Walking tall

The usually jovial Lutz guv'na campaign is a serious quest for Larry O'Brien, who moves with a cane, unsteady hands and a blind eye as he knocks on doors for donations - proving how determination can rebuild a shattered life.

By BILL COATS

© St. Petersburg Times,
published June 15, 2001

LUTZ -- In one of the silliest competitions anywhere, Larry O'Brien was serious.

[Times photo: Fraser Hale] Larry O'Brien walks around Sunset Plaza on Monday soliciting donations or sales of Tampa Bay Mutiny tickets in his campaign for Lutz guv'na, a title earned by raising the most money for community causes.

Candidates for guv'na of Lutz were on display at the train depot, racing to build the highest "tower" of marshmallows and toothpicks. Some wisecracked and some popped marshmallows in their mouths.

But O'Brien, disabled by a nightmarish fall in 1994, struggled. His hands shook as he manipulated marshmallows. His glasses slipped down his nose, then tumbled to his right. They bounced from the table to his lap, to his right foot. O'Brien looked, but couldn't find them with his blind right eye. He returned to the marshmallow mess.

Soon it was over. Most of O'Brien's six rivals gave comical speeches. But O'Brien walked with his cane to the microphone and endorsed small business in Lutz.

"Just because a person is disabled, he's not handicapped," he added in his halting voice.

With that creed, Larry O'Brien is persevering as perhaps the unlikeliest guv'na candidate in the 10 years of the competition.

Guv'na, a folksy community fundraising gimmick, traditionally has attracted Lutz's most active and fun-loving civic leaders. O'Brien is a man rebuilding a shattered life.

The 55-year-old cannot drive for fear of seizures. He walks and talks slowly and carefully. Since 1994, O'Brien has devoted much of his life to healing his smashed body. Since his wife, Joanne, died of emphysema in 1997, he has reached out for friends.

The last day Larry O'Brien was physically fit was Oct. 5, 1994, when he reported to work at the Museum of Science and Industry. The new IMAX Dome Theater was under construction, and O'Brien was on a crew installing fire-suppression sprinklers on the third floor.

On that Wednesday morning, he was cleaning up. He picked up a loose piece of plywood, the last action he remembers.

O'Brien didn't know the plywood covered an air-conditioning shaft, open to the first floor. He stepped into the opening, and plummeted to concrete 38 feet below.

"I went splat," he says today.

A wired knee

In Army training for the Vietnam War, O'Brien had been taught to "tuck and roll" during a fall.

"I automatically went into a tuck and roll," in the air shaft, he said. "I must have, to come out of it the way I did."

He awoke from a coma after three weeks. He has been told he died twice on the operating table.

Surgeons removed O'Brien's spleen. They stitched up his liver. They reconstructed the right side of his face. They installed a plate in his right wrist. They wove so much wire through his wrecked right knee that it has activated metal detectors ever since.

"My doctor calls me his miracle man," he said.

Yet O'Brien suffers a raft of disabilities. Although his eyes survived the fall, the optic nerve behind his right eye was damaged, causing permanent blindness there. He must use a cane to walk any distance. His hands can be unsteady.

Thanks to medication, O'Brien's violent seizures ended in 1998.

He sued four companies involved in the theater construction, arguing that the sheet of plywood should have been marked or nailed in place. The suit was settled in 1998 after nearly two years of litigation and mediation. Terms weren't disclosed.

"I'm set comfortably, I'll put it that way," O'Brien said.

He gets payments from an annuity established by the companies, plus disability income. O'Brien also received an initial sum that helped him buy, among other things, a spacious home in Cheval. O'Brien shares the house with his daughter, Staci-Ann Reardon, her husband and their three children.

'I had the time'

"I thought it would be a way to meet people," he said

He hatched a friendship in the leads club with Steve Meitzen, a new VillaRosa resident who was selling insurance at the time and now manages sales for a Clearwater plastics company.

Last year, they and other friends launched the Lutz Chamber of Commerce, touting it as the nation's first virtual chamber of commerce. Beyond the Web site (http://www.thelutzchamber.com), the chamber convenes for monthly social hours at Kazbor's, a sports bar.

Civic groups such as the chamber are urged each year to sponsor a candidate for guv'na, and the chamber nominated Susan Nelson, a financial counselor. But she soon withdrew.

"She got too wrapped up at home and at work," said Meitzen, the chamber's president.

"Somebody had to do it," O'Brien said. "I had the time and said I'd do it."

He and Meitzen have virtually hung the campaign on the Mutiny, Tampa's professional soccer team.

The pair pooled $1,250 apiece to buy 500 tickets, good at any Mutiny game. In return, the Mutiny is declaring June 23 -- the night the team plays the D.C. United at Raymond James Stadium -- Larry O'Brien Night.

O'Brien and Meitzen are reselling their tickets for $10 apiece, for a profit of $5 per ticket. Group purchases earn discounts, and plugs for the buyers during Larry O'Brien Night.

The tickets haven't been an easy sell in Lutz, where both ballparks are devoted to baseball, softball or football.

As the Chamber of Commerce candidate, O'Brien has targeted businesses, walking door-to-door on U.S. 41 each Monday morning. A typical reaction is that the manager or owner isn't in, and only they can approve donations.

"Can you come back later?" some ask. But O'Brien cannot, because he won't have a driver later.

'A lot of gumption'

Members of the Lutz chamber have committed to buy several dozen tickets. Meitzen is working his e-mail to sell more.

Mark Rossmiller, a State Farm insurance agent who met O'Brien at a mixer, bought 10 tickets Monday morning. Agent Doug Smith, in the same office in Sunset Plaza, bought four. He planned to urge another agent, with lots of Hispanic clients in Town 'N Country, to buy a batch. Both said they would give most of the tickets to clients.

"He's got a lot of gumption," Smith said of O'Brien. "For him to not sit around and woe-is-me, and get out and hump it like he's doing, takes a lot of self-courage."

At Badcock Home Furnishings Center, O'Brien encountered Kathy Bucklew, who was visiting from Badcock's corporate office in Mulberry. Bucklew had never heard of guv'na. She deferred O'Brien's request to the store manager, who was away.

"I was about to ask him if he needed to sit down," she said later. "He was a very interesting fellow, who looked like he has MS. But he was out trying to do something worthwhile, and he deserved my attention."

That's the impression O'Brien leaves in many places he solicits guv'na money.

"Bless his heart," said Helen Kinyon, a rival candidate who competed next to O'Brien in the marshmallow competition. "I think he's wonderful for this."

"You spend 15 minutes with Larry and you can climb Mount Everest," said Meitzen, the campaign manager.

Yet O'Brien said representing the disabled isn't his primary goal. "I didn't really think of the statement for the disabled until I was on the stage," he said. "It rang a good bell."

His goal is to become guv'na of Lutz.

"Anything worth running for is worth winning," O'Brien said. "I intend to win."

-- Bill Coats can be reached at (813) 226-3469 or coats@sptimes.com.

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