For Immediate Release: Chapter Five

Essays and Lessons From 30 Years in Politics and Government

Hi, and welcome to the Sun Shine Republic. I’m really glad you’re here.

This is “For Immediate Release,” my essays and stories of politics, government, and a little bit of life in between. They span 30 years, from Little Rock, Arkansas to Washington, D.C. to St. Petersburg, Florida. I’ll be sending it out to paid subscribers here on Substack over the coming days and weeks. I hope you’ll consider a paid subscription and check it out. If you are a paid subscriber, thank you very much. I couldn’t do this without you.

As always, thanks for reading.

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2002
St. Petersburg, Florida

I sit in the sun-drenched backyard of a small, pink house off 22nd Avenue. It is an older house, the former residence of an elderly woman who died months ago. It hasn’t been occupied in some time. When I flip on the window unit, it protests, rattling and shimmying against the wooden frame. Light dust covers the tile counter tops of the empty kitchen. The avocado-green bathroom smells slightly of mildew. Little about the old house is clean or new, but I live there rent-free. The house being made available to me is an incredible gift of mercy from generous friends of my parents. It is the house of his late mother, not yet sold. 

Out back, there is a concrete stoop, with faded paint and edges worn with time and weather. There is a wooden fence, dilapidated. To the left is an old garage with belongings in it which are not mine. It is locked. In the middle of the backyard is a perfect tree, round and tall, bearing the most beautiful, ripe oranges I have ever seen. 

As I sit there catching the taste of salt in the breeze off the water, only a few blocks away, I revel in my dream of managing a political campaign, emerging from the disaster of my first marriage, and basking in the sunshine of St. Petersburg, Florida.