I am a sucker for a full moon. Every month, regular as habit the moon fills out and we get a flood of silvery light across the islands and I am reliably informed this phenomenon occurs in other places across the planet with similar precision, each month. Nowadays, with winter time closing in on us it gets dark just about the time I walk through the doors at work, and sitting at the computers starting out the windows waiting for a crisis to hit Key West the big silver orb is a reassuring sign that everything, no matter how messed up, is as it should be:
The full moon obliterates the stars in the night sky but they will get their turn in a couple of weeks when the moon wanes and makes way for their more subtle light. I read an article in a National Geographic at the dentist last week saying that there are millions of people in the developed world who never get to see a proper night sky. I hadn't thought about it really but being at sea on a small boat is still as dark as it ever was. When I was out cruising I'd sometimes turn the navigation lights off and sit in the cockpit and sea the night sky in all it's glory and it really is astonishing how many more stars one sees in a profoundly dark place on the ground. I got the idea that comets, before the advent of street lights must really have looked liked some messenger from the gods. I saw a comet, Hale-Bopp I think, about 15 years ago from a well lit street in California and it was so insignificant I wondered what all the fuss was about.
I should have been living on this street back then. There are no street lights where I live and the night sky from my home's deck is almost as good as being at sea, or in the prairie, or in the mountains, where human lights are held at bay.
The full moon obliterates the stars in the night sky but they will get their turn in a couple of weeks when the moon wanes and makes way for their more subtle light. I read an article in a National Geographic at the dentist last week saying that there are millions of people in the developed world who never get to see a proper night sky. I hadn't thought about it really but being at sea on a small boat is still as dark as it ever was. When I was out cruising I'd sometimes turn the navigation lights off and sit in the cockpit and sea the night sky in all it's glory and it really is astonishing how many more stars one sees in a profoundly dark place on the ground. I got the idea that comets, before the advent of street lights must really have looked liked some messenger from the gods. I saw a comet, Hale-Bopp I think, about 15 years ago from a well lit street in California and it was so insignificant I wondered what all the fuss was about.I should have been living on this street back then. There are no street lights where I live and the night sky from my home's deck is almost as good as being at sea, or in the prairie, or in the mountains, where human lights are held at bay.--------------------------------
Okay, it's that time of year and I'm not going to hold it in this year. This is an official complaint.
Driving 38 miles per hour on the Overseas Highway is not acceptable. Now I know that when you snowbirds come back, and you tourists visit for the first time, the sights are splendid and deserve your attention and everything. BUT the minimum speed limit is 45 mph (70 km/h) and frequently the limit is 55mph (90 km/h) except for one ridiculous 35mph (60 km/h) stretch at the north end of Marathon. And I know that we live in the "islands" and therefore we should all be living on island time mon, but it doesn't work that way. This is America and we have to show up on time and do what needs to be done. As much as we resist, we are stuck with appointments and deadlines and stuff (unless we are Mad Jack, but he is a person apart, oh madone). Besides there are tons of places to pull over and admire the views all along the sides of the roadway so you don't have to slow to a crawl on the bridges to admire the water. Get out and walk, it will do you good. And my blood pressure too.
And tell the truth, you want people to give you real all-American service-with-a-smile when you get to your hotel. And what if you were feeling poorly and no one answered 9-1-1 because the relief operator was STUCK IN SLOW POKE TRAFFIC? Exactly, the mad motorcyclist you are holding up could very well be the person assigning you your room after a long tiring drive, or the convenience clerk selling you expensive gas at the end of the road. So please don't forget Florida law allows only written warnings if the speed limit is exceeded by five miles per hour or less so if you risk driving sixty on the Highway in a double nickel zone you will not get a nosebleed from the g-forces, I promise, and you will make me happy. And that has to be worth it, right? The truth is, one doesn't really save any time at all by going sixty as opposed to fifty, but it is mind numbingly boring. There, I said it. Sitting in a line of cars at 47 miles per hour sends me to sleep and not paying attention really is dangerous as we will see.
And tell the truth, you want people to give you real all-American service-with-a-smile when you get to your hotel. And what if you were feeling poorly and no one answered 9-1-1 because the relief operator was STUCK IN SLOW POKE TRAFFIC? Exactly, the mad motorcyclist you are holding up could very well be the person assigning you your room after a long tiring drive, or the convenience clerk selling you expensive gas at the end of the road. So please don't forget Florida law allows only written warnings if the speed limit is exceeded by five miles per hour or less so if you risk driving sixty on the Highway in a double nickel zone you will not get a nosebleed from the g-forces, I promise, and you will make me happy. And that has to be worth it, right? The truth is, one doesn't really save any time at all by going sixty as opposed to fifty, but it is mind numbingly boring. There, I said it. Sitting in a line of cars at 47 miles per hour sends me to sleep and not paying attention really is dangerous as we will see.-----------------------------
I was shaken up recently by an extremely nasty wreck on Atlantic Boulevard in Key West. A motorcyclist died in the classic car-crossing-street convergence that we all dread. I spoke to the traffic homicide investigator who showed up at the scene and he said the injuries were as bad as he had ever seen and they still give him nightmares a week later.
The car was coming towards the camera in broad daylight, the motorcycle was coming from over my shoulder and was passing Rest Beach to the right. The car wanted to turn into the beach parking lot where my Bonneville is parked. The car turned, not seeing the motorcycle, which braked hard, leaving a long black smear on the road, hit the side of the car and the rider's unhelmeted head went under the rear wheel.
I didn't know the rider, he was a bar tender downtown, but his sudden death left a lot of people shaken up because he was a very popular decent guy by all accounts. His wife was devastated, and whatever his relationship with her, she expected him home that day and he never did show. That was a death notification I was glad not to be involved with as the news went down hard, very hard I am told. In these kinds of situations it is easy to get caught up in figuring how you would be smarter and avoid the death trap. I don't know anything more about the circumstances other than what people have said and the newspaper has reported. The investigation continues and other than the horror of the scene the investigator has told me nothing. But I will say even if the motorcycle was speeding or pulling wheelies the car should have seen him coming. And it apparently did not.
One person told me he laid the motorcycle down to try to avoid the car and as Irondad will tell you that is the worst thing to do (I'm betting he never took any training either). If he did slide the bike that action slid his unhelmeted head under the wheel. Perhaps a helmet might not have saved his life, because if he was going fast the impact could have broken his neck anyway. Who knows? I like to think I ride and pay attention. I go as fast as I dare when I deem it safe, and its never safe in crowded urban areas. I treat cars as unpredictable, I generally wear a helmet boots and gloves. I hope for the best, I pay close attention, I look ahead. But above all I tell my wife I love her every time I leave home and I am glad to see here when I get back. All actions reinforced, powerully by this horrid wreck. Oh and I don't pull wheelies, because I've never learned how. The self preservation of the fearful.
The car was coming towards the camera in broad daylight, the motorcycle was coming from over my shoulder and was passing Rest Beach to the right. The car wanted to turn into the beach parking lot where my Bonneville is parked. The car turned, not seeing the motorcycle, which braked hard, leaving a long black smear on the road, hit the side of the car and the rider's unhelmeted head went under the rear wheel.I didn't know the rider, he was a bar tender downtown, but his sudden death left a lot of people shaken up because he was a very popular decent guy by all accounts. His wife was devastated, and whatever his relationship with her, she expected him home that day and he never did show. That was a death notification I was glad not to be involved with as the news went down hard, very hard I am told. In these kinds of situations it is easy to get caught up in figuring how you would be smarter and avoid the death trap. I don't know anything more about the circumstances other than what people have said and the newspaper has reported. The investigation continues and other than the horror of the scene the investigator has told me nothing. But I will say even if the motorcycle was speeding or pulling wheelies the car should have seen him coming. And it apparently did not.One person told me he laid the motorcycle down to try to avoid the car and as Irondad will tell you that is the worst thing to do (I'm betting he never took any training either). If he did slide the bike that action slid his unhelmeted head under the wheel. Perhaps a helmet might not have saved his life, because if he was going fast the impact could have broken his neck anyway. Who knows? I like to think I ride and pay attention. I go as fast as I dare when I deem it safe, and its never safe in crowded urban areas. I treat cars as unpredictable, I generally wear a helmet boots and gloves. I hope for the best, I pay close attention, I look ahead. But above all I tell my wife I love her every time I leave home and I am glad to see here when I get back. All actions reinforced, powerully by this horrid wreck. Oh and I don't pull wheelies, because I've never learned how. The self preservation of the fearful.------------------------------------
I saw a palm tree winking the sun at me in the breeze and I looked again and I realised that no matter how irritating these trees with their fronds and nut-missiles are they are still handsome things to see in mid winter especially:
And some people pay good money to have other sweaty people keep them in good order on their streets:
Coconut palms are not native to the Keys, they are imported to give the required "tropical paradise" look to the islands. They annoy some people with their profligate ways, spewing fronds and nuts year round. They used to annoy me but I am becoming mellow in old age. Oh dear.
