Capitol Derring-Do

The new Florida Capitol building was a year old when my family and I moved to Tallahassee in 1978. A citizens' restoration effort had recently succeeded in saving Florida's old capitol building from demolition and having it preserved it to its 1902 appearance, sited immediately to the east of the new capitol Building. Travelers headed west on Apalachee Parkway towards Tallahassee see the old and new Florida Capitols first.

Charlie had returned to Tallahassee by June 1982, when friends of ours were visiting from out of town one Sunday afternoon, and we decided to go downtown to see the sights. A couple of restaurants were open, but little else was going on. There were several of us and we eventually walked to the new Capitol building and thought it would be a nice idea to go up to the observation deck to look out over Tallahassee.

We went to the east front door of the new Capitol building and it was locked. Despite the fact that we "should have known" Florida's Capitol would be closed on a Sunday afternoon, we didn't let that stop us from visiting the Capitol. Undaunted, we walked around the corner of the building and found another door on the north side. Charlie walked over to it and said, "Maybe this one is open." Fatefully, it was.

We entered the Capitol and proceeded to the elevators. The elevator came quickly and we pressed the highest floor number while remarking that we thought the Capitol building was taller. We weren't surprised to not see anyone on our way inside. It was Sunday afternoon. We were surprised that when the elevator doors opened, three Capitol Police officers were waiting for us.

They herded us onto another elevator that led to the building's floor on which the Capitol Police Department resides, and then we were each individually interrogated for about ten minutes while police attempted to determine what was our purpose and how we had gotten inside the building.

"You should have known the Capitol was closed," the captain admonished me.

"But we found the door OPEN," I replied, as I am sure we all did.

Since businesses put a "CLOSED" sign in the window when they close, it has always been Charlie's assertion that the reverse side of the sign should read "OPENED" -- but I digress.

Capitol Police let us go after an hour, but they never agreed to any opinion other than that we should not have been there, despite the door having been unlocked.

Marshall Ledbetter, Jr. had never heard of us on Friday, June 14, 1991, when he commandeered the Florida Capitol building. He didn't find a door unlocked. He gained access by breaking a window to the building early in the morning and then faxed a list of demands to radio station Gulf 104's song request fax line, instigating a several hour standoff with police. Among other requirements, he requested a 20-inch vegetarian pizza with extra jalapenos from Gumby's Pizza, and 666 Dunkin Donuts for his "fine friends" at the Tallahassee Police Department, Florida State University Police Department and Leon County Sheriff's Department.

The standoff ended after Capitol Television reporter Mike Vasilinda convinced Marshall Ledbetter that his demands were being nationally broadcast by televising his own reading of the list of demands on closed circuit Capital Television, and Ledbetter surrendered and was taken away to Florida State Hospital in Chattahoochee.

Mike Vasilinda's wife Michelle Rehwinkel Vasilinda was elected to the Florida House of Representatives in 2008.

It was to be Marshall Ledbetter's sole noteworthy lifetime achievement, as he checked out by choice at 34 years of age on July 14, 2003.

I may not always remember the date on which my brother Jonathan's wedding reception was held at the observation deck of Florida's Capitol; however, I do know it was on the day that Florida Governor "Walkin' Lawton" Chiles died, December 12, 1998, because Jonathan's photographer showed up late because of the late governor.

I presented Jonathan and Dana with a pineapple for their wedding, at the top of the Capitol in front of a window with a great view of rainy Tallahassee, which was inadvertently captured as one of my favorite photos, on a twice-exposed roll of film with my granddaughter Alicia's birthday party photo of a few months earlier.

On to Election Day, November 7, 2000 -- the day the Associated Press told us an election had been hijacked as they camped out on the Florida Capitol grounds for several weeks until Vice-President Al Gore conceded on December 13. Two years after Jonathan's wedding reception, Dave the Cat and I joined the circus at the Capitol. We dressed for the occasion, in a t-shirt with the American flag on it and a Cat and the Hat hat Heidi had constructed and given me. When I arrived to the fray at the Capitol with my cat 'n' the hat, about a dozen camera operators quickly confronted me, and I realized they were waiting for a statement from me.

Without even thinking, I uttered the first triply appropriate phrase that came to mind, from when Kevin Kline, as Dave Kovic, as President William Harrison Mitchell in the 1993 movie "Dave," shouted to a room full of constituents and media, "God bless America!"

The camera operators were unimpressed and moved away. I didn't care, I just loved going to public events with Dave.