Many Happy Returns

To say its annoying to be born on Halloween is an understatement. I am made to feel somehow ungrateful that people across the planet are choosing to celebrate my birthday but its just that I spent 35 years figuring out who I am, and I'm not ready to disguise myself as someone else, thanks.

Would you entrust your property to this person, Wilma?

You would if it were Halloween at the Key West Police department; she's the assistant property clerk...My colleague Diggy was bummed because he thought we still had to wear our uniforms in Dispatch. We probably did, but still...

That aside I'm 50 and that's supposed to be a cause for crisis. Disappointment on that front too, for anyone expecting me to be worried, fearful or morose. I'm entirely happy to be 50, I have no regrets and I am currently enjoying robust good health. I'm happily married, I enjoy my job and I have an excellent commute ( except when Sheriff's deputies share the road with me as one slow poke did this morning. I had to sit back and just politely enjoy the half-moon view). My colleagues are always available to offer a laugh and change the mood, and at the end of a work day I feel like I've contributed some good to my town.

Beyond immediate gratification (Motorcycle! Motorcycle!) I can look back at a full life and as I start the final third I know I have to capacity to squeeze every drop out of every experience, and take advantage of the mindfulness I have developed over the decades. I am content.

Quite content that Tropical Storm Noel appears set to wipe out a few third world islands (Hispaniola, Cuba, the Bahamas) and spare us all but a week's worth of strong winds and occasional short downpours. Tha fat lady has yet to sing this hurricane season.

Yesterday the wife had a surgical consultation for a wrist operation she is having in December to straighten up a tendon that is going awry so we got to drive around Fort Lauderdale all day. Traffic sucked, there was a jam on I95, another jam on the Turnpike, the streets around the hospital were backed up thanks to construction and on the way home Krome Avenue fro Highway 27 to Homestead was a tailgaters dream, heavy rain, a railroad crossing (closed! Never before at that spot!) and only when I got on Highway One was I able to cruise at 65/70 all the way home.

We stopped at Ikea, their first Florida store, and were thoroughly disappointed. Its supposed to be a cheap and cheerful high quality home furnishing store, and I immediately felt i was in some sort of student housing barracks, square lines, everything in stark primary colors, white black and red primarily, no warmth, no style as I know it. Oh yes, there was pressed board in evidence all over the store.

The food court was different and we came home with some arctic bread (?), cheese, chocolate and crackers all wrapped in Swedish.

My wife got me a Triumph T shirt when we stopped by Pure Triumph to pick up my license plate for the Bonneville, so the day wasn't entirely wasted.

More Fantasy Fest

Key West's finest projecting a positive, wholesome, community image before the parade...supporting the bright green "madness monitors" who keep the parade route clear by dint of their cheer and personalities (and bizarre taste in headgear). I have made a couple of resolutions regarding Fantasy Fest 2008, if by this time next year I am still working day shift. One is that we will be at ground level as I think one gets a better feel for the whole fiasco from behind the guard rails. Aloofness is good in much of my daily life but being above it all at the parade detracts from the experience. The other resolution is to be on the side of the parade nearest my motorcycle so I can make an early break from the madness. This is a new tattoo parlor whose desire to open on Duval caused a furor in the City Commission because they were afraid it would "lower the tone" on Duval and encourage drunks to do things they might not normally do...This town's leaders are so oblivious to their stupidity they spent weeks overturning an ordinance that was written 50 years ago to "protect" drunken navy sailors on shore leave...As you can tell the dude out front must spent all four weeks since the place opened getting his body art, or else he did it on Stock Island all of five miles north of here: My two young colleagues who worked through a very busy day with me in dispatch in the run up to the parade, were both so tired they went home before the parade even began. Wussies! They missed this delight among others (what are people thinking?): Street side spots are at a premium, and like any good public event in takes dedication to properly enjoy the spectacle:

Some Conchs took the opportunity to express their support for the Mayoral runoff coming up November 6th:

And Mayor MacPherson came down the parade route squeezing supportive flesh before the parade. Actually this parade watcher was a right bitch. She got mad at party goers, she frowned and growled at drunks bumping into her, while this guy passing by with an entirely comatose boa constrictor set her off screaming:

Expect the unexpected at Fantasy Fest, lady and don't make a scene! And a young man, apparently her son, started mad dogging me because my wife and friends were having fun spraying passersby under our balcony with those harmless foam streamers sold for these sorts of occasions. Alcohol brings out the worst in people. Others make choices that some might count, even while sober, as a little odd:

I kept hearing people shouting "Borat, Borat" across the street and finally the occupant of a large top hat became visible in front of the felafel stand (excellent and inexpensive, by the way), and the unmistakable swimsuit design swam into view:

Death likes to show up at these events too, skulls crossbones and barely painted bazooms:

I was breast fed as an infant so I have a rather less obsessed relationship with those projections than most western men who had to live through years of powdered milk, but if any woman lacks the imagination to find a costume that amply disguises her real self, all she has to do is get some paint and make a few swirls. All eyes will be on them.

Some locals went to great lengths to create floats for the parade:

"Ooooh!" squealed my very gay neighbor on the balcony when he first saw this, but, to his disappointment it turned out to be an illuminated snail under a toadstool, an image taken from an entirely wholesome fairy (!) tale. Followed by a beach somewhere, anywhere:

Then there was my absolute favorite, the Revolutionary Tea Party, whose symbol was a red flag with a sickle and martini glass in a corner and whose slogan was "Party Like its 1959" with Fidelriding a jeep up front, hugged by the spirit of revolution, causing some confusion for the Cubans down from Miami to whom Cooba is a Serious Issue, while Eva Peron kept waving blithely to the adoring crowds from her castle in the air. Nothing is very serious at Fantasy Fest, even la Revolucion! I also rather enjoyed the slogan Romani ite domum on the side of the float- a sly reference to Monty Python's Life of Brian when the revolutionaries are caught inscribing (ungrammatical) graffitti in the streets of Rome.

In the same field of revolutionary serio-fun the Global Warming Texa Ho float hit the spot, a hand cranked oil rig surrounded by carbon imps, followed by a dinosaur pulled by a large truck surrounded by "Acid Reign" devils in black, tail ended by alternative energy sources floating in white. Take that any way you will -its fantasy fest!

After the locals were done the Krewes from Tampa dragged the parade out with their commercial floats, ennui style of bead throwing, and general lack of spontaneity, humor or spirit of any wit whatsoever, hard drinkers coming to Key West to do the only thing they know how to do. I would willingly have gone home before their pirate ships and castles hove into view.

All gone now, another brief, low key pause in Key West until the snowbirds come. And for those that thought hurricane season is over we have Noel ravaging Andros Island in the Bahamas, and spreading 30 mph winds over our islands. It ain't over, just like Fantasy Fest, till its over baby!

Fantasy Fest

Tony Falcone, one of the founders of the original Fantasy Fest was Grand Marshall of tonight's parade, that wound down Duval Street. My wife and I watched him pass from Scott's balcony, he of the Blue Hair was our host on the 600 block of Duval: The Grand Marshall rode by below us smiling and waving at the years that have gone by since Key West was a dusty little fishing village, economically and socially dead in late October. He inspired the festival to wake up trade at his department store, fast Buck Freddie's.

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This year "they" estimated 80,000 visitors came to our city of 25,000 year round residents and they were wandering up and down Duval Street, drinking and waving their appendages and making me glad I had worked a very busy shift at police dispatch today. The motorcycle patrol led the parade pausing at selected intersections to indulge in that most necessary of cop activities: making a phone call:

The parade was long, it went from about 8pm till about 11pm and I was long since ready to jump back on the Bonneville and buzz off, but our friend's very scenic balcony was on the south side of Duval and there was no way to cross the parade route, so we watched and laughed and drank orange juice (my wife sipped some wine and shot some vodka jello to mark 30 year of nudity and nonsense)

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This year there were too many "krewes" from the Tampa Bay area. They "invaded" our little town festival with manufactured floats, theme-less and scruffy, vehicles pulled out of garages and pressed into service yet again. Local floats expressed wit and wisdom, exuded humor and kept one thinking of all the funny, creative people that still make Key West the only city worth living in, in all of Florida. I liked this Smurf Village float among the best. Nudity was often much more creative this year than last and that was a bonus.

But sometimes people just wanted to expose themselves to the cameras and the rules at this time of year are pretty slack.

We came home, passing cars right and left, satisfied, tired and brightly illuminated by the almost full moon. Pity the night shift in dispatch chasing down the fights and the rowdy drunks. I was asleep by then.

First Cold Front

This time of year if its raining here, its throwing a blizzard of snow around up there. And that spells trouble,even in paradise,because I see a damp newspaper in the drive.

Its rained a lot this summer, but today's drizzle is the mark of a new season. The winds are out of the north today and I can hear the sounds of trucks on the Highway, three quarters of a mile north of my house. When the prevailing winds blow out of the southeast, all I hear is the soughing of the trees around the house. Actually what I listen to when I'm inside the house is the rasping of the central air beating off the outdoor 90 degree heat and 100% humidity of the long summer months.

Right now the a/c is OFF, sliding doors are open, to the 74-degree air outside, and I can hear the dripping of rain off the eaves. Its a great day to be off work, with a book (Kite Runner) and a pot of tea listening to that lovely rain filling the cistern. As long as the cistern is full I don't have to run the gruesome chlorinated aqueduct water into my house and that's always a good thing around here- the tea tastes tons better when made with rainwater.

I will miss the long bright days of summer especially when we switch the clocks back next week I will only get home after dark, too late to take the boat out and go for a swim. Its getting to be time to put the boat on the trailer, change the oil in the outboard and put it away for the winter.

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The end of October also means Fantasy Fest, a celebration initiated 30 years ago to bring some life to the dormant city in the doldrums of October. All this week the highway has been littered with laden motorcycles and out of state cars as they pour into Key West where the downtown is filling with inappropriately costumed Midwesterners anxious to prove they are only respectable at home. Here they are determined to be perfect satyrs, portly, inebriated and acting stupid in public. The business community thanks them, as does the local paper, with the weekly Arts supplement dedicated to their adoration of the heterosexual tastelessness on display. I like the Gay Pride parade earlier in the year, not only because its fun, and funny but because its participants actually know how to pull off their public exhibitionism with panache. The straight folk, among whose ranks I count myself, just look dorky when exhibiting themselves. I keep mine firmly under wraps, thanks.

I will be off work Saturday evening before the chaos begins, so I'll park the Bonneville by the Police Mobile Command Center to keep it safe and I will drag myself to a friend's balcony overlooking Duval Street where my wife and I will enjoy ourselves critiquing the parade and taking pictures.

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Then serenity will descend for a few more blessed weeks until the permanent winter snows up north push the hung over Lotharios back south for a winter of feeling frisky in the keys.

This is the season to wake up in Dispatch where we have been comatose ( apparently) since summer vacations ended and the visitor count fell of a cliff. The drunks will soon be loose and fighting and vomiting and waking up the neighbors.

" Key West 9-1-1, where is your emergency?" all day, all night, all winter long.

Fire,Hurricanes and Siegelman

I find it hard to imagine how a state of 30 million people can evacuate half a million and find somewhere for them to live. Yet this is the second time in two years Americans are evacuating en masse. The extent of the fires burning up Southern California is hard to imagine. 1500 homes destroyed equates to the City of Key West reduced to embers. And here we are, sunny tranquil and hurricane free- for now! All those spring predictions of a summer to dread failed to materialize in the Keys this year. Unlike fire season, hurricane season threatens every summer, and we just get a cool winter to refresh us before the next round of threats. Summer fires in California destroy the brush that holds together the manufactured slopes that slip slide away in the heavy winter rains. There will be lots of possibilities this winter across Southern California.

Southern California is a desert and sucks the water out of the Colorado River, the Sierra Nevada (Snowy Mountain) range and anywhere they can get water. And when the winds blow, as they do down the desert canyons, they send the flames tumbling before them. And its hot and dry this year, doubtless attributable to Global Warming, the cliche du jour, the same warming that is going to raise seawater and drown South Florida.

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Living the middle class life these days feels a bit like going to war- the economy is wrecked (Merrill Lynch posted $8 billion in losses today), and where you live determines how you die, drowned burned or run over. In fact I got cut off yesterday evening on my way out of town by a car that decided to turn sharp right when he realised he'd missed the 1st Street turn, off North Roosevelt. Layne was riding alongside on her ET4 and seeing I was okay on the ground took off after the Mitsubishi and forced him to stop up 1st Street. He apologized and in the same breath claimed I was riding inside him (in my own lane!) and it was my fault. He was Vietnamese and put his hands together and kept bowing and saying sorry and on and on and blaming me as an aside. Layne was angry but I shooed him away when I found no damage. I toppled gently and kept the machine off the ground with my elbow and knee and leather shoe.

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My wife remembers Don Siegelman, the former Alabama governor from their time at college together. He announced back then he wanted to be governor of his state and she remembers thinking "Not him! He's not smart enough!" And she was wrong. Now he's been sentenced to 88 months in prison on a bribery conviction. And a Republican attorney is charging Karl Rove with using the US Justice Department to bring down a prominent democrat who might have been a solid presidential candidate! We met Siegelman's wife last year in Birmingham, during a road trip to New Orleans (Katrinaland) and she protested they were trumped up charges, sounding for all the world like a loyal wife. I wish we had been convinced at that time. Not now when its obvious to one and all.

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A ruined reputation is worse than all the fires, hurricanes and motorcycle tumbles in the world.

The Other Burdines

"Burdines? Theres a Burdines in Marathon?" I've heard that query more than once when I told someone I was going to the second-largest city in the Keys. The name gives the impression that a magnificent clothing emporium has mushroomed in the midst of the economic blandness that characterizes Mile Marker 50 and environs.

No such luck, because this Burdines is a place to buy food, watch the water and contemplate the pleasures of life in the Keys. The last time I was there a table full of elderly tourists next to me was blathering on to the waitress about how they were from "far up North," and even though the conversation was tedious and predictable I did get a fresh appreciation for the 87 degree, breezy, sunny October day.

Burdines is a combination of businesses, operating a fuel dock downstairs on the channel that leads to Boot Key Harbor from the west. Upstairs is the Chiki Tiki Bar, funky, thatched and open to the breeze. They also rent boat slips and a lucky few live on their boats within feet of the burgers and sandwiches served with old fashioned informality (a painted mousetrap to hold your check) and old fashioned real lemonade for thirsty motorcyclists anxious not to get DUI'ed...Usually I like the $9 Green Chile Cheeseburger but the Chicken Florentine looked an interesting burger alternative and I decided to risk it. Its easier to change longstanding habits when lunching in the company of a friend who, unlike my wife, doesn't know I always order the green Chili Burger . The chicken burger looks pale and flaccid, as it consists of ground chicken mashed together with feta cheese and shredded spinach, but it has a surprisingly exotic combination of flavors. It didn't need the ketchup I spread on the white meat in order to add unnecessary flavor- the feta and spinach gave it plenty of zip. Diggy had a fish sandwich, and even though he says he isn't keen on dolphin he woofed it down happily. We shared the big basket of salty spiced fries, made with real potatoes, revealed by their uneven shapes, and the potato skin incorporated into their texture. They go nicely with the patty melt too, a greasy burger if ever I saw one. I may be sticking to the exotic chicken on my next visit.

Aside from the view from Burdines up Boot Key Harbor which lies in the middle of the city of Marathon and is home to hundreds of anchored boats, one gets a view out to the west, towards the Seven Mile bridge and the open waters of the Straits of Florida.

That all should be dessert enough, if beauty were a substitute. However when visiting Burdines with Diggy I felt an obligation to introduce him to another delight that my wife generally forbids me when we stop by.

Burdines calls it a deep fried Key Lime Pie, where they roll a slice of pie in a tortilla and fry the hell out of it. Diggy swooned as he spooned and described it as a key lime pie flavored funnel cake. He still talks about it.

We waddled back to our motorcycles, and puttered up 15th street back to the Overseas Highway. "Been looking for this place ever since you first mentioned it, " Diggy burped contentedly as we waited for a break in traffic. "Hard to find, but now I know."

Paradise found for them as know.

Homeward Bound

Sitting on the sidewalk in front of Pure Triumph I got a bird's eye view of the hectic morning traffic of the metropolis, the three lanes of stop-and-go cars heading into downtown on Highway One. Its a whole different world here, even as the clock closes in on ten o'clock, and its a healthy reminder why people think I'm crazy when I express pleasure in my modest 25-mile commute. My chunk of Highway One is almost never stop-and-go, and the views are quite different.

Pure Triumph is an enthusiast's store, a place staffed by grizzled men with funny accents, tattoos and an obvious history for the past glories of the Triumph marque. I feel a bit of a fraud because I have no history with the past glories of Triumph, and I want nothing to do with opening up the exhaust or squeezing a few more horsepower out of my 865cc parallel twin. I rejoice in the relaxed state of tune that gets me to 90mph before I know it.
I have come to the store for the "first service" an oil and spark plug change and a general check of my machine. I've also ordered the Triumph fabric saddlebags ($250), to give me somewhere to carry my crap while I'm out and about. Over time I've found a lockable top case and fabric panniers give me a good combination of storage without overwhelming my motorcycle with bulk. Large hard panniers are wonderful things but they tend to make the motorcycle cumbersome. I need storage for my waterproofs, my tire pressure gauge, my sunscreen, a couple of extra bungees and a rag or two. I'm going to work, not Patagonia. The other bag gives me room to add stuff along the way, like groceries, and while I'm at the movies i can lock my helmet in the top case.

While the Trumpet is in the lift in the well appointed service area, I sprawl on a leather couch, turn off the TV and peruse the motorcycle magazines piled by the coffee machine. Michael, the parts guy is chatty, and we talk about motorcycles- he actually owns and rides a Triumph Daytona, a whizz-bang crotch rocket with a smaller engine than my "classic" but with almost twice the horsepower (and its a few pounds lighter to boot). On the subject of boots I decide to buy a pair of reinforced motorcycle boots with ankle protection. That's another $145 on my bill, but I know my wife, who doesn't nag, likes me to be responsible, and take care of myself. if she's got peace of mind while I'm riding I'm happy.The motorcycles on display are always worth checking out too. A used T100 ( a heavily chromed edition of my Bonneville), lovely in red and black is still on the floor, on consignment from an owner who is asking $6500- not worth it to me when I got my own for $1200 more. Apparently not worth it to someone else either who bought a new T100 and added slim leather saddlebags and a Triumph windshield as extras. There are several cruisers on the floor too, Rocket Threes, 2300cc's of conspicuous excess, as well as the feet forward Bonneville Americas and Speedmasters, clever variants on the Bonneville twin cylinder engines. The Scrambler is gone, sold presumably despite it's gruesome pea green paint job.

Then its time to go, almost before I'm ready, full of water and motorcycle articles, an imprint of my bottom firmly planted on the leather couch. My Bonneville is becoming my own vision of this classic thoroughbred- bags in place, exhausts firmly muffled and a can of weatherproofing spray in the newly attached saddlebag.They come with a plastic "water resistant" cover in its own pouch, but I'd rather make the fabric as weatherproof as I can because I'm reluctant to add to my woes when it starts raining, by fumbling around with a motorcycle pannier condom. The weather looks threatening as I pull out of the Pure Triumph lot and faced with a 170 mile trip home I'm determined to make the most of it, come what may. I'm on the mainland and I want to ride.
The freeway out of of Fort Lauderdale is a long sweeper of a modern highway, rolling artificial hills surrounded by the developer's dream of endless tract homes, large malls (mauls) inadequate water supplies and the sole attraction of "convenience." It takes twenty miles of 6 lane highway to break free of the mess, and by that time the waterlogged Everglades are lining the roadway. Naples ahead, Miami to the south and Highway 27 crossing the freeway shambles, marked on the horizon only by a long line of power poles. The junction off Interstate 75 shows South Bay to the North and Homestead to the south, a minor paradox explained by the location of South Bay, which is a depressed farming community is on the south shore of Lake Okeechobee.

Highway 27 lives in my memory as a wide sweeping highway with more vertical dips than horizontal curves passing cane fields, orange orchards and small towns loosing their economies but gaining snowbirds all the time. Coastal Florida has priced itself out of many people's range but inland Florida has acres available for development, and affordable too. Highway 27 offers a four lane drive-by for all of it. This far south its path clips the Everglades and I find myself far from the crowded downtown streets of coastal Florida. The clouds are clearing and the sun shines down on grasslands, miles and miles of watery grass.

Krome Avenue breaks off to the right in a sweeping curve and takes off in two lanes towards Homestead. This is farm country, lots of actual Mexican field workers, nurseries, trucks, tractors, pick ups, mud and vegetables. Long straightaways interrupted by traffic lights and cross streets, but the Bonneville is a point and shoot kind of motorcycle, almost all in fifth gear, picking off bored motorists one at a time, sneaking past 18-wheelers at the front of long lines of 30mph traffic. Krome is deadly in a car, its a challenge and very rewarding on a motorcycle.

And then Homestead, tidy, quiet and agricultural, it reminds of nowhere so much as Mexican California, perhaps Watsonville in rural Santa Cruz County. And then there's lunch, a late lunch but worth the wait, the best Mexican in south Florida. And so home, tired, to bed.

1000 Miles And A Service

The Overseas Highway in the dark is one hell of a ride. The air is warm at 5:45 in the morning, at least 80 degrees, even in mid October, the rainy season is still upon us so stretches of the Highway are wet and glistening from the passage of recent downpours. The air smells of salt sea air and little else as the restaurants are closed, the bars are closed and most worker bees are still snoring before 6 am. Its too early to able to spot the blue flickering screens of morning televisions ( an abominable habit says the former radio newsman in me), marina docks are devoid of people as I rumble by, glancing at the orange dock lights illuminating the boats bobbing alongside the finger piers.

Speeding is tricky when its dark because a set of headlights catching up with you from behind can either indicate someone in a hurry or a deputy anxiously closing the distance to initiate a traffic stop. My tactic when i see a pair of headlights fast approaching in my mirrors is to slow down to the speed limit plus 5 (5mph over the limit garners you only a written warning, the maximum penalty by State Law) and wait and see. Often its just another speeder who flashes by as I dawdle along, but not always. Its the same when I spot a pair of side lights glowing on the Highway's shoulder. Sometimes its just a bridge fisherman organizing his pre-dawn hobby in the trunk of his car. Other times its a Highway Patrol officer operating a laser radar gun. One zap and you're fined.

As the dawn comes up its a reminder of why living in the Keys is so special. Dawn anywhere is a wondrous thing, especially as one grows older with the increased awareness of the finite number of dawns left to to enjoy, but this year's heavy rainy season has produced spectacular light displays at dawn and dusk. The view from the top of the 70-foot Long Key Bridge, called for some reason Channel Five, opens up the full array of pinks and purples and grays hidden in the shifting cloud layers, spreads them across the gunmetal ocean surface and reflects streaks of orange between the cloud layers, like a portraits of the second coming in Renaissance art. The Bonneville, a triumph of modern craftsmanship, purrs along steadily, sweeping through the curves, wide open to 70 mph in the 55mph constriction of the two lane highway. Checking for cream and black FHP cars is prosaic but so necessary, even while god's handiwork is on show, the rising sun an irresistible distraction from the necessary preservation of one's driving privilege.
The drive to Pure Triumph of Fort Lauderdale for the motorcycle's first service is a 165 mile mixture of all the types of roads one can take in the flat lands of South Florida. After the waterborne curves of the Overseas Highway we slip off to the right (keep going straight, really) at Mile Marker 106 and take Card Sound Road, a wooded series of humps, dips and sweeping curves that has a nominal 55mph speed limit. 80 mph is entirely feasible on the smooth (no trucks!) surface of this back road alternative to the construction zone that is the 18 mile stretch of Highway One, the more familiar entrance to the Keys. There's a one dollar toll at the card Sound Bridge where Monroe County meets Dade County, and the toll booth is an excellent deterrent to the mass of tourists who take their lives into their own hands on The Stretch, source of many bad accidents owing to its lack of passing spaces.

After card Sound Road rejoins Highway One at Florida City the Bonneville needs gas, I'm 105 miles from home with 60 to go and I'd rather stop and get gas here than find a pump in downtown Fort Lauderdale. Florida city is a strip mall of junk food and gas stations, a Holiday Inn and some no name brand flea pits and a "Last Chance Saloon"- the last cold beer for 18 miles! Whoo, who can ride the Stretch without one last mainland beer for dutch courage?

From Florida City its the terminus of the Turnpike with four one dollar tolls to exit 55, Downtown Fort Lauderdale. I pause to suit up when I see a thick black rain cloud dumping on the roadway up ahead. By the time I get there swathed in nylon the raincloud has moved off to the Everglades to the west, and only a thick sheen of water lies on the road to assure me the rain wasn't in my imagination. The turnpike is a mass of cars jockeying for position through western Miami, and the Bonneville is starting to loosen up so I'm running 70 to 80mph and I'm starting to feel the need for a windshield. I hope my Parabellum gets here soon, this is tiring. I arrive at the shop at 9:45am, giving me 15 minutes to read the latest edition of Vanity Fair, sitting on the sidewalk, like my youthful alter ego of years ago, traveling by motorbike, scruffy and dusty.

This motorcycle makes me feel young again in so many unexpected ways!

Vignettes II

New mayor, new house prices.

I've never been one to think that the President has that much direct influence over the economy of the country, even though the White House incumbent loves to take credit for a strong economy (and dump on Congress in the event its not). The City of Key West is suffering not a little from anti-tax legislators in Tallahassee who are determined to undermine the fabric of the state by cutting already low taxes even further. The other thing that has changed noticeably is the decline of house prices, thus further reducing the city's income. Both Mayor Macpherson and Challenger Weekly are in a run off for the second round of voting, with Weekly expected to win. What that means for the city isn't the least bit clear as neither candidate has confronted this new state of affairs head on.

What is clear is that plans to create "affordable" housing have come too little too late, as usual. Its now possible to buy a market rate apartment for around a quarter million dollars, roughly equivalent to deed restricted homes planned, but not available for the near future. The housing bubble has burst, formerly high prices have pushed many people out of the keys, and when help was needed none was forthcoming. These days homeowners with large home equity loans are forced to sell for what they can get to satisfy compliant banks who will take what they can get on their crap loans.
Now the city faces a tight budgetary future and we seem likely to find ourselves being led by a man who couldn't govern the city successfully when the coffers were full. Oh dear.

Bye bye my Vespa?

My beautiful vintage red can be seen parked in various locations around town bearing the red F of a For Sale sign. I've had a few calls, people looking for a desperate seller, and that means I get to ride the red bomber a few more times when I take her home for a clean up and a battery charge. I try to hold on to the experience of riding the Vespa because I fear it will fade all too fast after she goes to a new home. It really is a big black couch compared even to the long flat seat on the Bonneville.

Sand to Sunset

What you see here is a barge waiting to offload its cargo on the ritzy development of Sunset Key. In a few weeks snowbirds will be returning to their multi-million dollar homes on the exclusive island just offshore of the city, and they will want to see nice clean sand all around. After all thats what one expects in the tropics, coconuts and sand... so the tug in the photo is hauling sand to Key West from the Bahamas where the resource is abundant. God alone knows how much they spend on this pointless operation, but in the rocky keys where sand doesn't come naturally,its worth remembering we are still part of the USA. And in the USA if there's something you want but don't have, just throw enough money at the "problem" and it will go away, as if by magic.

A fool and his money are soon parted.

Legal Rider.I have been nagging Diggy for some time to get himself organized and finally he did it. It was a sneaky trick on my part, but I lured him out of Key West on a pretext (lunch) and he bit, so to speak. In addition to an al fresco fish sandwich Diggy got dragged by me to the DMV office where, before he knew it he was sitting down to take the motorcycle endorsement test. Not a minute too soon because in 2008 the State of Florida is finally implementing a 4 hour classroom requirement for new motorcyclists. It'll cost $200 but its worthwhile if it helps educate juvenile delinquents to stay intact on a motorcycle. "I was kind of worried about taking it," he confessed later to me. That was all part of my dastardly plan. Being a Conch, Diggy would rather lose a leg than lose face, and his biggest fear about taking the test was being seen to fail.

"Watch," he said, "I'm gonna go in, fail and there'll be someone I know watching me." As a prognosticator Diggy sucks, because he passed and there was no one there to see him do it. Except me, and I think I was only forgiven for ambushing him thanks to the excellent lunch that preceded the testing ambush. His biggest problem was hiding how pleased he was that he passed. He rode home like a man with nothing to hide.

Key West Zoo

It is an irony that my wife teaches in the one room classroom at the Monroe County Juvenile Detention Center, which is a massive structure on stilts parked right above the Monroe County Sheriff's Office's Petting Zoo. Its ironic because her students are not allowed to pet the animals they can almost see from their cells. They might leap the barbed wire, like POWs and run...The downstairs inmates find their time at the jail to be restorative, there is no feeling that to them running might be a good idea. Trustys from the adult jail get the privilege of working at the farm under the supervision of the civilian "farmer" who is charged with looking after the animals. I'm told it is a much prized job and confers status on the orange suited prisoners who get to lift and carry for the farm's inmates. The inmates vary: I've seen horses, a donkey, pigs of all sizes, lots of ducks, friendly inquisitive goats and other more or less barnyard animals. Vets volunteer their time and skill to help restore the battered arrivals.

To the outside world, principally guide book authors, the existence of the farm is something of a surprise. They are shocked the Sheriff of all people runs a petting farm at the jail. However there is a great deal of poverty on the keys in our diverse world down here and it should come as no surprise that humans living on the brink of a very deep financial abyss mistreat their animals. Also Cuban and Haitian migrants, arrivals from some of the poorest places on the planet have very different animal husbandry standards than those of middle class parvenus like yours truly, so it happens from time to time that animals get abused, and even sometimes get saved from that abuse by interfering Sheriff's deputies. Cock fights get broken up, abandoned farm animals are found. Those are the lucky ones and their spirits and bodies are mended in the serene little petting zoo under the juvenile jail.

They in turn introduce fresh young Conchs to the concept of Farm Animals. Children growing up in Key West should know how to fish, but a farm is an alien concept because there is no agriculture anywhere in the Keys. Central Florida is littered with post-and-rail ranchettes raising show horses, and south central Florida is a vast open tract of cow ranching to rival that of the Far West of popular imagination. In Key West the only tractor you will see is the blue machine that cleans the dead seaweed off the public beaches. So children get to learn life lessons at the farm, and very cool it is too. Eccentric perhaps to an outsider, but like so many things in the keys it makes perfect sense that the Sheriff treats abused animals as just another part of the law enforcement equation.

For many reasons Sheriff Rick Roth was the first Republican candidate I ever voted for. Keys politics being the topsy turvey jumble they are, he wasn't the last.

New Lamps For Old

Buy a Vespa and you'll get told all about how Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck rode around Rome on a Vespa half a century ago.

Buy a Modern Classic Triumph and what you'll get is a misty eyed memory of Steve McQueen's escape from the Stalag or a slender youthful Marlon Brando asking whats on the menu to rebel against- a wild one meeting a doe eyed waitress in dusty Hollister, California. (I should point out here that even though Steve McQueen is credited with wanting to leap the barbed wire on his camouflaged Triumph {camouflaged to look "German"}, the stunt was performed by the legendary Bud Ekins who died recently).

The modern Vespa doesn't cut it as a Vespa to the aficionado of the original two stroke, geared putt putts of the Hepburn era. The modern Vespa has no gears, a powerful four stroke engine and no spare wheel. The modern Vespa is designed to survive and flourish in the modern traffic conditions in over crowded modern megalopolis's. You can argue endlessly about the connection to the old Vespas but there is no doubt it is very sophisticated motorcycle that neither Audrey Hepburn, nor the princess she played, would never have dreamed of- nor Gregory Peck for that matter. Nevertheless walk into any Vespa store in the US and there you will find an enormous picture of them on their 40mph 125 cc Vespa of yore. Alongside them you will see an oversize poster of Charlton Heston in a toga Ben Hur-ing it on a Vespa at the lot of Cinecitta, the hub of Italian movie making in the 50s.

Equally, a modern Triumph Bonneville has absolutely bugger all to do with the Triumphs of the 60s. Back then they were the symbols of rebellion, powerful, noisy rugged and rough. They roared their message through barely existent mufflers, their riders wore leathers, boots and white fisherman's socks turned down over the tops of the boots. I used to dress like that when I rode (an Italian bike) in the England of the seventies. We pretended to be rebels and stomped around on reliable modern, mostly Japanese bikes; no one but eccentric nostalgics wanted a Triumph. We, modern rockers, intended to get where we were going when we took trips.The old Bonnevilles looked a million bucks aside from leaking oil, but what was worse was they had crap electrics and vibrated like you wouldn't believe. The vibrations snapped the wiring harnesses and they stopped, or their headlights died- not for nothing their electrics supplier was known as Lucas- Prince of Darkness. Very droll I'm sure but a pain in the ass when you're planning on getting home at night to sleep in your own bed. But there again people , men, who rode Trumphs back then were tough, and yes, quite likely rude. Imagine that. They didn't take shit, they dished it out and their motorcycles reflected their devil-may-care attitudes. These days we tend to care, perhaps a little too much, about not just appearances or electrics but electronics and vibration dampers and 12 volt accessory outlets and all sorts of extraneous crap. Never mind oil leaks.The modern Bonneville is a pansy machine by comparison, it doesn't even come with a proper kickstart! Just like Gregory Peck and Vespas, Steve McQueen would never have recognized the modern Bonnie, a well behaved, reputedly reliable, purring pussy cat. Just the way I have always liked it, as it happens, though even I should have liked a kickstart... For a lot of Triumph freaks the modern Bonneville is a museum piece to be kept as close as possible to the T120 its based on, wire wheels, chain drive and LOUD. It strikes me as odd, because if they really want the genuine Triumph of their hobbled nostalgia they can go and buy one, fully restored, for the same money as a new Bonneville. Instead they buy the modern classic, enjoy the comfort and reliability and bitch at heathens like me who just like to ride, and often, on a modern machine that just looks retro.

I feel privileged to have grown up when I did, because mine is the generation that wallows in nostalgia and creates demand for superb machinery in all fields; the generation that also requires the recreation of the visual cues that set us off to reminiscing; the generation that demands engineering function that is completely up to date. The Bonneville looks 1960 but runs 2007.

The best of all worlds indeed. Steve McQueen be damned!

Fort Jefferson

It was no surprise to my wife this past Columbus Day when the ride back to Key West from the Dry Tortugas had most of the ferry passengers barfing. It had been honking out of the east for several days, with winds up to 30 miles per hour with no relief, and she knew before she left that the 70 mile ferry ride back from the fort was going to be a bitch. Her buddy Heather was smiling as they settled in to enjoy the downwind ride to the fort. Both Heather and my wife are impervious to seasickness so they had no worries as the tucked into the buffet breakfast provided on the ship. The boat runs every day if weather permits and most days it does permit. Which is one reason Fort Jefferson is less isolated than it used to be, but it still holds the title as the most isolated National Park in the system. The ride also includes a guided tour by Jack, who leads the visitors through the Civil War era fort, and count the million bricks its made of:

Fort Jefferson rises up out of the sea as a solid black block; indeed it looks very much like a floating apartment complex, when it first appears out of the water. I made my first trip there on a sailboat in 1989 and stayed several days anchored out, pausing on one of several trips I took between the West Coast of Florida and Key West. It was and is a great place to anchor. Inside the fort there are acres of greenery, a small campground outside the walls and a very park like ambiance inside the walls. In its time it was a hot dusty place crowded with 1500 soldiers. These days the permanent residents number less than a dozen rangers and their satellite phone, and the grounds have blossomed with rugged plants.Heather has lived in Key West for years and this was her first trip out to the fort. Its always the way, when you live in a tourist attraction you rarely take the time to see the attractions yourself. This attraction is a gun emplacement in the walls. It boggles the mind to think how much effort it took to get these New England bricks here.

