Bob and Jimmy and me

This past Friday I set out from GNV for a five-plus hour slog to Broward County. It actually ended up taking longer because just before I got onto I-75 in Micanopy I discovered my Subaru was having electrical problems and I had to arrange a last minute rendezvous with Jill to swap cars.

But I digress.

The point being that I was making this tedious slog down the length of the peninsula because I wanted to talk about Bob and Jimmy and me. And my opportunity to do so came complements of Florida Humanities and its new splendid new anthology “Once Upon A Time In Florida.”

“Once” is basically a collection of 50 stories about Florida published over the course of 50 years in Forum. My contribution to the book happened to be a piece about former Gov. Bob Graham and the “Cincinnati syndrome.” (Which is a story for another time. But certainly one worth telling.)

The organization has been hosting a series of panel discussions around the state to talk about the book. And I was asked to participate in one such discussion at Broward College’s Coconut Creek campus. (Which was Jake with me, since I graduated from (then) Broward Community College in the early 1970s – fresh out of the Navy and before I hauled my butt to GNV and UF.)

But again, I digress.

The point being that I had the opportunity to talk about Bob and Jimmy and me.

Bob being the Florida-born political wunderkind. Me being a sycophant reporter who kept running into, and writing about, Graham throughout virtually the entirety of my half-century journalistic career. And of course, Jimmy needs no introducation.

The first time I met Graham, mid-1970s, I was a student reporter for the Independent Florida Alligator and he was a young state senator from Miami and a charter member of the “Doghouse Democrats.”

The DDs being a rag-tag collection of liberal pols who kept bashing their heads against the conservative status quo in Tallahassee.

Fast forward to the late ‘70s and the early ‘80s. I was the Tallahassee Bureau Chief for the New York Times Florida Newspaper Group. And Graham was the young governor who got elected despite conventional wisdom that a liberal South Florida pol would never occupy the governor’s mansion in a state invented by the pork choppers.

Bob of the celebrated working days and the tiny spiral notebooks and the off-putting (to some) professorial manner.

Listen, Gov. Bob had a bumpy ride at first. Legislators refused to take him seriously and reporters started to call him “Gov. Jello.” I recall a political cartoon showing a lawmaker at a restaurant being served a plate with Gov. Graham’s head on it.

“Waiter! I ordered chicken and cashews,” the indignant legislator fumed. “Where are the cashews.”

Fortunately, Graham had the good sense to hire Charlie Reed as his chief of staff. Reed was hard as nails, understood the art of the deal, and helped to make Graham a player in a city where the likes of Dempsey Barron made saying “Hell no” a political art form.

I could go on and on about Graham and his accomplishments as governor and, later, U.S. Senator. But the truth is that all of the above has been just a set-up so I could tell you one of my favorite Bob Graham stories. Which I also got to tell Saturday at my alma mater BCC.

I was shadowing Graham at a University of Florida football game. Because, if Graham is anything, he is a Bleed Orange And Blue Gator.

The game being over, Graham left the President’s Box and was walking down the stadium tiers toward the field.

To thunderous applause.

People were clapping and cheering and hailing the chief. And Bob Graham was acknowledging the crowd with waves and salutes.

Who knew that a young pol could garner so much adulation that even football fans would display their gratitude in such demonstrative fashion?

Or maybe….just maybe…

The crowd was roaring because Jimmy Buffet was walking just a few steps behind young Gov. Bob. (You decide.)

Having said that, I’ll say this.

Jimmy Buffet was walking with Bob Graham on that day, and on many other days, because he believed in Graham’s environmental agenda. He believed in Graham’s Save Our Everglades initiative. And in similar Graham initiatives to buy up as much natural lands as possible and to protect Florida’s coasts and free flowing rivers.

It’s true. Buffet was a “Graham cracker,” to steal a line from Bob’s campaign theme song.

And as a bystander on that day I was pretty sure that Jimmy didn’t begrudge for one second Bob’s stealing his thunder.

Anyway, that’s my story about Bob and Jimmy and me. And thanks to Florida Humanities for giving me the opportunity to tell it again after so many, many years.