Stark Poverty

Try this on for size: fifty million Americans in the last year have struggled to get enough food. Half the children in the United States during the course of the next year are expected to need food stamps to eat. Last year Goldman Sachs paid corporate taxes at the rate of one percent and this year is on track to show a record profit, and of that, nearly 17 billion dollars has been set aside to pay bonuses.

Do I sound like an old line Marxist if I suggest this gross inequality is unacceptable? I can assure you I am not a Marxist, but I am convinced no possible good can come of this state of affairs. Our President is doing nothing to rein in the banksters, we have spent tens of trillions of dollars, more than double the amount needed to pay off every primary home mortgage in this country, and we have a growing population of desperate, permanently unemployed workers. The number of unemployed is bound to increase.

In the third quarter of this year home foreclosures hit almost one million. More and more of us average joes are losing our homes, our jobs and with them our health insurance. meanwhile our Senators are debating how to screw us out of affordable decent health care coverage. The sort of coverage they enjoy as a matter of course. How is this possible?

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Well, I suppose it's possible because too many of us still hope that everything will work out, that the American Dream will get back on track, that things will start improving soon. There are ten state sin the US that are considered to be on the verge of bankruptcy and it gives me no joy to note that Florida is one of them. This is a state that has no personal income tax and relies on sales taxes and property taxes, both of which are in precipitous decline. It is no wonder then, that the Sunshine State is on the verge of imploding. This is a state with a part-time legislature (!) that meets for a few months at the beginning of the year. In the legislature's absence the Governor and his elected cabinet run the state. From them we have had no peep that there is trouble on the horizon. Come on down! The winter sunshine is lovely!

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So what are we to do? Well, gun stores are reporting massive sales and ammunition is flying off the shelves. I don't count that as an encouraging sign of the things to come. I keep thinking about that TV show called Dark Angel, in which the creators depicted a United States laid low and devastated by a mysterious electronic pulse. People lived shambolic Third World lives scraping a living under the watchful eye of jackbooted security police and robot guards. The lucky ones fled to Canada...

Happy Thanksgiving, is the phrase of the day and I suppose it means something for those of us with jobs, homes and health insurance. Everyone else? Good luck.

Watson Lane

This is another of those lanes that lead north off Truman Avenue toward the cemetery, and it's not really a lane because Watson cuts right across the middle of Key West for several blocks. However this small chunk between Truman and the cemetery fits my description of a lane...

The lane is peppered with signs of Awful Warnings thanks in part to the presence of the gruesome strip club nearby. They use the red cage sometimes to stick a scantily clad woman inside to prance around as a form of advertising.

No parking for lechers around here apparently. Aside from all the parking issues Watson Lane has some quite evocative little homes in this stretch. They reminded me of mountain cabins I have seen in Northern California or the Pacific Northwest:

With some fairly large multi unit dwellings in the key West style:

It was while I was standing in the middle of the lane pondering my next picture a woman walked up to me and, were this the fantasy of a humor writer she would have lifted her shirt and ordered me to take a peak. Instead this was real life and she asked if she could help me.

"Do what?" I replied, puzzled. Then she nodded her head and asked if I had come from the property.

"No," I said, "I'm not overly fond of Teasers." No, she clarified, asking me if I had come from the house. Which I found to be a weird question as I was obviously standing in the street holding a camera, albeit a small one. I had no burglar bag or any place to hide the loot.

"I'm taking pictures," I said as though the camera wasn't self explanatory. "I like to take pictures of my home town recording it as it changes." Humph she grunted, "I haven't seen you around." Probably I wanted to say, because I don't attend many of the tea parties you do, it's not that I don't exist! But she wandered off and I got back to the business at hand, which I may add was not burglary. Not in the middle of the day, with a camera in my hand in a photogenic town littered with tourists taking pictures. One has to respect people's right to be paranoid I suppose.

And here we have a fine example of that rare species the Honda Ruckus 250 scooter. They achieved cult status in the brief period they were imported. Personally I've never seen the attraction of the Big Ruckus or the 50cc version, lacking as they do, even the most rudimentary storage or weather protection.

I found the "lane" to be quite delightful, all trees and wood and shafts of sunlight.
This was some sort of outdoor garage or carport tucked in under the trees.

This was the source of the mid street controversy, a picture taken from well outside the boundaries of the house.And here across the street another cabin covered by greenery:

I thought the arrow pointed in the right direction for all of us, in the end:

And just to cheer you up here's a nice tree:

I enjoyed Watson.

Georgia in the Meadows

I like the meadows neighborhood, as I have mentioned previously, though Georgia Street is a little different, for some reason most of Georgia is a very wide street cutting across the neighborhood to Truman Avenue.

They call it The Meadows because apparently it was a field after World war Two when a developer decided to turn it into housing. Perhaps it was a style choice, or perhaps it was all they knew in Key West but the bulk of the housing here imitates the preferred type of construction characteristic of Old Town. here the strictures of the Historic Architectural Review Commission don't necessarily apply. Just as well:

It's a mish mash sort of area, a vast collection of garbage cans,

And Halloween still celebrated by a ghoul hanging off the balcony.

Old style louvered windows and a concrete block house:

It was a bright sunny afternoon which brought out the colors, especially through the autumnal absence of leaves.

