So, I spent nearly three hours in the midnight cold Saturday in a parking lot awaiting the return of the state 4A football champions from Plant High School in South Tampa. But at least I got a blog post out of it.
In addition to hundreds of students, those awaiting the team's arrival included some political heavyweights, notably former chief circuit judge F. Dennis Alvarez and former congressmen and unsuccessful governor's candidate Jim Davis.
Davis had just returned from Miami, where he watched the game at Dolphins Stadium. He flew there directly from Washington, D.C, and his last official day in Congress, and he related how remarkable it was to see the GOP starting to come apart on the floor of the House, split apart by various factions on the war and other issues. Given that the Republican Party's moderate wing was destroyed on election day, Davis said, the voices representing the GOP over the next two years are likely to be much more shrill and right-wing.
As for his post-congressional plans, Davis said it's back to lawyering and making some money. As we both commiserated, we have sons heading to college in the next few years. And those sons attend Plant High, hence my shivering in the night air until the team buses arrived at 1:30 a.m.
This article appears in Dec 6-12, 2006.