Sign on southbound U.S.-1 at City of Aventura/Hallandale Beach line.Lawton Chiles was a great and humble man blessed with a tireless work ethic and unquestioned integrity. Over the years, before and after I moved to the D.C. area from Miami, I was fortunate enough to talk to him from time to time, and thru observing his words and actions and principled stands, gain the benefit of his advice and wisdom. June 22, 2008 photo by South Beach Hoosier.
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Please take a look at this article in today's WSJ, updating the latest with the Chiles Family and
their opposition to the state's plan to raid/borrow/plunder that state trust fund, a story which I was tipped-off to today by the Walkin' Lawton blog, http://thehecoonwalks.blogspot.com, which I
In the 15 years I lived in the Washington area, I spent a pretty fair amount of time around Senator and Mrs. Chiles, especially with Rhea Chiles and her personable personal assistant Lydia Harris at our wonderful 'embassy' in Washington, The Florida House, and its then-director, the gregarious Davis Graham, http://www.floridaembassy.com/.
I was there for hundreds of hours over the years, and Mrs. Chiles, Lydia and Davis were always friendly and gracious, great ambassadors of our state in the nation's capital.
That includes one memorable night in particular, where for a Disney event, after we'd been witnesses to a sneak preview of some amazing upcoming Disney projects at Disney World that were held in one of the large Senate conference rooms, we returned to The Florida House for a first class reception afterwards.
It was there up on the beautiful second floor, surrounded by so many examples of Florida's history, art and culture that I was photographed in my favorite Brooks Brothers pinstripe suit, wearing a real Mickey Mouse blue and red striped rep tie given to us that night as a souvenir.
On one side of me was the one and only Mickey Mouse -also wearing his suit costume!- and a grinning Sen. Bob Graham on the other side, with his characteristic deep tan.
Best of all, the photo turned out great -a real bonus!
That's also the place where I watched my first presidential inaugural in January of 1989, and snapped some great photos from their second floor window, pointing towards the Capitol two
blocks away, capturing the helicopter flying President and Mrs. Reagan out to Andrews AFB, but not without it making a slow looping turn around the Capitol Hill area one last time, for old times sake.
Even though I'm quite certain that at least half of the people in the room watching the large TV with me up there never voted for President Reagan, it actually made everyone quite sad to see that little moment, knowing THAT was indeed the final exclamation point. Including me.
I'll try to post those photos at some point in the future so that you can see why the scene of it seemed so poignant at the time.
To be perfectly honest, I'm really surprised this trust fund story has not gotten much more attention on local Miami TV to this point, saying that while acknowledging that one of these days, really,
I'm going to stop being surprised at the absurd lack of inherent curiosity at local Miami TV stations now, compared to when I was growing-up here.
That is, other than the few shining examples, like Channel 10's Michael Putney and Glenna Milberg, Channel 4's Stephen Stock and Jim DeFede, and a few others, who consistently recognize a compelling news story, and its possible consequences, LONG BEFORE anyone else
around here on local TV has gotten it into their thick head what's what.
But they can only do so much, you know?
Wall Street Journal
January 6, 2009
Family Seeks to Block Use Of Fund to Close Florida Gap
By Corey Dade
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St. Pete Times
The Buzz blog
January 15, 2009
Overpromising, underdelivering
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New York Times
Budget Woes Expose Rifts Over Tobacco Money
By Damien Cave
