No Name Pub

There is something about food that is covered in a batter and deep fried that tastes particularly good, and even though such cookery wrecks the nutrition, Americans' favorite flavor I once heard it said, is crunchy. I am quite fond of the fish basket at No Name Pub, deep fried fish and salty crunchy silver dollar fries. Throw in a large glass of Yuengling and you can see why such food is not on the list. So, to avoid temptation and stay on my wife's good side i rode out to No Name Pub at a rather blisteringly early eight o'clock in the a.m.

Wilder Road flies straight as an arrow north from the traffic light in Big Pine Key on Highway One. The trick to finding No Name Pub is to start from the traffic lights and take the right hand road, not Key Deer Boulevard, past the Big Pine Shopping Center. Thusly per Google maps:

No Name Pub has built itself quiet a cachet as being hard to find but it's not really, and commerce overwhelms all other considerations so as long as you start out correctly you will find pointers along the way:

No Name Key Pub is actually on the edge of Big Pine key and one has to wander through residential neighborhoods on the way, some of them quite fancy with large homes on large lots backed by substantial seawalls which merit an essay of their own:

Once past the curiously named Doctor's Arm subdivision the pub is unmistakable in all it's lemon yellow glory:

This place is packed in the winter months and it is famed for it's pizza which is okay in my rather uninformed opinion, but comes a distant second to the aforementioned fish basket. They sell the obligatory t-shirts and quite attractive they are too as they feature the parrot logo shown above. I used to know a woman who worked here and she said it was a highly desirable job among local waitstaff, doubtless because it's so popular and tips must be huge. Nevertheless as far as i know it's a good place to work and the I keep seeing the same faces on the rare occasions I visit.

The interior is the usual mixture of dark varnished wood, uneven wooden planked floors, bright neon beer logos and the odd irritating television. Plus there are the dollar bills:

Similar to the Cabbage Key bar on the west coast of Florida, No Name Pub has a long tradition of sticking dollar bills to every available space. No, of course I don't understand it, but that doesn't mean there aren't thousands of people apparently willing to deface the currency for a dubious shot at posterity:

If you are looking for a well lighted place to eat No Name Pub isn't for you, it's dingy and crowded and full of atmosphere but even if you think you won't like it it makes a fine destination for an hour long ride out of Key West (or Marathon) for those willing to step outside their comfort zones and take a trip:

This neck of the woods is where I come to show people who want to see them, because curiously enough where the signs are, there frequently are the deer:

There were two of them gallivanting around, full of the joys of spring, but I don't think she was having any:

They ran around in circles for a bit and popped out suddenly as I engaged the clutch. Ha! thought I, what an irony were I to go down thanks to a deer, right in front of the warning sign. I made it onto the No Name Bridge, past the marina and bait shop:The bard remarked that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but apologetically I choose to contradict the immortal one on that point. "Big Pine Key Pub" does not have the same ring as "No Name Pub" and I find it hard to imagine the pub would have lasted as long had it taken the former name. Nevertheless it is a fact that No Name Key is across a rather long bridge from the eponymous pub:No Name Key rejoices at least for a while longer in the fact that it's residents enjoy cable television and phone cable service on their island but not cable electricity. This apparently has to change to accommodate a central sewer system, though that issue is up for debate. I thing electricity is one of the great benefits of the modern era and apparently No Name Key agrees as they most of them go to the bother of powering their modern appliances with generators in addition to less certain solar panels. This is not a community of eco-freaks off the grid. They just don't want power lines in their community which i find eccentric. Personally I'd let them sort their own sewerage out if they insist on living with their noisy smelly generators, but I am not the state of Florida, which is a good thing.No Name Key's other claim to fame, aside form the electrical thing and the pub that isn't there, is that Cuban counter revolutionaries trained here in the 1960's to topple the Cuban government in the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Nowadays it's mostly a nature preserve and i wrote an essay a while back on a walk I took through there last spring.I spent probably a quarter of an hour just lounging on the bridge, admiring the view and listening to the silence:And then I rode home. I swear there was almost a chill in the air. It must be freezing somewhere Up North.

