Geiger Key

I read that the owner of Roostica and Hogfish restaurants sold Geiger Key Marina for fifteen million dollars.

I’m no businessman clearly but that seems like a great deal of money to pay off one sandwich at a time. I suppose the theory is when the restaurant love burns out someone else will come along and pay even more for this last slice of old Key West, the slogan appropriated by Schooner Wharf which is actually in Key West. This place actually does look like the funky tropics of decades ago. 

Like so much else in the Keys, I do like to visit this place and enjoy the views, and the blackened mahi-mahi was quite good but the idea of owning and coping with all this stuff seems overwhelming. You’d think 21 million would be enough to retire and enjoy something else. Power boat racing perhaps, but the former owner still serves food at his other two outlets, expressions of his ebullient personality.  

I discovered a new term to explain much of what I don’t understand about other people’s lives: relevance. I used to wonder why actors abased themselves by doing advertising. Relevance explains it. They feel the need to keep themselves in the public eye.  Politicians are the same when they join a band wagon. You’ve seen recently members of Congress sidelined for speaking their conscience. The ones that follow party orders get re-elected  and  stay relevant. I get a kick when I see Fury, the tourist behemoth,  still advertising their “ultimate adventure” on the waterfront. They’d better make it good if it’s the last thing you do…

To drop out, to live on a van with no fixed address kills all relevance. No longer living in Key West and photographing everyone’s favorite vacation destination makes me less relevant. I no longer work for the police. No good stories to tell, no status as a 911 operator.  Bliss.

There is the argument to be made that some people like their work so much they don’t want to quit and more power to them. Usually they make money out of proportion to the sweat equity of the job. People who stand at check out tills are there by necessity. People who own successful restaurants enjoy the relevance of contributing and being admired. I suppose that could be it. 

The irrelevance of not having roots confuses observers. We have been offered places to stay so we could get “out of the van for a bit.” I actually like the van. However next month we are renting a cottage for ten days in the Outer Banks, so…why? Because we can’t leave for Mexico till after the New Year and we needed to stay in the cold for a couple of weeks waiting for the family gathering and we figured if we have to stay put let’s be comfortable. The joy of van life is moving with the seasons. Sitting huddled inside in the cold is dreary. 

I’m writing this in a forest in north Florida, while my wife is in California with friends whose guest bathroom is bigger than the van. How long will you stay at Potts Preserve? she asked. I don’t know I said. It’s free, it’s quiet and it’s safe from hunters. I’ll know when it’s time to leave, there will be an itch, a desire to move on. It comes naturally. 

I find pleasure daily in the fact I have to please only myself. To me that is true freedom. I have enough to manage my life and no more. If someone dumped millions on me I wouldn’t know what to do. Money brings obligation my mother taught me, noblesse oblige, another way of saying to whom much is given, from them much  is expected. Bet you didn’t expect this atheist to quote the Gospel according to Saint Luke! (12:48). It’s a philosophy that seems to have been set adrift in our culture where poverty is viewed as a moral failing and wealth without obligation is a sign of God’s approval. 

I don’t know if abdicating one’s participation in normal life is a cop out or a morally acceptable choice. It feels acceptable to me as life continues pretty much unaffected by my absence, and will do so after I die no doubt!  I hope writing about travels other than Key West will provide some form of compensation or education to others but the journey is justified to me simply by virtue of being undertaken. To see, to learn, to feel. 

I suppose it’s fair to say I’d like to have more with which to do more good. However I noted how Mackenzie Scott is distributing to unsuspecting non profit agencies her share of the Amazon financial empire she married and divorced. A friend of mine shook his head mournfully saying a sudden infusion of money can screw up the delicate balance of tightly run small organizations. Yup, I thought to myself, it doesn’t matter what you do because good can be bad or thus perceived.  I’m not thick skinned enough to be in that kind of fire and notoriety and criticism go hand in hand. No YouTube for me.  

I’d better keep driving.