Staying Aloft

It is a Sunday in the height of the winter tourist season. Highway One is packed and Key West is busy, and in a couple of weeks my wife will be fully vaccinated. I hardly dare say it out loud but we are thinking about taking an evening out. Masks, caution and all, but yes, an evening out. I feel slightly apprehensive and not a little surprised. Wearing a mask and staying distant are the new normal.

It's odd how humans adapt to normal. That tired old story about heating water up slowly to boil an unsuspecting frog is not actually true according to scientists who've tried according to James Fallows in a slightly dated 2006 opinion piece in The Atlantic magazine. However what does seem to be true is that if we are required to live with a  previously unimaginable inconvenience we can get used to it. I wear  a mask reflexively nowadays and when eventually it may become no longer necessary I shall feel slightly odd.

People call me at work demanding to know by what authority Key West requires outdoor masks and these Facebook lawyers want to engage with me in arguing the validity of the rules. They are finding out what lesser mortals have known since the beginning of time: you can contest the rules but even if you are right you may end up spending money and time to prove it. None of these Facebook lawyers seem ready to be the Rosa Parks of the anti face mask movement. They just like to argue with me, a mere civilian with no authority over anything about mask wearing and who is not going to joust about the rule making decisions of city management.

I cannot wait for masks to be history.  Next I propose we take to Facebook and argue that stores cannot require us to wear shirts. I can think of nothing more important for the Supreme Court to get tangled up in. I demand to see nipples while shopping. I mean really, people who could even be your neighbors are very peculiar;  they don't mind the chance of spreading infection to make a political point as stupid as my fictional demand to indulge in shirtless shopping. I like the fact my retirement home has wheels to allow me to move to a safe distance as needed. I don't really want to be given Covid by my neighbors, not even were it in a  sound political cause which it isn't.

When I was a youngster I craved a motorcycle like this elderly BMW, the touring monster of the 1970s and 80s. They still make a version of the air cooled flat twin, though much more sophisticated, heavy and yet perhaps relatively speaking not so much more expensive. It was too much money for twenty year old me and most likely it was not a chick magnet which matters at that age, though I was always of a more practical bent seeking to complete journeys with no mechanical troubles as a priority over even dating. Looking at the machine parked in the Meadows in Key West I was reminded of many journeys undertaken in my youth on unsuitable, but affordable, motorcycles.

I brought my last remaining motorized two wheeler to Key West on Friday, a 17 year old Vespa 150 which we've owned since almost new when the previous owner lost her nerve after 200 miles and put it up for sale not a mile from where we live now. When my wife advertised it on Facebook she got an avalanche of offers much to my surprise.

I quite enjoyed my final 23 mile ride in the afternoon sun, keeping up with traffic on Highway One, thinking about journeys past. My wife who was following  a few miles behind in the car, was, she told me, freaking out the whole way. The only ride she could think about was my near fatal crash in 2018. She was glad when I parked the Vespa at work and got in the car with her. I'm supposed to meet the buyer tomorrow or Wednesday to sign away the title at the Tax Collector's office. And that will close the motorcycle chapter of my life which started when I was 12.

I may buy an old age motorcycle when we finish traveling but this will be the first time since 1971 that I will be motorcycle free with intent to stay that way. Oddly enough I feel fine with the choice. The van is even less sexy than an elderly practical BMW motorcycle but I can tell you unequivocally it's a lot easier to park and sleep with a van than it is grubbing around in inconspicuous bushes with a motorcycle. I think it's true that in old age you seek comfort more than you do as a youth. I certainly do.

We spent Friday evening emptying the van, putting foods and clothes and camping gear upstairs in the air conditioned house. The idea is to prevent mold and to allow the van to circulate air inside the vehicle during the hot summer months. We are so understaffed at work this year I am doubting I will get a three week vacation but if we do get time away we shall simply restock for each trip. We have a pretty good idea by now how to load the van for long term living but taking stuff out gives as un opportunity to re-evaluate exactly what might be worth not taking with us. One of the great things about change is the opportunity it forces on you to think about what you own and why. We are jettisoning stuff like a dirigible dumping weight trying to stay aloft. It feels good and it makes the journey feel closer. No more motorcycles, for now.

