Duval Street

Barring some other catastrophic obstruction I’m hoping Rusty and I will be leaving Key West soon. Hurricane Nicole will I trust,  be soaking the just and unjust alike in the indecisive state of Georgia. The plan is to return here after Thanksgiving but in the meantime I have to meander to New Orleans to pick Layne up when she flies back from California.

My instructions are brief and simple and I seem to have forgotten the critical point. I think I have to be at the airport the 22nd but I fear I was doing something important like picking daisies when she got to that point in her pick up instructions. Never mind, it’ll all work out. 

I’m told it’s rather cold and damp on the central California Coast as one might expect in November but it’s not at all here. One can feel rather smug in the Keys at the moment, cool breezes, puffy white clouds, and a little sunshine to mellow things out. The rest of Florida has been wallowing in pouring rain and some gnarly winds. 

It has been rather pleasant. We got a walk or two in downtown did young Rusty and I, checking the state of Duval Street. Much of a muchness most of it with a few storefront changes. Fran Decker has an art exhibit in the local artist spot in the shop window at CVS. When the owner of Fast Buck Freddie’s put CVS in the old Kriss building at 500 Duval he specified a space for local art and of course Tony Falcone got his way. 

I find the obsession with winter stereotypes for Christmas slightly odd, but I’m not a retailer by nature, so I am forced  to suppose Santa Claus as improbable as he may be in the tropics, helps sales. 

It’s low season right now as cold weather Up North hasn’t yet kicked in to push snowbirds south, but the trickle of people on Duval look the same as ever. 

In the past I would occasionally come down and walk Duval before my overnight shift at the police station. Now I’m just another tourist and I like that.  

In a way it’s a fresh new view of the city. 

We were passing the Oldest House when I found myself behind this child dressed for the part and learning to be a Key West visitor. Start them young  I thought as Dad worked the phone. 

Rusty is his own dog and I love that about him.  He got tired of being the center of attention so he walked to the end of his leash and sat by himself refusing to pose with them.  

I’ve only been gone a year but it feels like much longer so I was stupidly impressed by Willie T’s still pulling them in enough to fill the bar. 

We used to get lots of calls asking for help to move the street people along who had a habit of panhandling the customers while listening to the music.  The homeless tend to be seasonal too in Key West and I didn’t see huge numbers as I walked around. I don’t think gentrification makes the place more appealing for them either.  

A former colleague was telling me about applying for “low income” housing for which he didn’t qualify as dispatchers earn too much, his rate is nearly $30 an hour. His girlfriend does qualify but she can’t afford the unit as they want $2500 a month for the “affordable” unit. He could have lived with her illegally (!) but he found something else as he is well connected. The economics of living in Key West make less sense than ever. 

The result is that the commute hours these days are extraordinary into and out of the city as workers come from

marginally more affordable islands up the highway. Construction at the triangle doesn’t help. 

If you have your foot in the door you can hang on. Roger sells knick knacks on Duval and watches the world go buy. After a working life didn’t traveling he is a very happy man sitting here chatting to passers by. I wonder why I am wired differently. But I am. 

Hurricane Nicole

You could say I am miffed to find myself discussing a hurricane threat on this page but when I say “miffed” I mean something far stronger and less delicate. I dare say I am annoyed that not only did Hurricane Nicole put in an appearance but the storm is heading dead due west to collide with my plans.

Layne was going to leave Thursday from Miami to fly to San Francisco to gather in Santa Cruz for a friend’s 70th birthday. However that plan got scotched by Nicole’s untimely appearance and she left yesterday flying from Key West to Charlotte and then off to the wild west. Leaving me looking at a map of the entire rain soaked state of Florida the next couple of days. So I’m hunkering until this wretched thing passes. I have books to read and a dog to walk. I am set and best of all I don’t have to be locked down at work. 

The first thing I thought as I looked at the wide sweep of storm weather covering almost all Florida was how ready are they in Southwest Florida to get rained upon? I think Hurricane Ian was plenty for them to deal with at the moment. This was Monday’s track when we started changing our plans:

The Keys, Flamingo of fond memory and Pensacola are spared a spanking. Paula and Ivan are okay with me staying put a few more days to wait for the weather to pass so that seems sensible. My plans for solitude in north Florida woods are delayed it seems, not cancelled. 