I find myself surprised to see busy construction work going on. This used to be a common sight around town, but these days it's much more rare to see cement being poured:

This is one of the proper wooden Key West homes, with Bahama shutter sand picket fence:

This is at the corner of Petronia Street where Georgia becomes uncharacteristically wide:

And around the corner I saw a sight I expect to see a lot more of, in the future. Actually I'm surprised more city residents don't drive electric cars, these egg cars and the more conventional-looking Zenn ("zero emission, zero noise") cars are still fairly rare on the streets:

And here I've included a few random street views:

I was out on my wife's Vespa ET4 to give it an airing.

Which, when I think about it, this is an unexceptional street in the middle of an exceptionally pretty neighborhood.

Wandering BPK

The only goal I had when I set off from the house was to drop a Netflix disc off at the Big Pine Key Post Office and get some exercise along the way, so I rode my bicycle.

I like to ride against the traffic on the highway which gives me a chance to see who might be losing control of their vehicle and about to run me down. Which put me in the path of a broken down Mitsubishi Montero on the shoulder. I got the chance to discover just how complex changing a tire on one of these SUVs can be, but luckily she was an organized woman and she had the manual. Which didn't stop me putting the tire on inside out (erg!) and squirting myself with hydraulic fluid when I released the valve on the jack. Which made it impossible to raise the car a second time and put the spare on a second time, right-side-in. Well, at least she got to drive home to Marathon to get her wheel done right by a pro. I can change the tire on the Maxima in ten minutes flat but that Mitsubishi was some kind of Chinese puzzle. I'll do better next time.I decided to ignore my crotch full of hydraulic fluid and pressed on with the program. I dropped off the disc and took a circuit through the neighborhood behind the post office. I wasn't planning on taking any pictures, but then I passed a couple of abandoned mattresses and I thought: look at this lovely little street... and some ass couldn't be bothered to pay five bucks to drop these off at the dump on Blimp Road? Grrr.
This gravel pit got red tagged. It looked weird. The permit was on the telephone pole and underneath it, a month ago, it got red tagged saying it didn't look right to the inspector. Wow, I thought, nice neighbors! Such a peaceful backwater, so much drama!
So I took another picture. Then I remembered a rather pretty little bench sitting under a tree further back on Sandy Circle. I turned around; my wanderings had a purpose. I passed a man walking his beer can, and we exchanged a cheery remark about the pleasant temperatures. I looked over my shoulder and he, and his beer can, stepped into the bushes and vanished, like Alice in Wonderland's White Rabbit. I photographed what I think is a giant magnolia, instead.
Guarded by an elderly, weather worn, pale pink flamingo.

It was my day off so clouds were piled up, making for hazy light and what looked like the distinct chance of rain though none materialized. And, at last the bench.
Further up I found this odd looking house, long past it's sell-by date judging by the dilapidated state of the jungle garden and the real estate sign lying on the ground.
The suburban idyll (picture riepe setting fire to Big Pine Key with a cigar)is not quite so idyllic as the state road prison is just across the street, and no doubt this minimum security prison is enough to worry home buyers. Aside from a very loud, buzzy generator I would imagine the prison to be an ideal neighbor, like a cemetery, only the inmates are still alive:The sign said nothing about pictures, only that introducing contraband is against some obscure state law. So obscure they felt the need to enumerate it on the sign. Prison, for the haute bourgeoisie like us, is a fearsome place, the repository of tales of bugger and shanks and murder in the showers, but the inmates from this place are serving less literary time and can off be seen by the side of the road paying back their debt to society riding lawn mowers and gently propping up shovels as they dram of a return to a life of Budweiser and fishing.
There but for the grace of God goes any one of us, I suppose, though properly bourgeois readers will tut-tut and imagine they are, like the memorable lady once arrested for disorderly conduct at the Bull, who shouted "We're too middle class to be arrested!" The officer was having none of it and off she went to the Stock Island Hilton.
The state of Florida doesn't seem to be spending much money maintaining this place. It looks ratty and run down, and rather depressing, despite the best efforts:
Across the street a homeowner boxed in by a stout wooden fence left no doubt as to whys/he lives in the deep mysterious woods of Big Pine Key. In case there were any doubt a sign, backed up by a dog house large enough for a mastiff on the proportions of the Hound of the Baskervilles:
The sign demanding a banning of the bomb reminds us of the cultural diversity of Big Pine Key. Personally I think the mizzen on the ketch is a little over sized, but I could be accused of just being picky.
Then I found a dirt road heading off through the wilderness so naturally, like Yogi Berra I took the fork in the road and it led me to a piece of string, more signage and a cat, though unlike the Cheshire cat that disappeared intro it's own grin, this one sat impassively in the grass looking at me making a fool of myself with my photographic apparatus:
It may very well be private property, but it wasn't that interesting anyway, I convinced myself as i pedaled back through the public property to the paved road.

When you least expect it, you come across a reminder of Canada, land of drizzle, piney islands and people who collect Corvettes. Where Corvettes cannot go, I breezed through on my bicycle, past the cement barricades into a fresh new neighborhood. This house struck me as the residence of an optimist, if s/he builds it just high enough the view across the mangroves will be exhilarating, even if to see it you have to life flat on your stomach under the eaves in the attic:
And the final picture in the series I took from a bridge on the highway headed home, the sun still annoyingly shrouded by clouds, the waters in Newfound Harbor flat, the hovel craft planted firmly in the quicksilver and all color washed out by leaden sky. It still looked good to me.

It did occur to me that were I one of those "one photo a day" merchants, this essay about nothing much at all could have taken me through the next three weeks.