The RNC tour bus will pass by these sights

MELONE E-mail: Click here Archive

© St. Petersburg Times
published August 6, 2002

Molly Gill, an 81-year-old woman from Largo, admits she isn't active in politics. "The only thing I'm active in is taking my medicine every day."

Still, she doesn't want the Republicans in our town. All they'll bring, she said, is "trash and carousing."

Like it or not, Ms. Gill, the Republicans are coming. They land this afternoon for a 21/2-day visit to determine whether Tampa Bay is worthy of holding the GOP's next convention in 2004.

The Republicans will visit the expected places, the big hotels on both sides of the bay, Tampa's convention center, the Ice Palace, Tropicana Field. They will definitely not be slumming it.

But these locations are hardly the sum and substance of who we are, and where we live. So I thought it would be a good idea to snoop around and find out what the unauthorized tour of the bay area might look like -- once you leave the beach, get out of the mall and off I-275.

"I would show them my neighborhood, the inner city, the lack of sidewalks," says Angelica Diaz, who runs a restaurant, Viva la Frida, in Seminole Heights in Tampa. The morning would be a perfect time for a tour, she said, because that's when the prostitutes are the busiest on Nebraska Avenue.

Across the bay, in Indian Rocks Beach, the view is much different, and it's not just because of the sunsets.

Matt Loder has been a Republican since the Reagan years. His family owns the chain of Crabby Bill's restaurants. Loder can't wait for the chance to show off to the Republicans the restaurant's signature dish, stone crab claws served hot with drawn butter or cold with mustard sauce.

Ken Anthony, a Tampa insurance man, is that rarest of Republican figures, a member of the party who is black. He may have a chance to be a convention delegate, he said. Still, he said, if Tampa Bay is chosen as the convention site, he hopes the Republicans will take another trip, down the side streets of Tampa Bay to meet its growing population not just of blacks and Hispanics, but Asians too. "They should see the real Tampa," he said.

Alice Pannell, from Tampa, would show the Republicans one thing.

The door.

She is 72 and still works stocking shops with Hallmark cards.

"I'm a working person, and they've got all the money," Mrs. Pannell said. "They are the party of money."

And they won't do a thing for Tampa's reputation, she predicted. "They'll talk about Tampa as a sin town."

And how could they not, when the one and only Joe Redner is already making his own weird preparations?

I caught the owner of Mons Venus when he was on his exercise bike, huffing and puffing at the gym he owns in Hyde Park. He couldn't remember where he'd read this fact, but he said it was fact.

"Since Washington, D.C. is the capital of the world in sales of leather sexual devices, I would make sure I had plenty of leather on hand at the Mons."

What kind of devices?

"Cuffs, leather masks, whips," he said.

You can just picture it, on CNN and Fox, Tampa's ambassador of low rent and high camp, boasting about himself and his town, while the music pulsates and the girls sway behind him.

The people at the chamber of commerce will be reaching for the Mylanta.

Molly Gill, the lady who made that observation about trash and carousing, will be shrugging her shoulders. Of course she was right.

And old Joe will be grinning, counting his 20s, 50s, and 100-dollar bills, and feeling patriotic.

-- You can reach Mary Jo Melone at mjmelone@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3402.

© 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111

Contact the Times | Privacy Policy
Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright