TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

It's The Art Of Survival In Paradise

ADVERTISEMENT

By STEVE OTTO

sotto@tampatrib.com

Published: March 10, 2009

You've seen the old black-and-white pictures and grainy films of those mean and lean years of what we call the Great Depression. The stark colors match the mood of those times, and, in fact, I think those shadowy pictures of bread lines and haunted faces contribute to today's fears about what might be looming.

Those pictures don't mesh with the images of huge crowds that jammed downtown Tampa on Saturday and Sunday for the Gasparilla Festival of the Arts. They were there in their designer shades and straw hats, a rolling tide of pastels and dogs on leashes surging around the 300 or so tents and booths of artisans from across the country.

Most weekends in downtown Tampa are less frenetic. In fact, deserted streets and empty sidewalks are the norm. Not last weekend, though. And they were buying. I was standing at one booth when someone from an adjoining display came over and hugged his fellow artist, saying he had just sold another piece for $800.

I saw people purchasing ceramic vases with ceramic lizards crawling over them and someone buying a photograph of an Ybor City bar stool that said "The Tiki Bar is now open." We bought an acrylic of two grinning cats we couldn't afford, but you get caught up in these things.

City Of The Arts

Everybody who is anybody around here seemed to be there. University of South Florida football coach Jim Leavitt stood at an intersection greeting fans and said to me how great it was to be somewhere different from the daily grind.

Strip club owner and subject of a new movie Joe Redner contemplated a display of boxes filled with figurines in a political tableau. The figures all had clothes on.

There were politicians and plumbers, jocks and janitors, all soaking in the atmosphere of a perfect weekend.

It has been like that almost every weekend this year, what with the Super Bowl coming to town, the Florida State Fair, the Florida Strawberry Festival and a dozen other celebrations of fruit and vegetables. There were Gasparilla events, and now there's spring baseball. This weekend, the Gators and the rest of the Southeastern Conference will be in downtown Tampa for a basketball tournament.

Their fans will see a downtown with its new Tampa Bay History Center, an arts complex coming together and a new Riverwalk slowly taking shape.

Trouble In Paradise

That's the paradox about living in paradise. You have to look beyond the glitz to see the reality of what's happening around here, and the reality is just one street over.

You have to talk to people - like we did over the weekend - who no longer have homeowners insurance or who find themselves being downsized out of jobs they never thought would disappear.

You have to share your stories of disappearing 401(k) plans and of "For Sale" signs up and down the streets of what used to be stable neighborhoods.

Go to any restaurant and talk to the owners, chat with any retail clerk or car salesman and listen to their litanies of woe and declining sales.

Maybe it's a little different in the rest of the country. It's just that when you live in a state where dreams attracted visitors long before there were theme parks, the reality of tough times seems so out of place.

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

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT