A Short Walk Off A Bridge

Yesterday morning was cloudy and muggy and somewhat unpleasant. Granted it was a change from the recent spell of cold breezy sunlit days, but change isn't always for the better. It was clear to me a cold front was on the way, and so it proved to be.

Cheyenne's early afternoon walk, after I got up, was on the bridge connecting Sugarloaf to Cudjoe as I was on my way to pick up our organic vegetables delivered every other Tuesday by Annie's. Cheyenne as usual went nuts chasing fish smells left behind by eager anglers. I read a magazine and admired the views across steel gray, still waters.

For some reason unknown to me there was a ton of traffic going both directions on Highway One and I wondered if perhaps I had forgotten some event or spectacle going on in town. Other than the James Bond movie at the grossly mismanaged Regal Cinema and the homeless exhibit at the Studios there was nothing going on that I knew or cared much about. Yet people were traveling.

There was no one fishing on the bridge at the start of our walk but half an hour later I could see a couple casting about on the Cudjoe end of the bridge, she cheerful and enthusiastic, he silent and apparently morose, perhaps put off by my pink Crocs. So my happy dog, full of sun baked bait fish ambled by leashed momentarily to prevent her stealing their delicious rank calamari bait. I walked with my eyes averted as I dislike the anglers' habit of leaving their prey to suffocate, flopping hopelessly to death in an empty plastic bucket as impersonal and thoughtless a death as any I could imagine. It takes so little to dispatch a fish quickly and humanely, yet so few fish killers take the time to be merciful.

The only other living creature I saw was a pelican sitting and waiting for all I know for Godot, or perhaps wondering why his ship hadn't come in. Cheyenne adhers to her own rigid policy of ignoring wildlife and in this case she stuck to her pursuit of long dead fish and discarded fish scraps on the pavement. The pelican, eschewing conversation with us, the only other living beings on the bridge took off, in that way birds have, of making you wish you had wings and could change your mode of locomotion so easily and swiftly.

I am one who likes sunshine, and I could live with sunshine every single day and not complain. I like my world to be illuminated in primary colors, shiny green palms, big white puffy clouds, a cerulean sky suits me just fine. All the nonsense people, talk about seasons and brown leaves and trees that look like dead twigs, Nature's winter renewal etc... leaves me cold. Of course I too have to suffer the occasional gray day in the Keys with some weather drama of wind and clouds and rain, which is a refreshment that only goes to prove that daily sunshine is best. Faced with a glowering day like ester day the only thing I could think was that at least it was warmth enough to be in shirtsleeves.

Yet I think I am not alone in preferring sun to heavy cloud cover, at least in these seaside communities where people come to swim and play and be outdoors. I checked the artificial little beach at the Sugarloaf KOA campground and there was not a soul to be seen. Not even a pelican in residence on the beach.

We made off the end of the bridge Cheyenne and I onto Sugaloaf across the Highway from Mangrove Mama's restaurant. Cheyenne checked the gumbo limbo trees and sniffed the grass, a spot where thick grass ears to grow naturally, an unlikely occurrence on limestone rocks like these and I hoped for a pause where I could read and watch the world go by. She was having none of it. She turned, as resolutely as only Cheyenne knows how and started stumping back toward distant Cudjoe Key. By the time we had made it past the middle aged angling couple, Northerners, no doubt judging by their refusal to acknowledge a fellow human met in passing my Labrador was ready to blend her yellow coat into the limestone rock of the heavily trafficked parking area.

I let her lounge for a while until I got completely bored, the newspaper read and my desire to return home overcame my reluctance to twist Cheyenne's arm, as it were. We stopped to pick up the vegetables delivered from the mainland to Cudjoe Key for us and a few of our neighbors, then it was on to home and an afternoon of movies ad exercise and some plant watering in an effort to encourage rain.

As darkness descended last night the rain came on as expected. I stood on the porch and listened to the raindrops bouncing off the palm fronds and a smell of rotting tropical vegetation filled the air as the rain moistened up the ground. The trees shook as the breeze rustled the wetted leaves and I stood and wondered what it would feel like to be standing on a porch watching snow fallen fall, as he season requires. Nothing good came of those thoughts so I hitched my shorts and went indoors to listen to the air conditioner rumble as it sucked the warm damp air out of the house. A good night to read a book on the couch and pretend it was snowing. Pretence is as close as I want to get.