And some people pay good money to have other sweaty people keep them in good order on their streets:Coconut palms are not native to the Keys, they are imported to give the required "tropical paradise" look to the islands. They annoy some people with their profligate ways, spewing fronds and nuts year round. They used to annoy me but I am becoming mellow in old age. Oh dear.----------------------------
I have found a new use for my vast quantities of palm fronds from my dozen or so mature coconut palms shading my house:
We had some friends over for dinner last weekend and tried out the fireplace I bought on a recent trip to Miami. Indeed this cast iron thing was the reason I drove the car to the Italian Consulate instead of riding up, so it had better work:
We had dinner upstairs, a collection of people I work with and their partners. Young Noel now forbidden forever by Amendment Two's voter approval from marrying Matt ("I don't want to get married like a boring straight!"); Belen who plans to marry Yeye in January; he wants seven kids, she wants six despite my warnings about poverty and stress and over population ("Yeah yeah; you aren't Cuban, you wouldn't understand, old man."). After dinner we went down to my wife's beach, or sand lot really, and started the fire.
Belen was mother and showed Diggy, our token Nicaraguan how to build a smoky cripsy melted marshmallow into a sandwich and we sat around and talked and poked the fire and watched the embers swirl up into the warm November night. Rachel, our token immigrant English speaker developed a taste for pyromania and was seen casting very dry, very flammable pieces of coconut matting into the flames and squeaking with fear and delight as they flamed up.
It was a good night, no one got drunk and threw up, we relieved some work related stress and I listened to the brown and the black and immigrant and native young Americans talk about Obama and their future. I think I may soon get Noel to finally register to vote; of course if he registers with the wrong party I'll have to kill him, but freedom comes with a price. It was good to be there and watch them all cement their one-ness with that perfect symbol of American-ness, a graham cracker, a melted marshmallow a square of Hershey's and a final slice of graham cracker to hold it all together. S'mores, the constitutional glue that binds us all together.
We had some friends over for dinner last weekend and tried out the fireplace I bought on a recent trip to Miami. Indeed this cast iron thing was the reason I drove the car to the Italian Consulate instead of riding up, so it had better work:We had dinner upstairs, a collection of people I work with and their partners. Young Noel now forbidden forever by Amendment Two's voter approval from marrying Matt ("I don't want to get married like a boring straight!"); Belen who plans to marry Yeye in January; he wants seven kids, she wants six despite my warnings about poverty and stress and over population ("Yeah yeah; you aren't Cuban, you wouldn't understand, old man."). After dinner we went down to my wife's beach, or sand lot really, and started the fire.Belen was mother and showed Diggy, our token Nicaraguan how to build a smoky cripsy melted marshmallow into a sandwich and we sat around and talked and poked the fire and watched the embers swirl up into the warm November night. Rachel, our token immigrant English speaker developed a taste for pyromania and was seen casting very dry, very flammable pieces of coconut matting into the flames and squeaking with fear and delight as they flamed up.It was a good night, no one got drunk and threw up, we relieved some work related stress and I listened to the brown and the black and immigrant and native young Americans talk about Obama and their future. I think I may soon get Noel to finally register to vote; of course if he registers with the wrong party I'll have to kill him, but freedom comes with a price. It was good to be there and watch them all cement their one-ness with that perfect symbol of American-ness, a graham cracker, a melted marshmallow a square of Hershey's and a final slice of graham cracker to hold it all together. S'mores, the constitutional glue that binds us all together.---------------------------------------
Gratuitous Vespa photo:
My wife's 150cc Vespa ET4, lurking behind Overseas Market one afternoon when I stole it for a ride. I miss my Vespa.
My wife's 150cc Vespa ET4, lurking behind Overseas Market one afternoon when I stole it for a ride. I miss my Vespa.
There is a funky area next to key West High School and it's name is Duncombe Street. Which sounds like it should be Done-comb Street, as in "I'm done putting a comb through my hair." Because this is Key West, that is not the case. Duncombe was, according to J Wills Burke a prominent man in Key West a century ago, but left no clue as far as I know how to pronounce his name.
