Calm Before The Storm

Cotanchobee Fort Brook Park on a January day, peaceful.  Tampa Bay Times Forum quietly

looms overhead. Seven months from now this will be the focus of the nation's attention.

In late August 2012, the RNC convention comes to town and all that it will attract.

Politicians, Protesters, a potpourri of bad hats and silly slogans.

I can't wait.

Too bad the St. Petersburg Times decided to change the name of their paper this year.

This convention could have given the often slighted people of St. Petersburg

the opportunity to exact a kind of revenge one never gets on a rival.

 

Confusion.

 

Imagine the throngs of reporters filing stories from Tampa and the St. Petersburg Times Forum.

Where are we?

See, West Central Florida has an identity problem.  Two towns, yet only one gets the "attention".

Tampa Bay is a body of water not a town, yet it contains a town's name.

Every time the national news or sports media circus comes to town there are always mistakes.

Funny? Yes. Sad? Yes.

There was a time you could expect a reporter to know where they are,

the Tampa Bay Times has made it much easier, you're "in" Tampa Bay.

I hope you have a snorkel.