World famous paleontologist Frank Garcia wrote a sweet song with a Latin beat about growing up in the Spanish neighborhoods of Tampa. The title of the song is Corazon de Tampa (Heart of Tampa). The theme of the song is summarized by one line in it: I love my Tampa.

Like many others here in the Tampa Bay region, I am a transplant. Yet this song expresses my new-found love for Tampa, my new hometown. Tourists coming to Tampa could well go back home humming this happy tune and thinking I love my Tampa.

Here is what Frank says about the song:

- Today I remember those magical moments in West Tampa and Ybor City that held me in its grasp and embraced me with a youthful innocence of joy and wonder when I was a young boy growing up in Tampa. What little of the red brick streets remain were the pathways to the different places in this town that helped form the inner core of my being. While I live outside of Tampa today, Tampa has never really left me. You too can discover that little jewel "Nestled 'neath the blue skies of the Caribbean" All you have to do is go there and open your heart, and shell find you! -

I added some photos from Franks family album to his music and put it on YouTube for everyone to enjoy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQvsqZGTzDI

I urge the Mayor and City Council of Tampa to adopt Franks song as the Official Song of Tampa.

Fred Jacobsen