So the little street off Flagler next to the High School is pronounced Dun-comm-bee with the usual Key West flair for getting the job done. Any time I have to dispatch an officer to Dun-comb (juvenile mischief? It is next to the High School!) I set my teeth on edge when I say Dun-comm-bee instead. But I do because no one knows it by any other pronunciation. In any case this street is easily missed even though it is next to the landmark thrift store on Flagler Avenue:
Duncombe is a utilitarian street and serves to connect the main avenue to the high school, but it certainly isn't all pretty:
There are a handful of dwellings along the west side of the street before it ends at the new High School campus after a block. The right turn at that point becomes the strangely named Venetia Street. The campus is no longer so new but it did replace in spectacular fashion, like a phoenix, the old run down collection of buildings that used to be the high school:
The auditorium is where I get to go each winter to enjoy productions the school puts on, and the excuse is to see offspring of friends but the truth is I enjoy the energy of the campus. Unlike so many high schools in cities across the US, the Key West campus is open and unfenced which I take to be a measure of the civility of the city. Perhaps too I enjoy the evident irony of the school's mascot, standing proud, and oversized in the parking lot:
"Key West High School, Home of the Fighting Conchs." I have spent many happy hours observing the antics of pacifist conch as they trundle across the sea floor in the shallow waters of Bahama islands, and the mollusc's rate of progress through the sand, under the gin clear waters is remarkable, considering how laborious is their means of locomotion. They get where they are going but the have all the speed and the agility of stoned tortoises, which makes a "fighting" conch a contradictory image in my over active mind. Nevertheless this is the island of conchs so the mascot has to be just that.
Oh and the campus is, for safety reasons, located right under the main flight path to the airport across the salt ponds (east winds prevail around here so aircraft land into them by flying across the city). Luckily they are mostly propeller aircraft feathering their way to earth so they tend to sound like ducks farting loudly overhead which is quieter than the occasional jet but noise, in my opinion is noise and I'd rather live with less of it. Perhaps the residents of Duncombe might agree, but there aren't too many of them. A block of flats:
And a couple of well loved and pretty little cottages:
And as the sun sets across Key West illuminating the happy hordes no doubt at Mallory Square a couple of miles away, this little corner of New Town is seeing the sun out of sight but doing what residential neighborhoods do every where in the side streets off mighty Flagler Avenue:
Same old, same old away from the tourist and drinking centers; dinner, bed, and up and at 'em in the morning. And I have to get the wife's Vespa back to her workplace before she notices it was gone.
The street, if that is what it is, isn't labelled or marked in any obvious way, and it may not even appear to be a public street at all, at first glance. This might be nothing more than an entrance to the surprisingly spacious Banana Bay Resort:
Even if the casual visitor finds the public right of way through the resort parking lots, Hilton Haven itself remains more of a suggestion than a city street proper:
I am a sucker for old coral rock walls, even if they are held together with modern cement and surmounted by modern hurricane fencing rusting gently in the moist seaside air. Old Key West is delightfully evident here:
Juxtaposed with modern Key West right next door:
Key West in general is too small for total neighborhood segregation and buying or remodelling an expensive home is a crap shoot when it comes to enjoying your neighbors. In most American cities you can define your ideal zone by taking a quick drive and finding where you are comfortable. Key West pushes those assumptions back at you, as it does so much else in modern life. Just because you want an all-mod-con stuccoed palace doesn't mean your neighbor is ready to sell up the tumbledown next door prior to a move to Micanopy or Ocala...Hilton Haven has one other enormous feature that sets it apart from most other residential streets within the city:
If you want a dock in your backyard for the most part you have to look at land outside the city, but not in Hilton Haven. This is the mixed up street of tear downs and McMansions, the sidewalkless urban agglomeration that is surrounded on each side by tidal saltwater. To the south Garrison Bight:
With the ever busy Boulevard in the distance:
And to the north we have the open waters leading to the Gulf of Mexico, by way of the Navy Base at Sigsbee, beyond the obtrusive power poles:
And to the west Hilton Haven dead ends into the gut that opens Garrison Bight to the north and across that narrow channel we see the US Coastguard Housing on Fleming Key:
Hilton Haven has a few houseboats tied up and I saw what appeared to be the odd liveaboard dinghy squished up in the mangroves waiting for their owners return from a day in the salt mines.
For some, waterfront living in Key West is a tad bit more palatial:
Though the ultimate symbol of suburban bliss, the lawnmower, here takes second place to the symbol of the joys of open waters, the jet ski:
I'm pretty sure I spotted one of the city's senior "deciders" (to coin a phrase) buzzing the winding street on his moped, while one of his neighbors,seen here from behind, taking a slow pedal made time for a cheerful grin and greeting for the intruder with a camera in the right-of-way:
There are lots of small curiosities to catch the eye of the camera, the length of Hilton Haven, far more indeed than could fit in one twenty picture essay on the street.
