An excellent morning for awards and friends

 There were a few honors given out at City Hall Thursday morning, the most important one to me was the proclamation given to Miami arborist Bob Brennan. It seemed like the chamber was full just for that. One guy told me he drove 350 miles to see Bob get the honor. Above, Bob's son, Bob, Jr., gets his dad all spiffy before entering City Hall earlier in the morning.

Above, Commissioner Ken Russell does the honor, saying such nice things about Bob who has saved the tree canopy in Coconut Grove and all over the city. To that end, today is Bob Brennan Day in the City of Miami.

It was interesting that I was sitting with one of the developers who are being challenged now by so many for knocking down old houses and building big box houses. He told me he was there for Bob. That says a lot. 

As Mayor Tomas Regalado looks on, Bob is given the proclamation. As Bob spoke to the crowd, he brought up some interesting things. For instance he says he is always happy and proud when he is able to physically touch a tree that he helped save years ago.

Bob said that it wouldn't be a bad thing to build smaller houses with more land and trees on the property. "I joke and call Coconut Grove, 'Concrete Grove' these days," he said.

He went on to say, "You don't have to build on every square inch of the Grove," to which he received a big round of applause.

Also given an award Thursday morning was Mayor Tomas Regalado, who received the award for being in city service for 20 years. "It feels like 40," he said.

And as I entered City Hall this morning, I walked right into a friend who I had not seen for almost nine years. He had moved out of town and we lost touch, he is back now and working for the city and he and about a dozen more city workers received an award for excellent service. The city set up a "secret shopper" type of thing and tested employees. The ones who received awards today, including my friend Mike Roman, were excellent in customer service skills. Congrats to them all and great idea for the city to be doing this.

I also made up with a friend and I who had sort of had a falling out over the presidential election. It wasn't that we were on different sides, it's that he was texting and messaging me 100 times a day with news stories, driving me out of my skull. He didn't like when I told him to stop. Now we are ok, we hugged it out.

All in all, it was an excellent morning, I ran into so many other friends, too, and also people who I speak with via email but hadn't met yet. The beautiful 65 degree morning and bright blue sky couldn't help but make it a perfect day.