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For teens this summer, “out” meant “outlaw”

January 7, 2014 Brody No Comments

This article appeared in The St. Petersburg Times in August 1992:

Three teenagers stood talking in the soft glow of the lights outside the Kash n’ Karry at Seven Hills Plaza during the early morning hours of Aug. 14.

The shopping center parking lot, a popular Spring Hill hangout, is no stranger to teen trouble.

Last year, a girl socializing there was shot in the leg, and it is there that many fighting words are exchanged, and challenges are made to be settled on some other turf.

Last weekend, as the teens talked, another group of youths approached, shouting taunts, a sheriff’s report shows. Two from the first group, a 15-year-old girl and a 16-year-old boy, tried to leave before the situation worsened.

The pair jumped into a car, but were sprayed with Mace by one of the other youths before they could get away. Two miles later, eyes burning, the boy wrecked the car in front of Springstead High School. Neither was injured. A week later, the alleged attackers remained at large.

A day after the Seven Hills Plaza incident, another occurred at Showtyme Video on Spring Hill Drive. A 17-year-old boy and a friend went inside to rent a copy of Lionheart, a slug-a-thug movie starring Jean-Claude Van Damme.

The boy exchanged words with another youth who then punched him twice in the face before fleeing. No arrest was made in that case.

Those incidents are the latest in what has become a summer of violent confrontations involving youths from throughout the county, including:

The death of Joe Morris, 19, who was gunned down one humid June night in front of a crowd of people at Tanglewood Apartments in Brooksville. The shooting followed an argument over a pair of sneakers, witnesses said. Donald Langley, a 17-year-old Central High School student, was charged with first-degree murder.

The injuries of two young women and a man on Azora Road when a group of at least 20 people swarmed out of dark woods in late June. The attackers wielded steel pipes, baseball bats and clubs. Clint Hutchins, 19, of Spring Hill was charged with three counts of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon. His was the only arrest in that incident.

A report the next day by two of Hutchins’ roommates that a 19-year-old suspect had tried to run them off the road in retaliation for the Azora Road incident. No arrests so far.

The arrests of two teenage boys and a 22-year-old man on concealed weapons charges after they were caught with an assortment of knives, a chain and some nun-chucks in their cars in Spring Hill. They were on their way to a fight at the time.

Journalism, Non-Fiction, Sample News Articles

Breaking the Cycle

January 7, 2014 Brody No Comments

This article appeared in The St. Petersburg Times in September 1992:

A year ago, Rick J. ate garbage from trash bins behind an Orlando shopping center.

A cocaine addict and alcoholic, the 44-year-old Melbourne man had abandoned his wife, kids and job with the Internal Revenue Service for a life of petty crime.

An embezzler and thief, he was sentenced to prison. Like other inmates now in the Brooksville Drug Treatment Center, he committed crimes to feed his addiction.

Now, using an innovative approach, officials hope to break this cycle of crime and addiction.

At the Brooksville center, and in a similar program in Gainesville, inmates spend four to six months dealing with addiction and learning to become productive. Inmates must apply for the program, a more extensive and personal alternative than is offered at most prisons, where inmates get only a few hours in counseling.

If inmates succeed, by adhering to strict codes of conduct, they can get an early release.

“If the state didn’t have a center like this, I don’t think I’d make it,” said Rick J. during a group session. “I would not learn how to live life on life’s terms.”

The Naked Truth

January 7, 2014 Brody No Comments

This article appeared in The St. Petersburg Times in July 1996:

In the late 1930s, Tampa tax lawyer Ara Brubaker, son of a Pennsylvania Mennonite minister, invited friends to go skinny-dipping in a sparkling lake in central Pasco County.

So began Lake Como Club, the first nudist retreat in Land O’Lakes.

More than half a century later, an area once known for its citrus groves, lumber mills and cattle ranches has become a nudist mecca.

Land O’Lakes has two major clubs (with a third on the way) and two smaller hideaways.

The west Pasco community of Hudson is home to the Florida Naturist Park. Pasco has more clothing-optional facilities than any other Florida county, and is second only to Palm Springs, Calif., in the United States.

Tens of thousands of nudists swarm into town, contributing tourist tax dollars, eating in local restaurants and shopping in local stores.

And hundreds of permanent residents pay property taxes, enroll children in local schools and involve themselves in the community.

On Monday, the American Association of Nude Recreation kicks off National Nude Recreation Week. It’s the one time of year that nudists invite outsiders, or “cottontails,” to look behind the walls and determine if the lifestyle is right for them.

“It’s a matter of freedom,” said nudist Christie Musick, who lives in Paradise Lakes in Land O’Lakes. “You shed the constraints of clothing, take off the trappings of the outside world and no one cares whether you’re perfect or not. You’re not going to find many Cindy Crawfords out here.

“Most people look like your mother, your kids, your best friend, your next door neighbor, people you see at church.

“Just ordinary people.”

The New Boom

January 7, 2014 Brody No Comments

This article appeared in The St. Petersburg Times in August 1997:

Joey Holloway remembers quieter days.

Born and raised in Land O’Lakes, Holloway, 36, recalls days when traffic whispered through town.

Now it roars.

“Everything’s moving north up here,” said Holloway, owner of Holloway’s Farm Supply on U.S. 41. “Tampa’s filling up. People are coming here to get away from the violent areas.”

Growth, like death and taxes, is a fact of life here.

Where cattle and citrus trees once dominated, dirt-hauling trucks and minivans roam.

“I don’t mind the growth really,” Holloway said, “as long as county commissioners control it and make sure we have sufficient water and sewage and roads to keep up with the growth.”