Behind the Photograph: Where I Came From, Where I Am Today, and the People Along the Way
By Larry Bell | RealLarryBell.com
There are moments that look fairly simple in a photograph.
You see a picture of me standing with elected officials, veterans, community leaders and friends. You see me leading the Pledge of Allegiance. You see a room full of people waiting to hear from Byron Donalds, who at the time was campaigning to become the Republican nominee for Governor of Florida.
What you don’t see is everything that happened before that picture was taken.
And maybe that is really the story I want to tell.
I have been thinking a lot lately about where I came from, where I am today and everything that has happened in between. I’m working on a much bigger story about my life called The Prophylactic Life, and I’m beginning to realize that experiences like this one make more sense to me when I look at them through the lens of where I started.
I don’t know that the things I’ve done in my life make me a better person than anybody else. I do believe they have taught me how to navigate a lot of different walks of life.
I’ve been around people who had very little and people who had a lot. I’ve spent time with musicians, business owners, veterans, elected officials, pastors, teachers, coaches, children, parents and people from just about every background imaginable. I’ve learned from good decisions, bad decisions, friendships, disagreements, business, fatherhood and simply living.
And I’m still learning.
That may be the biggest difference between the kid I was and the man I am today.
Growing Up Around Veterans
Veterans have been around me for as long as I can remember.
As a child, I didn’t understand the differences between their experiences. A veteran who served four tours in Vietnam and saw combat can carry a completely different story than someone who served in the Reserves and never experienced combat.
As a kid, they were both veterans. As an adult, I understand there are layers to those stories.
There are good experiences, bad experiences and everything in between. There are things people carry home with them that a child doesn’t understand. Sometimes adults don’t understand them either unless we take the time to listen.
That is part of what living has taught me. You don’t have to have somebody else’s experience to respect it. You do have to be willing to listen.
That is one reason being asked to lead the Pledge of Allegiance at the VFW meant something to me. It wasn’t just about standing in front of a room and saying words I have known since I was a child.
I looked around that room and saw veterans, community leaders, elected officials and friends. Many of the people sitting around me were not people I had just met that day. They were friends. That made the moment different.
What You Don’t See Behind an Event
Events don’t just happen.
There are days of conversations, phone calls, text messages, planning, changes, questions and people working behind the scenes making sure nobody skips a beat. That work is rarely what makes it into the photograph, but without it there is no photograph.
There was some stress leading up to this event because the Eventbrite registrations were not coming in at the numbers some people expected. I understood the concern, but I also understood the audience.
I explained that many veterans and people from this particular demographic are simply not interested in creating another account, downloading another app or signing up through another technology platform just to attend something. Sometimes technology becomes a barrier instead of a convenience.
My business has been technology for most of my adult life, so I understand the value of it. I also understand when to get it out of people’s way.
I believed we would fill the seats. The campaign had to trust me when I said we would have a crowd, and we did.
That became one of my favorite things about this event. Veterans could come into their VFW, sit down, be themselves and speak directly with a candidate without technology becoming a requirement for participation.
The Team Behind the Scenes
I want to make sure the people behind this event receive some credit.
District leader Dean Lyons was an important part of making this happen. Lexi, the VFW event coordinator, was extremely helpful throughout the process. Quinn and Ed put a tremendous amount of effort into making the event successful.
I also want to thank Florida Senator Nick DiCeglie. Nick was the one who reached out to me about helping with the event. He intended to be there himself but had conflicting meetings. I appreciated him trusting me to help and making the connection in the first place.
Then there was the crew responsible for the stage, backdrop and physical production. Because of my years playing music and working with bands, I notice those things.
I know what setup and teardown can look like when people don’t know what they’re doing. Equipment, staging, sound, backdrops and timing can become cumbersome very quickly.
This crew was impressive. Everybody knew their job. They worked together. They communicated. And, maybe just as importantly, you could tell they got along.
That says something about an organization. There were moments when Quinn understandably became nervous about how everything was going to come together. By the end of the event, though, we had our answer.
It worked. We worked well together. And I kept my word.
Friends in Public Service
Another part of the story is the group of people I was sitting with and seeing throughout the event.
Among them were Largo Mayor Woody Brown, Pinellas County Property Appraiser Mike Twitty, Pinellas County Tax Collector Adam Ross and Florida Representative Kimberly Berfield of District 58.
Pinellas County Commissioner Brian Scott had planned to be there but was unable to attend and sent his regards. Senator Nick DiCeglie also had a conflict, but as I mentioned, he was directly involved in connecting me with the event and I’m thankful for that.
These are not just names or political titles to me. They are people I have gotten to know through years of local business, community events, chambers, city work, nonprofits, campaigns, meetings and simply showing up.
That is why I don’t look at the pictures as a collection of photographs with elected officials. I look at them as a reflection of relationships built over time.
I believe relationships matter before titles, during titles and after titles. You should be able to shake somebody’s hand, have a conversation, disagree when necessary and still treat each other with respect.
Then the Protesters Showed Up
There was another side to the experience that I hadn’t necessarily planned on my daughter seeing on her first day of school.
