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City rounds up a little history

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By STEVE OTTO Steve Otto

sotto@tampatrib.com sotto@tampatrib.com

Published: November 13, 2009

That's right partner. You can say you were there for that last roundup, the day they drove the cattle through the streets of Tampa on the Old Big Guava Trail.

At least you can if you happen to be down near the Tampa History Museum on Nov. 21, a week from Saturday, when the idea is to herd a couple dozen of Florida's finest beef cows a couple of blocks and then load them back up onto trucks and take them away.

I'm looking forward to it. The last cattle drive I went to was canceled. That was back in 1984 at the Republican convention in Dallas. The idea was to run a couple dozen longhorns along the Trinity River and impress delegates and the media.

Unfortunately it was late July, really hot and the people in charge thought it might not look good if a steer collapsed in front of the national press corps. It might have been better if they had bothered to tell members of the media, who spent a couple of hours peering down the street, waiting for the cattle to come rolling in. A few of them collapsed, but they were just the media after all.

Our own cattle drive is being held to coincide with the nifty traveling exhibit on five centuries of the Florida cowboy at the History Center. It's easy to forget just how important the cattle industry is to the state. If you can't make the cattle drive, you ought to check out the exhibit. It runs into December.

Bugged out

Regular reader Jo Ann Hambaugh saw the story this week about the successful attempt at the Pasco Bug Jam in Dade City to break the world record set a year ago in Brazil for stuffing 17 people into a Volkswagen.

The problem, she says, is that she and 18 others broke the record back in 1984. In fact, she maintains, they did it on the Franklin Street Mall downtown. Mother Trib was the sponsor and I wrote about it.

"It was called the first American Energy Week," she said. "I was working in customer service at GTE and they just came through the building looking for volunteers. We didn't practice or anything. They just told me to squeeze into the back. It was cozy, especially when they made sure the windows were closed, but we did it.

"We came in first with 19 people. WMNF radio was second and WFLA radio was third. I remember Tedd Webb was on their team." Oh yeah, Tampa, the city of champions.

Poppies

I was lucky enough to run into John Germany earlier in the week on Veterans Day. He was sporting a red poppy in his jacket. "People have no idea about poppies anymore," he said sadly. "When I was a boy we had to memorize 'Flanders Field.'" (Germany, by the way, was a tank commander for Patton's 3rd Army.)

If you don't recall the WWI poem by Canadian army Lt. Col. John McCrae, it begins:

"In Flanders Fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below."

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie

In Flanders fields."

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

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