Peacon Lane

I have seen two people jogging down my street these past couple of days. They have earphones and they look fresh and sleek like seals sweeping along so I'm pretty sure they are visiting for the winter. I don't see joggers on my street in summer, except Linda who waves each morning as I get home from work. There was a comment in the Citizen's Voice about dilapidated cars parked on the street, and could the owners of the work trucks please park them in their drive ways. I am seeing out of state tags popping up and someone tried to jump a line I was in the other day like her time was more valuable than mine. These are all signs that winter residents are back, and this first wave is down here early.People who live in Key West year round have a rather split approach to snowbirds. It's that mixture of dependence and resentment that seeps into many aspects of our lives. Snowbirds bring money and spread it around which has all the beneficial effects of trickle down that keeps people employed. Plus everyone knows and accepts that wealthy winter retirees raise everyone's standard of living by virtue of the fact they spend money here. I doubt we'd have near as much live theater without them, or as varied restaurants, but that wealth also raises costs, notably of housing.Snowbirds do up the houses they buy as winter homes, and pay more to rent homes and apartments for six months than many people can afford to lease for a year. Lots of people enjoy the quiet of summer in the Keys, as do I, but have trouble focusing on the good when the roads are clogged with all those extra vehicles in the winter. Parking? Forget about parking in Old Town - get a two wheeler! There again I wouldn't get paid as well at my city job without the increased tax base of much improved buildings in the city... Snowbirds are nature's reminder to keep an eye on the big picture while coping with the minor daily irritations of the little picture. For instance I get taken aback by the lines that magically appear at the Tropic Cinema, but without the snowbirds Key West wouldn't have an arts house in the first place.

This year the winter resident thing is coming early it seems so I am bracing for complaints at work about those irritating quality of life issues that don't seem to plague cities Up North. Peacon Lane is a bucolic little street wedged between Eaton and Caroline Streets, a one way alley aimed at the waterfront.

It is also a place that seems to attract homeless citizens in large numbers, and as surprising as this may sound, our population of HCs also increases in winter. Living on the streets doesn't mean you can't be a snowbird too! So I know winter has arrived in this land of no seasons, when HC complaints go up, not least at the corner of Peacon and Caroline.You have to think the residents of this little street must have developed a sense of humor about their burden when you read signs like these... NO "hunting, fishing trapping..." but I hear no humor in their voices when they call to request an officer to do a check of the lane to move along bundles sleeping in the bushes.I, like everybody else, enjoy the architecture and beauty of Key West, but I like living in the peace and quiet of the island suburbs to the north a little ways. I too would get grumpy if I had to step over sleepers on my porch.Peacon Lane is trim and tidy and at first glance is not particularly eccentric or odd but it has it's features for those willing to look.

Jim who likes to swim? He captures the inshore waters of the keys nicely. And this scooter was an "ah-ha!" moment for me. When I owned an orange Stella 150 a few years ago this silver model was the only other one I saw on the island and it was parked on Catherine Street. Then it disappeared until I found it here on Peacon Lane.

It only had something like 2600 miles on the clock and it was looking quite rusty too, so perhaps that's why I haven't seen it around town. Probably the owner uses it for urban rides only, a little less ambitious than my Highway One commute which put paid to my Indian-made copy of a Vespa two stroke. Scooters are common in Key West of course, even if Vespas and Stellas are still quite rare. Harleys are the other kind of scooter and they are everywhere:

And if you don't want a Harley or a Vespa how about a sweet Honda Metropolitan (Jazz, if you are in Canada):

There is an unusually high proportion not only of refurbished homes on Peacon, but also of off street parking, though bicycles always manage to fit in:

This Dade Pine home put me in mind of a Lincoln Log cabin, even though it is classic south Florida design. Notice the concrete block "foundations" and the overhanging front roof which gives it the infamous "eyebrow" design which was supposed to allow upstairs windows to remain open in all weathers but in fact just trapped the heat inside :This house put me in mind of the Pacific Northwest, for some reason. It has stained glass windows, not clearly visible in the picture and a heavily varnished front door:The abandoned ladder put me in mind of unfinished projects (though my ladders are mundane affairs of aluminum and plastic):And then this object of art under the trees:I was pondering the puzzle when a lady walking her dog came by and was rather startled when I asked her what she thought. After she composed herself she thought for a bit and suggested it might be something on the lines of a merry-go-round.

"She does other stuff too," the dog walker said, referring to the artist, " she made a bust that swayed gently," she said mimicking the action with her hands. "I liked that,"leaving me to wonder if the horses were of a lesser order.

Just another sunny afternoon doing not too much on Peacon Lane.

Memories And Mental Gymnastics

Triumph Bonneville 900, circa 2008, Key West Florida.

Benelli Tornado 650, Italy's answer to the Bonneville, with my adored dog Sandy, Italy 1979.

Six months ago I started wondering who was reading this blog if anyone, and I got Sitemeter which I use as a modest free tracking service (currently carrying an ad opposing nukes in Iran. I'm waiting for the ad supporting nukes in Iran! Who are these people?) and to my astonishment this site gets an average 230 visits a day, 6,000 a month, which since April adds up to just over 31,000. Despite Jeffrey's insistence this blog is still just my outlet for the many rambling streams of consciousness cluttering up my brain. Taking pictures of daily Keys living tends to relieve the pressure, in some inexplicable way. I am astonished by these numbers that have been creeping up on me. Who on earth are all these people?BMW K1200R on the road to Spoleto, Italy. Rented one very wet and cold June 2008.

Determined motorcycle beginnings, I was a helmetless risk taker even then. UK circa 1960.

I have noticed that Canada went to the polls this week and re-elected Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper's party. They started their parliamentary campaign five weeks ago and it was all be done by Wednesday breakfast time. We in the United States are grinding along into the final three weeks of our year long saga and things are getting unpleasant. I must confess I am hugely amused by the signs I see photographed at Republican rallies (I don't have television) denouncing Obama's socialism. This is the same week our Republican Administration announced a plan to nationalise any banks needing Federal reassurance! You just know Marx Lenin and Engels are sitting up in their dusty coffins clapping loudly! A field day for an Ironist, a dreadful day for the United States as markets continue their inexorable slide and trust remains evanescent.

My grandfather's shooting parties and elaborate picnics. Umbria, Italy circa 1950.
Chris' less elaborate picnic, on a bicycle camping trip from our English Boarding school. 1971.

There is a move afoot in the Keys to change the name of the new airport terminal, from McCoy to something else. A recently completed court case found Monroe County guilty of not properly protecting the workplace of a female assistant to County Commissioner Sonny McCoy. The county has been fined $48,000 after a trial that saw McCoy not deny the charges that he was grossly sexually explicit in his office ("Guess who I had sex with in Paris, last week?" Juvenile boasting it sounded like to me), he just seemed to think the woman liked it. McCoy's daughter wrote long letters to the newspapers attacking the victim and justifying the naming of the terminal for her deceased mother, a very decent woman no doubt about that. However, unhappily for that line of defense Sonny McCoy had a bust of his own head, not his late wife's, commissioned to adorn the almost completed, McCoy Terminal. One fine suggestion in the Citizen's Voice was for him to put it in his living room.

Mellito wondering what mess my overpowered superbike was going to get me into.Italy 1979.His son Giovanni sheltering from a downpour with me, Terni Italy 2008.

The stock markets around the world, were moving back up the long steep hill they tumbled down over the past week. I was afraid to wonder what would happen if the latest bank bail out schemes offered around the world didn't boost confidence. I was not encouraged by the IMF boss, the gravelly voiced Frenchman enunciating the notion that we faced systemic financial meltdown, (what, I wondered as I listened to the radio, does that even mean?). Even though I am not depending on the stock market for money I am convinced it is the bell weather of our economy, as a visible expression of trust and faith in the system. The question sliding round my brain is: where does the government get the money to cover it's multi-trillion obligations? Printing is the only answer I see and that inevitably leads to devaluation of the currency. I fear we shall see more sleight of financial hand in the months ahead and more economic shenanigans to evade this unhappy truth. Might as well face it now: we the little people are going to get screwed one more time. At least one more time to cover for the absence of oversight of the financial wizards who are too smart to be left to their own devices. I hope my vegetables grow splendidly, and edibly, as a hedge against inflation. My castle was my home at Morruzze. Fifty rooms with the oldest from the 12th century.800 square feet dating back to 1987. I'd much rather a canal instead of a wine cellar.

I attended a memorial yesterday for Cheryl Heinlen who died this month at the age of 56, which seems altogether too young to me, as I head towards my 51st birthday. Cheryl had grown more isolated leaving one to wonder if she was driven by her desire to write, alone, or whether she was isolated and depressed. Thus she slipped into a coma alone, discovered in her apartment just in time for her to die at the hospital. To our astonishment a friend of ours through whom we had no connection to Cheryl announced she too was going to Finnegans Wake and there we met. It's hard to tell people how small the world is when you live in Key West. Connections are more like spider webs than railroad tracks. Not least because we ran across Josh and Lisa in the bar by coincidence, so while I went to work, my wife spent the evening with them... I find the ties encouraging in these bleak times, and they permit me to hope for a better, more intimate, post-consumer future. Not I hope fed by memorial services but by the desire to simply be together.My sister Liz, 60, the happy farmer's wife and grandmother. Umbria Italy 2008.57 years ago she is the twin on the left. Neither has ever left home making me the wanderer.

I have no idea what prompted this flood of reminiscence, other perhaps than Cheryls's death. But here it is, make of it what you will. Not exactly Key West but a crooked path here!