Bird watchers see birds, snorkelers can see some of the better reef systems in the ravaged waters of the Keys and the great brick fort is a reminder of the impermanence of human structures; it never fired a shot, it served no military purpose other than a prison and it is always in the process of deterioration; a process held back by the meager National Park funding modern wars permit. In the days when we sailed with our Labrador, the fort was a modest dog walking area as Emma had to be kept outside the walls, per park regs.

Fishing isn't allowed in the national park but commercial fishermen take refuge in the protected anchorage bringing their own brand of stand off-ishness to the isolation. However they are also a source of fresh fish if you have cigarettes or beer to barter while you are anchored on your own boat. Another cool thing about the fort is that the rangers have no supplies at all except postcards and a water fountain. They don't even mind if you land there when arriving from Mexico or other foreign parts as long as you don't nip into Key West on the ferry as they can't clear you into the country. Its a great outpost, only 70 miles from key West yet it's another step back into a slower paced past than even the Southernmost City. Bird Key is reserved for nesting avians during their season in the cluster of barren little islands surrounding the fort.

So my wife got Columbus Day off and watched the trippers puke their hearts out on the three hour ferry ride back to Key West. I got to work; a dispatcher's job is never done.

Imagine

Motorcycles are dangerous, motorcycles are loud, motorcyclists are not nice.

There's a perception issue to overcome before North Americans will embrace two wheelers as a sensible and low impact way to get around. Looked at by the numbers motorcycles make perfect sense for single person trips. They consume fewer resources than a car to build, they consume less fuel on the road and modern motorcycles meet high levels of emission control standards. For humans who demand the convenience of personal transport motorcycles are the obvious answer. When you add roadway congestion into the equation the notion that riding a motorcycle is good for the planet seems obvious.

And yet...

Motorcycles aren't weather proof, they offer no protection in the event of an accident and they don't stay upright on their own making the fear of falling a real concern for many mere mortals. The fact that you can easily expect to get 50mpg or more, much more, with smaller cubic capacity motorcycles doesn't cut much ice with the naysayers. Who wants to reduce their carbon footprint if they are afraid they will be making a big bloody footprint on the ground?

The other funny thing about motorcycles and the environment is that motorcycles are fun. Most North American buyers get a bike to use as a recreational tool, which is all very well as far as it goes, but it doesn't do much for the environment if the motorcycle doesn't replace the car.

Then there are the seasons, and that makes a difference. There's not much fun to be had skating around on ice, and even rain or the threat of rain is enough to wipe out the fun factor for many"dedicated" motorcycle commuters. All of which reduces the potential benefit of motorcycles to the environment. Finally I believe the fun element of motorcycles puts off "serious environmentalists." There is something dour about the people who are sure the planet is almost beyond saving and everything has to be done now. The planet thing is just too serious for any levity. Which in turn puts off people, including motorcycle riders, who may not be that committed to environmental preservation and who view green worriers as nutters, so they will ride despite the common sense environmentalism of motorcycles. The other image problem of motorcycles is that when used as tools they come under the heading of "cheap." In emerging technology countries inhabitants rate their wealth and status by the size of their vehicles. Cyclists are wealthier than pedestrians, and motorbikes have higher status than that. Car drivers are big timers, and in North America motorcycle commuters are eccentric or poor, or eccentric and stupid, or eccentric and risk takers. In a nation that values image over all else, motorcycles just don't add up- better to be wasteful!

So, you need to get around and transit doesn't do it for you with your schedule. You have 150 days of the year that are warm and dry. You need to carry packages and bags and you don't want to show up at work sweating. So what do you do? Get a motorcycle. Wake up and make your commute fun. You won't be saving the planet and you will be emitting hydro carbons but don't worry about it. Let the hairy fuzzy serious ones take care of that.

Germans I Have Met

Africa 1979

"I think your motorcycle will be okay," said the wizened German RVer as we stood outside his Mercedes van parked in a Tunisian oasis. "You?" he paused,"you may not.You may break down out there." He shook his white stubbly chin at the vastness beyond the little oasis.

This was not a traveler who stood on ceremony, and he didn't allow politeness to come between him and his tongue. Such was my state of mind that I didn't snap back at him and go build my own camp fire. No, I sat down in the cold night sand and listened to his gravelly voice tell me about his own litany of previous Saharan crossings. "I always wanted my own home along," he said, implicitly turning his nose up at my self contained single cylinder Yamaha SR500. Everything I did seemed to engender the old man's ire. Looking back he must have got off on telling the young fool exactly where he was going wrong and how his Teutonic level of preparedness was the antidote to my fuzzy logistics.

I envied him his self contained world, his retirement checks that allowed him to wander his winters in North Africa. I had yet to meet the North American snowbird phenomenon of driving south to avoid snow; to find a European doing such a thing was a novelty for a sheltered youth like myself. I was on a massive adventure, testing my 21 summers of life. Secretly I also envied him his contentment- he wasn't heading east into Algeria and then south into the Sahara. In his dotage he was piddling the entire winter away in the safe, easy environs of Tozeur. I was scared and uncertain and I took his guff.

Call me co-dependant but I missed his sneers when finally I took off and headed out into the desert alone.

France 1978

I remember it as a hot summer, though in one's memory summers are always long and hot when one was young. I was riding down the Rhone Valley heading back to Italy after a year in England, spent bouncing between jobs, getting thrown out one last time from my step father's house and making friends with feckless motorcyclists who grew into middle aged respectability before ever I did. I was riding a red and black Moto Morini 350, an entirely unsuitable tourer, lightly loaded with panniers and a luggage rack, where up front it had clip-ons and a small bubble cockpit fairing, and the only means of starting was a kick starter. It was, in a world filled with chromed electric start Honda 400 Fours an oddity, a fast nimble oddity. I loved it.

The campground I pulled into that particular evening was dusty and crowded, we were all swathed in multi-colored nylon, riding, driving, pedalling, our vacations away. I fell in with a man sprawled comfortably in the shade of a tent adjoining his RV. He looked like a sheik, fanned, electrically, while his nubile young wife poured copious glasses of lemonade for him. I think he took pity on me and waved me in out of the sun and the dust.

It was a good place to sit. So I sat and listened as he laughed about the size of my tent and the dust in my camping spot. the lemonade was delicious.

"You like my hand?" he laughed, waving a grossly deformed crab claw in the air. I had been trying not to stare. The flesh of the thumb was gross and over sized, while the only finger on his hand was equally large and looked for all the world like a crab pincer with a delicate white nail growing on the tip.

"This hasn't stopped me from doing anything," he said. And he told me wild stories of dramas taking place in countries I had read about in the newspapers. He talked of fighting in the French Foreign Legion and pulled out black and white pictures of a man with a crab claw in military fatigues. It was terribly Beau Geste.

"I make good money," he laughed some more, breaking the romantic spell. "Still?" I stuttered.

"Oh yes," he said dreamily. "Lots, but I have no photographs of that part of it." And he winked.

I left the next morning, folding and loading my tent before he sauntered out of the RV into the shade tent and thrust a small cup of coffee into my hand. "Sure you don't want a life of adventure?" he asked. I shook my head. He scared me.

I never did figure if he was bluffing lying or bullshitting, but from time to time I wonder if he was opening a new door in my life through which I lacked the nerve to step.

Austria 1976

I had never been to Austria before but I liked what I saw. The mountains were out of the movies, stark backdrops to winding green valleys littered with pointy roofed homes, neatly cropped fields and smooth roads. It had been a long ride north from my home, and I was riding the first true motorcycle I had ever bought. This MV was like the Moto Morini,in that it was totally unsuitable, but because it preceded the Morini it was even less suitable to the tasks I set before it. Like the Morini, the MV Agusta 350 was a push rod twin, but with the cylinders set in parallel not in a Vee. I had hung bags off the back and because it was the motorcycle I had, it was the motorcycle I travelled with. It seemed to work out, perhaps because i knew no better. Nor had I ever heard of ipods, blue teeth or gps, so I neither missed them nor craved them.

My family was gathering near Innsbruck for some function I can't recall but I had promised to show up. I had no car so they were going to have to put up with my boy racer, fire engine red motorcycle.

All I had to do was get there. The long slow climb through the Alps was as much as fun as it could be, winding uphill on a motorcycle designed to be ridden on mountain roads. The ride down was even better as I had passed through customs (an arduous undertaking in those days for a badly dressed dirty young tramp) and the air got warmer the lower I got.

The MV ran just fine but I was young and worried and a long way from home so I fiddled excessively with the chain and got lots of oil on myself and ultimately on my clothes.

My step father had made a reservation for me at a guest house and by some miracle I found it. I remember a Heidi house with a pointed roof, big shutters thrown back from the windows and geraniums in window boxes underneath them. I climbed off the MV, slowly letting go of the clip on handlebars and gently propping the scarlet torpedo on its center stand, the only stand it had. The silence was deafening, because in addition to its other unsuitable characteristics, the MV had suffered at the hands of a previous owner who preferred a loud exhaust and he had gone out of his way to make this little 350cc loud.

The lady of the guest house came to the door, just another glorious vision of Austrian womanhood, a country populated by more than its share of beauties I found. She looked down at me leaning against her door jamb in the bright sunlight and said nothing. She looked down and up and down, and slowly, in a voice filled with disbelief: "Gruss Gott!" which is the traditional Austrian greeting, a catholic form of how-do-you-do that roughly translated means "God's Greetings!"

