Tales of rescued pets: dogs, cats and even a bunny

They aren't just cats and dogs (and rabbits), they are members of our family. • From Bruce the bulldog who could hardly walk after being locked in a cage at a puppy mill to a stray cat named Phineas who wouldn't let anyone touch him for a year and a half, animal after animal was saved from cruelty and loneliness only to be loved. • And what did they do in return? • The loved us back, of course. • We asked readers to share their pet stories. Here they are....

Gay senior author writes Memorial Day poem to remember fallen military brethren

C.G. Mitchell (his friends call him Carl) of St. Petersburg has seen a lot in his 81 years.

He grew up in a children's home, one of many boys in a regimented ward where they always saluted the flag.

He ran five different businesses in the late 1960s — a coffee-sandwich shop, a clothing boutique, an eclectic shop called Leather, Feathers and Fur, a head shop and, perhaps his most successful venture, a store specializing in military collectibles — along storied Plum Street, Detroit's answer to San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury. ...

5 things to do in June

1 Princess of Parodies: Traci Kanaan, the classically trained pianist from Berea, Ohio, who now uses, by her own admission, her $60,000 college degree to whip out silly ditties, will be the headliner at Girls Night Out, the annual comedy show, now in its third year, at the Carrollwood Cultural Center, 4537 Lowell Road, Tampa. Joining her will be Long Island Mary and Robin Savage. The show will be at 8 p.m. June 21. Tickets range from $10 to $16. Warning: Parodies aren't always good, clean, G-rated fun. If you squirm at jokes about large breasts (which she has), you should probably take a pass on this one. To get more information or to buy tickets, visit carrollwoodcenter.org or call (813) 269-1310. ...

Carl the piano man on success, music and entertaining baby boomers

It's 6 o'clock on a Wednesday, the regular crowd shuffles in. Alone or in pairs, they belly up to the bar in front of Carl Fuerstman to listen to him make magic on the piano, playing covers, medleys and even some of his original songs at Billy's Stonecrab restaurant in Tierra Verde. There's a big glass bowl in the middle of the bar shaped like the top of a grand piano. He counts on those tips to make a living — and tips he gets. Four or five times the amount of money he is paid for each gig. I don't think he has to worry. Everyone sitting at the bar seems to be a Carl groupie. They know the drill. They tell him a song they want to hear, he starts playing it and they throw a tip into the big glass bowl. For the uninitiated, there are, scattered around the bar, laminated sheets of paper with a list of all the songs he plays. Roger Humbert, 62, of Gulfport has been following Carl from bar to bar for 22 years. He met him at Ceviche in 1991. "Carl is an entertainer, not just a musician. He's a musician by requirement but he visits with people, stops to make jokes and panders to the audience — something he can do in such an intimate setting as a piano bar." This particular Wednesday, Carl is wearing a Hawaiian shirt and an Indiana Jones hat. His versatility is evident from the beginning of the first set when he plays everything from Barry White to Phantom of the Opera to a song by the band Train. Carl, who played in bands for 25 years before striking out on his own, is a champion for the older generation. "As a 58-year-old musician, I don't like the idea that our age group is being pushed aside," he said. "In our 50s, 60s and 70s, we still want to go out and take our wives and girlfriends out. "Baby boomers don't want to go quietly; they're not willing to give up."...

Neighborhood Profile: Safety Harbor is friendly city nestled along Old Tampa Bay

SAFETY HARBOR

Six years after moving from the Washington, D.C., area, attorney Warren Firschein likes his new home so much that he is writing a history book about it.

Nestled on the northwest corner of Old Tampa Bay in Pinellas County, Safety Harbor is a bedroom community of some 16,000 residents, many attracted to it for its location, which is convenient to both St. Petersburg to the south and Tampa across the bay to the east. ...

St. Petersburg woman, 94, heads to 67th national bowling meet

ST. PETERSBURG

When Mini Tvaska started bowling, she did it in her stocking feet and threw a 16-pound black ball. Young boys, not automation, righted the pins after each frame by tossing them into the holes in a metal pin-setting contraption and then pulling a lever that lowered them back onto the lane for the next bowler.

