CHARACTER AND CHARACTERS

Revel in your city's quirks

While surfing the Web the other day, I came upon a thoughtful column by Otis White titled "Last Call in Margaritaville."

"Every city has problems," White wrote.

"Our problem: We are running out of beach bums. Not the touristy kinds, who spend a week baking on the sand, but the real 365-day beach bums who devote a minimum amount of their time working and a maximum perching on bar stools."

I know a few of them.

Florida panthers are trying to come back from the brink of extinction. The one killed this past week on Interstate 4 near Walt Disney World is proof that the big cats are trying to survive as humans continue to tear apart the cats' natural habitat.

However, the Florida beach bums with whom I've formed an acquaintance all stoically face endangerment as they quietly stare out across the water from their regular tiki bars.

Otis White, the columnist mentioned above, came across a beach bum, 58-year-old Jay Crawford, in a story in the St. Petersburg Times in the spring of 2004.

Crawford -- who I'll get back to in a moment -- might or might not still sit on bar stools in St. Petersburg.

But I'm disappointed to find out that White has walked away from the "Urban Notebook" column he wrote for the past five years for "Governing" magazine. Only this past week did I stumble for the first time upon White's column and the news that he has moved on "to work on a project to understand how communities make important decisions."

A bunch of White's columns, including "Last Call in Margaritaville" can be accessed by hitting the "Urban Notebook" bar at governing.com

"Governing," the magazine, can be picked up off a table in almost all government offices, where it is as ubiquitous as "Sports Illustrated" in barbershops and "Vogue" in hair salons.

I've never seen "Governing" in a tiki bar.

Carrying a copy into such a place could get you ejected for spoiling the atmosphere.

Even so, White looked back fondly on the "beach bum" piece when he wrote the last of his 1,200 "Urban Notebook" columns for "Governing."

White left longtime readers (and me) with this sage advice: "Cities are funny, funny places," so "have fun" in whichever one is home.

He urged readers to "enjoy the city you live in. Revel in its quirks and customs. Laugh at its oddities but resist the temptation to apologize for them. Above all, remember that what makes your city different is what makes it great."

Greatness includes the local characters. Everywhere has at least a few of them.

Like Crawford, the old-school Floridian, who told the St. Petersburg Times that the rising cost of housing reduces the number of beach bums.

"They're tearing down the cute little houses and putting in the condos," Crawford said.

Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

It sounds familiar to Lucky, who sits on the last bar stool on the right at a certain watering hole in Sarasota County.

Lucky has watched a lot of tides come and go. And he has seen a lot of little houses get torn down and replaced by big houses and condominiums.

Enough said about Lucky. I don't want to blow his cover and cause well-meaning tourists to turn him into a celebrity Floridian, a man who is part of an endangered breed.

Lucky wouldn't want that.

In my four years in Sarasota County, I've witnessed the loss of several establishments of the "Margaritaville" sort.

Usually, little is gained when a community loses local color and local character.

So, I suggest that decision-makers in coastal Florida who subscribe to "Governing" should search for the "Last Call in Margaritaville" column and ponder what kind of place their particular community would be without beach bums.

It's already too late for some communities. They're gone.

Meanwhile, White ended his 2004 "Margaritaville" column with a dose of perspective: "Footnote: It makes good songs for Jimmy Buffett, but living in Margaritaville is no paradise."

Crawford, as the St. Petersburg Times story noted, had gone through substance abuse problems and logged several marriages.

"The last marriage came undone," White wrote, "over an incident in which he dumped a pitcher of beer on his wife's head and she ran him down with a car.

"'I didn't prosecute,'" Crawford said, "'because it was kind of half my fault.'"

That's the Florida that captures the nation's imagination. When it's gone, perhaps there will be a theme park.



Larry Evans is a Herald-Tribune editorial writer, columnist and blogger. He can be reached at 486-3075, or at: larry.evans@heraldtribune.com