"Gruss Gott," I said back wearily, summoning up my modest amount of German to ask if she had my room. It had been along exciting day, my first crossing an international border on my own motorcycle. Her head nodded but her voice disagreed.

"Schmutzig!" she said indignantly. I was too dirty to cross her threshold and so, instead of Thor the god of thunder entering her impeccable home it was a small boy in his underwear who hobbled into the cool dark interior, clutching a large bundle of motorcycle clothing. Clothing that would mark him for the rest of his life.

My stepfather took this harmless story and seared it into my brain by introducing me everywhere as his schmutzig son, that summer and then explaining in excruciating depth how i got the exotic nickname. he was so mean its no surprise I ended up emigrating. And motorcycling, if that was what helped to piss him off.

Getting Waylaid

"Is that an old one, or a new one that looks like the old one?" The Dions clerk was sitting on a milk crate under the merciless neon lights of the gas station. Dions is a convenience store institution in the Keys, a chain of deep fryers located in the back of gas stations up and down the island chain famous for its cheap, tasty ( when fresh) chicken, a saving grace when the wife is having a girls night out with the book club. They had gone to the Tropic Cinema in Key West to check out the movie about the Jane Austen Book Club followed by dinner at a Taste of Greece.

It was a warm night on Summerland Key (my optional NewBonneville.com temperature gauge showed 82 degrees), and business as always in October was slow, so it was a perfect time to lean back and listen to his reminiscences about his old BSA 441 dirt bike from when he was a young somewhat careless young man.

"A lot of my buddies died on the streets, killed by turning cars, so I took the safe route, trail bikes and dirt racing." He smiled and the eager 20 year old peered out from behind his thick lenses and bushy mustache.

"I'm not sure why I'm still alive after all these years, an exaggerated fearfulness perhaps."

"You just got that? " a man gassing an enormous black pick up leaned across the bed and joined our conversation detailing the cubic capacity, the resemblance to the Norton Commando's capacity and all that.

"You run it in? How fast you got it going?" I knew I was facing a barrage of opinion about how to run in a Triumph so I popped my noggin into my new full face helmet (the type that flips up in front and makes it easy to put on with glasses). I reached to the headlight and turned on the key letting the engine purr a moment while i pulled on my gloves. My fried chicken was nestled in my newly installed top case and all was right with the world.

I had put two and a half gallons of 89 octane in the tank and that showed 43 mpg with 108 miles covered.

Back home I had a copy of that very silly boys movie Wild Hogs ( I watched the Jane Austen flick at the matinee...), and some left over candy from my afternoon off at the movies. And a warm, clicking Bonneville downstairs cooling under my house, ready for my commute in the morning.

Life is good again.

250 Miles Later

The first 45 miles were in traffic, the next 55 miles were slowly rolled over on Florida's Turnpike ( and very boring they were too). The rest were unrolled on the magic carpet of the Overseas Highway; they were the best miles.

"You're going to ride away?" they looked, as the English would say in horrible jargon, gobsmacked. "Most people put them in their pick up trucks."

"Why?" I asked,more than a little taken aback. Why wouldn't brand new owner want to ride as soon as possible?

"Nerves," they said, shrugging. Well, on that count I'm no superman, I've already learned the Bonneville is a smooth easy ride. It was no problem at all to engage with the relatively genteel mid week traffic on Fort Lauderdale's urban boulevards. Miami, the Latin half of the bi-city equation prefers to drive fast and take no prisoners, which is also okay if you know your machine and aren't hampered by running in requirements.

The ride home involved some mainland shopping for the patient wife, who was driving the Maxima home after dropping me off at Pure Triumph. We stopped by Whole Foods and Target and putzed around the malls and set our sights on home an hour before darkness was to descend.

We separated on Card Sound Road, my wife pulled away as she was not trying to baby a brand new engine and shortly after I passed the toll booth marking the northern edge of the Florida Keys the rain started. And the rain didn't stop, so I did, and I started the mighty struggle to swathe myself in nylon. Unfortunately I was in a lonely wooded stretch of the roadway and there were no unoccupied overhangs to lurk under while doing the huffing and puffing and zipping to get encased in the rain suit and over boots and over gloves. Eventually I was done and I took to the road again in that snug muffled world of protection against the elements.

The Bonneville ran perfectly of course, thrumming along at 55 or 60 miles per hour where possible and gently floating in fifth at 50 where the lower speed limit was in effect. I loved the ability to open the throttle just a bit and watch the cars disappear behind me as I zipped past them. By the time I reached Marathon it was ten pm, the rain had stopped and I was 155 miles into my tankful of gas and estimated I had another 12 to go before the reserve tank was drained. I stopped and pirouetted in reverse unwinding the layers of nylon and breathing the warm night air through every unfettered pore. I felt 23 again and "on the road."

Today its sunny and bright and clear and I took a quick run past my chores on Big Pine Key, after I opened a package that arrived yesterday, loaded with a luggage rack and thermometer and clock which I bolted on this morning. It was a good morning to enjoy a few modest "twisties" on a side road I happen to like. The bike takes turns as smoothly as it pulls past traffic and it's fun all round. As it should be.

Choices

I have never made a distinction between my Vespas and my other motorcycles. to me scooters are motorbikes as much as any other two wheeled propulsion I have owned, and the past two months of being Vespa-less, has been motorcycle-less.

When the wife laid down the law and said she was tired of Vespa Fort Lauderdale, and in the knowledge that I really do need a motorcycle to round out my workaday life, she set me on a path of casting around trying to figure out what to look for next.
The obvious choice was another scooter, perhaps a splendid Suzuki Burgman, in 400 or 650cc guise.

The trouble is I just can't get into their styling, feet forwards, and they are massive and plasticky and oh so practical. The 650 needs almost no maintenance at all, aside from an oil change and thats a wonderful thing. I like to ride upright, in control of the machine just as one does on a Vespa, so buzzing up and down the keys on a mobile lazy boy was a dubious proposition. Even after my wife admired the passenger accomodations.

She understood my reluctance to join the ranks of the two-wheeled sensibles.

I checked out the BMW range. Now these are motorcycles made for travel, and people who ride long distances ride BMWs. I don't and I have never owned one, which I guess is a little weird in light of my desire to rack up the miles. The image here like the Burgman is all wrong, even though Beemers traditionally have "sit-up-and-beg "riding positions. For one thing they are physically large machines, and down here in the Keys I want something nimble, easy to ride, but that is also capable of excursions. The other thing is that BMWs have always exuded a particular aura about their machines, they have quirks and have created a cult-like following and cults don't work for me. In the spirit of open mindedness (that was a strain for me) I test rode the new 800ST.

That was quite a nice machine. It comes complete with full fairing, easy access to the oil filter, belt drive and a smooth (for BMW!) six speed gearbox. It really wasnt a cult rider's BMW machine and acted quite normal. There were, even in the most fair minded analysis, problems.
The riding position is surprisingly sporty, almost cafe racerish, which fed my nostalgia thirst but did nothing good for my midriff, pressed into the bulbous tank, or my wrists, on which my ample avoir du pois rested. Also when I reached the floor on tippy toe my ankles banged squarely against the immoveable footpegs, creating the need for incessant pirouettes of the feet to stay upright.

The model shown cost an even $12,000 with an inadequate sized BMW topcase. Another lightly used 800 sans topcase was going at $11,000 and a brand new 800 costs $12,500. A lot of dough for a high revving six speed watercooled Rotax twin, with awkwardly placed bars and pegs.

A brief foray into the notion of an air cooled BMW twin died a death when the 850R in question was rubbish. A test ride on that sadly neglected bike confirmed the fact that when the seat is in the lowest position my testicles faced imminent and painful demise against the ever bulbous tank. Too high a price to pay, even used!

"You sound excited!" my wife remarked over the phone after I tested this beauty, and in my voice she heard happiness.

The Pure Triumph shop had a couple of Black Bonnevilles lightly used, and this used T100 now in their rental program, with 10,000 miles on the clock. They each had a few months warranty, but before I knew it the Blacks were gone and it was obvious the shop had no need to make a deal to sell the $6500 T100 I test rode.

The Triumph struck a nerve as I sat astride it with my feet reassuringly planted on the ground. The engine whirred quietly, meanwhile of vibrations I could detect none. Under way the take off was smooth, the controls smooth and the motorcycle was so light footed and easy it felt like a Vespa with gears. The bars and pegs combine to keep one in a traditional standard bike posture without excessive weight on wrists or bum, and control of the bike is enhanced by that fact. This isn't by any standards a cruiser. I felt at home immediately on the machine and was ready to throw it with abandon round corners. It was fun. I've read the reviews of world weary motorcycle "journalists" who restrict these easy to ride motorcycles to the curse of the beginner's bike or the returning old fart, but what they don't understand about the rare find like the Bonneville is, that the simple is also the fun to own and ride daily. My brief conversation with my wife expressed all this pent up emotion in just a few words. I was relieved to have found a worthy substitute for my wonderful Vespa.

"I can make you a smoking deal on a new green Bonneville," the voice of the devil came down the phone. "$5,999," Jeff went on and added up incidentals to get me out the door for $7700. Then I stuck on a center stand and some fork gaitors and I ordered a black rack from NewBonneville.com along with a clock and a temperature guage ( the GTS has me used to those features!) and off we go. Another modern classic with tons of add-ons.

Of course I will "need" a tachometer, some bags for my commuting crap, a windscreen and on and on. Just like my beloved Vespa.

And now the choice has been made and it all seems so right, even that bloody final drive chain has an option if it gets too messy or too labor intensive! I spoke with Ozzy at Quiet Power drive and he was very reassuring about the quality of his belt drive systems.

If I had long legs and lots of gravel roads like Scooter in the Sticks I'd be looking at the Scrambler also with 900ccs, but lots more torque and modest off road capability...But this is me, short legged me, and I will be posing with my Bonneville.

Pigeon Key

So many years have gone by and yet I have never visited Pigeon Key. Until now that is, and I am a better man for today's excursion even though it didn't involve a motorcycle. My wife did suggest taking the Vespa, which is running perfectly but it was a windy day and my wife's arthritis is acting up and blah blah blah...we took the car, which was very comfortable, thanks.Pigeon Key was a way station as Flagler's workmen built the Oversea Railroad. Hundreds of laborers lived on the four and a half acre island while engineers sank concrete caissons to support the railroad over the water. Similar in all respects to the submerged concrete used to build its contemporary, the Panama Canal, through which we sailed in the last months of the American Administration.Pigeon Key sells its history and nowadays it supports itself as a non profit, as well as a place where young people can come and attend environmental camps in the old lodgings.

The day was perfect for it, breezy, sunny and not too warm, not too cold: just right! The ticket office is, naturally parked on rails, with a not too obtrusive 12 kw a/c unit underneath the non ADA compliant steps. Flagler's East Coast Railway and Key West extension is part of the state of mind that still floats through life in the Keys,untrammeled by change, at leats for the time being.

The tour costs non locals $11 and includes a ride out to the island over the old seven mile bridge. The ride reeks of cornball of course but it does get the happy visitor a splendid view of the water, a view that may soon be ended by a massive, unfunded effort to repair the railings on the bridge. Some engineers want to declare it unsafe and plans are in the works for a ferry service while the repairs are done. The estimates are in the millions so we wanted to take the ride before it is ended for who knows how log. Corny but fun!

The ride starts with a quick burst on Highway One to the end of the bridge...

Then the little engine bounces its way across the rutted old surface of the 18-foot wide bridge. The center lane is reserved for the tour, the bumps protect the outer lanes for pedestrians and cyclists. October is a great month to be in the keys as so few people visit. We shared the tour with a terse New York couple and noticed a couple of pedestrians and a couple of cyclists taking their free exploration of Flagler's wondrous, 95 year old bridge.

Its common practice for anglers with boats to bob around between the old and new bridges, hoping to harvest a few snappers lurking round the pilings. The hand rails were the old tracks used by the State of Florida when they turned the railroad into an auto road in 1938. Below the bridge lie the few buildings of Pigeon Key, in their park like ambiance.

Thomas the Engine Driver gives us a few concluding remarks in the old mess house, which the cat tries to interrupt by seeking attention. Then we repair to the inevitable 21st century communicator for a presentation that held the attention of the New Yorkers despite the absence of air conditioning.I enjoyed the old paperwork in the museum, including the passes for locals that gave free access to the bridge ($1 toll for tourists) and evocative advertising:

and schedules:

With me secretly looking forward to the day when that high speed ferry hauls me and my motorbike to Havana for a long weekend in the twisties of Cuba!

The wife and I wandered round, admiring those cement supports, sat for a while at the strategically located picnic tables even though we omitted to bring a picnic, and eventually took a walk up the ramp to the bridge, and admired the structure from above:

And so we started to stroll back towards Marathon.

No despair though, Thomas stopped his engine and we got to ride back to civilization, thoroughly content with our little excursion. Its a truism of life in the Keys, so little land is there, that one needs to try to take full advantage of what we do have. This trip was long overdue.

The Other Highway One

Who would've thunk that riding a motorcycle mattered so much to me? I feel as though a boil has been lanced and a new sense of completion and contentment sweeps over me. My Bonneville. Harumph.

I am embarrassed from time to time about my attitude, that of a curmudgeon and I try not to slip into the belief that the good old days were actually better old days than today. But my Bonneville reminds me of one of my favorite cycles from years past, the Yamaha SR 500, a motorcycle that lacked an electric start and taught me to kick a big single into life. It had character in spades just like the modern Bonneville and it handled lightly and smoothly just like... oh, never mind. I have lots of crazy memories, especially of being cold, that come to mind.

I gave up my motorcycle willingly when I realised it was keeping me from spending time with my dog. Besides I was never too excited by that huge 1200cc Honda Goldwing. It was like riding a very large sewing machine, and if anyone ever asks you can be sure and tell them, on my authority, that 600 pound sewing machines do not corner very easily. I lost a lot of interest in motorcycles as the importers courted younger riders with impossibly fast machines that require a level of crouching that would leave me aching. I took to sailing, and kept myself cold on the waters of Northern California.

One evening my wife and I took the Goldwing up the coast for dinner at Duarte's tavern in the village of Pescadero, a 30 minute ride up Highway One (the other Highway One, the California state Highway celebrated in the bridges of big Sur). After dinner we walked through the village in the dying rays of the sun and window shopped the antique stores; junque stores, really, but yesterday's ironmongery is today's "collectible."

The ride home was a horror. We should have worn electric vests I'm sure, but after dinner we were immersed in bands of fog sweeping in off the beaches, we were cold and wet, my teeth chattered, the windshield was insufficient, only my feet were warm, nestled behind the flat water cooled cylinders.

"We should have taken the convertible," my wife ground out through chattering teeth as I maneuvered the mastodon across the gravel in our driveway. Next time we did.

A few years earlier California's coastal Highway One, known to Southern Californians as "The PCH" had nailed me again. I was riding the Pacific Coast Highway north from Santa Monica, completing a trip to Santa Cruz from my previous home in Fort Myers. I had bought a fully dressed Yamaha Maxim 650 to improve the quality of my tedious life in southwest Florida, and conceived the notion that life would be better in California once again.

It was a splendid trip, my shaft driven four cylinder 650 ran like a top, I listened to the radio as I rode, a grotesque first (and last) for me and I even took a tent and used it, most memorably on a star-lit night in the grasslands of the Oklahoma panhandle. A grizzled Harley rider shared the empty park campground and we sat and sipped and he looked at my rice burner and nodded thoughtfully. "She'll get you there," he said slowly, acting more like Sam Shepherd than the actor ever did in one of his own plays. I appreciated his approval.

The Other Highway One nailed me on the long ride north from San Luis Obispo. I was returning to my home in Santa Cruz and it was a sentimental journey, a return to my emigrant roots, a fresh start, a place to call home. And I wanted to return along the most famous, photographed road in the world, the twisting bridged path through Big Sur. In real life it's a Big Pain in the Ass as traffic is endless and slow.

My romantic visions of swinging along the Highway in a California blaze of sunlight were dashed by bad timing. I had to be in Santa Cruz tomorrow afternoon reading the news, and my new deadline meant I had to ride at night. Big Sur is over 100 miles long from Cambria to Carmel and there isn't a drop of gas along the way. At night the villages at either end are pretty much closed too so I filled a quart soda bottle with gas and sat it up in the pouch inside my huge windshield at the last open Seven Eleven in town. 20 miles into my overnight odyssey I poured the gas into the tank hoping there was no Mountain Dew residue, and took on the darkened road.

It was cold and damp. I've sailed the Big Sur coast a few times and I have frozen my ass on those overnight trips, but even though a sailboat travels at walking speed you can duck into the cabin, warm up and heat water. On the motorcycle I just kept going, wiping the moisture from my beard, trying to see the road ahead and watching as my speed slowed as my concentration faded.

finally, around midnight I was a popsicle and when the Julia Pfeiffer State Park hove into view I turned off the Highway. I remembered the park as a dirt open space with a trail head. That was then, this was 1992. The Park was clean and asphalted and there were restrooms and a bus shelter which was the perfect place to spread a sleeping bag and lay down and listen to the slowing of my chattering teeth.

Why do people think California is a tropical paradise? Florida is tropical, and paradise is a green Bonnie in a place where winter is the occasional cold front on a windy afternoon. Now I'm settled my rides are my adventures, and remembering all those chaotic plans and wild optimism is an activity kindled by the simple act of gripping the handlebars and taking off, corporeally to work, but spiritually down the highways of the past. That's why riding is so important to me.

My Bonneville

I have put 12 whole miles on my Goodwood Green Bonneville. What a ride! It was yet another rainy day, the skies filed with gloom and foreboding in that way that only Florida summer thunderstorms can fill the sky. In a flat state like Florida there's nothing to measure the castle in the air against, there are no mountain ranges, no forests to break up the skyline across the savanna of the Everglades, and the towers of downtown Fort Lauderdale look puny against the roiling castles in the sky that roll and reform, always more black, always promising a heavier cloudburst than went before.