The year was 1936 and 18-year-old, 5-foot-petite Mini Tvaska — she was Mini Brazas then — didn't know it yet but she was embarking on a lifelong journey....

See Boz Scaggs, dog tricks, pamper Mom at Tampa Bay events in May

1 Back to the '70s

Where were you when Boz Scaggs hit it big with his album (remember those round black discs?) Silk Degrees in 1976? I was a student at Ohio State and I can still conjure up the song Lowdown from the jukebox in my memory bank. You, too? Well, you can hear him again at 8 p.m. May 3 at Ruth Eckerd Hall, 1111 McMullen-Booth Road, Clearwater. Raised in Texas, Scaggs got his trademark sound by combining rock, jazz, R&B and blues. Opening for him is another act you may remember from way back when, Pablo Cruise. Tickets are $49-$85. For more information, visit rutheckerdhall.com or call (727) 791-7400....

Snowbirds from Ohio fall in love, watch Buckeyes, go on cruises

Newlyweds Duane and Nancy Campbell, who are both 77, lived a block from each other for 25 years in Columbus, Ohio. Their kids went all through school together. They no doubt shopped in the same stores, ate in the same restaurants, watched the same Ohio State Buckeyes games in sports bars. And yet, they had to travel more than 1,000 miles to meet and fall in love in paradise. They got married in January at the St. Petersburg Yacht Club and recently returned from their honeymoon, an Antwerp-to-Amsterdam river cruise. We met up with the snowbirds — to ask them about dropping anchor and getting hitched — as they were packing to head back to Ohio from their Bayway condo in the sky. ...

Neighborhood Profile: New Port Richey

NEW PORT RICHEY

Family. That's the most important thing in the world to the Burnetts — Carmen and Greg and their children, 12-year-old Courtney and 11-year-old Gregory.

Family is what brought Carmen Burnett to Florida as a 13-year-old. Her family was living in Michigan when the health of her grandparents, who had retired to the New Port Richey area, started failing. It was the start of the extended family's migration to Florida....

Food Network, Pinterest, websites sway wedding cake trends

This year's fashionable wedding cake is a tall and svelte showstopper, dressed in ruffles that deepen in hue from its top to its bottom.

Its many layers — round or square or octagonal or a combination of shapes — diminish in size from toe to head.

If it has a topper at all, it's so integral to the cake that it becomes one with it.

The cake mirrors its bride and groom. Flashy and flamboyant types have oversized brightly colored flowers; the shy and demure may have pale pink or cafe au lait Victorian decorations. White wedding cakes are as passe as phones with cords....

AARP driving classes keep seniors on the road, cut insurance rates

I

t seems as if it was only yesterday that we were teenagers sitting in driver's ed class.

The instructor — as harassed and harried as any substitute teacher — tried to get the attention of a classroom full of yapping and fidgety high school students much more concerned about when it was their turn to drive than learning the rules of the road.

They couldn't care less about blind spots and following distances and double yellow lines. Nope. They wanted to get behind the wheel and go. Push the pedal to the metal. Turn on the radio. Sling their arm out the window. Enjoy the freedom that only a set of wheels can bring....

LifeTimes lists 5 events you shouldn't miss in April

1 RAYS AND COOOOL GIVEAWAYS. Grab a kid 14 or younger and get an Astro bobblehead when the Tampa Bay Rays take on the Oakland Athletics at 1:40 p.m. April 21 at Tropicana Field. (Astro, David Price's French bulldog, wanders the clubhouse like he's in the starting lineup.) Or, if you can't find a kid to go with you and give up his Astro bobblehead, get your own prize, a Joe Maddon gnome (which could be weirder than last year's Zim Bear) when the Rays take on the Yankees at 7:10 p.m. April 24. Learn more at tampabay.rays.mlb.com....