There is such a potpourri of happenings - small and incidental, large and significant - around here, one hardly knows where to start.
The intruder into a home in Indian Rocks Beach noted in the local press recently dredged up the memory of the great Sadakichi Hartman who ensconced himself many seasons ago in a posh home in Long Island for the winter (the owners were sojourning in the salubrious climes of our very own paradise here).
Hartman kept the fireplace roaring all winter, burning all the owner's furniture and anything removable made of wood, ate all food supplies and left as spring was a-borning with all lights turned on and a note inscribed - "Let there be light."
Crazy, no?
Burning is on the agenda in Largo. Literally and figuratively.
One big question is whether the Moss-Feaster outfit on Indian Rocks Road will be able to construct a plant to cremate the bodies of those whose souls have presumably (in the belief of many) gone on to a better reward.
Residents in the area on Wilcox road greet the idea with the enthusiasm one reserves for a terrifying invasion by the dreaded Cimex lectularius.
The Belleair Beach police situation grows more parlous. At last look, it appears that Mayor Rudy Davis was to write Sheriff Jim Coats to get the sheriff to stop enticing BB officers to become deputies. No doubt some long to join their former chief who already is on the sheriff's staff.
Because Belleair Beach requires a referendum by the voters to get rid of its police department, the government of the hamlet by the Gulf is constrained to struggle on with a crippled police department whose future is about as bright as the American League's Devil Rays.
And key city staffers are leaving - the finance officer and administrative services manager have submitted resignations. Rough times for Belleair Beach.
And then there will be some wonderment this evening at Largo City Hall when - more likely than not - the question will arise as to why there must be a vote by the City Commission to grant the individual members of that august body "blanket authorization" to attend meetings that they have already been authorized to attend by their own previous acts.
Largo is a city of mystery and this item on the agenda for this evening's session has some residents scratching their heads at the latest hard-to-figure move.
With the Largo commission, once you cut through all the giggling and squirming by the mayor, who has all the poise of a convent school girl brought up on charges by the Sacred Curia, you find it a strange place indeed.
Also on the minds of the citizenry in Largo is the tax increase they face. With no attempt being made to save money (getting rid of the foolish recyclable program being the latest example - where instead of cutting expenses, the program will add a million dollars to the Largonians tax burden) the hicogolorums on the commission - who just voted themselves a raise (commissioners now get almost $20,000 a year and the mayor almost $26,000) - are doing the old smoke and mirrors now you see it now you don't prestidigitation.
While telling the milling populace, struggling to keep the wolf from their collective door, that the current millage rate is being maintained, they wink and chortle among each other knowing full well that higher valuations will bring in more moolah. A tax increase is when you pay more next year than you did last year.
As to the personal raises in salaries, even the U.S. Congress (which has now become our American aristocracy), always busy looting the pocketbooks of the workaday citizens, has a law against increasing its own pay while in office.
The law requires an election to take place before the raise kicks in. But not in Largo, which has established itself as the city that does not operate under the rule of law. Examples of this (cronyism, conflicts of interest, nepotism) abound.
Ah, but then, all of this is of such stuff that gives us ink stained wretches who lurk on the sidelines and scribble it all down writers' cramp.
And, here's the good news - more of this potpourri of foibles will be served up in this space next week. Stay tuned.
It's a great show.