The 600 block of White Street early in the day.
What got into me I don't know.
But it dawned on me each door was lovely or different.
The Elizabeth Bishop house, below, as unloved as ever.
I like greenery that I can hide behind at home; as a photographer not so suave.
This white porch below reminds me of classic California beach cottage style.
Those columns are highlighted in yellow: lovely.
Bold turquoise, gorgeous.
Picket fence heaven: small town America made weird.
Key West.
In a recent interview on conservative radio show Faith & Liberty, U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minnesota) warned that the gay community ultimately wants to "abolish age-of-consent laws, which means we will do away with statutory-rape laws so that adults will be able to freely prey on little children sexually. That's the deviance that we're seeing embraced in our culture today."
That this sort of arrant nonsense is being spread by an elected member of Congress puts Key West's thus far Quixotic gesture among the ranks of either the heroically cutting edge or politically suicidally inept. As much as Northeners like to argue that Florida isn't truly part of the South I would argue that it is. Not perhaps in the blue enclaves of Miami and Fort Lauderdale but if you check out the rest of the state you will get a different perspective. Florida is a melting pot similar to California and just as ungovernable and unpredictable and like the Golden State it will have a regional impact on the anti-progressive states in the South. Starting from Key West's revolutionary judgement favoring the astonishingly revolutionary idea that marriage is good, and good for everyone.
I have been married (to a woman) for twenty years and our California marriage has been accepted as fact by the State of Florida as required by the US Constituion. Marriage is a civil rite which may also be celebrated by religious groups, but the civil rights it confers are absolute and far reaching. Marriage changes the relationship of the family inasmuch as the person you marry becomes responsible for you, in place of the family members you were born to. I see no reason why sclerotic religious groups that cannot bend their minds enough to marry same gender couples should be required to do so; indeed that would be illegal by the same Constituion. By the same token these religious groups denying other religions or civil authorities the right to marry same gender couples seems not only illegal (as Judge Garcia in fact ruled) but also immoral.
I read a letter in the Citizen fulminating against this idea of same sex marriage becoming law in Florida over the will of the majority of voters (I told you Florida really is part of Dixie). Proof enough I suppose that the author was sleeping during civics class in school. The courts' job is in part to defend the rights of the minority and ensure them equal access to the law, as explained by Judge Garcia. Which would be an astonishing concept to that dolt who has forgotten any of his nation's history he may once have known. If we had had to wait for the majority to vote down slavery we'd still be waiting.
But then again slavery is different they tell us, and the Southernmost City's reaction to it was also. Key West was nowhere near the front line on that battle. A fortuitous act (occupying a Fort Zachary) by a quick thinking Union officer stationed in Key West kept the important port city in the Union throughout the war but city leaders were not in the least abolitionists or pro-Union. In point of fact Key West has always been a military stronghold, and far from the popular image of debauched pirates that populate the tourist mythology. Commodore David Porter was given the job of suppressing piracy in the Western Caribbean and he did a fine job of it with innovative tactics and an iron will. Such was his devotion to duty he pissed off his superiors and ended up in exile for a while by joining the Mexican Navy. Not exactly the laid back image party town promotes.
But that's not how Key West sells itself. Talking with friends we briefly mentioned the lack of vision in the city, hoping perhaps for better in the election coming up. There is though that same fear of intervention that permeates a lot if southern states and that leads to a free market weighed in favor of wealth, and bad taste.
Important people in the city make money from this degraded state of affairs and as Upton Sinclair noted they won't change a thing. It is tempting to imagine a city where urban planning might direct visitor money to a less alcohol fueled focus, but when proposals to create a pedestrian only zone were bruited the idea was shot down. Not because it might fail, but because the merchants outside the zone thought it might be too successful! This isn't the Conch Republic, it's Ruritania. Though where we might find right minded people ready to set civic standards beats me.
The thing is the current mindset of anything goes makes money, property values are absurdly high, such that a modest storefront on Duval commands a $30,000 a month rent. Which leads one to wonder how many Crocs does the Croc store sell to make the rent, never mind the other fixed costs? Upset that Apple cart if you dare! Who needs a pedestrian zone? Carts draped in funereal plastic do not apparently violate city aesthetic codes:
I love these inspirational quotations that crop up on Duval Street as well as all over Facebook. So easy to "share," so hard to live up to. Jesus had his head in the clouds and his feet on the ground and the peanut gallery happily gave him up to excruciating crucification in favor of giving the crook Barabbas his freedom. I don't doubt the same would happen today even as people mindlessly post these uplifting hopes on their public pages.
I wonder if Duval Street can get better or is it just destined to be party town forever?
Those red diamonds mark the end of any road that cuts a path through the mangroves away from Highway One. These two are about eight miles from the main road, about as far as it's possible to drive from the Overseas Highway. Even Key Deer Boulevard on Big Pine Key is less than five miles long.
I love these wide open spaces that remind me of the desert. The wind whistles in your ears and the birds cry plaintively, and you are alone with your dog.