In the sales office at Pure Triumph business was continuing as usual. An anxious motorcyclist perched in an uncomfortable chair across from a busy, debonair, successful salesman. A gleaming green Bonneville parked on the sales floor.

"Is that mine?" asks the motorcyclist, his voice fluting and tremulous as a schoolboy's waiting for punishment.

"Mmh-hmm," mumbles the debonair one shuffling papers. "Sign here, and here and initials for the DMV."

I could have signed away my kidneys in that moment had Jeff been a stereotypical south Florida surgeon in search of a donor. As it was he started writing slowly on a cardboard temporary tag.

I was staring at the gleaming green lump parked decorously in the shop window.

"Do you suppose I could go for a quick ride?"

"It's yours..."Jeff said with a slight note of puzzlement, he was dealing with a moron obviously. But lucky for him a moron armed with enough cash to pay for the lump.

I went out onto the showroom floor to get some relief from the paperwork and I stared in awe at this gleaming brand new speedometer with 0 miles on the clock.

A tall thin t-shirted firefighter (judging by his brand stamped on the cotton on his chest) was wandering around. He had white hair a white beard and he looked a like a professor of Economics looking for fun. He commutes 45 miles each way on freeways and wants Power."Nice huh," he said looking at the puny Classic Triumph. "Yes" I gulped, its mine." ("I'm its" would have been more accurate). He wanted a Tiger, the three cylinder "urban street fighter" which requires a very long inside leg, which he had.

He started showing me the modifications he wanted to make on a Street Triple he's thinking about. Then he started in on what I should do to the Bonneville, while all I could think was "Shit, I own this thing." Put on some bags and ride is what I want to do but he was rabbiting on about paintwork and headlight shapes and all that stuff. I got my wish, not the bags- the ride.

Out back Nuccio held the motorcycle out to me. "Don't worry about dirtying it," he smiled. "We haven't done the pre-delivery polish yet." He held a box of fork gaitors in his hand which he will install before I pick up the bike on Wednesday. I want to protect the fork sliders from the Keys' salt air. Plus the black rubber belows on the fork legs look retro and cool.

This bike oozes cool, which is a bit awkward as I don't. However in riding around urban Fort Lauderdale I learned a couple of things about it. It doesn't vibrate one bit at speeds up to 60 mph and car drivers won't stand a chance if I want to pull ahead. The engine is responsive and I feel totally comfortable and in control with my feet tucked under my hips and my arms in a totally natural position on the modest width handlebars.

I got back to the store with clouds still threatening, one compliment in my wake, one envious stare from an on duty cab driver ( my freedom on a work day or my gleaming ride I'm not sure), and no signs that this is not the perfect bike for me.

I am starting to feel better after all the heartache and searching the past few weeks. A lot better.

An Expensive Lunch

I had lunch with my wife today and we got swept up into the consumerism thing and an hour later we were out $8215 with the promise of a bottle-green Triumph Bonneville with two miles on the clock to be waiting for us at Pure Triumph Ft Lauderdale this weekend.
I am still in shock.
Now I need to get serious about selling the GTS.

Oh The Humanity

At work last week we had a transformation. The Trainee lost some of his humanity, and it all happened on receipt of one 9-1-1 phone call.

We were sitting around in the Communications center, the four of us, talking of this and that. I think I was reading a book, a travel tale about two men crossing the States on a couple of Heinkel scooters, the others were muttering about fashions or celebrity gossip or TV shows, about all of which i know nothing, so I keep my mouth shut. I have a lot of trouble when I'm training someone to answer the police phones, in holding back and letting the trainee struggle a bit, so in order to give my latest Trainee a bit of room I try to absent myself in a book between calls, and I distance my microphone from my mouth, so he gets to start the calls unobstructed by my voice.

A 9-1-1 line started to ring and the rule is when one of the eight red lines starts to blink and whine drop everything and answer it. The Trainee did just that. Anticipating a false alarm I kept reading but through my headset I heard the unmistakable tones of a true emergency. The caller's voice was off pitch and warbling as though he were struggling to keep control as he told The Trainee that there was a dead man in his neighbor's trailer.

I expected The Trainee to go into his usual freeze mode,unable to type, failing to ask the questions and I scrabbled frantically for my clip board so I could write down the details. However he calmly asked the caller to repeat the address, he entered it and started to type: " caller found white male sitting in chair..." And as the details got grosser, and they got pretty bad as death rarely comes clean and tidy, he kept on typing even as he toned the ambulance and gave them their instructions over the radio.

I knew there really was a dead man out there and The Trainee understood it too. We get lots of panicked calls about possible dead people lying on the sidewalks, but they generally turn out to be drunk and passed out in this party town. We know what questions to ask to get our pulses up when dead people really are dead. The Trainee took the call and dealt with it like a real dispatcher.

He was excited afterwards, focusing on his professional response to a crisis, running through his mind how he had dealt with the call. It took a while for him to remember that someone had died. In a weird way I felt good about it. He is building the carapace he needs to answer the phones, not to freeze up and start trembling.

The next day we got three ambulance calls all together and he dispatched therm by himself, putting each unit on the proper call, making notes in the computer and tidying everything up before he swivelled his chair to face the middle of the room and resume his interrupted conversation without even a reference to the bloody scooterist, tripped cyclist, or elderly woman possibly having a stroke. They were all being taken care of quickly and efficiently and he wanted urgently to know what his colleagues thought of his hair cutting plans.

Clearly he won't be The Trainee for much longer and all he can think about is signing up for overtime.

They never did tell us what the dude died of, but we're dispatchers, so we've long since forgotten the call.

How Not To Sell

What was he thinking? I said to myself as I turned the rental car round and headed for the highway 371 miles back home to my stilt house in the Keys. I couldn't wait to get out of the cookie-cutter, gated community,with golfing privileges, where the BMW was being offered for sale. He was a nice guy, with a dry sense of humor, perhaps someone I couldhang out with by the pool and talk about his interesting life. I could be friends with this man I thought.

The seller said he was an engineer, and clearly he's no salesman. The motorcycle was a fixer upper, which were it listed as such, would be no bad thing, but I couldn't imagine riding it home in the condition it was in. Worse than that, it clearly had never been loved, just used, and never cared for. Shame.

The day started rough with a massive thunderstorm dumping inches of rain on Islamorada, the purple island in Spanish ( pronounced, in English: isle-a-more-ahh-dah, which confuses wanna-be Spanish speakers). I love the rain in hot climates, it gives reason to pause, it cools things off and it rarely descends during the cold time of year when the presence of rain would make cold temperatures just miserable. This rainy season has proved to be old fashioned wet,("In the old days it rained all the time.") inasmuch as it is raining fit to drown our waterlogged peninsula. Water restrictions? We don't need no stinkin' water restrictions! (We do actually, as the mainland aquifer is way down, development continues along with consumption; but you can't sell the need for restrictions to peasants when the skies are flooding the fields).

The Highway became even more tenuous as it disappeared into a wall of water, part of which fell from the skies and part of which was thrown up by our tires and the third part was simply moisture saturation in the atmosphere. Even I was forced to accept that thirty miles an hour was quite fast enough in these conditions. A lot of people drive as though vehicle and tire technology hasn't progressed since the model T Ford, yet they forget to turn on their lights and they decline to pull over and stress themselves out way too much in the rain. Rain persisted on and off throughout my 800-mile day but it never again came down as hard and as long as it did in the Upper Keys. Lovely and spectacular it was.

Eventually I found my to an Orlando suburb, an agglomeration of Runs, Courtes and Shoppes, all winding landscaped streets fronted by 3,000 square foot mansions with pools (water! water!), garages and not a bum in sight or a leaf out of place. I live in the Keys and one gets used to different standards I suppose. The motorcycle was presented for my inspection as though parked a year ago and never cleaned since. It was sun faded, the paint actually photographs well, but when he lived in the Arizona desert years ago he left this poor beast out in the sun. A lot.

Candy apple red has become faded pink on the tank.

I took a test ride and it hesitated, I tweaked the enrichment knob and the cable almost fell out of the socket. There was sooty black residue around the end of the exhaust. The oil radiators had long dead bugs caught in the fins, the engine casing had splotches of oils and grease and yuck spread on it.

"I had new fuel injectors installed," he said. "Not by the BMW shop," I said. He agreed and I knew because in changing them they had spilled yellow fuel over the engine casing and they had failed to balance them at all properly. The engine surged and idled uncertainly.God knows how the motorcycle really handles because the front tire was so badly worn down one side it rode at a permanent lean. To add injury to insult, the bulbous fuel tank squashed my testicles with the seat in the lowest position, the position where my feet reached the ground.

To sell this thing he needs to take a lesson from a realtor: presentation!

I want to be riding again, and I want to write about the joys of the ride, but there it is. My goal is to buy something reliable, long lasting and fun. I can't lose sight of that goal, even as I wither and wonder if there is a real alternative to the Vespa. Like a decent lightly used Bonneville? There had better be, because the GTS has to go, as she-who-must-be-obeyed has made it plain. I sigh and and wonder how will I cope with a real crisis in my life, say a terminal diagnosis, bankruptcy or a satellite crashing in the canal?