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Riding The Ferry

It happened that I was looking at the map planning a day trip north of St Augustine and I wanted to avoid the freeway for the journey north, so I eyeballed the state highway that skips along the beach throughout Florida's east coast. It's called A1A and it is not generally a fast drive as it meanders along barrier islands connecting coastal subdivisions and clusters of condos that typically fester along Florida's mainland waterfronts. Then I saw a little dotted line connecting the highway arose the St Johns's river. Aha! A ferry...that's always interesting. The route was thus enshrined in my Thanksgiving Day excursion.

The St Johns's river ferry in Mayport faces extinction if the city subsidy of $200,000 matched by a similar amount from the state were to expire the private corporation running the service says it will close which would not be good for the residents as there is no other way across the river if they don't pay the six dollar vehicle fee to ride the boat. It's a nice boat too, leaving the southern shore at the top and bottom of the hour for the five minute ride, the loading up on the northern shore and returning across the river at fifteen and forty five. Every hour every day from early morning to early evening the ferry runs with room for a couple of dozen cars or more. My wife wanted to take the coast road back even though it was after dark, and she was right because it was very lovely as we waited for the ferry to come back to the north shore of the St John's river.

We were the front car in the line to board and as there was nothing much to see and it was cold out, below sixty degrees with a breeze, we sat in the car on the front of the ferry...

...and these two dudes strolled up the rail and started chatting. At first I thought they were deckhands but as I listened, and they weren't whispering so I couldn't help but listen, I understood they were passengers.

"I counted thirty five pelicans," Guy Number One in the knitted cap said to Guy Number Two in the other knitted cap. He was looking at the pelicans roosting on the sea wall next to the ferry landing. "I haben't been over to the other side to count them," he added.

"That's a lot of pelicans," Number Two commented helpfully.

"I'm surprised they stay around with that guy being all animated and such" said Guy Number One.

"Yeah," Guy Number Two said, and I knew immediately who was the subject of that remark. At first we thought it was some by-product of working Thanksgiving Day, but apparently the deckhand is always as animated as we saw him. He directed traffic onto the boat at one end and rode over the river proceeding to then direct traffic off the boat. He danced, waved his arms, twirled, hopped and cackled loudly while directing the drivers.

"He's been like that ever since I can remember," Number One said, "ever since I rode the ferry as a kid," which means a long time as he looked to be in his late thirties the guy on the left in the photo above. Apparently the deck hand is quite the character amongst locals. "Never have talked to him," Number atwo replied. Then Number Aone changed the subject. "I saw a dolphin out here," he remarked looking over the side into the black waters. "I wonder if they sleep" he pondered as Guy Number Two hunched his back against the cold breeze. "I wonder how they sleep" Guy Number Aone went on, musing as if to himself. There was no answer because by now the ferry had arrived and nudged up to the dock on the Mayport side of the river. The animated deckhand, subject of the conversation, danced I to view to remove the netting blocking the nose of the ferry.

 

He spun the wheel behind him in the photo below which lowered the ramp onto the deck of the boat to allow the vehicles to get off. He grinned at us as I lurched the car into gear prematurely. You want to kill me on Thanksgiving Day?" he said with a grin. I apologized unable to explain I was anxious about being ready to lead the parade off the boat. On our trip north I had been at the back of the line which position I preferred.

 

We drove off finally and as unlikely as we are to go this way again I was glad I had overheard that snippet of conversation about the boat and the crew member startling in his open hearted innocence and a local's musing as we made our way by that imperiled ferry connection across the water.

 

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Winter Blues

I figured when I took a dog-free walk down Caroline Street there wouldn't be much to see. This being Key West things leaped to my eye as I went. First up: ukuleles.

Bob was keeping the armchair warm and no, he doesn't own the place. His plans were fluid when we talked, maybe he was leaving soon on his boat to head back to sea, or maybe not.

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Minding the guitar shop was a favor to a friend and if I knew anything about stringed instruments it's to a job I wouldn't mind.

