yes, it certainly was
NCAA 2006 BCS final 41-14
2006 Division I National Men’s Basketball Champs
2006 Division I National Football Champs
2006 Southeastern Conference Champs
it really is great to be a Florida gator!
The cosmic Christmas confluence that featured two disparate funerals and a bizarre hanging this last week of 2006 called up memories of a sweaty night of white kids getting lathered up in the old Florida Gym, circa ‘65 or maybe ‘66.
In what was then a still pretty much de-facto segregated Florida, the University of Florida brought the Godfather of Soul, the Father of Funk, to a totally non-air conditioned field house that featured roll-out wooden bleachers and standing room only for a much younger James Brown than we’ve seen laid out in his funereal finest this past week.
Back then he was accompanied by the Famous Flames, and his notoriously over the top act’s finale was highlighted by a succession of encores wherein a Flame attempted — always unsuccesfully — to wrap the exhausted entertainer in his trademark cape and escort him offstage, only to be rebuffed by the singer as he staggered back to the microphone for one more song.
The audience ate it up, clapping and stomping along as JB would, casting off that regal cape, launch into one more beat-driven set of known-by-heart lyrics we could all holler along to in sync. Well, more or less.
I’m no expert on soul, but safe to say James Brown really did change the sound of pop music in ways that endure today. Elvis gave us rock-a-billy gospel propelled hits before reinventing his legacy with the Vegas revolution, the Beach Boys harmonized in what essentially what was to be the only lasting multiple male pop vocalist group, the Beatles introduced rock with no accent, and the Stones grabbed styles and sampled licks before sampling was a musical verb. Prince? Jackson? Who’s your daddy?
But Brown stayed true to his roots through the decades and was still getting folks on their feet until the end. Da funk. Da beat. Da speed-of-light footwork. Da Hardest Working Man in Show Business. And this white boy got to see him when.
(GAINESVILLE, FL) Armed with a new GPS and a long Christmas weekend, we hit the road for a visit to the Florida Museum of Natural History at the top of the list. We’ve visited several times since the move west from it’s former Museum Road location, including the T. Rex touring “Sue” exhibit several years ago that was the knockout centerpiece of the UF Alumni Association’s Back-to-College weekend.
At the time, we also got a behind the scenes preview of the fossil display then in the planning stage. This trip, we not only toured the display that lays out Florida’s rich history over the epochs, but also doubled our museum experience with a walk through the fantastic McGuire Center’s Butterfly Rainforest with it’s 55-65 species of lepidoptera on full display.
There’s a place for the Sea Worlds and Gator-Ramas and Wet ‘N Wilds — probably. But if you haven’t visited the real jewels of our Florida heritage, you haven’t seen the whole story. Open year ’round, both the Harn Museum of Art and the Florida Museum of Natural History right next door represent much of what’s best about our Sunshine State.
Check out the slide show for a look inside.
The weather last weekend was great. If temps in the low 40s and a refreshing, 10 mile an hour breeze suits you. Dressed in my least flattering “performance” clothing, which fits like a glove when you’d really rather be suited up in a parka, Sue and I headed for Tampa. Destination — the St. Petersburg Times Forum (formerly the Ice Palace, which could only have been renamed by the accountants) — on Channelside Drive for the something annual Reindeer Run 5K.
I’ve discovered I enjoy shelling out money for the privilege of getting up before dawn to enjoy a brief romp through city streets with total strangers. That, and the nearly always hideously appointed tee shirt, the number bib that accompanies your registration and occasionally something else of great value, like chapstick.
So far, it’s been only 5Ks. This one clocked in at 29:08, which I accept as the penalty phase for my steaks, bourbon, potatoes, wine and the occasional (daily) desert. So in my smarty pants phase, I’ve thrown down the gauntlet and entered a 12K (7+ miles, MOL) next March. It may take a day or two to finish, but I think it’s possible.
With the New Year nearly upon us, it’s never too late to get started, activity wise. A short walk, a brief jog — repeat as needed, and pretty soon a little fresh air and exercise are looked forward to as a reward, not a punishment. Put down the remote for an hour or two, search out someplace interesting to explore, and rediscover why we’re categorized as a bipedal humanoid species. Well, most of us.
Some may know of my landscape nursery family background, and sorry to say during the time I worked in the industry I spread my share of shredded cypress bark. When you’re dealing with primordial forest vegetation, it’s easy to assume it’ll always be here because it’s always been here.
Wrong. And now the alarms are sounding. The Waterkeeper Alliance is spearheading an educational campaign designed to highlight the massive threat to Louisiana — and of course Florida — wetlands caused by the cypress cutters.
You see the mulch stacked high on pallets outside such protectors of the planet as Home Depot and Lowes and Albertsons, loosely filling plastic bags and bound tight with miles of polywrap, priced as if cypress was a noxious weed that was bound to grow forever. The alliance’s headline says it all: “Why Kill a Tree To Grow a Flower?” Call me a tree hugger, and I might buy you a beer.
Why indeed. And there are perfectly good, much better, alternatives. Save those leaves and compost them. Use shredded pine bark (my favorite) instead. Just say no to the mindless, careless destruction of our fragile wetlands and make good use of a suitable alternative.