Fame In Key West

I got an unsolicited e-mail a couple of days ago asking about something I posted on this page and could they use it? Sure I said, I always do. They even offered to give me credit which I feel is as much as I could expect. I was quite surprised to learn the Studios at Key West wanted to quote something I wrote about the Key West artist Suzie dePoo. All I could find were some recollections I posted from attributed sources. The cool thing is my wife and I are invited to the opening of the exhibit they plan so good for my blog! Score one for my diary! I'm looking forward to it.

I  did write a couple of paragraphs mentioning how little this city in its eternal weirdness fails to mark locations important in the life of quite a few celebrated artists of one sort or another. Hemingway is a massive and obvious exception but a friend did point out to me years ago that Tennessee Williams a gay man and Elizabeth Bishop a lesbian get short shrift and old Robert Frost gets hardly any mileage though you used to be able to rent his writing studio as a place to stay and may yet be able to sleep there for all I know. 

When a well known actress owned a downtown restaurant, Kelly's Bar and Grill was pointed out as belonging to one Kelly McGillis by drivers of the Conch Train as they went by. Perhaps they note William's home on Duncan Street but I don't think they drive by the private house and it's not marked in any way. Fame is a peculiar attribute and certain people come by it more easily than others.

I used to read the news on the radio in Santa Cruz California, and public radio listeners occasionally recognized me on the street.  But when I appeared on a news panel on the main news television station one night, I discovered the power of that medium and I never went near it again as the recognition factor was way too high. Even now I get a momentary jolt when I am recognized. As happened early one morning when out walking the little brown bundle of joy at Truman Waterfront.

I was not too surprised to see a cyclist stop and double back as my current condition pushing a walker tends to bring out the helpfulness of strangers and I was filling Rusty's water jug at the very convenient fountain in the park. I was completely surprised when the blonde woman addressed me by name. Bugger I thought but I put a brave face on it when I have to admit I can't remember where we met so I asked. And she admitted we never had, so I wasn't the tool, I had at first thought I was. That was a start. 

I also had the wit, unusual in me, to take pictures and notes. I am getting good at this, I thought to myself. Sherry with the hat retired to Old Town Key West eight years ago and apparently dragged a husband down too and they both really like it. They came from upstate New York which I quite liked when I was there one summer but apparently this time of year it is sub-optimal as the weather tends to be a bit brisk. I know I'd hate it. Kathy lives in Virginia and was visiting her friend and had never heard of this web page so was a bit flummoxed by the whole about face and talking to a stranger with a gait impediment. They were very nice and didn't mug me which might not have been all that easy as Rusty had got bored and was sitting and eyeing me from across the parking lot. One false move and he would have shredded them. Good boy.

This June this blog will have been posting one a day almost without a break since 2007. Though I say so myself the photography has got a good deal better and I am always ready to attribute that in good part to the fantastic improvement in digital photography over the past decade. I have also made a conscious effort to pay attention to my pictures and that has aid off. I really like digital photography in its current form.

Cell phones are getting really quite good though I do love my Lumix FZ300 bridge camera. It looks like a single lense reflex but it is a fixed lense electronic camera that bridges the divide between a professional quality SLR and the close range instrument found in your phone. Consequently I have a huge telephoto lense  and millions of filter and manual adjustments if I want to use them and sometimes I do. All it consumes is a rechargeable battery and I carry a spare. I take pictures, download them instantly to my phone by direct WiFi and do a little light editing on the phone to crisp them up as necessary and they ready for Instagram of this page. Fantastic.

It has got a bit complicated handling Rusty on a leash in town, pushing my walker and grabbing a quick picture here and there. When I could walk properly and keep up with Rusty I had more time to contemplate my shots but it is a credit to the camera that it snags pictures instantly to help me out. Composition with a tripod and profound thought is not really possible in my weird  walking style. 