But, because I know nothing about anything to do with instruments so beautiful I moved on. I know enough about coffee to know what I like but I also know enough about myself that it would drive me crazy to be nice all day to people buying coffee and sandwiches.

I was in an odd mood on Caroline Street, a feeling of end of vacation was upon me, summer closing down and things ending. I dislike the knowledge that we have impending crowding in the winter, lots of people, lots of vehicles, and me acting all sanctimonious about my place in the universe.

I like the quiet of summer, the relative lack of people in town and the absolute absence of people in the dead months of September and October. Then, after the hiatus the snowbirds come to town and we have to re-learn how to cope. This year the chaos of construction on North Roosevelt adds to the apprehension about how the city will cope with the influx. All gloomy thoughts made bearable by dogs, lots of them.

The idea of being a shop keeper fills me with horror, coping with people's foibles, bad manners and ability to aggravate even unintentionally. The. I see dogs sprawled across the workplace and I think of Cheyenne stuck at home when she could so easily send the night at my desk with me. The advantage of running your own shop becomes apparent even to the obtuse like me.

The postcard reproduced above shows Key West Bight as it used to be a three decades ago, prior to gentrification. If you have read ToHave And To Have Not, that is how the waterfront would have looked more or less in the narrative of Hemingway's novel. And yet in some respects this remains a small town. Try this stunt in a major metropolitan area, though I must confess I don't know if it worked in this case, I'd like to think it did.


In my gloomy frame of mind I'd be ready to see this lovely yellow Vespa as the leading edge of the winter invasion, a scooter brought down from Up North to make urban travel easier Down Here.


Oh, what the hell, I tell myself every ear at this tie. Winter is short a d before I know it we'll be seeing the back of Easter and all the noisy snowbirds will have gathered up their lives and rushed back north to take advantage of the start of the snow melt to plague their other communities. We'll be left to navigate round clumps of visitors, bless them, unable to find their way and who I am happy to help.

Happily for Key West these visitors trickle and flow year round, check the menus, fill the rooms and keep coming back for more. It's amazing how they keep the city well supplied with work and money and everything. That thought is enough to dispel my winter blues.

Sunday

Sunday morning was bright and sunny and clear overhead, not a cloud in the sky as I walked Cheyenne for ninety solid minutes up and down every single street in the Big Pine subdivision, and even then the damned dog hadn't had enough, but I had. I laid down the law eventually and we stumped back to the car. High overhead, maybe a hundred feet up I spotted a small brown lump at the top of the tree. It was an osprey deep in thought, and because I am no ornithologist I had no idea what was preoccupying the predator up there in the weak winter sunshine. Perhaps it was worrying about completing its Christmas shopping on time.

I knew what Cheyenne was thinking as she hopped into the back of the car; mostly relief , but also satisfaction that she had held out long enough to get me to beg her to stop walking. And now with the prospect of a large breakfast and much sleeping on a cool breezy day in Paradise she was content to relax on her bed in the back seat. I know for a fact she doesn't have a Christmas list.

The day never really speeded up until I got to work. It was sixty three degrees outside when I climbed on the wife's Vespa and aimed my way south mixing it up with zombies being driven by the cars on the highway. I followed a couple of hard core Harley-ists for miles, and as I rode behind them I wondered about how hard it must be to have to hang onto that look every day, being hard core and serious while trying to impress a whole world that looks right through you. Some Harley riders like to do toys for tots publicity rides but these two didn't look like they cared too much for Santa or his little lists.

I was farting along on the Vespa dressed like a polar explorer and not giving a damn. They rode their uncomfortable bobbers with handlbars askew and knees bent at odd angles, dressed in sweatshirts ad flapping jeans, glove-free and helmet-less in the relentless winter wind. I enjoy riding carefree on the silly little scooter at absurd speeds, tucked in behind the serious road users as they try to pull ahead and lose the 65mph capable girlie bike. A lesson in humility is that delightful little 150cc Vespa.

I was listening to my younger colleagues at work talk about Christmas ad how they celebrate the holiday and I wondered momentarily why I don't much care for it. Christmas was a time fraught with tension in my family when I was a child, lots of arguments such that I associate carols and trees and fairy lights with bad times. This year I get to spend the holiday alone, or at least with my co-workers as my wife is driving Cheyenne to Alabama to spend her Jewish non Christmas with college friends. My plans are to sleep and work and do a little more of each. I like working the holidays as there isn't much to do usually, one gets paid extra while earning kudos and brownie points from colleagues who are grateful you cover the shifts that impede their happy family time. Glad to do it fellas.

