent. That he was more articulate, better on the issues and no longer dressed in a bowling alley ensemble for public forums didn’t matter enough. He had serious baggage and never quite lost that dismissive attitude. His congratulatory phone call to Miller has yet to be placed. Arguably, the anti-Redner sentiment trumped the “what-the-hell,” shake-up-the-establishment vote.

Gadflies, to be sure, can be fun – as well as effective – but this one was a millionaire nudie-club owner who had sued the city countless times. And lest anyone focus unduly on his pertinent views, he went out of his way to remind everybody of his strip-joint rep with that political manna for Miller, the counterproductive “I Voted!” promotion.

Redner’s election would have guaranteed Tampa exposure, so to speak, on Comedy Central. He — and his club, the Mons Venus — were the reason that marquees in places such as Las Vegas would — and did — advertise “Tampa-style” lap-dancing. Even consenting adults didn’t want his kind of business near their neighborhoods.

Had, say, Randy Barron or maybe Julie Jenkins made the run-off instead of Joe Redner, the results might have been different. MIGHT have. That still presupposes an electorate moved more by candidate qualifications than apathy, party fealty or political correctness.

In the end, there were two winners but no reason for anyone else to be celebrating.

Apparently, we haven’t come such a long way after all.

When it comes to race and education, “equality” — that civil rights shibboleth — isn’t enough. In fact, not nearly enough, according to a lawsuit that has Pinellas County educators under the gun in defense of their policy of equal access for all students.

The case, William Crowley vs. the Pinellas County School Board, was brought by a parent who contended that his 7-year-old son, whose academic issues were “typical of those difficulties commonly faced by students of African descent,” was not, like so many other black students, getting an adequate education. The county, in effect, was not customizing education to fit the black experience.

The Crowley case has now morphed into a class action suit that uses the still cavernous racial gap in educational achievement as Exhibit A. Mere “equality,” goes the contention, only reinforces the status quo disparity. This ironic upshot is not what was envisioned for post- Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka society.

Three points.

*Should this suit succeed, it would be a quantum leap forward for all those who can never get enough social engineering. Where does it end? With “Ebonics: The Sequel”?

With equal results? Not unless the outside variables – from a dysfunctional rap culture and nearly 70 per cent out-of-wedlock birthrates to the “acting white” pejorative sometimes foisted on achieving black students by black contemporaries – are eliminated. Students at their core are individuals – not group adjuncts or mere racial puzzle pieces.

*The numbers game. While white students continue to significantly outpace blacks in academic performance (reading and math) and graduation rates, so do Asian, American Indian and Hispanic students. In fact, Asians top everybody on both lists. These other minorities are not part of the suit, nor are they clamoring for special treatment beyond help for the non-English speaking.

*Education can never be solely about facilities, books and teachers. There are intangibles, such as motivation and aptitude, and life-style variables such as parents, home environment, role models and re-enforcement of what is being taught — from academics to behavior — in school. What you don’t want to be first in is suspensions.

The schools, including those of Pinellas County, can always do better; it’s an ongoing challenge, especially in FCATWorld. But this is no Jim Crow time capsule. Call it classic scapegoating.

It’s much easier to play the race card than to deal with the real issue of properly preparing for success. This is really about what happens – or doesn’t happen – at home and what attitudes are brought to school. What it shouldn’t be about is the premise that one of the largest school systems in the country should be dovetailing its curriculum to accommodate a single minority.

Last year 13,000 black students took the reading FCAT. About 4,300 did well. Better to ask how that happened – than to cite the school district as the pedagogically-challenged reason for those who didn’t.

Adamo Drive and Raymond James Stadium don’t typically get mentioned in tandem. Recently, however, they were part of a very high profile, successful Tampa parlay.

Last Monday Ikea, the international furniture retailer, announced that it would be calling the intersection of Adamo and 22nd Street home for its 29th store in the U.S. and third in Florida. The massive, 353,000-square-foot retail location will be its largest in the state.

Ikea’s business model, which assumes a regional shopping base within a radius of 60 miles, bodes well for favorably impacting Ybor City and downtown. It would be the first major retailer anywhere near downtown since Maas Brothers called it an era in 1991.

Now call it a vote of confidence for the Tampa market. It’s more than condos.

The day before, the Ray-Jay hosted a soccer match between the national men’s teams of the U.S. and Ecuador. It was the first time in 12 years that the American national team had played here. The crowd of 31,500 was the largest to watch an international friendly match in this state. Ever.

It meant that the U.S. squad, which outscored Ecuador, 3-1, wasn’t the only winner. Word now is that Tampa has positioned itself for more of these nationally televised, international “friendlies” – plus more credibility as a potential World Cup venue.