But I couldn't leave this corner of rural/urban Key West without a tip of the hat to the long history of slightly irritable sign posting this narrow, confined city produces to this day from, apparently times long past:
The sentiment, replicated today in garish plastic has apparently been around for quite some time. I walked the street and risked no tow, and that is what I would recommend to find yet another last corner of mostly old Key West.
My heart sank as we approached Fairchild Tropical Botanic Gardens Sunday morning. Traffic was intense, cars were parked at all wild angles occupying every inch of the verges of the approach road to the event, and Coral Gables cops were making some extra money working the detail to try and keep order for the annual Ramble Garden Festival. I am not much of a one for crowds, but my wife and I had been forced to scratch a long desired trip to the Dry Tortugas, thanks to strong north winds sweeping the Keys. "I don't get seasick," my wife remarked to friends who had planned to go with us. "But I don't like sharing a three hour, rough water boat ride with a few dozen strangers do suffer from it." So we cast around for an alternative and remembered The Ramble which takes place on the grounds of the magnificent Fairchild Gardens in Coral Gables:
The grounds of the Fairchild Tropical gardens lend themselves to this kind of thing as they are filled with all sorts of nooks and crannies overflowing with greenery and in each one lurked a specialised person with knowledge to give away, a plant to sell or a conversation to offer for the asking:
My wife is a member of the Fairchild Garden so we for in for free which is pretty cool as this is a special event and with a quick flash of her annual pass we were at liberty to wander at our leisure. At the entrance to the event itself someone had parked an early 20th century water organ, a hurdy gurdy mounted on vintage Renault truck and it was the source of the marching band we could hear from the parking lot:
There were food stands lining the approaches to the plant areas and we wandered in some bemusement.
Farmers markets were in their infancy when we left California and they have burgeoned everywhere- everywhere except Key West of course! Thus every time we see one we stop and take a look when we find them on the road. The Fairchild Gardens put on a magnificent spread for our edification, we small town hicks: 
Some stuff was more familiar to Key West resident:
And I have all the coconuts I need, thanks:
And even though I like a guacamole dip as much as the next habitue of Mexican cuisine, I was a bit taken aback to see a woman up to her elbows in the stuff, mashing industriously all afternoon:
There was also a food court offering everything from hot dogs to crepes by way of jerk and Asian cooking. 
We went for the one that doesn't ever rear its head in the Keys, as far as I know:
There used to be an Ethiopian restaurant in Tampa when I lived there for a very brief while, and mostly what I recall eating was gloppy sauces well spiced with no cutlery and a spongy sour tortilla type of bread for a spoon. We were offered plastic forks, even though I carry my own metal cutlery as I dislike plastic eating irons, but the food was as I remembered it more or less:
The weather was mildly sunny,mostly hazy and overcast with thin cloud cover and we found it quite pleasant to wander in the 80 degree temperatures (27C). For some it was bright enough to warrant shade:
I bought some garden tools which appeared to offer the benefit of folding up small when not in use and also of being built of materials likely to last a long while, a multi function steel rake and coconut frond pruner with a ten foot reach operated by a solid rod which should be easier to use than my spring operated contraption. I also got a rather powerful set of pruning shears that operate by ratchet action and are remarkably easy to use. All for $120, so we didn't get away scot free. My wife found the most elaborate hair pin for $20:
It's quite a hobby it turns out, turning wood on a lathe: 
They had a large tent filled with decorative bowls and the like with prices ranging from several hundred to over a thousand bucks. 
We quite liked one lightweight fruit bowl thing which carried a tag of $650 which seemed like it would have been nice in another more munificent era when our house was, say, actually worth money....This I could afford though, or at least a piece of it:
At $3 a pound Jak fruit was a bargain. I thought though, my wife gave me an old fashioned look when I asked for six bucks to take home a piece:
The seeds are encased in a lychee-like pod which is all held together by the toughest fibers you're likely to encounter inside something edible. After dinner I tore apart the fiber and we scarfed the lychee things inside. I really enjoyed it. She tried to.
"Oooh!" One of my wife's friends said over the cell phone as I drove the convertible home."If you'd have said you were going to Fairchild I'd have come too!" Everyone should feel the same way.