Original "Florida Man" Breaks Silence
'I want to set the record straight'
Irked by years of what he calls “belittling defamation,” a 79-year-old retiree claiming to be the original “Florida Man” has stepped out of the shadows to “debunk these stories once and for all to reclaim my rightful dignity.”
Jasper Rogaine, of Opa-Locka, Florida, explains that he had learned to ignore all those side-splitting tales about him that began circulating some 15 years ago. But recently, he found he could no longer stand by silently after he heard one about him burning books in Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s backyard to protest National Library Week. “Of all the idiotic lies…” he began.
“So just which stories about you were true and which were not?” I interrupted.
“Well,” he said, “A lot of those events really happened…. But they weren't about me. Let me give you some examples.”
I nodded for him to go ahead.
“Let's start with that recent incident on Big Pine Key, in which someone let a few Key Deer into his house, fed and photographed them, and then watched Fox News with the critters. That really happened, but I didn't do it.”
I leaned forward attentively.
“And that time in 2021, when a guy stole an alligator from Congo River mini-golf and then beat the poor thing, saying that he was “teaching it a lesson?”
I nodded.
“That wasn't me, either.”
“What about about that couple in Polk County who called 911 to get help moving their belongings from a house they were burglarizing?” I ventured.
“I had nothing to do with that.”
“OK,” I said. “You've convinced me that you were not one of the dummies in many of these stories. But what, then, have you actually done to deserve any kind of public recognition?”
He smiled. “I thought you'd never ask…hey, remember that election ballot that caused all that trouble in Palm Beach County in 2000?”
“The so-called Butterfly Ballot?”
“Yeah, that one. I designed it. On a dare. Shortly after visiting Butterfly World in Coconut Creek. Of course, I never thought it would matter much to anyone….”
I groaned.
“Sorry.”
“Any other claims to fame, Jasper?”
“Yeah. You know that political couple from Sarasota, the ones who had the threesomes?”
“Oh, you mean the Zieglers?”
“Yeah them. Bridget and Christian. Well…I had some intimate encounters with them for a few years. But then I ended it.”
“How come?”
“Well, one day Christian called me up about having a tryst, but he said his wife, Bridget, couldn't make it. So I turned him down. I told him, ‘I was mostly in it for her.’ Boy, was he pissed!”
“So what did he do?
“I don't know what he did after that. All I know is that he must have been really pissed and really horny when he hung up his phone.”