The smell of smoke lingered outside the Broviak home in Ruskin. Ashes peppered their driveway. ...more

December 25, 2009

United Way of Tampa Bay presented its first Tocqueville Society Award to Thonotosassa residents Bill McBride and Alex Sink at a holiday gathering Dec. 6. ...more

December 23, 2009

Dec. 22, 2009 ...more

December 22, 2009

I inherited some antiques from my mother 10 years ago. Among them is a table, which my wife says is a game table. It is 37 inches wide by 29 inches high. It is in good condition except that a hinge on the folding leaf is broken. ...more

December 20, 2009

"La's Orchestra Saves the World" by Alexander McCall Smith (Pantheon, $24) ...more

December 20, 2009

My wife, Ginny, and I were married June 29, 1956. I still had two years of college to complete. Not having much money, we moved into a small prefabricated house of a type that was mass-produced by the thousands, constructed of plywood and used for temporary housing for returning World War II GIs. By 1956, the housing crunch was past, and these units were rented to anyone. ...more

December 20, 2009

Frank Godden is baffled by Christmas trees. The truck that carries stacks of Christmas trees from a farm far away to a lot near you might as well be a hearse, the way Godden sees it. ...more

December 20, 2009

The United States may soon see its prison population drop for the first time in almost four decades, a milestone in a nation that locks up more people than any other. ...more

December 19, 2009

Sixty-five years after Delbert E. Hahn laid his life on the line near the small French town of Caumont, ducking German machine gun fire and artillery, the former Iowa farmer whose cremated remains were found in a Tampa trash heap last month was laid to rest Wednesday in a hallowed place. ...more

December 17, 2009

Tampa police now have a clearer picture on how the cremated remains of a decorated World War II veteran and his wife wound up dumped behind a vacant Tampa college. ...more

December 17, 2009