When Saddlebrook Resort opened a quarter century ago, there was no mistaking what it was. It was a resort designed for meetings. Exclusively. Nearly 500 rustic, Wesley Chapel acres – about 30 miles north of Tampa International Airport – devoted to the care and comfort of corporate America away from home. Plenty of places to meet, eat, sleep, schmooze and play.

Fast forward 25 years. More than 80 per cent of its business is still conferences – on average between 450 and 475 a year, ranging in group size from 10 to nearly 900. From Heineken and Harlequin to ITT, Nestle-Purina and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

But the differences are as notable as they are noticeable: the Arnold Palmer Golf Academy; the Harry Hopman Tennis Academy; a 270-foot-long, 500,000-gallon SuperPool; 45 tennis courts; a luxury spa; a five-acre, wooded team-building venue; a prominent sports village and fitness center; and more than 250 private homes, such as the one that Jennifer Caprioti is building on bucolic Fox Hunt Drive. And the (pooled condo) accommodations now number 800 guest rooms and one-, two- and three-bedroom suites. Wireless, high-speed internet access is ubiquitous. The ranks of employees have swelled to 850. There’s even a fully-accredited (K-3) school, Saddlebrook Preparatory.

“We’re a resort first,” emphasizes Alberto Martinez-Fonts, Saddlebrook’s director of marketing, advertising and public relations. “We are a local business driven by large corporations.”

But while meeting planners have Saddlebrook on speed dial, it’s golf and tennis that have given the resort its international renown. From early on, Saddlebrook has been much more than well-regarded camps and clinics. It’s been a legend magnet.

There are the iconic names of (the late Australian Davis Cup captain) Hopman and Palmer, and the latter’s two signature courses plus a host of tennis luminaries who have learned and lived here. To name-drop a few, in addition to Caprioti: Pete Sampras, Jim Courier, James Blake, Martina Hingis and Justine Henin-Hardenne. There are also the surfaces, which replicate those of all four Grand Slams: Har-Tru, Deco-Turf, grass and clay. Saddlebrook is also the official resort of the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA).

You never know who you’ll find hitting – or living – here. And you never know who you’ll find that may be tomorrow’s Tiger Woods or Roger Federer.

There’s even a chance that they are among the 132 students enrolled at Saddlebrook Prep. About 45 per cent are from overseas – from Venezuela to Vietnam. Approximately 60 per cent of the students (grades 7-12) combine academics with an intense focus on tennis instruction, the remainder on golf. Classroom ratios are about 10:1. Room, board, tuition and instruction runs $37,500 per year.

Headmaster Larry Robison pointedly notes his school’s priorities.

“Our mission is to prepare them for college,” states Robison, a former principal at Zephyrhills High School. “And we support the sports endeavors. In that order.”Indeed, he has the numbers to underscore his point. Nearly 95 per cent of Saddlebrook grads earn college scholarships.Cole Conrad, 17, an 11th grader from Fairfield, Conn., expects no less.

“Connecticut in the winter isn’t exactly ideal for tennis,” he says. “Here I get to play all the time, and I like the mix of coaches. I’m probably three times better than when I arrived (the previous year). I’m hoping for a scholarship; preferably here in Florida.”

Tampa’s declining crime rate — 36 per cent over the last four years — was a linchpin in Mayor Pam Iorio’s recent State of the City address. Now that drop has been noted in the March-April issue of AARP magazine, which lists 10 cities “where your chances of running into a criminal decreased in the past five years.” The 10 “most improved” included Tampa at number 2.

In her annual State of the City address, Mayor Pam Iorio reported that the state of the city remained good. Crime, which has increased alarmingly in cities such as Orlando, continues downward here. More buildings are up, and a bunch more are on the way. The words downtown and revitalization no longer seem incongruous. And more attention is being paid to places such as East Tampa, Tampa Heights and the Central Park Village area.

Another State of the City presentation, another day at the office in Pamelot.

And another high-energy, “pulse of the city,” greatest hits video that Director of Public Affairs Liana Lopez labors so hard over. Somehow finding, for example, just the right up-tempo music to complement footage of road widenings and drainage upgrades.

But for a time there was only sound – no video to project on those large screens at the Tampa Convention Center. It probably took 7-8 minutes to fix. If you’re the main presenter, it can seem like a light year. If you’re a chief executive, you’re used to making the tough calls and managing on-the-job crucibles. But a missing or malfunctioning stage prop can be the real mettle detector.

Cue Mayor Pam.

Even her harshest critics acknowledge her formidable podium skills. She rhetorically tap danced and ad libbed her way through the awkward interlude by whimsically referencing everything from the ACC tournament to “Cigar City Chronicles” to the Strawberry Festival.

After the presentation, the exiting audience of city personnel and local politicos were more abuzz about the mayor’s stage presence than that overall 9.4 per cent drop in crime the last year, which included an 18.5 per cent decrease in the violent stuff.

The state of the mayor, who almost pitched a shutout in her recent re-election, is also good.