Duval Pocket Park

There is a certain carelessness in the way Key West maintains its public spaces. It used to bug me to see decay ignored, an absence of care, and now that the city is moving faster and faster to fulfil the mayor's vision of a genteel upper class tourist destination, I see seaweed rotting on the beach and feel relief.

Slabs of cement mark the southernmost end of the "world famous" Duval Street, the heart of tourist Key West. The unsightly lump works for the seagulls.

This cheerful sign addresses an issue I had not previously considered to be a problem. I hope the pelicans know not to dump around here.

Conversely this slab of horizontal cement is a pier thrusting out into the sea, a photo opportunity with no sign of where or what this place might be. "Yay! Key West!" would be a nice background for those endless selfies taken at this spot, instead the background is a sign covered in scruffy stickers. The pier itself is about as inviting as a loading dock.

They come, they go and zip through the new pocket park built to replace a few seaweed covered parking spots that used to live here.

This is as it was:

This is as it is, so urban renewal is not out of reach:

The surrounding architecture should inspire.

Cruise ships are still in the news. The city is struggling to override the Governor's mandate that cruise ships are not subject to local control, but the latest news from the cruise ship industry is that Carnival has dropped Key West from its ports of call. According to the paper there is no reason given but that's a loss of several ships a week from Key West. 

Score one for the Mayor in her running battle with the Governor. Whether the loss of income will affect Duval businesses this far south from the bars at the top end of the street...is pretty easy to say. These places don't get many cruise ship visitors and in the past have complained about the discrimination. Nowadays Upper Duval is a mess of closed cruise ship centered businesses but down here everything looks normal and people are working:

In other news Florida's governor has promised to appeal another loss this time in Federal Court in Miami where a judge ruled Norwegian Cruise Lines can require passengers to show proof of vaccination. It would be odd if Key West did trump Tallahassee but there is precedent:  David did wallop Goliath...

Storm Clouds

I had no expectations when we left the house Rusty and I as I could see the thunderheads and I could even hear the thunder so I fully expected Rusty to have no desire to go for a walk but he surprised me and so we took off and I wondered what I might see.

Another Tropical Storm Watch has been issued for the Keys as a storm formation of no great organization has been named Fred and is rolling up the Old Bahama Channel north of Cuba. I think Tropical Storm Elsa was a useful education and this time around there is less wigging out, so far, as we expect a bunch of rain and some strong-ish winds. They say gusts up to 50 miles an hour and some flooding where you might expect it. Beyond that its another damp weekend forecast for the Keys.

These clouds were just another common-or-garden summer thunderstorm and while Rusty chased his nose I got to enjoy the wind and clouds. Indeed the wind picked up and the leaves rustled and it was all lovely and dramatic and not even raining.

I have noticed over the years that the path of storm systems seems to get set early in the summer. This year unfortunately we are in the middle of the second storm following an almost identical course to the first of the year. That makes me wonder where a stronger middle of the hurricane season storm will go. 

If my theory is correct this could be a good year for the Yucatan and the Bahamas and a crappy year for us if we get a strong hurricane.

On the other hand wild speculation doesn't help and for now we have nothing much on the horizon. We are driving to the mainland this weekend as I have a few days off after a very long period of too much work. Of course our departure is now predicated by the weather. We loaded boxes of stuff we want to keep in the van last night before it rained.

The plan is to drop off the boxes of books and plates and china we want to keep in a second floor air conditioned storage locker near the Miami airport. My wife is keeping up her online yard sale on Facebook while at the same time she is re-arranging what is left to fill the gaps in the home decorations.  I rather enjoy the sparseness and simplicity of the pre-departure home.

My eye doctor said my eyes are good, my modest old age glaucoma hasn't increased and my prescription hasn't changed which is nice. My lenses are starting to craze a little and I'm planning on using my prescription to get some new lenses in Mexico this winter assuming we manage to get on the road early. The vaccine holdouts in dispatch aren't changing their minds and Fantasy Fest is a  go this year so to have my immune depressed wife in Key West this winter seems rather too risky when we have a better option already in the planning stages.

