Key West And Varela

Doctor Felix Varela has a street named after him as wella s this lodge. It's funny  because Varela actually had very little to do with Key West and  a lot more to do helping Cuban refugees in New York.

 He was a Catholic priest born in Cuba and represented Cuba in Spain during talks for greater autonomy for the island in 1821. He was a bit of a radical arguing for independence for  Cuba and an end to slavery which was all too much so the Spaniards sentenced him to death, as you do, and he buggered off to New York which might be viewed as hardly better than a death sentence for a character like him. He died in St Augustine in 1853 at the age of 65 of asthma and hard work. No mention really of Key West but he did apparently visit once or twice. The lodge shown above was chartered by Cuban exiles in 1873 apparently during another period of strife in Cuba as the island sought independence from Spain.

Key West has lived on the edge of major events throughout it's history, making money smuggling of course, watching revolutions come and go, accepting migrants from the Bahamas Haiti and Cuba, sitting out the Civil War as a Union City seething with Confederate sympathies, always ready to trade (and smuggle) guns rum people- and ready to put to sea. 

 A home to poets and artists, and not averse to a little ironic or wry humor...

 ...art galleries in various shapes and of assorted longevity, and size:

The cemetery offers  a view of history in a parklike setting. The squeamishness some people affect at the thought of inspecting a  cemetery I find unsettling. I find myself reluctant to deal with old age and my own death in a  culture that pretends it doesn't exist. I find it doubly baffling as so many people profess to believe in God and after lives and all sorts of stories to press back the shrouds of darkness that await.

From darkness to light has been a theme throughout human literature, that notion of life following death following life in a continuous cycle. The other island cultures nearby haven't had the luxury of avoiding the inevitable transitions and in the case of Cuba and Haiti in particular much blood has been spilled and where there is poverty life and death are in your face.

 I think about Varela and his crusade 150 years ago when I pass by Varela Street on Truman. It was not a long life, but a short life well lived. We should all be so lucky, even in exile.

Holiday!

Happy fourth of July and enjoy whatever the holiday means to you. For me it marks my independence from my old life and my transition to the new, now more than thirty years ago. This holiday and Thanksgiving are my favorites so I shall take some time off and come back in a few days. Cheers.

From The Archives

From February 9th 2013, three years before she died half way through our lives together Cheyenne caused me to stop and ponder the relationship.

Dog Whispering

I choose to live outside the mainstream much of my life mostly because I've never seen the value of the mainstream logic of a lot of things. God puzzled me because I couldn't figure out why God behaves the way adults told me God does things. I fell away from religion and spirituality because I couldn't follow the logic. People with kids puzzle me massively, and children have never figured as part of my life. I've watched people with their dogs and I've never figured that logic either. When people ask I say that if there were no pounds I'd not have a dog. The logic of buying a brand new dog when the country is awash in unwanted animals defeats me. There are rescue services for every imaginable brand of dog, and google is there to connect people with their most abstruse animal desires. Yet people continue to raise dogs like cattle and flog 'em to people who want a live accessory. And when they get tired of them they dump them for suckers like me to pick up.

I've read a fair bit about dogs and years ago I took an obedience class which worked beyond my wildest hopes and over the years I have come to the conclusion that dogs (and children) lack discipline and boundaries and it makes them crazy. I can't figure for the life of me why people have kids and not realize its a lifetime commitment of chasing after the brats and making sure they get their shit done. But it's the same with dogs and to have a hope of making it work you have to make a commitment to the animal and the time it needs. The rationale that a large dg needs a big yards the common fallacynthatcondemns big dogs like Cheyenne to death in pounds across the country. Dogs are pack animals and they want to be part of the family, their pack. To shut a dog alone in a yard is solitary confinement of the type we condemn the worst or poorest criminals to suffer. No wonder they bark madly when Cheyenne lumbers by enjoying the freedom they never taste. But I also know that I have to be able to think like a dog. I don't have the capacity to think like a kid so I know I don't want to raise one of those creatures. When I picked Cheyenne up from the pound on Stock Island three years ago I made a promise to myself she wasn't going to spend another minute staring through a fence watching the world pass her by. You can tell from the picture she was ready to be let loose on the world.

