Barring some other catastrophic obstruction I’m hoping Rusty and I will be leaving Key West soon. Hurricane Nicole will I trust, be soaking the just and unjust alike in the indecisive state of Georgia. The plan is to return here after Thanksgiving but in the meantime I have to meander to New Orleans to pick Layne up when she flies back from California.
My instructions are brief and simple and I seem to have forgotten the critical point. I think I have to be at the airport the 22nd but I fear I was doing something important like picking daisies when she got to that point in her pick up instructions. Never mind, it’ll all work out.
I’m told it’s rather cold and damp on the central California Coast as one might expect in November but it’s not at all here. One can feel rather smug in the Keys at the moment, cool breezes, puffy white clouds, and a little sunshine to mellow things out. The rest of Florida has been wallowing in pouring rain and some gnarly winds.
It has been rather pleasant. We got a walk or two in downtown did young Rusty and I, checking the state of Duval Street. Much of a muchness most of it with a few storefront changes. Fran Decker has an art exhibit in the local artist spot in the shop window at CVS. When the owner of Fast Buck Freddie’s put CVS in the old Kriss building at 500 Duval he specified a space for local art and of course Tony Falcone got his way.
I find the obsession with winter stereotypes for Christmas slightly odd, but I’m not a retailer by nature, so I am forced to suppose Santa Claus as improbable as he may be in the tropics, helps sales.
It’s low season right now as cold weather Up North hasn’t yet kicked in to push snowbirds south, but the trickle of people on Duval look the same as ever.
In the past I would occasionally come down and walk Duval before my overnight shift at the police station. Now I’m just another tourist and I like that.
In a way it’s a fresh new view of the city.
We were passing the Oldest House when I found myself behind this child dressed for the part and learning to be a Key West visitor. Start them young I thought as Dad worked the phone.
Rusty is his own dog and I love that about him. He got tired of being the center of attention so he walked to the end of his leash and sat by himself refusing to pose with them.
I’ve only been gone a year but it feels like much longer so I was stupidly impressed by Willie T’s still pulling them in enough to fill the bar.
We used to get lots of calls asking for help to move the street people along who had a habit of panhandling the customers while listening to the music. The homeless tend to be seasonal too in Key West and I didn’t see huge numbers as I walked around. I don’t think gentrification makes the place more appealing for them either.
A former colleague was telling me about applying for “low income” housing for which he didn’t qualify as dispatchers earn too much, his rate is nearly $30 an hour. His girlfriend does qualify but she can’t afford the unit as they want $2500 a month for the “affordable” unit. He could have lived with her illegally (!) but he found something else as he is well connected. The economics of living in Key West make less sense than ever.
The result is that the commute hours these days are extraordinary into and out of the city as workers come from
marginally more affordable islands up the highway. Construction at the triangle doesn’t help.
If you have your foot in the door you can hang on. Roger sells knick knacks on Duval and watches the world go buy. After a working life didn’t traveling he is a very happy man sitting here chatting to passers by. I wonder why I am wired differently. But I am.
