Teddy Roosevelt Was Here

At the corner of Interbay and Westshore is a small, rather tired looking, park which is actually Tampa's very own "Spanish-American War Memorial Park." The Port Tampa Women's Club is raising money for a major renovation of the park and the renderings are really lovely but I wonder if there will be room in the budget for plaques, lots of them. Like Sarah Vowell, I am a big fan of plaques. I like knowing about the Revolutionary War encampment down the hill from my old house in Virginia. I miss the plaque describing the beach of glacial lake Agassiz, the geological phenomena that made eastern North Dakota flat as a pancake and now provides the gental rise in elevation that makes western Minnesota a great place for wind farms. Anyway, I hardly think a simple refurbishment of the current historical marker would be enough for this little park. The kids who ride their bikes and skateboards on our narrow street should know that Teddy Roosevelt slept in a tent at Picnic Island Park. They should know that there was a "Spanish-American War." Though, in this hemisphere at least, it had so much more to do with Cuba than Spain, and more than a century later our nation is still arguing about how to handle Cuba. What was once the port of debarkation for the Rough Riders is now the source of the concrete superstructure for the elevated expressway to Brandon. The huge concrete pillars are so long they need to be steered on city streets from both the front and rear. If you've ever seen a convoy of these assembled for delivery you'd think they merit a mention too. We need lots of plaques.

For the best writing ever done in support of commemorative plaques for even the seemingly inconsequential read Vowell's Assassination Vacation.