Drywall meets demand, and more
What a difference two years make. In 1999 builders in the Tampa Bay area and around the country were screaming about the difficulty of acquiring gypsum board.

Old hometown has a lock on board seats
Question: At our annual meeting last year, we elected two new officers who come from the same town up North. Another board member is from this same town. At our elections in October I know that two more people from this town will run for office.

The heat goes up, but the beat goes on
Summer is officially here, in case any residents in our part of the state missed its coming. You'd think most survivors of a few Florida summers already would be hibernating in air-conditioned caves, but the mail reveals otherwise. Plenty of leisure activities and hobbies apparently are being pursued despite the thermometer's readings. Maybe those cool caves are secret beehives of activity.

Diamonds in the rough
They're not dirt cheap, but, after all, these garden tools are works of art.

Home Front
The history of hardware

Search by sound for ancestors
If you've been unable to make use of the 1880 and 1900 census reports because you didn't know which county your ancestor lived in, help may be at hand. New Soundex records -- a coded surname index based on the way a surname sounds rather than how it is spelled -- have arrived at the Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library at 900 N Ashley St. in downtown Tampa.