Pneumonia? Maybe

[Guest guest]

No, I was not fired; now, back to the news

St. sburg Times; St. sburg, Fla.; Jun 18, 2002; MARY JO MELONE;

The view out the window was a parking lot, perhaps, or the flat concrete top

of an adjacent building. I'm not sure what I observed, except for the

unrelenting sunlight that made my eyes hurt so much that I drew the blinds.

You don't pay much attention to the view when you're in the hospital. You're

too discouraged. What counts beyond the window is not trees, rooftops and

parking lots but the universe of ordinarily healthy people. How far away

they seem when you are not among them.

The people who answer phones in the newsroom have told me that some readers

were kind enough to wonder where I was, and why.

Now you know the where. Pneumonia was the why.

It showed up in the middle of pollen season, on an X-ray in March. I was in

the hospital - the first of two visits - a few days later. I got out of the

hospital, for the second time, in mid- April, and have been trying to steal

back my energy in the months since.

I had no idea about pneumonia, except that it is wise to get vaccinated

against it, and I was last year, for the fat load of good it did me.

I know now enough to say I wouldn't wish this illness on anyone. I also

understand why it is such a killer of people made vulnerable merely because

they're elderly. Pneumonia can leave your whole body depressed and silently

open to further illness.

But I am back now, and with some luck, to stay and resume writing three

times a week.

Journalists are supposed to be such news junkies that it is widely believed

we go out of our mind when deprived of our daily news fix from the paper and

TV.

Not me. Long-term illness also creates a kind of self-absorption among the

sick: You don't care what's going on beyond your door. So I sometimes had to

force myself to pick up the paper and read it to see what in Tampa Bay I

missed.

Let's see what I've might said had I been here DL...

The Democratic candidates for governor, Janet Reno, Bill McBride and Daryl

, might as well quit. They still haven't given anyone a reason to think

they can put a dent in Gov. Jeb Bush's popularity.

St. sburg Mayor Rick Baker gave former police Chief Goliath the

job of redeveloping his city's most deprived neighborhoods. He just didn't

give any money with which to do it. This keeps on a very short

leash. It also makes you wonder about Baker's sincerity when it comes to

redevelopment.

The trouble with politics in Tampa is this little thing called democracy.

Some people don't like it. So they went out and found their own mayoral

candidate, , a hometown boy and former Clinton administration

official. has raised more money in a few weeks than two of his

opponents in next March's mayor's race have from the start, months ago. This

is true even though most people have never heard of . Only the deep-

pocketed people who hang around Dick Greco know him.

Hillsborough County Commissioner Ronda Storms continues to demonstrate the

sense of a brick for taking on the producer of one of those public access

cable TV shows, where sex, violence and general amateurish weirdness are the

norm. Some friend should gently put a hand on her shoulder, lean into her

ear and shout that every time she opens her mouth she gives the public

access crowd more material.

From lowbrow to highbrow, and high hopes: The design for Tampa's new Museum

of Art was unveiled to general applause. In a downtown so woebegone, almost

anything would have been cheered, but this building won't be just any old

place. It will be housed under an enormous metal frame. Let's presume that

the architect, Vinoly, knows that Tampa has a lightning problem. It

could make this building an attraction, all right - not the sort of

attraction the museum people had in mind.

That's enough from me.

See you Thursday.

- You can reach Jo Melone at mjmelone@... or (813) 226-3402.