Cheyenne came from a military family who dumped her because at eight she was too old. Extrapolating from what the SPCA told me and the vet observed and what I saw myself she had been bought and used to produce pedigree puppies. She lived on a chain in her later years and slept on the ground, a habit she keeps to this day much like a human with PTSD. She cowered when I waved the paper around (politics makes me crazy sometimes) and she refused to step in the kitchen. She used to be taken on runs I am pretty sure but I stopped that practice dead. From the first day she ambled and took her time and loved to stick her nose in stuff and snort and sniff like a four legged vacuum cleaner sucking up the smells of life itself. On a hot walk she likes to find a mud hole and rest in it. She does the same in the ocean but she never swims. Sometimes the results require a bath whether I'm in the mood or not. "Your dogs dirty!" some mental deficient will announce when they cross paths with my dog being a dog. Every problem has its solution and mine is fresh water, as long is comes out of the faucet in these times of extended drought everywhere.

I set the boundaries fairly broadly for Cheyenne. I have a dog for company so to ban her from the furniture means I get to sit on the couch with my dog out of reach. Mainstream logic whose sense escapes me. I feed Cheyenne the food she likes and she doesn't eat the stuff she doesn't like. I don't feed her from the table because tha encourages begging but I don't mind if she gets human food for treats in her own bowl. Cheyenne has a dog door and she come and go as she pleases. She likes to sunbathe from time to time and sometimes she goes downstairs to sit in her sand bed and watch the boats in the canal. She never goes out into the street but there are no fences; she stays because she likes being here. Cheyenne's an easy dog to live with not least because when I say no I mean it. I don't call her unless I need her and if I do need her I whistle and she comes. When we have friends over she lays down and sleeps and people who don't like dogs say Cheyenne is a dog they like. They used to say that about Emma who I rescued when she was two, and about Debs who was six and a self willed husky I bent to my will. I am not alone in my appreciation of rescue dogs.

 Christopher Shepherd said...

My most recent dog adoption was from FKSPCA, a bull mix who had spent several months during summer 2012 chained in a yard in Stock Island before the county finally took him away (after which point, he was kenneled at the SPCA for several more months). He is an incredible dog, though, joyful, living only to please, and not the least bit obnoxious. I guess what I'm saying is, by chaining a dog outside, you not only violate the law and cheat the dog of happiness, but you cheat yourself of something amazing.

Wednesday, February 6, 2013 at 1:18:00 PM EST

And then I read this article in Slate magazine, a sweet story that left me asking myself: why isn't every day a perfect day for a dog? Dogs don't spend their days figuring it ways to screw you, dogs appreciate kindness and share their fun with you every chance they get. I want every day to be perfect for Cheyenne, it's not that hard to do.

Jon Katz's Going Home: Spend one, last, perfect day with your dying dog. - Slate Magazine

My freestyle non conformist dog training doesn't go over well with some people. On the streets fearful dog owners think their animals are always ready to fight and often do,you hear some ineffectual dog owner tell their animal to "be nice," like it's an eight year old in a playground. Dogs growl at their puppies train them so I growl at Cheyenne when she is paying more attention to smells than to me. When I say No! I mean it. If I have to say it more than once Cheyenne gets to hear me growl and she doesn't like it one bit. If she ever pulled me on her leash I would let her know in no uncertain terms who is the boss but most dog walkers I meet seem to have no clue how to set boundaries. And then I find myself charged with being irresponsible in the gentlest possible way.

I appreciate and relate to your excellent commentaries, especially your kinship with your dog. I have 2 large mixed mutts lab/border collie and lab/rottweiler, most excellent dogs who have been with me virtually every second of their lives, walked and exercised daily. They are in top shape, I keep them on a diet of Diamond brand chow from Tractor Supply (store brand of Nutro), it's great stuff, no corn or wheat filler. Since my wife and I recently quit eating processed foods and grains we have gotten in fantastic shape in our late 50s. We've found that it's more about healthy diet and nutrition than exercise. Dogs are not omnivores like humans, their dietary needs are much more narrowly defined.

At the risk of sounding critical I'm surprised you let your dog eat garbage on the street, that stuff is very detrimental to a dog's health even when it's fresh. We usually carry a few quality dog treats on walks and hand those out as positive reinforcement here and there as appropriate.

Peace, Love, Dogs...

