Tallahassee In The Keys

Last weekend we had plans, lunch with friends, a play after dark, half a day's overtime and time enough to exhaust Rusty before abandoning him to go to the Red Barn. That all fell apart when I woke up at 3:45 feeling like death and unwilling to get up to even walk Rusty. I called work and told them Keith's cold bug had got me, even though I had hoped on Friday that Keith's dire predictions were not going to come true. 

We were surprised and delighted when the Red Barn box office was able to give us seats this Saturday night so I plan to not get sick again like everyone around me. I say nothing but privately I am relieved I got the 'flu vaccine early in the season and disappointed the young bucks who fear needles or autism or whatever fashionable rant most moves them failed to do likewise. Massive sick outs put stress on survivors in a  town where adequate hiring is impossible to maintain. 

The newspaper is reporting the results of the annual junket to Tallahassee to get lawmakers to support issues of concern to these few people who live in these peculiar islands. Florida is run by the governor and cabinet members who are elected separately while the two houses of the legislature only work part time, three months a year and members only get paid something like twenty thousand dollars for the three months work guaranteeing only people with money can run to be representatives and senators.  It's a pretty creaky system in a state as large and complex as Florida and gives massive power to the Governor and Cabinet. To make it all even less representative gerrymandering has given a majority Democrat state a Republican dominated legislature and the Agriculture Secretary is the sole statewide elected Democrat. 

So the resistance Keys legislators offer to environmental proposals coming out of Tallahassee where old school thinking dominates means not very much. It's not easy to explain the need to control sunscreen sales to a Hendry county rancher who has never seen a coral reef in his entire agricultural life and has no plans to either. I found the same dichotomy in California when I was a youngster in Santa Cruz, a hotbed of university fueled activism surrounded by the hard headed conservative farm policies of inland ranching and orchard interests in Gilroy and Merced and Lodi, places that couldn't give a damn about the Monterey bay National marine Sanctuary that was so important to the Coastal Commission. 

I look back a hundred years and force myself to think hard about the drive of Henry Plant on the West Coast as well as our more familiar Henry Flagler on the East Coast, men of vision and boatloads of cash who wanted to open up the Sunshine State to tourism and industry. And they got on with it. A quotation attributed to Flagler, a partner in the early oil industry explosion of wealth goes something like this; "I'd be a rich man if it weren't for Florida." Indeed his East Coast Extension Railroad to Key West from Miami was always a losing proposition and following the 1935 hurricane, long after his death, was abandoned and handed over to the state to turn it into a road.

These days you'd never see that sort of vision in Tallahassee, creating a road out of a roadbed, opening up these islands, spending government money to create. And the billionaires of our age are a pretty poor shadow of the vision and drive of the robber barons of those days who built public facilities and infrastructure, somewhat at random I grant you, but in places where nothing was seen before. 

The best they can come up with in Tallahasse is offering to make canal cleaning a big concern but with no money to back up the nice words about water quality, and that old bugaboo of increasing evacuation time to allow more development. Not exactly stellar legislative achievements for 2020 but when you elect people of limited vision you don't get thoughtful legislation. I suppose doing not too much damage is the most we can hope for these days. 

I was listening to the radio on my way to work yesterday morning and San Francisco has closed its downtown artery Market Street to private vehicles. Apparently it took years to build consensus for that modest change and they are monitoring results. In Key West closing Duval Street, an obvious move, is a non starter and electric bicycles as replacements for internal combustion are driving people mad with anger. Change really isn't easy is it?

Mangrove Walk

I must be feeling better as Tuesday was a full day for me. Up at four shivering round the neighborhood with a happy dog followed by four hours at work as Tuesday is my "short day." That is to say a four hour shift added to the twelve hour shifts each week equals a forty hour work week...The pain being that I was home with the awful hound at ten. He went to sunbathe on the deck and I went to bed for a quick nap...Two and a half hours later my trusty alarm woke me from a deep sleep and I set off back into town for another round of physical jerks at Body Zone. I admit, I was snuffling and using half the weights I usually use in class but I made it through the 90 minutes led by the redoubtable Irish Rose called Paula who is merciless...and effective. Bloody hell. Back in the car to Rusty and finally some time alone in the mangroves together.

I suppose I could have headed off to the Tropic for a movie or a stroll for some pictures of people or viewing some art at The Studios but this is my last week of overtime as our staffing is getting juggled around at work. We are short two dispatchers and my colleagues wanted a share of the bounty of overtime I have been enjoying so I am glad to get a break starting next week to enjoy some time away from 911.

