...Glory Days!

As I was driving home this afternoon I had the local classic rock station on the radio as usual. I often get ideas for the blog listening to lyrics, and sometimes it seems that a bunch of things just come together at once. I'd already decided on using this photo today, one of a bunch of photos of me with various other people. I ran across an envelope full of black and white 8x10's a few weeks ago during a another futile attempt to make order out of chaos in my office. I had no idea how I was going to lead in to the story, or what I should title it. "Glory Days" was the refrain that kept coming through the speakers, and it reminded me of yesterday when I was at Jim and Linda Kukar's reception. Jim and I and bunch of other newspaper people were indeed "...trading boring stories of glory days". Jim is the one who first got me interested in politics.

This is North Miami Mayor Howard Neu a bit over twenty years ago. He'd dragged me deeper still into the political process, first appointing me to the Planning Comission, then chairman of his re-election campaign. Here we are in his office in city hall, no doubt breaking some law or another about drinking alcohol in city hall, but the returns were comming in and enough precincts had reported that it was obvious that Howard had won the election. The champaign cork was popped, the glasses were filled, and I found somebody to hand the camera off to as we shook hands and raised the glasses in celebration. Glory Days!

A few years later I suggested to a young female attorney, Christine Moreno, that she might consider running against the unopposed Howard Neu. She won, but that's a story for another photograph and another day.