Dave

After her shower Cheyenne has to suffer the indignity of a towel which as she has no self image to sustain doesn't bother her in the least. Actually she likes a firm toweling and she chases me tail wagging until she feels like she's had enough. That she looks like Dougal from The Magic Roundabout means nothing to her. Nor to you either as you weren't watching the BBC just before the six o'clock news during the 1970s.

Here, in an effort to keep you in the loop is an episode featuring Dougal the unwilling flying dog:YouTube . That's five minutes you won't get back in your valuable life...

Meanwhile, my dog far from flying likes to take a post bath rest in her sand pit. Which requires further towel rubbing before she can get into the house...she's a wicked creature.

In the final analysis a child is a child, not a "small adult." With good luck money love and nurturing a child may become an adult but a child is not an adult. In the same vein a dog is not a human and I don't muddle her up and mistake her for one. She is a hound and she likes to hunt. I can't teach her to read so I let her exercise her mind the way a dog needs to, by chasing smells and following trails and figuring where they lead. I try not to tear her away in the middle of the story and if it leads to wasted food tipped by some thoughtless human so be it. It's not going to kill her most likely and if the odds are against her so be it. It's the same rationale I use to ride a motorcycle instead of driving a highly safety rated cage.

At some level we all project. Our kids grow up watching their parents and we are told if you want your children to read parents should be seen to be reading by their offspring. It seems odd to me to want to cage my dog when I dislike being caged myself.

I haven't a clue why we exist or what the meaning of life is and Cheyenne offers me no enlightenment. My only satisfying conclusion to that conundrum is a line from another British TV show and unlikely font of stark philosophy, Fawlty Towers. As Basil Fawlty struggles against an uncaring fate and an angry wife, who can blame her, he announces at one point that this is the life we're stuck with and we have to get on with it. Cheyenne helps me do that.

And that dog lives a better life that most humans on the planet. Americans bitch about foreign aid which amounts to about 30 billion dollars spent annually to allieviate poverty and buy goodwill. We Americans spend 45 billion on our pets. I don't know what you think about that but as far as I'm concerned every day is a perfect day for Cheyenne, garbage and all. And in a world where we grow more food than ever and other people starve there shouldn't be perfectly good food thrown away every single goddamned day on our streets. That's the crime not my dog cleaning it up.

From The Archives

This essay from December 14th 2012 a happy memory of just another banal walk with Cheyenne, my companion by then of three full years.

Early Morning Stroll

It turns out Chrysler Sebrings built in the early part of this century had quite a few engine parts made of plastic where they should have been made of metal according to my wife's mechanic. Thus as she has now gone over a hundred thousand miles, it happens that bits of plastic fail from time. Not that they aren't easy to replace and the plastic parts so far haven't killed the car dead when they failed so we had time to take the car in and get it fixed. Even here in Key West parts are shipped overnight and because we work opposite shifts it's easy to drop each other off while the car gets worked on. The upshot of all this shuffling is Cheyenne and I dropped the wife off early yesterday and we took off for an early walk in the Casa Marina neighborhood while the wife's convertible got a new engine cooling part made of plastic installed under the hood.

I tend to forget that pink Crocs surprise some people when they see me walking Cheyenne but I'll tell you what, I never fail to be surprised when I see some bloke passing me pounding pedals dressed in a tight fitting banana skin. Or a pair of serious minded joggers dressed for the occasion, also pounding past me as they run, serious minded like a couple of Politburo members planning a putsch. I wonder why people come to Key West and can't get into the proper Key West slouch.

And because I was stumbling slowly behind my dog I got to notice these bizarre leaves, parked in a flowered in front of the coral house on Reynolds Street.

I liked the high wall and intimidating sign protecting the resort guests for the creeps and freak outside the walls. They made me feel quite unwanted with their threats of insecurity and inaccessibility. So I stayed out side with hoi polloi and felt quite secure with no security patrols at all.

Clearly there is a lower class of person in e neighborhood as I stumbled across some apparently well worn female underwear in the street. The well disposed among us might imagine they fell from a laundry basket though I feel obliged to point out there are no public laundries nearby. I fear hanky panty was abroad on Seminole Street last night. My shoe is in the lower corner of the frame purely by accident.