Protesters showed up outside the VFW. They had signs. They were yelling. There were cameras, and the scene received media attention.
From a teenager’s perspective, the reaction can be pretty straightforward: Why are these people acting like this?
That is where being a father becomes part of the experience. I can tell my daughter what to think, or I can help her understand what she is seeing.
People can become extremely passionate about politics. Sometimes that passion comes out in ways we may not understand or agree with. That is part of living in a country where people have the freedom to protest.
Inside the building, people were exercising another freedom: sitting down with a candidate and asking questions. Zoë got to see both happening at the same time.
That is an education you cannot really recreate in a classroom.
The Questions Were One of the Most Interesting Parts
The question-and-answer portion was probably one of the most interesting parts of the event for me.
More than ten people had an opportunity to ask questions directly. Some questions were short. Some definitely were not.
One woman became very passionate about Airbnb and short-term rental issues and used quite a bit of the available time. I remember thinking that other people were waiting to speak, but I also recognized something important: she had something she cared deeply about, she had an opportunity to say it directly, and she did.
That is participation.
There were also veterans’ issues I expected to hear more about, particularly concerns involving disability benefits and conditions such as tinnitus and sleep apnea. I was surprised some of those questions did not come up more. Before publication, our team will verify the specific legislation and benefit proposals connected to those concerns.
But that is another lesson. When you give people an open microphone, the questions that matter to them may not be the questions you expected them to ask.
What I appreciated about the Q&A was hearing direct answers. When Byron had an answer, he gave it. When there wasn’t an immediate solution, he acknowledged that more work would need to be done.
I would rather hear somebody say they need to work on an answer than make one up.
From Convocation to the VFW
The timing of this day made the whole thing even more interesting for me personally.
That morning was Zoë’s school convocation. It was the beginning of her 10th-grade year at Indian Rocks Christian School.
So I went from sitting there as a dad watching my daughter begin another year of school to bringing her with me after her half day to a VFW where she would watch her father help with an event involving veterans, elected officials, community leaders and a candidate for Governor.
That is quite a first day of school.
I don’t know exactly what she will remember about that day twenty years from now. I hope she remembers some of it.
I hope she remembers watching the Pledge. I hope she remembers the veterans. I hope she remembers seeing people peacefully participate inside and passionately protest outside. I hope she remembers meeting people in public office and realizing they are still people.
Most importantly, I hope she learns to think for herself.
My Brother Al
Another moment that meant something to me was seeing my brother Al show up.
He sat front and center and listened. After hearing Byron speak for himself, Al told me this would be the first time he planned to vote Republican.
That statement stood out to me. Not because I believe everybody has to arrive at the same political conclusion, but because he showed up, listened for himself and reached his own conclusion.
That is what I want for Zoë too.
Listen. Ask questions. Learn. Then make your own decisions.
The Handshake at the End Was Different
At the end of the event, I had the opportunity to shake Byron’s hand and introduce him to Zoë.
We talked for a few minutes, and he thanked me for helping make the event happen. That was meaningful.
But when I look at the pictures now, I don’t just see myself standing next to someone running for Governor.
I see the veterans. I see Dean, Lexi, Quinn and Ed. I see the production crew. I see the elected officials and community leaders who have become friends through years of being involved locally. I see my brother sitting in the front row. I see my daughter experiencing something completely different on the first day of her sophomore year.
I see the protesters outside. I see the conversations that happened before anybody walked through the doors. I see the stress over whether people would show up. And I see a room that ultimately filled with people who wanted to participate.
And Then Byron Won the Primary
The story took on another layer just a few days later.
On August 18, 2026, Byron Donalds won the Republican primary for Governor of Florida.
That does not mean the race is over. He is now the Republican nominee and the general election is still ahead. But looking back at this VFW event after that win makes the afternoon feel like a small piece of a much larger Florida story.
For me, it does not change what mattered most about the event. The part I will remember is that a room of veterans and local residents had direct access to somebody asking for their vote, and they were able to ask questions in their own words.
I was proud to have helped make that happen.
In This Article
Maybe That Is the Bigger Story
I’m beginning to understand that when I tell my own story, I don’t want somebody to make it sound more impressive than it was.
I want to tell it the way I experienced it.
I didn’t wake up one morning surrounded by elected officials, business leaders and community leaders. There were a lot of years between where I came from and where I stood that afternoon.
Some were good. Some weren’t. I’ve made mistakes. I’ve learned lessons. I’ve met people from almost every walk of life, and I’ve learned that you can learn something from almost anybody if you’re willing to listen.
Maybe that is part of The Prophylactic Life too.
There is usually a much bigger story behind the photograph.
On this particular day, I was fortunate enough to stand in front of a room full of veterans, friends, community leaders and elected officials and say, “I pledge allegiance to the flag…”
For a kid who could not possibly have known where life was going to take him, that was a pretty special moment.
And I got to have my daughter there to see it.
“You can’t fly with the eagles if you’re running with the turkeys.”
— Larry Bell