My skin doctor says I have the skin of a 40 year old for which I thank my Italian mother. I have exposed and over exposed myself to the sun over the decades but it seems the stories they tell of Mediterranean skin might have something to do with my good fortune. The older I get the more I appreciate my genetic good fortune. Even my tooth cleaner could see no issues in my mouth on my final visit. The last medical hurdle is a colonoscopy next month. I don't sense any problem there even though I am known for being full of shit. I have been taking psyllium for years ever since my doctor warned me about the horrors of colon illness. My wife says I need a clean bill of health in my gut before I hand in my notice. She is so drearily sensible.

It was time, it was getting dark, the road beckoned and before too long we were home, in our denuded house with enough time to eat dinner, lay out my uniform and get ready for another early start at work. 

Sunrise

A spectacular summer sunrise. I had to get out of bed before six to get myself organized for this.

The old pumphouse is a pile of rubble now. Hurricane Irma  finished off the 1942  structure.

It used to look like this, and I miss the trees and  park-like greenery:

There is still plenty to look at:

Gumbo limbo survivor:

Later I stopped on my way home to pick up a few groceries. I parked behind the Winn Dixie and found a Key deer grazing nonchalantly ignoring the passing humans. I don't suppose you can blame them but there is more grass around human habitations than there is in the wild so why not enjoy the buffet? And so they meet cars and come off second best.

It's summer so I am always looking for clouds.

Keys Wheels

I stepped out behind him and only later discovered I had accidentally shot him from the hip. My first instinct was to toss it, but then how often do you see a headless cyclist?  Aside from that phenomenon  this man on a  bicycle is my perfect example of a sensible workhorse bicycle in Key West.

Bearing in mind it's hot and sticky so no shirt and sandals make perfect dress sense the bicycle is set up perfectly for daily use, not as a status symbol or as a sports machine designed to supplement a gym membership, but as a non polluting equivalent to a car.

I don't see much of a future for scooters now that electric bicycles are moving into the mainstream. If I were living in Key West looking for around town wheels an electric bike makes much more sense. Given that used rental scooters sell for a few hundred dollars they aren't endangered on Key West streets, but a side product of gentrification has to be more fifteen hundred dollar fancy electric bikes and less internal combustion on two wheels.

Of course new technology isn't born easily and there is daily outrage about thoughtless electric cyclists nearly running people down, but I suppose all that attention gives traditional pedal cyclist more space to screw up in. There is an odd virtue these days in pedaling unassisted so if you nearly run someone down on a motor-free bicycle it somehow manages to offend less than if you were doing the same speed with electric assistance.

I remember a friend of mine, a brief acquaintance really who soon moved away,  a few years ago remarking on a fast moving bike on Truman. His frown turned into a  big smile when he realized the machine was being propelled by legs and not a motor. "Bad ass" he breathed as the racer flashed by ignoring the traffic.

I found a motorcycle with decent acceleration was the best way to travel. Even fast full sized scooters set motorists off and they get mad when you pass. A motorcycle breathes manly viciousness I guess because only the crankiest of drivers gets mad when a proper motorcycle passes on the highway. I think there has to be some natural order of things in the world of wheels.

Walking alongside the pay to park on Duval Street I saw a couple of people not quite  with the program carefully parking their rental scooter in a  car spot. What I ask myself is the point of renting a scooter if you are going to treat it like a car? Free scooter parking is everywhere. That's about all I miss.

I notice these days driving a big high top van people get out of my way even in Miami. I find it surprising and slightly embarrassing sweeping a path through traffic like a snow plow, but I'll take what I can get now that I am no longer riding an agile motorcycle.

I have a feeling the biggest drawback to riding a bicycle is not being able to use your phone. Or at least not being able to use it and not hurt yourself. To see a cyclist not pedaling and using the phone is rare.

Of course you will see bicycles as art, several are planted or hanging in gardens around town. The one above is on Dey Street.