I saw a small child on the day after Thanksgiving in Claude's chocolate shop in St Augustine. We were looking for a taste of exotic cocoa and found it. What the small Thanksgiving person found, if anything, I will never know but I enjoyed watching the uninhibited gyrations off the chocolate counter. We adults stood around like overfed Pilgrims waiting for the chance to get our hands on even more sweetened calories, Hiawatha in the short edition danced to the tune of a different, and largely silent to me, drummer. I feel like that when I see everyone else getting off on Christmas and I stand around wondering what all the noise is about.

I may be a little too sceptical but I think that too often Christmas is really about the gift giving and social jollity of the season. One other reason I loathe Christmas is that we create these expectations and there are so many who live in poverty, with that number rising endlessly, and their children don't get to participate in the fun and gifts. That sucks whichever way you slice it and all the charity in the world only goes to make the magnanimous givers feel better. I pick up those little paper christmas trees with the wish lists on the and throw in twenty bucks for the harried single mom and don't feel better for my feeble efforts.

She is indifferent to Christmas too. She'd better be if we are going to be apart for the holiday, she was my 2009 gift from the Key West pound.

 

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Roostica, Stock Island

I dislike clever restaurant names so I was not impressed when Roostica made the obligatory newspaper appearance as the newest eatery on Stock Island. Where Key West has too many fashionable places to eat out, Stock Island, home to the workers, has too few, though their number is growing and will grow further as they gentrify the trailer parks.

The name is derived from the Italian word for rustic combined with an ironic appreciation for the wandering wildlife made famous on Key West's streets.

So when I finally managed to get the irritating name behind me, and I had also heard from my wife who had lunch with friends there and enjoyed it we decided to meet there for lunch ourselves one day last week. There is a sign up front on MacDonald Avenue advising customers there is parking in the rear and it doesn't specify overflow parking so a dweeb like me who pays attention to signage ended up using the rear, pea rock lot for my Vespa. Which was silly as there is lots of motorcycle parking out front at the Dolphin Deli next door.

Stock Island can be fairly labeled as light industrial when it comes to scenery but nevertheless there is pleasant outdoor seating to be had if you want it.

On the whole I like eating indoors because I am a perverse character as noted previously in this space and luckily for me the interior of Roostica is attractively decorated in what I guess is New York or New Jersey Italianate style. I grew up in Italy but I have no knowledge of the Italian emigrant scene in that part of the world so when an American says "Italian" I always take it to mean "Italian-American," because when people leave home they create a new cultural baggage wherever they go to live. Maybe this is how Italian restaurants are decorated Up North, but if it isn't it should be.

To my untrained eye it looked very much like a restaurant might look in Italy with faux country fixtures and oddly patterned blown glass lampshades. The effect was eccentric and warm and inviting. I just wish the lunch tables and chairs were normal height instead of perching us, as seems to be the fashion, high in the air as though on bar stools. The plastic individual menus are repeated on the chalk board:

I was inclined toward the "big bowl" of caprese salad, out of curiosity but we decided to split lunch and shared a green salad with a bowl of meatballs.

I was astonished how much I enjoyed this simple $20 lunch. The salad was crisp and the dressing was tart and bright and not at all cloying or worse gloppy. The figs were dried but still had flavor and there were lots of them mixed in with the walnuts.

Our server, a rather intimidating young thing dressed in black with a rather gothic appearance was cheerful and speedy and properly attentive butt not irritatingly invasive. We could have had lunch in twenty minutes and been back on our way to work had we not decided to linger a bit. I really enjoyed the meal and am anxious to get back for dinner. Actually the happy hour menu looks really interesting and in addition to wine they have a nice selection of draft beers, Toasted Blue, Peroni, Moretti Red and Stella Artois.

