Tampa Bay Raves and Rants is a weekly airing of national and local politics, sports, lifestyles and nostalgia items from a very politically incorrect viewpoint. As always, beware - much of what is printed here should not be taken literally.

The mouse that changed Florida forever

It’s one of the greatest cloak and dagger stories ever. Walt Disney flying around central Florida in the mid-sixties; buying up property through dummy corporations; meeting covertly with Florida Governor Hayden Burns and then making the stunning announcement in 1965 that “East Coast Disneyland” was coming to central Florida. Fifty years ago this week, the park opened and central Florida, indeed all of Florida, has never been the same. Orlando’s population when the park opened was just over 90,000; today it is three times that. Florida had 6.7 million citizens at the park’s opening. Today that number is 21.6 million. Orlando’s airport has morphed from an Air Force base (McCoy) to Florida’s busiest airport and the 10^th busiest in the nation. Dozens of other attractions have sprung up in central Florida in the wake of Disney World, but none have the cachet and drawing power of “the mouse” bringing just shy of 21 million people to its gates each year while employing 77,000 Floridians.

Great Tampa Bay, politics and stuff:

The revered 5:05 Newsletter weighs in on our lead article: Walt Disney Company animators have been forced by the politically correct crowd to give Tinkerbell a plus-sized fairy sister. Her name will be Tacobell.

Factoid – two shares of Disney stock bought in the early 1980s for $160, with splits and reinvested dividends, are now worth well over $20,000. We know, we bought them – unfortunately not for ourselves.

More regarding Mickey, what cartoon character or super hero was on your lunch box back in elementary school?

A belated Happy Birthday to President Jimmy Carter, who celebrated his 97^th last Friday (10/1).

This week we received our 50^th final call before they close the file on our auto warranty.

That, of course, was followed immediately by a guy offering us the latest and greatest Medicare Supplement plan – something to look forward to until early December.

Sports, media and lighter stuff:

Happy Birthday Dad and thanks for the guidance and work ethic you passed along.

Related to the lead article and the item just above. Dad and Mom were at the grand opening of WDW, the guests of Gulf Oil who had the original service center at the park.

You’ve lived in Clearwater (or anywhere else) a long time if you remember the radio/TV tube testing machines often, for some reason, found in drug stores.

As the playoffs begin this week, our three picks to win it all are the Dodgers, the Dodgers and the Dodgers – the best team money can buy.

Related note: we know it’s a huge longshot, but nothing would make us happier than to see the Atlanta Braves clinch the World Series at Truist Park and watch the All-Star thief Rob Manfred have to present the trophy to Braves management – and to hear the warm welcome he would receive from the crowd.

Idle thought: despite all the contrived names of minor league baseball clubs nowadays, the best team name in the minor leagues is still the Toledo Mud Hens, followed closely by the Durham Bulls.

In keeping with our overall theme this week, you’ve lived in Florida (or elsewhere) a long time if you ever dined at the ESPN Zone at Walt Disney World.

The kingdom of beers

Bitter Brew reads more like the history of an ancient European dynasty rather than a look at what was America’s biggest brewery, Anheuser-Busch. It has all the palace intrigue of a great empire plus some local hooks with the amusement park in Tampa and the Busch family presence in St. Petersburg during the years their Cardinals trained here. William Knoedelseder’s book details six generations of the Busch family with their tremendous successes, numerous scandals and larger than life characters. It talks about the Cardinals, the beloved Clydesdales and the beers – six of the top ten beers in America come from what is now known as Anheuser-Busch InBev, including the #1 beer – the ubiquitous Bud Lite. Bitter Brew begins with the Busch family buying a bankrupt brewery on the banks of the Mississippi, through the trying years of Prohibition to the bittersweet end when the Busch empire was swallowed up by a faceless European cartel of beer brands. It’s an excellent read if you’re a student of business history or Americana. And it’s a good lead-in to Knoedelseder’s follow-up Fins which chronicles General Motors and its chief designer Harley Earl, the father of the Corvette and the finned cars of the late fifties and early sixties.

NEXT UP: Out of touch boomers; Zamboni; Biggest song of the 60s

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