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It Was A Swash-Out

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By STEVE KORNACKI, The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 20, 2008

Updated: 01/20/2008 12:13 am

TAMPA - The forecast of lightning, heavy rain, hail and a tornado watch brought the Children's Gasparilla Parade to an abrupt halt late Saturday afternoon. At most, 25 of 150 floats and marching groups moved down the Bayshore Boulevard route before the parade was canceled.

"This was decided for the safety of everybody here," said Tampa Police Capt. Cherie C. Adkins. "We had people sitting in metal stands and high up on floats with lightning coming. The storm had bad timing."

Floats had lined up on Bayshore for the 4 p.m. start at the intersection with Bay to Bay Boulevard. The parade was under way for about a half-hour when police began diverting the remaining floats down Bay to Bay while dispersing the crowd.

Adkins said event organizer Darrell Stefany made the final decision after being apprised of the situation by police. Adkins said the parade will not be rescheduled because of the massive preparation required for the event. Earlier in the afternoon, though, the Gasparilla Preschooler's Stroll went off under sunny skies.

The Red Baron Frozen Pizza "Piratechnic" Extravaganza scheduled for Saturday night was rescheduled for 6:30 tonight, according to Adkins. The fireworks will be launched from a barge stationed off Bayshore near Howard Avenue.

Vicki Malizia of Tampa went to the parade with her three children and a group of 17 friends and family members.

"We're disappointed, especially for some of our friends who came from Boca Raton," she said.

One of her friends, Angie Giobenco of St. Petersburg, said, "It's raining on the parade!"

They filed out onto Bay to Bay in a crowd walking along with the passing floats - some of which had big and little pirates flinging handfuls of beads overboard. Adkins said police units to the north end of the 1.5-mile parade route were diverted southward to deal with the logjam.

Chrystal Lunsford and her daughter, Miranda Chlapowski, stepped off the Krewe of Agustina de Aragon float and were consoling their granddaughter and daughter, Athena Chlapowski, 4, and her good friend, Lauren Fox, 5. Their float never got out of the staging area.

"We'll come back again," said Lunsford, with a hand on her granddaughter's shoulder.

Chlapowski crouched down and looked her daughter in the eye, saying, "Sweetie, next year we will get to go farther on the float. I'm sorry."

Athena smiled and said, "I liked waving at the people."

Beads rained down from the floats along Bayshore before the real rain hit. Mayor Pam Iorio, riding in a Corvette convertible, threw beads over-hand and side-arm to those lining the parade route. In the parade staging area, she posed with a half-dozen children from nearby Roosevelt Elementary School.

"They are future voters," Steve Gross of Tampa told Iorio while taking a photo that included three of his children: Connor, 7; William, 5; and Matthew, 3.

More than 22 children boarded the new Krewe of Ann Jeffrey pirate boat float.

"They are our children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews," said krewe member Rhody Nuccio of Tampa.

Good buddies Jake Hagan, 5, and Jack Snellgrave, 6, of Tampa will be throwing baseballs next weekend at their Pony League team tryouts. But Saturday they were dressed as pirates and heaving beads from the Ann Jeffrey float.

"I made sure he had the hook for the costume on his left arm so he could throw with his right," said his father, Ken Hagan, the District 2 Hillsborough County commissioner.

The Hiser family of Spring Hill was one of the biggest crowd-pleasers in the Preschooler's Stroll. One-year-old Keaton sat in a wagon wearing a red and black pirate bandana and sash with Chihuahua Peppy straddling a treasure chest full of beads behind him. The dog was wearing a black pirate hat, scarf and shirt.

"That is too cute!" shouted a woman in the crowd as they passed in the wagon pulled by the boy's father, Joe, dressed in pirate garb and sporting a dreadlock wig.

His wife, Yvette, noting she was "dressed as the token wench," said, "People see the kid and think he's cute. They see the dog and they lose it."

Patrick Rutherford, wearing a "Pirates of the Caribbean" style jacket, a plastic hook on his right hand, a sword and a black hat featuring skull and crossbones, was asked his age.

His mother, Kathleen, removed his hook and he held up three fingers. Then he belted out the obligatory "Arrrgh!"

Reporter Steve Kornacki can be reached at (813) 731-8170 or skornacki@tampatrib.com.

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