What started as a chance meeting, turned into the story of a flag, a judge, and his affection for his fallen brother. For me, it became a promising friendship.

Memorial Day morning, I was awakened by a phone call from my mother asking me to meet her to help a neighbor put up a flag. Happy to oblige, I raced over. Upon arriving, I saw an old 48-star flag draped over a tree, and I met Judge David O’Neil. The judge is a tall soft-spoken man. He walks with a cane and gives a firm handshake.

He told us that the flag was presented to his parents after the death of his brother Charles, who served in WWII.… Read More

In May, one of our own Old NE Neighborhood residents, Jackson Willis, graduated from Shorecrest Preparatory School as the 2015 Class Valedictorian. In addition, he was also selected as a U.S. Presidential Scholar, one of only 144 students to be named as such in 2015. He was selected based on his academic success, essays, school evaluations, transcripts, community service, leadership, and demonstrated commitment to ethical and moral character.

Jackson Willis is the fifth generation to live in his home in Old Northeast St. Petersburg. His great-great-grandfather, Benjamin Latham Loyd Armstrong from Connecticut, built this home with a basement in the Old Northeast in the 1920s.… Read More

Florida entered the reclaimed water arena with the construction of the Tallahassee Reclaimed Water Farm in 1966. In l977, the city of St. Petersburg build the first urban, reclaimed system in the United States.* By 1987, effluent discharge to the Tampa Bay ceased. This made the city of St. Petersburg the first major utility in the United States to achieve zero discharge of effluent to surface waters.

Florida reuses roughly half of its treated wastewater, or 725 million gallons per day – the most of any state. It has been one of the top-ten fastest-growing states over the past decade. Maintaining adequate freshwater supplies for development, consumption, and tourism is a major challenge.… Read More

Can I do this? The thoughts of self-doubt crept into my mind as I pulled up to take my first boot camp class. I’ve always considered myself to be in good shape. Nearly a decade of working outside in the resort industry, teaching sailing, doing waterski shows, and being on my feet six days a week kept me pretty lean. But then again that was nearly eight years ago, in my twenties, my “former” self if you will. The current version is less lean, more tied to a desk job… and the joys of a few beers and too much barbeque.… Read More

A writer once summed it up so well: “The easiest part is finding topics and the hardest is facing the blank screen.” That writer is our own John Gee, whom I like to call the Andy Rooney of the Old Northeast. John, along with twenty-some other salt-of-the earth wordsmiths, are considered family here at the Northeast Journal. Whether they are brand new and you haven’t read their work yet (look for Josh Keeler’s Palladium article in the next issue), or they’ve written for virtually every issue since the Journal’s inception – thank you Will Michaels – we appreciate each and every one of them.… Read More

We’ve all heard the phrase “life is short; live today as if it is your last day; dance as if no one is watching.” We know we may eventually succumb to sickness or disease. Many of us are aware of the numerous types of illnesses and diseases in our world. At any time, on any given day, and at any given age, unfortunately any of us could be diagnosed with a disease. This happened to Cole.

Cole Eicher started vomiting during the mornings of his Thanksgiving break in 2013. In January of 2014 during a soccer tournament, the same symptoms returned and Cole told his dad he did not feel well enough to continue to play.… Read More

Thursday, February 19th, was a busy day for Jerry Robinson. After provisioning his 40-foot-long, 50,000-pound, 8-wheeler bus for a week, he and his wife, MJ, hit the road in the stainless steel vintage WanderLodge for a rally in Fort Meade, Florida.

“It’s not an RV,” Robinson is quick to specify. “It’s a bus. It’s the same kind of bus that rock bands used in the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, and early 2000s to crisscross the country. They’re built so durably that that’s what they all used.”

Robinson’s vintage restored bus is indeed a relic from the late 1980s. The bus itself was made in 1988, and has since been retrofitted inside to mirror a luxury late ’70s interior, complete with marble tile in the kitchen suite, vivid colors, double closets, a full bedroom with a queen-size bed, a full bathroom, and three AC/heating units.… Read More

Water. Bruce Denson grew up on it (in the form of a family lake house in Ocala National Forest). He currently has a bunch of it in his Snell Isle backyard (in the form of a brightly tiled swimming pool and shimmers-in-the-sun Smacks Bayou). And he’s found a way to weave it into the lives of the troubled individuals he encounters in his role as a criminal defense and DUI attorney (in the form of… well, we’re about to get to that).

Bruce is so all about H20, in fact, that he even created a red-hot stand-up paddleboarding event, the Florida Cup, that’s winning raves along the Gulf Coast and far beyond.… Read More

Sara Pennypacker is the award-winning author of illustrated children’s books that are funny, touching, and real. The themes running through her stories are the enduring ones: friendship, family, loss, joy, and independence. In a booming and competitive market for children’s literature, Pennypacker has earned an international following of diehard fans. Her genius lies in creating characters you instinctively root for, love, and remember long after the book ends.

Pennypacker splits her time between Cape Cod and St. Petersburg, where she and her partner, David, are busy remodeling their home in the Old Northeast. “I love it here,” she said during our backyard interview on an overcast winter’s morning.… Read More

It was a chilly January morning in The Tampa Bay Metro area. The air temperature was about 54° as the sun was starting to rise over the Bay and the water temperature was just above 60°. Most people wouldn’t even dream of sticking a toe in the water, but on Gandy Beach, 150 men and women had donned wetsuits and were getting set to dive in for a very good cause! It was the 6th annual Tampa Bay Frogman Swim, a charity fundraising event that benefits The Navy SEAL Foundation. This charity has a four-star rating by Charity Navigator and has been certified by Charities of America as a “Best in America” Charity.… Read More