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.

Clearwater Marina plan short sighted

The city of Clearwater is prepared to spend $18 million for a long overdue renovation of its marina. The project, without expanded parking, is a case of ready, shoot, aim. Several years back, the city allowed a new restaurant to be built and another expanded without any increase in available parking. Nowhere else in the city would that be allowed to happen and many observers smelt a deal worse than the dead fish you occasionally encounter at the facility. Unless the appeal of deep sea fishing, dinner cruises and concessions like parasailing take a deep dive, the requirement for parking at the marina is going to do nothing but increase. There is plenty of room in the northeast corner of the marina for a parking garage and spending $18 million without including such a facility is just plain foolish.

Great Tampa Bay, politics and stuff:

50 years ago this week: the infamous D.B. Cooper skyjacking of a Northwest Orient Boeing 727 enroute from Denver to Tacoma. Cooper has never been located after parachuting from the jet. Some of the ransom was found nine years later in a campground near Vancouver.

We met the gentleman a couple of times over the years and, like many others, never knew his first name. To everybody, he was Hinks. Hillsborough County developer and philanthropist Mandell “Hinks” Shimberg passed away last week at age 92.

Have a kid who is in danger of not graduating from high school? Send them to Oregon where officials citing “equity” have quietly scrapped math and reading requirements to graduate.

Florida is picking up some 2000 Disney jobs as the entertainment giant moves workers from California citing “Florida’s business-friendly climate.”

Beto O’Rourke, the Harold Stassen of Texas politics, is running for governor. His hardcore anti-gun stance ought to play well in the Lone Star state.

A word that is rapidly disappearing from the English language: commitment.

From the not quite genuine 5:05 Newsletter: Critics are warning that the COP26 Climate Change Conference held last week in Scotland fell far short of its goal. Just calling for more car-pooling “insufficient,” critics say. In a related story, the conference left everybody asking the same question: If I become a climate activist, do I get a private jet?

Sports, media and lighter stuff:

Looking forward to reading The Lyrics: 1956-Present, a composition of the lyrics to Paul McCartney’s songs with commentary by the author. It’s already #1 on the New York Times bestseller list.

For those of us whose greatest sand creation was filling your bucket with sand and turning it over, we are in awe over the creations at Treasure Island’s Sanding Ovation which continues this weekend.

Every NFL team has a bad week, let’s hope we saw the Bucs’ worst week of the season in their loss to the Washington No Names.

Sports note: Brewers sign Jason Alexander – no not that Jason Alexander, but a guy who pitched briefly for the Marlins last season.

Idle question: Is the day coming when you will need an app on your phone to buy a Big Mac or a Whopper? That would improve our diets, so there are some advantages to being low-tech.

As the “holiday plea” season begins, we recycle this thought from a couple of years back: We’d probably stroke more checks to more charities if they had a check-off box that read “Here’s my yearly contribution, save printing and postage and get back to me in one year.”

You’ve lived in Clearwater a long time if you remember the annual Rotary Club turkey shoots on the Coachman property on U.S. 19. If you don’t remember them, the participants shot at paper targets, not live turkeys.

Giving thanks for Clearwater

Dad was due to retire from Westinghouse Corporation after a 30-year career. The summer before his retirement, he and his wife and their nine-year-old brat made a trip to Florida, going down the east coast and up the west coast scouting for a place to retire. They liked Sarasota and Clearwater. After a year’s debate, they arrived in Clearwater on Thanksgiving week 65 years ago. We stayed at the still-existing Orange Motel on Gulf-to-Bay Boulevard. While having a Thanksgiving dinner at future classmate Rich Podurgiel’s folk’s restaurant, Mom spotted the moving van arriving from the Southern Tier of New York and the rest is history. Each day, we pause to thank our Mom and Dad for such a wise choice. Yes, Clearwater is not the same as it was in 1956, but as the young girl whose folks moved here ten years later from North Carolina reminds us, neither are we. But every day, especially this week, we give thanks for our parent’s choice – and that of the parents of that young girl.

NEXT UP: A 5:05 Christmas; Buying the media; Madonna & Co.

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Happy Thanksgiving!