The Kennedys, Thanksgiving and Novembers...

Occasionally, Thanksgiving falls on November 22. Though I have a lot to be thankful for and look forward to turkey, dressing and cranberry sauce as much as anybody, November 22 is always a very reflective day for me. It was one of the most emotional days of my life some 44 years ago. It was on that day that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

That day was just two days after his brother Robert's 38th birthday. JFK's funeral was held on JFK, Jr.'s birthday. Junior's famous salute to his father's passing casket was burned into the psyche of the time on that day. I had shaken President Kennedy's hand and photographed him during his visit to Tampa just four days before he was killed. It seemed like so much, good and bad, happened to the Kennedys toward the end of November.

Enough for November. I try every year to have the best time I can on Thanksgiving. I don't get home cooking a whole lot so it's one day I let myself be consumed in a culinary way at the expense of friends kind enough to invite me over. However, when Thanksgiving is on November 22 my thoughts often pause and wonder just how tough this time was...or still is...for the Kennedy family - a family that sustained so much pain and loss around this time.

I hope there will be joy flowing to the Kennedys this year and to all other persons in our country. With people losing their jobs, having their homes foreclosed on, having to decide between buying gasoline or medicine, etc., I know I have a whole lot to be thankful for no matter what my circumstances.

It wouldn't be right for me to omit our military people overseas from my thoughts. They're having to spend Thanksgiving far away from their families and in very close proximity to bombs and artillery that could end their lives at any time. Their Thanksgiving is at the end of each day they remain alive.

Somehow, it seems like what many others are going through makes my troubles trivial and should enrich my holiday knowing there are so many people more broke, more lonely, more endangered and just plain worse off than me. I think I'd like to give them all my Thanksgiving pass and just have a nice meal today and return to my Weight Watcher's meetings next week.

Stairway to obesity

I manage an office building in West Tampa for a jewelry genius and great guy, Mark Oliva. It's on West Columbus Drive in Tampa. It's in a super location...quite spacious...lots of parking. One big problem: It has no elevator. It was built some 40 years ago when people didn't mind moving around, climbing stairs. Some people actually ran up and down them. That's when lawsuits weren't subliminally programmed in people's minds. The times were lighter, the earth weighed much less.

Most people these days don't want to climb stairs to get to their offices. Matter of fact, they almost demand they be carried on and off an elevator and placed neatly in their desk chairs. I suppose we'd do that for a surcharge on the rent.

When the Columbus office building was constructed, there was no obesity epidemic. People hastened up and down stairs because they were thinner and able to move better. Forty years ago, if people fell on stairs they rushed to wash their wounds, dabbed on some hydrogen peroxide and returned to work. Today, they hope their attorney's office has a first aid kit because that's where they go first.

People used to hold at a decent weight because they used their bodies as intended. I don't really think people are too lazy to go up and down stairs now...they simply can't. It's got a lot to do with gravity. Trotting upwards is difficult when you're carrying a briefcase, a laptop and a hundred or so extra pounds on your belly. Sometimes the dropping skin can intrude on first floor tenants.

Sections of first floors used to be saved for the physically handicapped. That was voluntary as building codes did not require them to be accomodated. These days, if someone in a wheelchair drives up to your building and can't get to the office they need there's a special 800 number they can call or, bettter yet, they just take their fat time filling out a few short forms on the Internet at www.Let'sSueTheBastards.com.

I like the idea of making buildings accessible to those who are physically challenged but it's often cost prohibitive to modify old structures for that purpose. I think it would be much easier for me to ask prospective tenants to get off their butts, lose some weight and move it. But Mark is not like that and would probably object.

There are prospective tenants who back down from renting because of the fear that one day they will lose a client who may be handicapped. Here I am, nearly willing to pay them to move onto the second floor and they're worried about losing a client. When I tell them they can come downstairs to meet with those people, they balk. I personally have a problem with heights and many times I've had big, important people come down 42 floors to meet me in the lobby.

In any case, the second floor is nice because it creates a whole new dimension in insulation for the first floor. If it weren't for that, the aged air conditioning units would have pooped out 15 years ago. The first floor is rented out entirely and there are even people willing to rent a tiny portion of that space from the people who are already there.

There are a couple of clients on the second floor and they deserve credit for taking the space. One is a computer firm that felt there was little chance of them being bothered by solicitors. The other is a church group and the second floor puts them 15 feet closer to heaven and at a very good rental rate.

I've actually thought about renting just the stairways...to physical fitness buffs. Hell, my rate would be much cheaper than a gym. I used to think having a basement would have made leasing much easier but I realized that people would have to climb up from it. That wouldn't work either.

Our leasing agent is Robert Romano, hired because of his slender build and willingness to climb stairs. But we have to pay him by the step.

I'm over it. The Columbus building will now have two first floors, one just above the other. We'll just take the problem of getting leases to a whole new level. Next year, we'll charge for space by weight. The lighter our clients, the cheaper their rent. That ought to help motivate some to get lean and climb the stairs.

My friends would all agree I need to lose some weight myself. Mark has no idea, but when I personally show the property I give prospects a master key, point to the second floor, get back in my car, turn on the air conditioning and listen to 94.1FM while sipping a Coke and praying nobody falls down the stairs.

Robert Kennedy turns 82

I met Robert Kennedy when I was 16, he was 38 at the time. The occasion was the presentation of photos I had taken of his brother, President John F. Kennedy, exactly nine months earlier while the President was visiting Tampa, Florida. Forty-four years later and nearly 40 years after Robert's death by assassination, I am thinking about what it would have been like had he lived on...until now.

I'm not the only one, I'm sure. My friend, Ed Guthman, who as press secretary got me the audience with RFK, then U.S. Attorney General, told me not a day has gone by in all these years that he hasn't though about his former employer and dear friend.

My involvement with the Kennedy family was an unlikely event, triggered only by the fact that I was only 16, I took celebrated photos of JFK just four days before his assassination in Dallas and I was able to make the connection with Mr. Guthman many years later.

There's so much I could write about very serendipitous events which have surrounded my association with President Kennedy's friends, associates and family. The people I've met through this experience have been some of the best. Suffice it to say that nobody has been more in awe than myself. One man of the Kennedy era was Mr. Guthman, the greatest guy you could ever know. He's nearly 88 now; is a decorated WWII veteran with Purple Hearts, etc.; won the Pulitzer Prize in 1950 for investigative reporting.

He was number three on Richard Nixon's Enemies List; accompanied RFK several times when the Attorney General had to drive a tipsy Marilyn Monroe to her home; was an editor at both the Philadelphia Inquirer (where I once interned) and the Los Angeles Times; until this year, was a lecturer at The Annenberg School for Communication, University of Southern California at LA; and we could keep right on going.

He was also featured in Tom Brokaw's "The Greatest Generation." Brokaw, a legendary NBC news anchor, attended Guthman's retirement ceremony at USC earlier this year.

There's always a smile on my face when I see Mr. Guthman's username pop up on my instant messenger buddy list. If only John and Bob's could be there!

I take this day to give thoughts to Robert, to celebrate his legacy and the great work he did in public service. My only regret was that I was not old enough at the time he was alive to appreciate the real impact his life would have on future generations. Of course, had I not been a young person I may not have gotten the appointment to see him at all.

If you'd like to view my photos of President Kennedy's visit to Tampa, which also contains a skimpy but adequate narrative of that special day many years ago, click on link below:

http://www.big13.net/JFK%20In%20Tampa/JFK%20Tampa1.htm