A fond farewell for a favorite son of Florida | Steve Bousquet

Florida’s past and present came together Friday in an ideal setting: the historic Old Capitol in Tallahassee.

Bob Graham, the former two-term governor and three-term senator who died April 16 at age 87, lay in state on the second floor of the old building where he began his career as a 30-year-old state legislator from Miami Lakes in 1966.

Hundreds of people waited patiently in line for more than an hour and then climbed the steep, century-old stairs to walk past Graham’s casket and express condolences to his widow, Adele, who sat nearby in a wingback chair as a quartet played light classical music downstairs.

For a few hours, there was an abundance of history in that historic Capitol, and no one had a greater appreciation for Florida history than Graham himself.

On a sunny, cloudless day, citizens from all walks of life stood side-by-side with the political operators who worked for Graham or with him.

They recalled Graham’s essential decency and his love of Florida, even as they dredged up memories of decades-old political battles.

Some recalled the landmark Florida Supreme Court case of Brown v. Firestone, in which Graham’s fellow Democrats in the Legislature challenged, with mixed results, the constitutionality of his 1979 line-item vetoes.

In the crowd was Bruce Smathers, who served in the state Senate with Graham before being elected Secretary of State (when that was still an elected position), and who’s best remembered for leading the effort to save the Old Capitol from demolition in the 1970s as a stark new 22-story building took shape.

Smathers, 80, the younger son of former U.S. Sen. George Smathers, ran against Graham in the 1978 race for governor, lost in the primary, then enthusiastically endorsed him.

He drove over from Jacksonville, wearing a red tie embroidered with images of the state of Florida, the sartorial accessory that became Graham’s trademark.

Friday’s ceremony was not a sad event, and everyone in line had fond memories of Florida’s 38th governor.

One woman said she overheard another saying, “My husband is in one of his notebooks.”

It was as if people were also mourning the loss of a different Florida, one that they deeply regret losing and need to rediscover somehow.

The sadness over Graham’s passing is that he represents something precious about the past that no longer exists.

“People like Bob Graham today are as rare as hen’s teeth,” said Lawton “Bud” Chiles, son of the state’s last elected Democratic governor. “Now it’s all about money and power, and so many desperate needs are not being met.”

Graham was a leader who cared more about the state and its people than about himself, and was willing to work across party lines. He was universally regarded as honest and a man of integrity.

He had a steel-trap memory of people he met. But just to be sure, he jotted down their names in little notebooks he carried in his coat pocket at all times.

As a freshman senator in 1976, former Senate President Jim Scott of Fort Lauderdale sat next to Graham in the old Senate chamber for two years.

“In all those years,” Scott said, “I never saw him lose his temper, be rude or impatient to anyone.”

He recalled a decisive Graham, without fanfare, sending in National Guard troops in 1979 to stop a truckers’ strike that prevented gasoline shipments from reaching South Florida gas stations.

“That was the end of the strike,” Scott said.

Lawyer and lobbyist Ron Book, who started as a legislative affairs director for Graham, said he was such a stickler for detail that he scrutinized the annual public school allocations county by county, the document known as “the FEFP run,” before signing the budget.

Book nodded in the direction of Graham’s casket and said, “They don’t make’ em like that any more.”

Doug Mannheimer, a lobbyist who was a young aide to a state senator in those days, wore a green button that said, “Florida loves Governor Graham,” a cherished memento from the 1982 re-election campaign.

Gov. Ron DeSantis and his wife Casey stopped by briefly to pay their respects. “He meant a lot to the state,” DeSantis was heard telling a Graham family member.

Faces in the crowd: Gene Adams, Bobby Brantley, Buddy Dewar, Jim Eaton, Martha Edenfield, Nikki Fried, Mark Herron, Jeff Kottkamp, Beth Labasky, Jon Moyle, Carlos Muñiz, Patsy Palmer, Barry Richard, Gary Rutledge, Mark Schlakman, Jeff Sharkey, Neil Skene, former Rep. Eric Smith, Betty Steffens, Rep. Allison Tant, Stephanie Toothaker, Ash Williams and many more.

Those who stopped by weren’t just his old allies, and they weren’t just Democrats.

“He always made time for you. Even when we didn’t agree on an issue, you couldn’t get mad at him. He was a really likable guy. So it was pretty hard to deal with someone like that,” said former Gov. Bob Martinez of Tampa, a Republican who succeeded Graham.

“He was a wonderful person, period, not just to work with,” Martinez told the News Service of Florida. “My relationship with him, beginning in 1970, was nothing but amiable.

“He was just a great human being.”

That’s not too bad a legacy.

Steve Bousquet is Opinion Editor of the Sun Sentinel and a columnist in Tallahassee and Fort Lauderdale. Contact him at sbousquet@sunsentinel.com or (850) 567-2240, and follow him on X @stevebousquet.