In winter there is a neediness in Key West that veers far away from crime and into the realms of bad neighbors. I have no opinion about parking and fence hopping and all the minor infractions of daily living as I am fortunate or smart enough to live in the suburbs in a quiet street with lots of off street parking and neighbors I do occasionally talk to when I am around. In Key West where I take police calls it seems people's nerves are shredded by badly parked cars and errant tree limbs and loud noises and all the stuff that in Mayberry were taken care of by a kindly word and perhaps a berry pie as a gift to cover for monetary thoughtlessness. Perhaps I exaggerate a trifle but the fact that neighbors are afraid to talk to each other, to discuss a problem, to try to find a compromise and resort to calling the police over every little thing strikes me as sad.

I am grateful for the work, and glad of the job security, but two out of state registered scooters parked on a Key West street shouldn't provoke suspicion should they? Happily my job is to send a cop to investigate and when they report back no violations I set the call aside. Now I work on day shift the midnight brawls and drunken domestic disputes are much more the province of the night dispatchers still holding down the night shift in my absence.I'm enjoying living the difference, though I do miss my afternoon walks with Rusty before I cam into work, I equally enjoy dinner at home every night and also setting aside the petty squabbles and the occasional profoundly unhappy call. People do our each other in Key West, the difficulties of living in an expensive community create awful stress and the dams do burst but then I get to walk in the silence of the woods with my camera and my dog.

It restores my equilibrium. I am helping myself this year by avoiding politics and thus also avoiding Facebook, sticking to posting pictures and looking at pictures on Instagram and studying digital photography to replace my interest in motorcycles which is waning a bit in the face of my recently discussed encounters with constantly distracted drivers in the Keys. You can hardly blame them really and I try to sit back a bit on my commute and think what it must be like to see bridge after endless bridge over open water  for the first time with those long strange horizons rising up no higher than sea level, and all from the front seat of your rental vehicle on your way to the mythical destination. There really is nowhere in the world like the Keys, this extravagance of highway connecting tiny specks of land for mile upon mile all the way to nowhere. Who but the United States could imagine or afford such a place?

I am enjoying being sixty two as well oddly enough. I read that Britain wants to end all sales of internal combustion vehicles by 2035 and I thought to myself that sucks, as I am a child of the internal combustion era and have thoroughly enjoyed it. Then I did some sums on my fingers and realized I'd be 74 by then if I am even alive. I shall probably be able to slip in a car or motorcycle at that late stage, late enough to be a dinosaur but not too late to still see gasoline sold by the roadside and spare parts to still be stocked on the shelves. It is coming home to me that the world is changing which is no surprise but what is a revelation is that I am rapidly becoming irrelevant: and that is  something I have to come to terms with!

The interesting thing for me is that irrelevance on the larger stage is quite enjoyable. When I was a youngster everything seemed rather urgent as the political issues of the day promised life and death decisions that needed youthful intervention. Of course in a sense they were just that for someone somewhere but the issues were more complex and politics more nuanced than I could imagine when I was 25 and everything was good and bad.  I have discovered that it is a tad bit grandiose to imagine that US foreign policy is going to change much, or necessarily for the better, based on anyone's heart felt activism. At this stage I feel as though today's youngsters can make those choices and fight those fights and hopefully do a better job than we ended up doing. Indeed I recall in my twenties thinking what a muck the previous generation had made and now the youngsters look at us wondering what we were thinking leaving them a planet in such chaos.

Much better to look inward and retreat from the vagaries and drama of the world and of work where young people around me have that same intensity critiquing each other's work performance and private lives. As the oldest of old farts I am exempt from participation not least because I want nothing to do with the drama queens of either camp. I have retreated from all responsibility for anything other than my own work and I like it that way very much. I have lost  the intensity of youth and I am relieved. There is serenity to be found among the mangroves.

We walked, we ran (he ran really) and I set my alarm for 3:45 am as Wednesday, today is another fun day of taking calls, holding their hands and sending help to unravel the Gordian knots into which they manage to tangle otherwise simple lives. We are so lucky and I have to look at the former street dog who knows the value of a quiet home and routines and the ability to sleep uninterrupted to remind myself of that great good fortune. Most problems are first world problems. Only a  few problems are really life threatening and they are the ones that need our undivided attention. Sleep is the reward for paying attention.

Morning

These strange days of winter in Key West. The mornings brighten up before seven depending on the cloud cover which has been intense and the air is cold to the touch and when it's windy, which is often, it's cold enough to give you goosebumps if you aren't used to this sort of mild cold weather. 

Rusty and I have been strangers to downtown for a while now and I have to say it took an act of determination to head downtown when I got off my sickbed. Key West is packed with people and of traffic there is enough that getting around is tedious. Our long lines probably aren't that long in a world where true traffic jams occur daily but around here the traffic is intense by local standards this time of year. And in my opinion this year is a heavy one.

At work we get a stream of parking complaints from people trying to cope with vehicles blocking driveways, abandoned and taking up space or badly parked and blocking sight lines on narrow streets. If you don't know how to parallel park you'd better get a bicycle because i have met people who break into a cold sweat when faced with a  narrow spot and they prefer to drive around looking for something better. I have even parked friends' cars for them. 

I have seen some pretty terrible road rage too as the city empties in the evening and the workers go back to the housing they can afford on neighboring islands. Now that I am working day shift I leave the police station at 6 in time to join the late departures  from the city which started emptying at four in the afternoon. Mix in local commuters with people from out of town going home and losing their minds in slow lines of cars and some people drive very peculiarly. 

I have stopped riding two wheelers as I don't want another catastrophe and the fun has gone out of riding when surrounded by angry drivers intent on dicing and slicing all in their way. 

So I find it  a great pleasure when I can slip into town, ignore my workplace and find a spot to leave my car before everyone is awake. I greatly enjoy walking the woods with Rusty to get away from the world but Key West is a great place to wander before the crowds burst out of their hangovers.

I was on the waterfront as the sun came up and illuminated the clouds with that fresh pink light and by the time Rusty and I had wandered back and forth across numerous intersections we arrived back at the car when the sun was well up.

As Rusty laid into a bowl of water I looked around and saw all these abstract forms surrounding the parking lot. I had a drive to get home but I was going to be against the traffic flow, Rusty would be on the back seat and I had no plans to return to Key West all day. That I can handle.

My car was recalled last month to fix the airbag problem that has affected vehicles all over the world. I think about that as I watch the weird antics of the drivers around me on Highway One. Patience. 

Resuming The Grind

I spent Saturday in bed in that semi-comatose state slipping in and out of sleep familiar to anyone who has been exposed to the common cold. Rusty went walking with my wife and as soon as he came home he hopped on the bed and curled up next to me willing to accept I was, once again, bed ridden. Better at home than the hospital I dare say.

Sunday morning I felt well enough to drive into town and go for a city walk so we did, parking at the city lot behind the fire station on Simonton Street. The protocol is for Rusty to select the direction and I tag along behind. I keep him leashed in town when the city is waking up more as a sop to expectations than any real need. Rusty is entirely capable of taking care of himself, I am fond of saying I think he would survive a collapse of civilization rather better than I would. Meanwhile he knows how to cross the street safely. I'm there for decoration mostly.

 I never cease to be amazed by people who won't give a home to a  rescue dog on the grounds there must be something wrong with the dog. Sometimes there really is, driven mad by abuse some rescue dogs lose the ability to live normal lives and they are usually culled in the shelters. Most though are survivors and like Rusty they thrive when given a chance.   If Rusty were a thoroughbred with genetic shortcomings he would never have made it in the survival conditions he lived through in Homestead.

 I met Doug on Simonton street out doing his own bit of dog walking with Teeki who hopped around Rusty enough that I let him go and he wandered off to sniff his own tree thank you. Doug mentioned the coronavirus plague that has the newspapers wound up, and I between hacking coughs mentioned that I thought the 'flu was a more severe threat. I take the 'flu vaccine each year because I don't like the symptoms at all but tons of people don't and then they get their knickers in a  twist about a disease that sounds, as Doug put it laughingly like a bad take on a Mexican beer. I wonder  why they call it that he pondered. The reason (I Googled...) is because it has crown-like spikes on the surface of the virus. 

 And on the subject of the coronavirus it turns out this worldwide epidemic with fewer deaths than the regular 'flu is having an economic impact in the Keys. I never cease to be amazed by how connected everything is. The Citizen reports that spiny lobster sales have plummeted. Apparently they are a big part of the food celebrations for Chinese New Year, celebrations that have been cancelled this year. So fishermen in the Keys are out of luck thanks to the coronavirus. Bizarre.

I worked a half day overtime yesterday, glad to make up the loss of an overtime shift I had planned for Saturday and today I have another twelve hours of overtime scheduled which makes for good money and by extension less dog walking unfortunately, We have a  couple of dispatchers on vacation, one off to see snow in the mountains, the other to drive cars on more interesting roads than those he commutes on in the Keys. Plus we have two openings  and several people, like me, under the weather. I make money while I can.

The cellphone tower on Southard Street is familiar to me. It's been there as long as I can remember and even though I know it wasn't there in the 80's I can't picture it's absence. It's weird how things become familiar and even required. This corner of Southard and Bahama would look weird without this giant aluminum carbuncle rising u into the sky. And across the street is the giant old telephone exchange run by the American Telephone and Telegraph company. Old and new technologies face to face.

