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Window on life-and-death saga
An auto shop owner and his sons are viewers of the human drama playing outside a Pinellas Park hospice.
By TOM ZUCCO
Published February 25, 2005
 [Times photo: Carrie Pratt]
Rev. Ed Martin of Ocala displays a sign as a backdrop for a press conference Thursday. |
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 [Times photo: Carrie Pratt]
Supporters of Terri Schiavo including, from left, Jane and Mike Hargadon of Baltimore, Mary LaFrancis of Fairfield, Iowa, Marilynn Chase and Leslie Hanks of Watkins, Colo., sing Amazing Grace Thursday night outside Hospice House Woodside in Pinellas Park. |
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If her feeding tube is removed, Terri Schiavo is expected to die within two weeks at the Pinellas Park hospice where she lives.
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PINELLAS PARK - The tiny office inside Triple O Auto smells of Valvoline and spent Winstons and has the required NASCAR calendar tacked on the wall.
It also has a large window facing the brick buildings across the street that make up Hospice Woodside. The buildings where Terri Schiavo lives.
Since he bought the auto body-auto sales shop eight years ago, Scotty Jackson has had a front-row seat to the drama surrounding Schiavo's life.
Every time there's a twist in the case, every time the TV news trucks pull up and the prayer circles form and the Let Terri Live signs come out, he watches.
"I'm always here," said Jackson, a single father whose two sons work with him. "So I've seen everything."
Wednesday afternoon, when a judge was to decide whether Schiavo's feeding tube would be removed later that day, the turnout was modest. About 10 protesters - two fewer than the number of TV and radio trucks on hand - recited the rosary and held signs in front of the building.
But it was early. The decision wouldn't come for another three hours.
A man who had somehow driven unnoticed onto Woodside grounds was standing in the parking lot, eyes closed and palms raised, mumbling to himself. When three Hospice employees emerged and asked him to leave, he drove his 1990 gray Subaru Legacy across the street.
To Triple O Auto.
Scotty Jackson shrugged. What happens when the protesters and the media gather here, he said, is like watching the same strange movie over and over. The protesters, mostly middle-aged men and women, gather on the sidewalk in front of Woodside's main entrance. When the media arrive, the protesters form their prayer circles under the trees. Some bring along children who mimic their parents.
There are people taking pictures of people taking pictures. Monks dressed in robes and sandals chatting away on cell phones. Satellite towers and tripods and "Who are you with again?"
"It's like clockwork," Jackson said. "They do their prayer meetings only when the cameras are rolling. And when the trucks leave, the protesters leave. When they were going to pull (Schiavo's) tube the last time, this preacher came out with his Bible and started shouting. But he left as soon as the cameras were gone.
"There's only one woman, an older lady in a wheelchair, who I see out there all the time."
If Schiavo's feeding tube is removed today, 102nd Avenue will get far more crowded.
And potentially more profitable. A business owner up the street rents space for news trucks in her parking lot.
But Jackson lets people park for free as long as they don't block the service bays. And he'll show you where the restrooms are and apologize for their present condition. The last time there was a large protest here, when Schiavo's tube was removed for six days in 2003, he plugged a flat tire for a protester.
He doesn't mind the commotion, but there's no doubt how he feels.
"Why don't they just let her go in peace?" he asked. "That's what's really sad. If it was my wife, I'd do the same thing. Wouldn't think twice. I'd do that with my kids, too."
Schiavo's condition has made him think about his own life.
He's 44, been a single parent for 16 years, doesn't have any hobbies and hasn't had a vacation in five years, except for that time three years ago when he went to Daytona Beach for a long weekend. He smokes, admits he's overweight, and truth be told, Tyler and Jake, his two boys, and the Triple O (On Our Own) are all he has.
"Makes you think about living wills," he said. "I don't have one. I should, but my kids already know what to do.
"But my mom might come along and fight my kids. Just like the Schiavo case. It makes you wonder."
The man who was praying outside the hospice is now praying in the Triple O lot.
"I was going to talk to him," Jackson said, "but he was speaking in tongues I think. Long as he doesn't block my bay, he's okay."
[Last modified February 25, 2005, 01:05:16]
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