And then you can drive Highway One and see bicycles pedaling furiously on the shoulder, right next to the bicycle path.  It's a blind faith in the people driving their cars and expecting them to be paying attention. 

Going Viral

By now you know why I am out in the mangroves of an evening. I've had some bad days at work,  too much stress for all of us and I breathe a sigh of relief when Rusty and I decamp here a few minutes from home and a million miles from the world that makes less and less sense to me.

I wear a mask again. My wife so far cannot be vaccinated owing to the medicines she takes and my colleagues who argue vehemently that Covid is a hoax are so obtuse as to not noticed the death this year of  County Commissioner Craig Cates' wife and daughter who himself suffered agonies with the virus and barely survived. 

Out here in the wilderness I have no need of a mask, or to to explain myself, or to have a conversation with anyone other than Rusty. I don't even have to ask myself how we have managed to lose control of our lives once again.

At work we are sending more ambulances to people with Covid, the other shift told me last week they had six in one day which is a huge number for Key West. The newspaper the last time I looked said seven people were in the hospital for Covid but I try to avoid the numbers as they unsettle me. 

And all of it preventable. I used to think the Internet would bring knowledge in an easily accessible form such that rumor mongering would be abolished. I guess I was wrong there. Rumors are everywhere and getting worse. 

And so we wear masks, again. Its weird because I have had a World Health organization vaccination card since I was 19 and first rode my motorcycle in Africa. I've been vaccinated against polio, mumps, yellow fever, and I can't think what else, small pox comes to mind, and here I am. Sometimes I think that when a program is successful we end up undermining it because we can't remember how awful was the situation that prompted the remedy.

Plagues were common even in the 19th century. People died in waves in Florida thanks to Yellow Fever; in the Middle Ages bubonic plague slaughtered hundreds of thousands. In Western Canada while the Civil War was raging in the US, small pox was wiping out Indians across Western Canada as they had no immunity to the disease. Nowadays we take good health for granted, and a long life is a birth right. Yet we cannot recall that vaccinations made it so. 

I hear people call for the end of Social Security, the old age pension instituted to counter the appalling hardship of the elderly in the Great Depression. Indeed President Roosevelt designed the system the way it si so the only way to wreck it would be to deprive one generation of donors from receiving their just share. So far it has survived but we are told all the time it isn't viable. A fearful population is more easily manipulated and poverty creates deep seated fear. Therefore it's best to destroy  the system that helps keep poverty at bay. 

All the ferment and misdirected rage feels like a national mood that will need a confrontation to be cleared, similar to the street battles and lack of communication of the anger and mistrust of the late 60s and the Vietnam War Era. I feel lucky to have lived the bulk of my life in peaceful times, to be coming to the end of my life with social security to boost my city retirement, and to have been vaccinated easily and early against the disease. 

I wish more of the people around me felt lucky to live in a  country with all these amenities and good fortune. I am also watching the Taliban take back Afghanistan city by city in an uncomfortable replay of the fall of South Vietnam and wonder how it must feel to know what's coming and the inevitability of the advance of a dark age of repression closing over your country.

I try to banish these thoughts with my dog and my camera and my mangroves but Florida's refusal to step up to protect the weak, like my wife, is pushing me to seriously consider early retirement and an early exile from the state. 

We've been lucky so far with my wife's last year of school taking place from home with distance teaching. Last year the police department embraced distancing and masks but this year virus fatigue is everywhere and I understand it too because I'm sick of this unnecessary caution in a country brimming with vaccine doses ready to give away.

I wonder how Fantasy Fest will contribute to the spread of Covid not simply in Key West  but with tens of thousands of unmasked people determined to put the plague behind them. The entire police department will be downtown keeping order. I shudder to think.

And then, as we fail to eradicate the virus I wonder what the next variant will bring. Unlike humans I'm told viruses don't give up and keep replicating and mutating until they get their way. We may be dealing with this for a while.

Meanwhile I look around and enjoy the minimalist mangrove views, the silence and the sound of my dog sniffing. Keep hoping for the best.