The state of Florida executed “Danny” Rolling yesterday, 16 years and a few days since his otherwise dismal existance on earth shattered the small town campus atmosphere of Gainesville.
That year, 1990, welcomed a new university president, John Lombardi, as someone who over his tenure would raise the bar significantly as to what could be accomplished when leadership, imagination and determination combine.
1990 also saw the return of Steve Spurrier to the Florida athletic program, this time as the heralded coach of a program that was rocked by scandal and mediocrity during the ’80’s and would a few years later claim a first ever national title.
That fall my oldest son, John, moved from dorm life into off-campus housing a few blocks north of University and west of 13th.
That fall, cell phones were hardly the ubiquitous bodily extensions they are today.
As fall classes prepared to open in 1990, it was a good time to be a Gator.
That fall was when the monster struck. Danny Rolling, drifter, failure, lunatic, touched down in the woods at the edge of town and created his own apocalyptic playground. Like Bundy before, he was a monster amongst the flock.
Like every parent of a child living in Gainesville, I stayed glued to the news coming from the Alachua County Sheriff’s Department and the Gainesville Police Department. Staying in touch with your son or daughter was not the easy, mobile phone call of today. Phone banks were set up to handle the demand.
After one notorious false start by the state, the suspect Rolling was identified, charged, tried, convicted, imprisoned, killed.
It’s not enough. But it will have to suffice.
The last two weekends of this September past could serve as bookends to a sensory overload. The weekend of the 23rd we drove just over an hour across the bay to Sarasota to hang out at the Colony Club Tennis Resort on Longboat Key for a couple of days. Don’t play tennis, but the time away from the phone, the tube, traffic and the paper more than makes up.
Hook that up with a paid of the Sandbar Restaurant’s finest frozen pina coladas — these should be illegal for several reasons — and if it weren’t for my trip to the coast the following Thursday we’d conceivably still be there in beach cottage one, listening to the waves breaking on a gentle Florida west coast shoreline, savoring a first ever sea salt rub (hydrotherapy lotion gratis, so over the top) to go with my best ever massage and waiting for the credit card to explode in flames.
The following weekend was my third invite to participate in Cycle World Magazine’s 32nd Annual Trek, a yearly event that collects industry well knowns and no knowns alike for three days of outrageous off-road dual sport riding through the Sierra Nevada northeast of Fresno.
We — the participants — travel from all parts of the continent to gather in Oakhurst on Thursday, ride a 150-mile route to Sierra Summit at 8,500 feet Friday, cruise on our own Saturday, and manage another 100-miler back down to Oakhurst Sunday. This year I avoided becoming a tree ornament by the skinniest of margins, and that story will only grow in stature over the years ahead.
Back to back Top Ten Personal Experience bookmarks and I’m hard pressed to think of two more memorably pleasant weekends separated by only four days of unpack and repack. With 60 just around the corner — hey, this ain’t funny! — these are the memories I want to haul along as baggage in life’s backpack.
The Monday Night Football matchup between the New Orleans Saints and another team concluded with some serious mojo on and off the field as the Saints took it to the Falcons, Atlanta I think, 23-3 in a rechristened Superdome. Metaphor? Ya’ think? Hey, the whole world’s watchin’.
For one night, there was a new America’s Team. You could, I really believe, feel the love stream out across the land as this stricken city celebrated for themselves, and for the region, in a game that meant more than Xs and Os and first downs and PATs.
How could they not lose? Was God, as Ray Nagin said at one point, that angry with His children that He’d strangle whatever breath still lingered on their battered shoulders this occasion? No.
I’m not all that fond of pro ball these years. But on this night, watching this Phoenix rise, you had to feel the emotion swell within, knowing thousands of those in attendance, and hundreds of thousands more watching, had pitiful little to go home to but measure aplenty of what, to them, was the true meaning of life. Friends. Neighbors. Shared experience. Survival. What a night. What a city.
How BOUT them Saints!!!
This week’s St. Petersburg Times, among other sources, brought the news that venerable Florida attraction Cypress Gardens has filed for bankruptcy, with a reported debt load of somewhere just south of $70-million. Current owner Georgia-based Adventure Parks vows to keep the park open, but many think that’s counter to economic reality.
Almost immediately after purchasing the park in 2004, Adventure Parks got a rude reception when nature whacked Central Florida with a succession of hurricanes that rocked the gardens and stifled attendance.
Founded by Dick Pope in 1936 and run by the family for decades until a short-lived sale to a Tampa-based investor group in 2003 resulted in closure, Cypress Gardens, Marineland and Shell World were once the standard for Florida attractions before the mouse got in the house.
Go for the nostalgia. Go for the memory. Go for an escape from garish, over-hyped commercialism. But if you’ve ever thought at all about a leisurely day trip, best if you went now.
It’s an annual rite of the St. Pete Times to publish a summary test that combines the best of Carl Hiassen and Dave Barry perspectives with a smattering of civics which they cleverly refer to as the “Florida Quiz”. Out today, try it yourself. (I didn’t ace it, but I didn’t fail either. And I did remember what Kathy Willets was famous for.)