I am not one for adding stickers to my motorcycle but when I spotted a Grateful Dead sticker on this otherwise innocuous scooter I felt I should tell Cheyenne about my old VW van, a vehicle I owned in the people's republic of Santa Cruz many years ago in California. It was covered with similar stickers that refused to yield to my razor blade and everywhere I went, especially at gas stations where hitch hikers congregated, I was approached by dubious characters reeking of cannabis asking me where the next gig was. I went to see the Grateful Dead once at Berkeley's Greek arena but the evening was not a success. The music bored me and the woman I was with was not galvanized as I had been led to believe she might be, and I decided that I liked camping in my funky van though the musical associations were just a nuisance, and made every fill-up an adventure.

It really was a lovely morning in Key West even though it was muggy and hot as we waited for a non existent cold front to materialize and blow away the dampness in the air. Cheyenne got tired but she wanted to press on and. Enjoy as much of the city's she could so I put her back in the car ad drove her across the Fleming Street by the library and from there we took off through the shadow and light of the leafy cross streets.

I liked this weird door, worn and beaten up yet still sporting a flashy flamingo panel on top while exhibiting an unpainted temporary/permanent repair at the bottom.

These old style shutters remind me of the ones we had on my childhood home in Italy giving William Street a slightly Mediterranean look.

By the time we got home it was laundry day at the manse so I got down to work...

...while Cheyenne helped. Luckily I have been properly trained in how to hang clothes to dry so Cheyenne's non cooperation didn't hold me up to much.

After all a girl needs her beauty sleep after a long walk, a large breakfast and a quick shower to make sure she smells nice after all that hiking. The wife's car is repaired, a cool six hundred bucks but Oily said the plastic parts crumbled in his hand when he went to replace them and now my wife has a car heater again for when temperatures drop below seventy degrees, and the engine as a secure cooling system for when temperatures go above seventy degrees, which is all the time in the engine block. Meanwhile my air cooled motorcycle head is being sent out for new valves and guides. Sigh, it never stops with machinery. Engines should take a leaf out of Cheyenne's book and take a nap from time to time. It does a body good.

Up The Hill On Petronia

An Italianate villa on Petronia just to remind us that architecture in Key West is as varied as anything.

I am not sure if Rusty has been holding out on me and can actually read.

Petronia Street looking west toward Duval.

If you look hard this place on the corner of Center Street isn't really that attractive but, aside from the closed off door-to-nowhere which gives it a slight air of mystery the greenery makes all pedestrian places look good.

Include a dog in your day to make it better if you ask me. Solares Hill climbed we caught our breaths 16 feet above sea level, Rusty and I. This church puts me in mind of the Caribbean not surprisingly.

Key West in a nutshell; modest home and two wheelers, powered and pedal. All you need:

Same again at the bottom of the hill on Elizabeth Street.

Trees Of Key West

I keep reading in the newspaper's complaint column, the Citizen's Voice, how the city's tree commission is failing to protect large trees from being cut down. So I tried walking around looking up in the street. 

Clearly there must be something going on as I have seen parking lots  in New Town stripped of trees and surely complaints must be generated by some activity, justified or not.

I am not much good at doing stuff like pruning, even though I have been taught the basic principles, and the sound reasons for pruning trees. I just don't like cutting them. I positively loathe cutting trees down, even nuisance ones so I am in no position to take sides in this argument.

I have to confess that it was because I was reading about all the tree cutting that supposedly goes on that I thought it might be an idea to take the time to rejoice in the presence of trees that are flourishing.

And in between I caught a picture of the stone wall that so much reminds me of weathered skulls on Amelia at Windsor.

Trees make Key West what it is today but it wasn't always so. Before the advent of regular water supplies brought to the city by Navy pipeline in 1942, water was not so abundant it could be wasted on decoration like this:

Check out this picture of what should be James Street according to the state archives. I rather prefer modern Key West filled with greenery and canopies. Good old days they may have been but they were also rather stark on the streets.

A poinciana in full bloom. Known in Latin according to a long time resident as  delonix regia, hence the occasionally used title "royal" in English. Perhaps there is a delonix somewhere that is less regal.

I enjoyed the shadows  playing on the walls during a setting sun, but then I found a banana tree lined up with a coconut palm and with the magic of perspective I joined them up.

It would be a shame if all trees really were being cut. I hope not.