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Neighborhood report

Gray-haired rebelswith a cause

The conservative hotbed of Sun City Center has some strange bedfellows. Meet the Nicholsons, not at all afraid to swim against the tide.

By KATHRYN HELMKE
Published February 10, 2006

	[Times photo: Skip O'Rourke ]
	David and Barbara Nicholson, two Sun City Center residents who are left-wing political activitsts. They often protest in support of Sami Al-Arian or hold signs against the war when the president visits.

At Kings Point, golf carts rule the road, and American flags speckle yards. But there's no flag in front of the home of Barbara and David Nicholson.

Instead, there's a simple white sign with numbers written in red ink - 2259+

- representing the number of troops killed in Iraq.

Bumper stickers on the Nicholsons' blue Buick LeSabre offer the explanation: "Department of Peace," "War Is Not the Answer," and "Don't Blame Me: I Didn't Vote For Him."

In this retirement community, known as a stronghold of Republican voters, the Nicholsons are the local antiwar activists. Their motto is "peace, justice and equality."

They were the couple who organized protests on State Road 674 for three months before the war began.

They were the couple who prayed for former University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian on the steps of Tampa's federal courthouse after his trial on terrorism charges.

She is the woman who wears a necklace, which she first wore during the Vietnam War, whose inscription reads, "War is not healthy for children and other living things."

Transplants from Indianapolis, Barbara, 74, and David, 72, may have retired in 1993, but they did not slow down.

The couple met at Wilmington College in Ohio when he was a sophomore and she was a senior.

"My good fortune was that I married her," David said.

When the couple moved to Indianapolis in 1962, they tried the suburbs for a year, but that didn't fit them. They wanted to raise their children in an integrated neighborhood.

Barbara Nicholson worked as a social worker at a predominantly black city high school. Social workers at the school handled up to 600 active cases, and roving gangs plagued the school, she said.

But she didn't stay tied to her desk. Her goal was to spend half the day at school and the other half in the community visiting homes.

"I got some inkling of feeling of what it must feel like to be black in this country," she said.

She said she still sees racism in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and in the nation's prisons. She sees it in the health care system, which the Nicholsons think should be available to all.

She sees it in the Iraq war, which is sending minorities off to fight for oil, she said.

Too many people remain underexposed, unaware or uninterested in the realities of racism in this country, she said.

Barbara Nicholson's values come from her parents. Her mother was a Quaker, and her father, who owned a sheet metal contracting business, was interested in politics.

They taught her a basic Quaker belief: peace.

"She's always been very concerned about people," said Ruth Shambaugh, a college friend and fellow Sun City Center resident.

"She is able to express herself well, and she thinks things over," Shambaugh added. "She's not nasty. She just says what she believes."

A mechanical engineer, Nicholson said he looks at the world's problems from a technical background.

To solve the energy problem, he thinks wind turbines are the best and cleanest way to go.

"Wind energy is free," he says.

But it's hard to produce large supplies of hydrogen, and nobody wants wind turbines in their back yard or on their coast's horizon.

David started thinking about another alternative. Now he has a design for a turbine ship and has a patent pending on part of the apparatus.

He plans to show the invention, the Windhunter, next month at an event in Tampa called the Celebration of Progressive Democracy. A Web site, www.windhunter.org will launch soon.

Their marriage has become a mixed one.

He's a Democrat. She has gone Green, even more rare in this area.

Sun City Center has one of the largest Republican clubs in the nation, she says, with Republicans outnumbering Democrats 4-1.

Then there are the Nicholsons, who supported U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich in the 2004 Democratic presidential primary.

On Friday nights, the grandparents of four meet with the "Gang of Eight," a group of friends that get together for dinner and discussions or movies.

Recently, Barbara was named activist of the month by the new statewide publication, The Sun State Activist.

The couple frequent the Fogartyville Cafe in Bradenton for lectures and folk musicians. They met Cindy Sheehan there before the woman became a household name.

In another way, though, they are just like the other retirees in the area. In their home, on their walls, hang pictures of grandchildren.

Barbara and David Nicholson speak out on a lot of hot topics:

Barbara: "The Patriot Act disgusts me because it's not even American."

David: "When you get elected with money from a corporation, they own you."

Barbara: "Real conservatives are not for government control."

Barbara: "They seem to have lost any spine."

David: "His integrity cannot be questioned."

David: "We're there for that oil. Every reason he gave is a lie. It wasn't misinformation. It was a lie."

[Last modified February 9, 2006, 09:10:11]