The Key West Photography Festival is coming up and this year I did actually brace myself and submitted three pictures. I doubt they will be accepted or noticed as I have no idea how to rename the pictures ion the format they desperately needed. I tried to figure it out and failed and with the deadline looming I sent them in. A few hours later they extended the deadline! Much gnashing of teeth.

They have times for local photographers to give talks but I'm not sure I want to do that. I had thought of talking about my experiences trying to be  a photographer flat on my back in the hospital but my putative title As I Lay Dying leads me to think in a death-phobic society that my own amusement at my severe medical predicament might not go over real well. I have a dispatcher's sense of humor when it comes to talking about my death mask selfie in the roadway and photographs of the doctors operating on my leg... Better draw a veil over that and let local photographers chunter on about sunsets and palms and primary colors. It's what Key West is to most people. We know of course there's much more to it than that.

And some few weirdos have been reading my take on that for fully ten years. Crazy. But the pictures are a whole lot better aren't they nowadays?

You can imagine them laughing uproariously at thirty minutes of pictures like these can't you?

Death In The Pond

There is a development of townhomes alongside Eisenhower Drive that is massively landscaped. Part of the greenery consists of a retention pond of some sort, and it appears to be teeming with life.

Rusty was sniffing but he wasn't putting the egret off it's mission which was to terminate something with extreme prejudice.

 I just stood there an idle observer and I wonder when I reach the Pearly Gates and I am asked what I did when I observed injustice and I reply that Nature had to take it's course, that the answer will be good enough.  While lunch struggled to live in the bird's gullet Rusty and I ambled on as though nothing had happened.

I don't know if you have seen the photo of the starving polar bear, a photo propagated by National Geographic, but I cannot get the image out of my mind. The photographer did nothing and the easy answer to my feelings of helplessness and frustration are that nature takes it's course. Climate change will bring us more such horrors but standing idly by makes me queasy. Like the man throwing starfish back into the ocean on a tidal beach we can't make a difference for screwed up wilderness situations but still...

I distracted myself by wondering why we needed to beware the dog. It's people who make me feel much more inclined to be wary....

Such ruminations don't impress Rusty.

Walking With A Camera

My life is  back in my hands at least a little bit  now that Fantasy Fest is over and after nearly two weeks of working and sleeping I got to go for a wander for the sheer pleasure of making my acquaintance once again with the quiet streets of Key West.

 This is the last week of daylight savings time in the United States. There are a handful of locations that don't do the time switch but for the rest of us Sunday the clocks fall back, a few days after the rest of the world that observes daylight savings and standard time changes. 

 I like the dark mornings which are unsuitable we are told for children going to school though I dare say many young students wouldn't mind a later start, as discussed by sleep scientists but not by parents who have to go to work.

So even though these pictures were taken by me after six in the morning and before 6:30  it might as well have been midnight as far as ambient light goes. Consequently there weren't many people about which suited me also.

The thing about walking Rusty and taking pictures is that I don't have time to do much in the way of composition, and I certainly can't haul around a tripod and a remote shutter release and spend time fiddling with manual shutter speed and f stop settings. It's mostly all automatic and thank heavens for low light enhancements and a decent telephoto lense built into my Lumix camera. 

 In these marginal conditions I fond black and white works better and the sepia setting best of all. Then I come up against a colorful gallery window. Color? At the risk of being banal:

 Or sepia at the risk of flattening the picture too much? I prefer sepia.

Rusty is actually quite patient even though he too was keen for his own reasons to be walking the streets of the big city.  And then he sits and waits a moment while I compose a shot, giving it the extra thirty seconds it deserves...

Still I have to remind myself if it weren't for Rusty I doubt I'd be out on the streets at this awful hour anyway. Good dog.

Night Wandering

I took off one night recently with my camera to see what I could see. Quite a lot of not very much it turned out.

 A condo complex on Eisenhower Dr.

 An upstairs apartment falls prey to the telephoto.

 A cool windy night with clouds and fluttering palm fronds.