Gasparilla 2009

Tampa, Florida

It was another lovely day for the annual pirate invasion, about 72 degrees F. and bright blue skies.

We started with a brunch with friends at the University of Tampa. I taught there for five years, They gave me tenure so I left. Teddy Roosevelt and his troops stayed here before shipping out to Cuba.

The University was a hotel built by railroad tycoon, Henry B. Plant, as the terminus for his railroad. The brunch is in Plant Hall. Most of the Alumni are dressed as Spartans and will take part in the parade.





We lived near the parade route and had a big party every year on the day. We had a small cannon to repel Urinators (they are the ones who sneak into your yard after drinking too much beer because they don't want to wait in line for a port-a-potty).

One day we failed to notice that Argie and Anne-Marie were putting the olive pits from their martinis in the cannon as the day wore on. Unfortunately, when we fired the gun, it caused the demise of our neighbor's prize parrot. Our relationship was never quite the same after that incident.




Only 141 arrests were made this year, mostly for drunkenness. The Fire Chief killed a pedestrian while hurrying to take his place in the parade.

The first parade I remember attending was in 1963. It was a relatively small affair. I drove my Harley to the parade and tried to pick up girls.

Some of the Gasparillas have not ended well. For example, there was the time we had to wheel Mike back in the drink wagon. Mike brings his vodka in Dansani water bottles. I bum several plastic cups of his vodka and grapefruit juice concoctions.


This year our friend Joey (a policeman) is retiring so he gets to drive the Chief of Police in the parade. We all scream "JOEY!, JOEY!" as he passes. I don't think he heard us with his siren going.

There are lots of Bead Hogs out there today. They will snatch the beads away from a two-year old. Jeff is a Bead Hog, but he doesn't make it this year. Jeff likes to throw beads into the tubas of the High School marching bands. This year the tubas all have cover on the openings, a clever countermeasure.

The cannon fire and musical floats make a continuous cacophony as the long parade winds on until darkness falls. The city immediately rolls out the trash wagons to clean up the tons of debris and disassemble the bleacher seats that they sell to the slightly more affluent.




About 500,000 spectators line the parade route down Bayshore Boulevard into downtown this year. When I moved here, in 1954, the tallest structure downtown was a big Early Times whiskey bottle atop a four story building.

Here are some Gasparilla highlights over the years.

1904: Tampa Morning Tribune society editor Mary Louise Dodge hears of the legendary Jose Gaspar and links May Day events with a New Orleans-like krewe of pirates. Fifty pirates, forming Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla, invade the city on horseback.

1911: After it is announced that Tampa's population jumped 43.2 percent in 10 years - the largest increase of any city east of the Mississippi - a Census Celebration is held along with Gasparilla. Swashbuckling pirates arrive by ship for the first time.


1916: Pigs and chickens drown after falling off a schooner used for the pirate invasion. The animals were left aboard the borrowed ship and made fatal plunges into the water after lapping up grog spilled on deck.

1926: The good ship Gasparilla runs aground at the mouth of the Hillsborough during the invasion. Tugs can't free her. As she scrapes across the bottom of the river, she severs a telephone cable, putting Hyde Park out of calling service.

1927: A pirate shoots a 12-gauge, double-barrel shotgun at a blimp hovering over the parade. The dirigible makes an emergency landing at P.O. Knight Airport. Shotguns are banned after this; the krewe switches to handguns.



1929: Because of the gloomy economy preceding the Depression, 20 buccaneers can't afford the $50 krewe membership fee. They form the ``ex-Pirates'' for their own Gasparilla, where they dress in rags. The mayor gives them the key to the poorhouse instead of the traditional key to the city.


1991: Super Bowl XXV bigwigs and local black activists protest the racial exclusiveness of Gasparilla. Rather than open its ranks, Ye Mystic Krewe cancels the parade, planned as part of football activities. Instead, the first and last Bamboleo festival winds down Bayshore accompanied by a smaller-than-usual flotilla.

1992: Gasparilla returns with new blood. Groups such as the Krewe of Fort Brooke, appealing to men and women in the business world, and Grand Krewe De Libertalia, with its mission of ethnic diversity, add to the rejuvenated celebration.

2003: The number of krewes grows to 35, touching common interests from playing cards to riding horses.

Driver, where you taken us?

Tampa, Florida

The blue bus is callin us
The blue bus is callin us
Driver, where you taken us?

We say goodbye to the old motorhome and hello to the Blue Bus. Our new home is the one shown above. You push a button and it whines and whirs and brings itself to a level position on uneven ground. Another button makes the satellite dome on the roof lock into satellite TV. It's seven feet longer than the old RV, has two bathrooms and even has a washer/dryer. There are two air conditioning units for those hot summer desert days and a much more powerful generator for boondocking. We'll be very happy here. Plenty of room for the SCUBA gear in the huge basement...lots of ceiling headroom...Oh!...I can plug my IPOD directly into any of the onboard radios...

Cmon baby, take a chance with us
And meet me at the back of the blue bus
Doin a blue rock
On a blue bus
Doin a blue rock
Cmon, yeah
....Jim Morrison

Gasparilla Day

Tampa, Florida

The first time I actually went to the Gasparilla parade was 1964. I took my Harley down to the parade route and tried to pick up girls. I was unsuccessful.



This year I park in the parking garage in the Channelside area. Dozens of new condominiums have blanketed this area during the housing bubble/mortgage fraud crisis of the last five years. It used to just be the docks, a very run-down area.



I walk though downtown and over the river to Bayshore Boulevard, about 1.5 miles. The crowd appears to number at least a million and there are lots of vendors selling beads, Italian sausages and beverages. A number of rock bands are set up along the parade route with huge sound stages to provide mass entertainment.



About 1:00 PM I make cellphone contact with a group of my former students and we go into the reserved bleacher area to watch the Parade. The parade takes five hours as pirates, rough riders, gauchos, Caribbean cowboys, firefighters, high school bands and other freaks parade down Bayshore.



We only see two young handcuffed men being whisked off to jail in a golf cart. They are bloodied and bruised. Apparently they had been fighting. Otherwise, the crowd is intensely good-natured, screaming happily and hoping to get beads from the pirates. As the day and the drinking wear on, the crowd on either side of the street also begin to throw beads to each other.



Two of my former students (Jeff and Soche), now both 50 years old are still mischievous. As the marching bands approach they yell "TUBA" and attempt to throw beads into the tubas.



I don't remember Soche. He tells me he made two "F" grades and two "A" grades on my tests. He says I sat beside him while he took the 4th test. He says I told them what would be on the tests. I did believe in outlining specific learning objective for each chapter. I thought it was good educational theory.



Ann-Marie Mezzetti was there. She is 50 now too. She reminds me every year of my prediction for her at age 20 that she would be a fat Italian mother. She points out that she's still lovely and shapely. I tell her that I did her a favor.



It's a happy crowd. Years ago there was only one very exclusive Krewe of pirates. They were the Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla: bankers, lawyers and other community leaders who spent this one day swigging whiskey and firing off cannons and pistols. Now there are dozens of Krewes of every ethnic persuasion and sexual orientation. It's grown into a monster.



Mike and Steve are there. They've been our great friends over the years. Lots of camping trips and lobster hunting weeks in the Keys.



A good time was had by all. It was better when we had the house by the parade route and they all came back to party after the parade, but time moves on. I pick my way though the debris and broken bottles to my car. The clean-up effort begins the instant that the parade ends.