Whitehead Street

There is a majesty and grandeur to Key West streets at night. It astonishes me how the city transforms itself after dark into something more than the sum of it's daytime parts.I could not stand to live in these well trafficked tourist areas of Old Town, the expensive desirable parts of old Key West, the source of musical noise and loud people staggering. The homes look quite majestic by night and one can see how a visitor might fall in love with this neighborhood, forgetting the realities of day to day life.It is often said that South Florida isn't part of the stereotypical south, a comment prompted by anti migrant feelings no doubt as city slickers took up retirement in Miami, and later Key West. While it's true that the ebb and flow of migrants has given the southeast of Florida it's own cosmopolitan flavor, it is also true that this is The South. One hint of the Southernness of the place comes from looking at the public architecture. The court house at 500 Whitehead Street is as southern as all get out, the beautiful colonnades, the bricks, the clock tower. It's pure In The Heat of the Night which could itself be construed as a cliche...Many years ago sitting on a beach in Nicaragua contemplating my future an American friend sitting next to me sucking down Tonya beer (Como Tonya no hay dos- Nothing Like a Tonya was the advertising slogan I still can't get out of my head) presented me with the paradox of my life. "You crave Northern orderliness in a Southern climate" he said, with a blindingly clear perceptive shaft of light into my troubled psyche. It did not occur to me I might find that, after a fashion, in the Southernmost City. Maybe I did. Or more likely old age allowed me to drop my excessively rigid social control issues.I think Key West offers enough orderliness to make life relatively easy, even though there is clearly a hierarchy of people who own the top jobs and maintain a close grip on the levers of power. There was a period when too much money was flowing through the city, the late 90s and early 21 st century was one of those periods and outsiders sometimes managed to weasel their way in, owing to a sudden series of job openings across town. Those openings have slammed shut with the economic retreat we are in. Consolidation is now the name of the game. Federal and State subsidies and grants are drying up, salaries face shrinkage and positions are starting to be cut. I don't anticipate the economy getting any better either and I wonder how tensions will rise in this isolated little town.

I saw incredible stress and solidarity after Hurricane Wilma gave the Lower Keys the shellacking of a generation. I'd like to think that as the economy shrinks, and prices rise we will be able to weather the difficulties as a community. 41 teachers face layoffs this next school year, but the cafeteria workers who protested absurd privatization plans pushed those plans away with community backing. Those state jobs with proper pay and benefits were saved. when the privatization sharks saw community solidarity.I feel lucky to face the ongoing Recession/Depression down here. And I hope our excellent public utilities keep the water and the electrons flowing.