Sugarloaf Bat Tower

This essay originally posted in May 2009 and appears here today courtesy of AT&T's inability to restart Internet service on Ramrod Key, which has been down for a week. I hope normal service will resume shortly. I apologize of course, abjectly for the major corporation's shortcomings.So here's the thing: it's 1929 and you are an unfortunately named land speculator who wants to make a killing in those booms years. You've found a delightfully uninhabited island in the Florida Keys, connected by rail and a rickety roadway to Key West some 13 miles to the south, and you want to develop the hell out of it. There's one problem; it's a mosquito infested swamp.Because you're smart and an innovator you know exactly what the solution is to this pesky problem: bats! That's right, Richter Clyde Perky figured that if he built a bat tower in the middle of Sugarloaf Key the flying mammals would eat up the mosquitoes freeing his land for development and profit.A dude in Texas was selling plans for what he called a Hygiostatic Bat Roost, and Perky built the thing fully expecting bats to love his new home for them. Well, I never figured bats for ungrateful beasts but history says they never took to Dr Campbell's Bat Roost, and no sooner did Perky pop them in their slots than they flew away never to return: It is my habit to bring guests to this tower, which is a somewhat well known landmark among local people who pay attention to this sort of thing. It is one of three surviving Campbell Bat Roosts, and the other two are found in Texas so this pile of wood is actually quite rare. Originally there were fourteen around the world but the others have faded away. So here we have our splendid oddity,gently crumbling in the heat and wet of Florida's climate.I have used the bat tower as a back drop in several of my photos but I decided that perhaps it was time to devote a few pictures to it before the thing crumbles away completely:The tower is of course irresistible to graffiti artists who stop by, as this area is a hang out for youngsters, but of restorers or supporters of this historical structure there are no signs: While I was taking my pictures a walking jogger arrived and made a circuit. We talked momentarily about the tower and it's chances of survival, especially with hurricane season upon us once again. I was glad to be taking the time to snap the pictures. He hobbled off, a martyr to his back problems he said, as I bent back to get some angled pictures of the tower:If you look at a map the bat tower is located in a place some geographers call Perky as though there were a town here, which there isn't. Old man Perky had hoped to be immortalised with a town named after him, but all there are is mosquitoes, a bat tower, a few homes near the airstrip and a bunch of trash:And to top off this slightly bizarre story there is the even more bizarre fact that there are no signs to this monument to optimism and unbridled development. Come to think of it I suppose we should be grateful to the mosquitoes for thwarting Perky's plans for sprawling suburbs around here. Yet you'd think there would be one measly little sign on the Highway marking this well known tower. Not a bit of it.No one in authority seems to care much about the Bat Tower, so if you want to find this sylvan spot turn off Highway One beyond the Sugarloaf Lodge as you drive towards Key West. Turn north at the first roadway past the lodge, at the sign to the airport, which is an airstrip nearby. The Bat Tower is unmarked, unloved and unheralded, noted less even than a 2700 foot landing strip of no great account. Typical of the Florida Keys.

Blackout!

AT&T told me Tuesday the system would be back up Wednesday at noon.

AT&T told me Wednesday the system would be back up at 1:20pm Thursday.

AT&T told me yesterday (Thursday) the Internet would be back up on Friday at 9:07am.
Until the Internet does come back I have photos in my files (which I cannot upload at work where I am writing and posting this) and my blog will be stuck in replay mode. My apologies.

This experience has also taught me how much I enjoy being connected with the outside world. Life in the Keys would be much harder for me if I couldn't peruse all those websites that lessen the physical isolation. I was never cut out to be alone and out of touch on a desert island.

Anyway I am planning to be out of town car buying this weekend so normal service will be resumed early next week and to that end I am keeping my fingers crossed and lining up replays to cover the gap.

