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Will Mary's Garden Grow?

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By STEVE OTTO

sotto@tampatrib.com

Published: February 18, 2009

Updated: 02/18/2009 12:33 am

Tampa City Councilwoman Mary Mulhern thinks what this town needs are community gardens. What with the tough economic times, she says what we should be doing is putting vegetable gardens where there are vacant lots. She's talking about putting them all across town, from Hyde Park to New Tampa.

Not everyone else on the city council is quite as excited about the prospect as Mulhern. Councilman Charlie Miranda says the current drought could cause a strain with all that watering. I think Charlie's only afraid he might end up as commissioner of cabbage.

You do have to have some concerns about the government getting into the garden business. During discussions about this project, someone mentioned that there was a garden on 34th Street in East Tampa a few years back that came out of a $1 million grant for a youth program. Apparently the garden failed and the lot became an eyesore.

I have to admit I spent close to a million a couple of years ago trying to grow a row of tomatoes in my backyard. It would have been cheaper to send a limo out to Ruskin every week to pick up a basket of tomatoes from a vegetable stand.

Superheroes Don't Eat Sushi

The city will be resting easier this weekend knowing that - thanks to a judge - Batman is back in Ybor where he belongs.

You can, however, be sympathetic to the cops who arrested Walsh Ian Nichols in October on an Ybor street for not taking off his mask. Even if the police didn't know that Nichols is the caped crusader, they must have been suspicious when they saw him sitting on the curb eating sushi.

They just don't make superheroes like they used to.

Oh, For A Vintage Drumstick

USF professor and historian Gary Mormino must have been doing some archaeological research on eBay when he saw the ad for a take-out box from Palios, the late, great South Tampa neighborhood restaurant on MacDill Avenue.

There is a picture of the take-out box and the words "Vintage and original take-out box from the 1960s from a famous South Tampa fast food eatery now closed. Bright and clean. $24.99."

I don't know, twenty-five bucks seems a little steep for a take-out box that doesn't even have any vestiges of grease on it. I won't tell you how much I would pay for a box filled with John and George Palios' fried chicken.

No Getting Out

Finally, you must have driven down Florida Avenue downtown in recent years and noticed the security and barricades in front of the Sam Gibbons Federal Courthouse.

I always assumed it was to keep people out. It turns out they may have been trying to keep the employees from escaping. Leaks and mold are so bad that parts of the 12-year-old structure have all but been abandoned.

Even U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Kovachevich, someone you most certainly do not want on your bad side, has stopped holding trials in Courtroom 17 on the top floor of the building.

Sen. Bill Nelson, who was in town probably looking for ways to spend all that stimulus money, said he was going to raise Cain until something was done to fix the $81 million building. Nelson said roughly the same thing a year ago, but negotiations with contractors got bogged down.

Keyword: Otto Graphs, for more of Steve Otto's musings.

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