The way out to my wife's parked car was lined with pictures which deserved a more than cursory glance. The classic immigrant family shown below and lest we forget Italians, Irish and Hungarians at the turn of the 20th century got the same disrespectful treatment Mexicans and Latin Americans get today in the US. They were berated for not knowing English and being dirty and poor and strange etc...etc...The more the world changes the more it stays the same.

Unlike so many businesses in the Lower Keys that appear to much fanfare, get a spread in the business section of the paper and promptly disappear, Roostica which is owned and operated by the Mongelli family who own Geiger Key Marina and Hogfish Restaurant also on Stock Island seems likely to stick around for a while. Locals like it from what I hear and now I have a pretty good idea why.

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St Augustine Is Not Key West

I'm not completely sure what the symbol of Key West might be; possibly the Southernmost Buoy thing, or nothing more complex than a palm tree hanging over a fictitious beach. St Augustine uses the lighthouse and calls itself the Nation's Oldest City. The lighthouse is on the barrier island not in the city like Key West's lighthouse. Besides its a good deal bigger.

They are proud to tell you when you fork over your ten bucks for adult admission that there are 219 steps to the top. I took their word for it and stopped counting after three. The view was quite attractive. The small collection of buildings on the horizon over someone's granddad's shoulder is the city of St Augustine.

Here's a close up, or as close as my Android phone would go...notice the absence of guy wires to keep inquisitive faces inboard, such as they use in Key West. The docent at the top told us people, even adults do lean over and spit on people below. Yeah, even adults behave like cretins in St Augustine.

In the other direction we see the long beaches of the Atlantic Ocean. A docent explained that forty years ago portions of the island didn't exist and it has been rebuilding itself ever since. Unlike the Keys it's all sand around here and sand is mobile unlike coral and limestone rock.

The shorter building with which I am familiar - Key West Diary: Lighthouse - shows views of city streets because it's located right on Whitehead Street, views that are interesting but not quite so far reaching as those around the St Augustine tower.

I am quite fond of Finnegan's Wake in Key West, despite the intrusive addition of televisions with stupid sports coverage so when in St Augustine we hunted down a similar pub for purposes of comparison. The Kings Head is reputed to be the best and certainly the most authentic built by an emigre 25 years ago to recreate a piece of "home.

The owner's daughter was visiting from England, tanned and bronzed like a local and she served us sausage rolls and a Scotch egg as authentic as anything English. Pub food at Finnegan's is a cut above. The Treacle Tart she made was superb, served with a dollop of custard, a custom Finnegan's could learn to imitate.

The selection of beers was okay but neither Boddingtons nor Smithwicks were available. Score one for Finnegan's and Key West! Plus Finnegan's has more comfortable seats...Besides all that, the Kings Head is fifteen minutes north of town on Highway One. Back in town St Augustine has the Spanish fort on the waterfront with a nice big lawn.

Fort Zachary in Key West is a much more interesting park with varied surroundings. However I was happy to see a few bums asleep in the grass on the day after Thanksgiving. St Augustine is a much smarter cleaner town than Key West, let's face it. Drunk bums harassing tourists here would get short shrift I'm thinking.

It's an annoying cliché but all the cleanliness and organization of St Augustine leads me to suspect that perhaps life might be a tad boring unlike Key West where jollity and drunkeness rule downtown. Perhaps I'm old enough to be bored by Irish Kevin's and Ricks and the five dollar hustlers at the schlock stores downtown.

The weather is not what a Key Wester would call warm necessarily in winter. I saw frost one morning when I was walking Cheyenne in a field next to the hotel. That's cold by my book. There is no waterfront except the Intracoastal Waterway a muddy tidal river which is a good deal less appealing than Keys waters. The ocean near St Augustine is classic Atlantic Ocean waterfront with waves, tidal rips and immense sandy beaches.

St Augustine is tourist friendly. I've never seen the American way of tipping explained in a restaurant in Key West. Check this out and ask yourself why the Key West Chamber of Commerce can't get it's well paid shit together.

Remember that in Key West the uneducated barflys call visitors "tourons" which is a combination of tourist and moron, and these people boast about their attitude on their public bar stools in Key West. I don't relish gentrification but it's a bit of an eye opener when you get off The Rock and see how other people do it. I liked St Augustine and I think I'll be back but I still prefer living in the chaos that is, but doesn't have to be, Key West.

 

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