Henry Aruffo, the tsunami survivor I profiled in May, looks much better than the last time I saw him. And considering he's been in the Pinellas County Jail for the last month, that's really saying something.
On Dec. 7, St. Pete police arrested Aruffo in his St. Pete apartment for "threatening to discharge a destructive device." The arrest stemmed from a conversation between Aruffo and a Red Cross staff member earlier that day at the St. Pete chapter of the American Red Cross.
According to the warrant, Aruffo visited the Red Cross that morning to photograph the building. When approached by staffer Stephen McGuire, the complaint states, Aruffo threatened to blow the building up.
Aruffo denies he ever made the threat. That's not to say he does not harbor strong feelings against the Red Cross.
In 2003, Aruffo, a former University of South Florida geography professor, retired to Phuket, a small beach town in Thailand. He started a nonprofit environmental organization, the Coral Reef Institute, which educated Thai people on the benefits of coral reef preservation, and, in his spare time, taught English to Thai teachers.
Then the 2004 Asian tsunami hit Phuket, forever altering the 57-year-old's life.
Aruffo watched the 20-foot wall of water smash into the coast from his condo balcony in Phuket. For weeks after the tsunami, Aruffo participated in rescue efforts, diving for survivors trapped in flooded grocery store basements and plugging gas leaks in fishing boats. He adopted a group of children and taught them English, promising to raise enough money to provide them scholarships for a trade school.
But Aruffo's rescue work caught up to him. He contracted several skin, nose and ear infections, dengue fever (a painful mosquito-borne virus) and Hepatitis C.
Early last year, Aruffo left Thailand and returned to St. Pete for treatment. When I met him in May ("Wave After Wave," May 30), he was struggling with depression, nightmares and various phobias.
He was also angry. Angry at U.S. embassy officials for not providing more aid to those who helped in the recovery efforts. Angry at politicians for increased tsunami assistance. And angry at the Red Cross for not releasing over $350 million in donations collected after the tsunami hit.
The Red Cross has said those funds are being applied to long-term recovery and will be released over the next three years. But Aruffo says devastated regions like Thailand need aid sooner rather than later.
That's why Aruffo was at the Red Cross on Dec. 7, he says, planning a "peaceful Greenpeace-style protest" for Dec. 26, the three-year anniversary of the tsunami. He took his digital camera to gauge how many posters he needed to cover the building. When the Red Cross staffer came out to talk to him, Aruffo says he told the man about his problems with the Red Cross. During the conversation, Aruffo says, he mentioned how the Red Cross never used all the money donated after the World Trade Center bombing.
"That's the only time I used the word 'bombing,'" Aruffo says from jail, where he is held on $50,000 bond. "And then I gave him my business card."
A call to the Red Cross seeking comment was not returned.
"I'm a peaceful person," Aruffo says. "I've seen too many thousands of bodies dead to ever hurt anyone."
Aruffo's trial starts this month.
Hello (Hic) From My Heart
Aruffo was not the only one of my interview subjects to wind up in jail last year. Motivational speaker/ metaphysical teacher/ ordained minister/ local author Gary Schineller also spent some time in the slammer.
You might recall Schineller from a column I wrote about "Hello From My Heart" Day ("One Heart At A Time," Sept. 20, 2006). Schineller insisted saying "hello from my heart" to random strangers could prevent crime and create community. So, to test that theory, I brought him to one of Tampa's roughest neighborhoods to see if he could spread some happiness there. I've always treasured the look on Schineller's face when we first arrived on that street full of broken bottles and barking pit bulls.
But it seems Schineller one-upped me this year: He got the chance to spread his message in jail! Unfortunately for him, it wasn't of his own volition.
On Sept. 10, Schineller spent the night in the Land O' Lakes' clink after a state trooper arrested him on charges of drunk driving, DUI property damage and leaving the scene of an accident involving property damage. The police report states Schineller allegedly hit a car on his way home and didn't stop. The driver of the damaged vehicle followed Schineller to his New Port Richey home and called the cops. The arriving trooper reported Schineller's blood-alcohol level was more than twice the legal limit.
I haven't been able to reach Schineller, because he's serving his 10 days in the Land O' Lakes jail after the court convicted him for leaving the scene of an accident. Judging from Schineller's stellar performance in spreading joy to Tampa's Central Park Village, I'm sure he'll get along fine with his fellow cellmates.
Goats, Cats and Boats
Thankfully, not all of my interview subjects have landed in jail this year; several have found much personal and professional success.
For example, 100-year-old Jackson House, a former boarding house where such greats as Ella Fitzgerald stayed in the early 20th century ("Last House Standing", Feb. 28) finally received its designation as a National Historical Landmark last September (the building had already received city landmark status in 2004). Willie Robinson, the owner and sole resident of the Jackson House, says the national marker completes his mother's dream of preserving the house for Tampa's future generations.
And Petra Gearhart — the woman who almost single-handedly saved nearly 100 cats from a South Tampa trailer park slated for demolition ("Cat Trap Fever," Sept. 13, 2006) — has turned her personal cat-trapping pastime into full-time employment. She is now the feral cat coordinator for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals — the first position of its kind in the country, according to the ASPCA. She works as part of Operation Orange, the ASPCA's newest campaign to educate and prevent animal overpopulation.
Another animal lover, "Lucy" the underground goat farmer ("In the Raw," June 13), now sells her raw goat milk and kefir in three different Tampa Bay locations. Lucy recently received her license to sell raw milk to the public (for pet consumption only, of course). You can find her at Nature's Food Patch in Clearwater, the Sweetwater Organic Market in Tampa or St. Pete's Saturday Morning Market. She even has a Myspace page: myspace.com/thedancinggoat.
Finally, Wes Stevenson tells me the United States Navy has an interest in his "dancing boat," a twin-hulled catamaran engineered to ride the waves more smoothly.
After my ride on Stevenson's prototype ("Walking the Waves," Aug. 9, 2006), the dance-instructor-turned-boat-engineer began negotiations with the Navy, which offered him funding to design a "bigger, better, faster" version of his boat.
"No one questions whether it will work," Stevenson says. "Their question is how big can they scale it up."
When the Navy contract is finalized, Stevenson says he'll design the boat but not construct it. That will leave him time to pursue another dream: opening a dance studio in Brandon much like the one he left behind in Atlanta four years ago.
"Once you've tasted the triumph of higher achievement," the upbeat Georgia native says, "it's hard to sit back and do nothing."
This article appears in Jan 9-15, 2008.