I can't keep up with the way the world is changing. I wonder what comes next.

The Snuffles

I am under the weather, enjoying a thick head and a lot of time in bed thanks to a colleague who takes full responsibility for passing it along! The fever has passed and I am on the mend. I did get out with Rusty this morning for a quick walk just as a new cold front sweeps into the Keys blowing out the rain and humidity and at that stage of bright sunshine and north winds with temperatures just below 70 degrees so a little brisk.

Normal service will resume as soon as I'm back to normal....

Simonton Street

I view my photographs and the words that accompany them a diary of my life to some extent and to a lesser extent as a record of the Lower Keys at this period.I don't go everywhere obviously and I am no longer a reporter so I am exempt  from feeling an obligation to be on the spot, but I can't stop myself from reading the newspaper. 

If there were any doubt that development taken to the limit is the goal House Bill 587 should put that to rest. This legislation apparently not supported by the Keys (Republican) representative offers to ease hurricane restrictions on development to...do what exactly? Save the state money they say.

It goes like this: development has reached maximum capacity in the Keys and the way that's calculated is how fast can the authorities evacuate the islands, supposing say a hurricane is imminent, and the magic number till now has been 24 hours. That's why you hear the order for a "mandatory evacuation" before the arrival of a hurricane and they start with tourists and residents of mobile homes. After 24 hours (the magic number!) they order other residents to evacuate. You can choose not to leave but in choosing to stay over a mandatory evacuation order you have to know there will be no help during the storm. That's what mandatory evacuation means, and emergency services don't respond when winds reach gale force because the hospital closes down and there is no medical support for first responders injured during a hurricane. Creating a  storm proof emergency room should be high on the list of priorities as the authorities now want to extend the evacuation time to 30 hours.

Extending evacuation times by six hours doesn't sound like a big deal but it changes everything. What it means is the population of the Keys will be allowed to increase as soon  as the "carrying capacity" of the highway increases by 25 %. The rationale is that owners of empty lots that cannot build on them will demand compensation from the government for their land that suddenly has no value and to avoid making the payouts the state legislature is creating a  new reality ion the Keys with I have no doubt, lots of unforeseen consequences. 

There is a pervasive air of unreality in these discussions about development and evacuations and storms and sea level rise and insurance rates and flood plains and all of it. I don't understand the logic of increasing the population density, slowing the evacuation times while at the same time raising alarms about the increasing likelihood of storm related damage to existing structures. And you know the people who choose to ignore these obvious warning signs will be at the front of the line blaming anyone but themselves for their poor planning and decision making when disaster strikes.

I read in the paper about residents without mortgages who carry no flood insurance. My mind boggles. The bald truth is f you can't afford the insurance you can't afford to live here. You can gamble your future right now but when you lose you will have to take your losses like a grown up. One resident told the Citizen he plans to invest the equivalent of the insurance premiums to self insure effectively. Doing that and thinking it's smart makes the assumption there will be no chance of a serious storm in the immediate future. The whole point of insurance os to pool the risk, not to rely on no damage for along time ahead.

I have no stake in all this as we decided not own real estate in the Keys and to rent  after we got rid of our Ramrod Key home. We lucked out with a  fantastic landlord and a very quiet neighborhood on Cudjoe Key in a house that rents for an extremely modest $1600 a month. You will pay at least twice that if you can find anything in Key West. But all this real estate is seriously at risk and the decision to own in the Keys has to be accompanied by a  sensible evaluation of your aversion to risk and loss.

If the changes are made and the state legislative majority is firmly Republican with a Republican (though very sensible) Republican governor all studying a proposal made by a  member of the majority caucus so... Our only hope is if Governor DeSantis looks at this idea and says it's nuts. He's an odd fish is the governor as he toes the party line on national politics but he's a Floridian at home, moving to spend money on preservation and the environment and talking to people with out pushing the party line within his state. He reminds of Democratic Governor Graham of fond memory, a mild mannered Dixiecrat wiped out by the Reagan revolution in the South. I fear the pressure to allow development in the Keys will push back the evacuation times and the difficulties created by this decision will be pushed out of sight into some future timeline. As usual.

By the time this madness gets into the pipeline I will be retired. It would be nice if there was somewhere to come back to for my end of life, especially as the new old folks home on Duck Avenue is getting taken over by the county which should give it some longevity but the crowding looks set to reach Hong Kong proportions before I will have finished driving around. Being evacuated as a not-so-spry old man doesn't sound too appealing. Especially like this.