Secret Garden

At&T has been giving me fits this week with Internet broadband connections failing all the time. Apparently there has been a multi state failure, perhaps a foretaste of what is to come as our Post Peak Oil civilization collapses...or just another corporate screw up. In any event my connection to the outside world is tenuous from my home so I am re-posting this essay. In an attempt to make it seem more current I should note the Citizen is reporting the city may be buying Nancy's Secret Garden as the founder is finding it harder and harder to keep it operating. That's the good news, my inability to get online is driving me crazy but hey, it's just part of the pattern of my life at the moment. At least my wife and my dog still love me. And my camera works so pictures will follow when AT&T lets me back online...

I first published this essay in March, by request, and I have decided to post it again in light of widespread notice that the Secret Garden my be forced to close soon. Apparently the owner, who has kept it going largely with her own money and all her time, wants to hand over responsibility to a not-for-profit, (The Mana Project) to keep the place open, as she goes into well deserved retirement, but there is a little matter of a $160,000 shortfall and the appeal has gone out for donations. Google "Nancy Forrester's Secret Garden" and for more information, though I have to confess it's not laid out very clearly on their website, in my opinion. They need to raise the money before October or the garden may close. Alternatively just enjoy these pictures a second time around!Key West is not a town one can keep a secret in very easily, and by now I would venture a guess that just about everyone and her brother knows there's a profusion of greenery open to public inspection in the very heart of the city.Free School Lane is not such a weird a name for an alley in a city that boasts innumerable little paths and tracks all over town, Nassau, Love, Gruntbone, Poorhouse, to name but a few. I've thought about photographing them for an essay but it's overwhelming thinking about how many little lanes there are all over the city. A reader of this blog wanted to know what is happening with Nancy Forrester's Secret Garden, and after my brief inspection yesterday I can report, not a lot.Things are growing, the collection of parrots is extremely loud in their cages, the sunlight is still quite dappled on the huge tree trunks and the enormous dinner plates of green leaves. Free School Lane lies off Simonton Street, the artery that parallels infamous Duval Street. There are fewer shops on Simonton, and there is more shade. Fewer traffic lights than Duval and much less traffic making it easier to get from Simonton beach to the north to United street to the south if one needs to get across old town in a hurry. Free School Lane is marked on the cement street light post, halfway between Southard and Fleming Streets, which are in turn the major old town arteries leading onto and off Duval Street. And there is ample parking...designated for motorcycles and scooters, inclusing Bonnevilles. The Secret Garden is a desireable commodity just at the moment, a refreshment tucked away and available for those that want to stay within walking distance of the bars of Duval, Key West's other refreshment.What strikes me about places like this is, aside from the care lavished on the plants that I, a failed botanist with a memory like a sieve, could not hope to name, is how much I value these small corners of extravagant exuberance. Living in the Keys I take no space for granted, I cannot allow myself to overlook any object of interest.Not only is there too little land to do that, everything in a market as overpriced as this, is by its very nature transient. A guesthouse next door to the garden, a modest white wood home was for sale in the paper for one point three million dollars on my visit to the garden in March of this year, when I originally published this essay.Nancy Forrester is growing older like the rest of us; how long will it last, this privilege of walking these downtown paths surrounded by greenery and nothing else? Each visit is, in addition to refreshment, a small statement of defiance against the forces of change, of "improvement," of destruction in the name of maximum return on investment.

$10, charged on the rather old fashioned "honor system" seems a small price to pay to wander in peace for a while. Two loud beers not three blocks away. Your choice, for now.

The Sailing Life

I remember one night somebody called the police in Key West and I answered the phone, as was my fate that night. It must have been past midnight Up North just as it was down here but whoever it was Up There had drink taken ( as the Irish say) and they had decided tonight was as good a time as any to find out where their long lost missing friend/relative/sibling might be. "He's staying in a hotel" they said.
"Good," I replied, waiting for more.
"It's by the water..." they said as though that should settle exactly which hotel it was.
It's rather the same way with marinas, there are lots in Key West and they are all on the water. Conch harbor just happens to be one of the more upscale ones. When I say "upscale" I mean eye-watering expensive.

And like all ivory towers Conch Harbor has rules, lots of them.

It so happened I was an invited guest and as such I was carrying, as usual, my pocket camera, which meant I might as well take some pictures of this delightful place. I was a guest of Neil's crew Tim and Tiina and the four of us went out to lunch. Neil started out the meal by studying the choices in barbecue sauce at Turtle Kraals.

I had the shrimp po'boy, Tim went for brisket and the austere Tiina, dieting, enjoyed a fresh air sandwich. Neil was an engineer before he retired to the Santa Cruz mountains in California,where he developed a company that developed solar power projects. Nowadays he sails around on a 58-foot sailboat, picking up crew as he goes.Tiina, joined Neil in Cancun for the 360 mile passage to Key West, where Tim came to join his girlfriend for the 600 mile passage to Georgetown, South Carolina. I think a 58 footer is too small a space to share with a couple of lovebirds but Neil's mind was on his wife who was getting her retina re-attached in the nation's capital after a diving accident.Conch Harbor is on Caroline at Grinnell, a corner of lush landscaping and home to Prime 951 a steak house well liked by visitors to Key West.I came here once for a fund raiser but it's not really my kind of place, perhaps it is too plush or perhaps it is simply aimed at guests who seek amenity that is not of interest to me. Its a nice enough spot, no doubt.Swimming is okay though even if other forms of locomotion are severely restricted.This is the sort of place Hemingway would have found happiness I expect, much as he cultivated the working class stiff image, the adventurer portrayed in his books.This was the sailing boat (in it's $200-a-night berth) that came from Santa Cruz to Key West with Neil and his wife on board.All too often people forget to show the inside of the boat which frequently remains a mystery to people not used to going sailing. I thought a tour might be in order.Tribute draws eight and a half feet and spent low tide aground which is not something that would happen to sport fishing boats, the normal residents of this place. Looking down the hatch we see the chart table and nowadays that involved a computer as electronic navigation is the primary way to get around. I reluctantly embraced a lap top as a navigation tool and loved it immediately.My chart table on my 32 footer was of similar proportions but my catamaran had two hulls to Tribute's one. This is the main sitting area frequently called the saloon. The settee on this boat has nice square corners and vertical backrests which make for comfortable sitting though compound curves are more fashionable among people who don't sail very much but like interior design. The galley where the cooking gets done. Lots of counter space and a tight U shape to keep you in place when the boat is leaning and bouncing.The owner's bedroom at the back of the boat. Notice the black round fans above the bed to keep the occupants from suffocating in the tropics. This boat has central air and heat so the owner has lots of repairs and bills to think about. Everything you bring on a boat will break sooner or later. Sailors talk about B.O.A.T. units: Break Out Another Thousand. Traveling by sailboat is a matter of learning to fix your boat in exotic places at vast expense. Thats why Neil has a work bench, with a broken electric motor on it... The guest cabin forward to the left, which doubles as the library.The front of the boat, the pointy place is where there is the most motion and Tribute stores sails and ropes and stuff up there. Very sensible. Lots of boats put beds here which makes them impossible to use when the boat is moving.

The chart table showing the traditional paper chart of the Keys which will continue to reveal the boat's position after the computer breaks. (Remember: everything you bring on the boat breaks sooner or later). Tim is looking forward to taking off on his own boat when his 13 year old daughter flies the coop.Tiina plans to be there, perhaps not in a red, shore going dress. Me? I'm glad I did the sailing thing in my youth and I expect I will, most likely, do it again at some time in the future. For now I enjoy being ashore. Tim and Tiina were enjoying each other last time I saw them.

Tim called yesterday from Georgetown, South Carolina saying they had a great 72-hour trip, arrived ahead of the rain and Tiina wants more sailing in her life. All's well that ends well.