What's in a name? For him, a crucial letter

Tampa columnist HOOPER E-mail: Click here Archive

© St. Petersburg Times,
published October 7, 2001

Life was a little better for Tampa Housing Authority director Jerome Ryans when strangers thought he owned Ryan's Steakhouse.

Ryans would endure playful jokes from people wanting free meals, and folks always went to him when they wanted a place to hold their banquet. It made for some good laughs.

Now Ryans is dealing with a different case of mistaken identity he does not find nearly as funny. You see, Ryan Construction has been at the center of the Steve LaBrake controversy because it is building LaBrake's 4,200-square-foot home, allegedly for about a third the cost of similar homes in South Tampa.

Ryan. Ryans. The confusion is understandable, especially when Ryans is involved in low-income housing himself, but not acceptable for Ryans.

"I keep running into people asking me to build them a house, or people call and ask can I build them something for that much money. It's been all kinds of crazy things," Ryans explained. "I don't know what's happening in that situation. I spent some time telling people who don't know a lot about me that I'm not the same person. I'm not that guy."

Why is it always Florida? We're the state that screwed up the election, we're the place where the hijackers learned to fly planes and now we're the place where someone got anthrax. Can't something happen in North Dakota? Are we the drainpipe for the rest of the United States?

As a native Floridian, I'm a little worried. I remember one time on a Bugs Bunny cartoon old Bugs just took a saw and sawed off Florida from the rest of the continent. If this run of bad luck keeps going for my state, I think someone might actually try that.

Sunday night has been an increasingly good night to get out on the town, especially after Bucs games. The Reggie Johnson Foundation is hosting a postgame professional mixer/victory party tonight at A La Carte Pavilion, 4050 Dana Shores Drive. Admission is a $10 donation ($40 for VIP), and several former and current NFL players are expected to appear, including Bucs linebacker Derrick Brooks.

The only question on my mind was, "Who is Reggie Johnson?" Johnson is a former Florida State tight end who spent eight years in the NFL. He now lives in Clearwater and has a foundation to raise scholarship money and help underprivileged youth bridge the computer divide.

Why does the new Verizon phone book look more like a yearbook? I grew accustomed to the white pages' front and back covers being splashed with ads like a NASCAR auto, but for the same law firm ad to be on on every single page in the regular listings is just ridiculous clutter that makes the normal listings more difficult to find.

The Verizon folks will say they are just trying to make a buck, reduce costs to customers, blah, blah, blah. I don't care. It's every American's inalienable right to complain about public utilities. Don't even get me started on Time Warner Cable.

The Olde Hyde Park Village Art Festival continues from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. today, and each of the nearly 175 vendors will donate proceeds from a piece of artwork to the American Red Cross.

None of the Brandon Barnes & Noble employees can remember the family's last name, but they did remember the generosity of Abby, Alix, Shannon and their parents, Todd and Angela.

Last Saturday, the family gave out home-baked cookies to patrons with a letter explaining the random act of kindness that grew out of an effort by Abby, 7, and Alix, 5, to raise money for the Red Cross in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

In return, they asked for a donation to www.doingmypart.org, but they didn't ask for adulation. Hence, no last name or telephone number.

Any civil libertarian will tell you that church and state should be separate, but it appears the city planners may not have received that constitutional edict.

As a followup to our musing about Lois and Clark avenues running side-by-side, reader Tom Parkinson (you may have heard him on WUSF-FM 89.7) noted that just southwest of Dale Mabry and Cypress, Church Avenue actually intersects with State Street.

Hmmmm.

-- Ernest Hooper can be reached at (813) 226-3406 or Hooper@sptimes.com. His column appears on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.

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