More dumping, slightly more discreetly down a path. These were once valuable imported tiles but now they are ugly crap blighting the countryside!
Cheyenne found a tea time snack and choked down. Remnants of a Key deer probably, injured possibly by a car and crawled off to return to the earth whence it came.
Even though it's eight miles by car, the road twists and turns so there is open water glimpsed in the distance.
It's been a while since I came to the end of Dorn Road but it is not likely that the very end will be accessible by car for much longer.
There are two houses out here. This one carefully labelled with a No Trespassing sign as though the gate weren't message enough.
This one for sale for almost two hundred thousand dollars. Which may sound like deal until you figure it's off the grid, fifteen minutes from the highway and on the edge of cell phone reception. Which could make it even more desireable if you can figure how to grow vegetables in land that floods periodically.
The road to the last two houses is starting to show signs of decrepitude though I suppose the county will be obliged to keep this section open at vast public expense.
There are houses dotted along the lower reaches of Dorn Road but out here there is nothing, except road signs and dips that fill with rain water, sinkholes to come perhaps.
Nature is reclaiming the road because this is as wilderness as it gets around here.
A couple of miles before the end the electric wires peter out:
Poles to the right, none to the left:
And the last cluster of houses clinging to the civility of the grid:
I wish I could stand the idea of living unencumbered by the world.
I like to share my wry view of the world with unsuspecting strangers. Usually my skewed take on something apparently obvious falls totally flat. I shrug and move on. Sometimes though my low key performance art hits a bull's eye. This guy was loading large roadside trash into his hauler.
The epitome of longing. A pig in a fur coat.
My boat motor is not responding to treatment. In consultation with Robert who is as stubborn as a mule has determined to overcome, and he says the final solution is in sight. If not I know a pro who solved the last intractable problem and the boat motor next goes to his shop. Meanwhile...
An offer of a ride from a neighbor is not to be sniffed at. Dennis is a hunter-gatherer who was going out to seek dinner. I prefer not to kill in our over fed society so I was along for the views. My wife was thinking about another swim.
Our canal makes an excellent swimming pool, deep, clear and maintenance free so boat rides are for fun, to explore, to swim elsewhere when we feel like a boat ride.
Even at ultra low tides.
Tides in the Keys are strange phenomena, as two separate bodies of water meet along the line of the islands. The Atkantic tides to the south are regular and easily predictable, four times a day every six hours, two high, two low.
The Gulf of Mexico has weird irregular tides that follow no rhyme or reason, yet are predicted by science and listed in tables.
And here we are in the middle, able to float small boats on thin waters, where an extra foot of tide makes for ease of transit in places otherwise closed.
Dennis hunts around Cudjoe Bay lining up transits on his favorite spots. A tall bush on a mangrove island to the left a squat pink house to the right...and there it is, his spot.
Looking forward or backward through the sunlight these waters always look thin. The only way to see their depth is to look straight down over the side.
One looks for black spots to mark rocks, brown patches for thin water, and deep dark blue for depths untold.
Be it ever so thin you float on the tide and talk. Dennis used to be a teacher at my wife's school. They talk of students and the middle school where Dennis works today. Key West is a small town and everyone knows what they know about each other and their children.
Florida summers are said to be a purgatory of heat and humidity yet these days rarely rise beyond 90 degrees, though complaints abound in the newspaper about the muredrrous unnatural heat this year. It looks and feels normal to me, down to the scattered and random thunderstorms and tropical downpours.
Dennis went off with a spear, primitive man in pursuit of protein. I tried to read my novel (on my phone, how cool is Kindle), but I got sleepy and stretched out.
I expected my wife the amphibian to get in the water but she was as tired as I from our hour paddling around our canal. A nap was in order.
To my relief the foraging failed and we were faced with no flopping suffocating fish. I have never participated in the casual cruelty of hooking a fish and not killing it. When I fished, eons ago, I killed rather than let the creature die by degrees. I fear that if there is a judgement day not only will dog beaters be judged but I hope people who catch and suffocate fish will get theirs.
But we none of us are guilt free, that's the beauty of eternal judgement. As soon as you figure you are in the clear some other broken regulation, moral code or habit now deemed deficient pops up to restore your humility. Mine came later at Publix looking for cage free eggs. None to be found so I bought eggs produced by birds caged in cruelty. Bugger.
But for now we have summer to ourselves and very nice it is too for those of us free to enjoy it. I hope summer Up North repays in some other manner. I wanted to enjoy New England this summer with greenery, mountains and small towns. And I did, but I was ready to come home after a few too many cold days filled with drizzle. To this I came home after just three weeks of uncertain weather, gray skies and oddly reserved people. Even my gregarious wife found New Englanders reserved.
Luckily Dennis isn't from New England. I'm glad he invited us out for a nap on Cudjoe Bay. Teachers are back at school, students start next Monday, so vacation is over even in the land of endless summer. Cage free isn't only for eggs.
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