Originally we were going to see friends in Miami and stay the night with Layne flying out on Thursday morning. So much for that. We just have to stay adaptable and feel lucky that we aren’t in the direct path. These days even a category one storm feels excessive to my delicate nerves. The trouble is storms don’t act predictably and we have nowadays sudden unexpected increases in strength and changes of direction at the last minute. I don’t feel much like it but here I am watching a hurricane develop once again. 

Some rain and wind is the forecast in the Keys as we wait and see what Nicole does and what Rusty and I will do in response. This is way better than putting up storm shutters and making my bed in the police station. 

I keep telling Rusty we can’t close our eyes to the possibilities of foul weather messing with our plans but he keeps ignoring me. Maybe I should do as he does, closes his eyes and smiles. 

Keith

I hate bicycles as a general rule. I don’t mean from the perspective of a driver dealing with cyclists on the highways and byways, though those encounters can be harrowing enough. No, I deeply dislike standing astride a velocipede and pushing off on one of the pedals. I know torture will follow. 

I dislike the general mechanical ineptitude of bicycles. They creak rattle and clunk, all while you sit on an instrument of torture that if you were forced to sit on it against your will would be recognized as medieval torture. That and having to pedal and sweat. You get no quarter on a bicycle. 

So you have to push down on the pedals to achieve progress. While all this is going on you are considered to be a vehicle with all the rights and obligations pertaining thereto. I stop at stop signs and motorists melt down in confusion when I don’t simply glide on through. I look over my shoulder instead of blindly swerving across lanes of traffic, all while lurching and clunking and swearing gently under my breath.

I know Webb Chiles, a Masonic cycling cultist, despises me for my anti bicycle dogma and half Key West can’t afford a car as they throw their money into the great rental maw that consumes their lives but I would rather walk on crushed glass in bare feet reciting verses from  the Bhagavad Gita in Sanskrit than ride a bicycle. And yet sometimes a man has to do what a man has to do. I arrived in time for my appointment on Stock Island by velocipede. 

“Well that’s a surprise,” Keith said from astride his Yamaha scooter’s broad thickly padded saddle. “I never would have guessed you would show up on a bicycle.”  I said nothing, principally as my numb gonads were once again consuming most of my attention. Every time I descend from the high Olympus of a rigid bicycle seat I worry that I will never restore normal feeling “down there.” Who would voluntarily crush the family jewels into submission just to save a gallon of gas?  Not I. Layne was at home aboard GANNET2, plugged in and air conditioned, organizing storage and I thought a nice ride would make up for the afternoon’s planned caloric intake. Silly me. 

It was a good afternoon. Keith and I worked together and apart in dispatch for a dozen years and as we have grown older and less brash we find ourselves with more outlooks in common that I should ever have imagined. We talked politics and travel and hardly touched on work, his work, as I am RETIRED. By the way, it would take more than crushing my gonads by bicycle to make up for a plate of Cajun pasta at Hurricane Hole. 

My last three years in dispatch when I retired from supervising to save my sanity and that of those around me, I worked on Keith’s shift where I found a quiet refuge to simply do the work and enjoy the process of taking calls and sending help to those in need, no office politics involved. He helped me gain my equilibrium after years of work related stress. I am grateful. 

It was a pleasant afternoon, one of those moments when I appreciate the value of Key West as tourist destination. I had no need to check my watch to see if I needed to go, to prepare for work, to meet an obligation. It was a matter of sitting around and talking and reminiscing and enjoying retirement. Another thing Keith and I have in common is his firm determination to retire when the time comes. He will probably stay in Key West, his retirement is planned, and I like the way he thinks. Dispatching has given him too a secure future in old age. 

I got home in good order, despite  the damned seat post that kept sinking as I rode forcing me to adopt a bizarre crouching posture as I hunched over to push the pedals and got my chin almost scraped by my knees on each revolution. Quasimodo on the tour de Key West.

Dinner was grilled burgers under the stars, a cooling breeze and palm fronds waving overhead. Our moochdocking landlords had a parent staying for a visit so I found myself chatting about the merits of Key West with someone else, an other enthusiastic visitor… Bernard from Cork in Ireland loves the tropical ambience and I found myself meandering through another long conversation this time fueled by iced water as I struggled to stay focused. Winter time made everything dark at six in the evening so by 8:30 it felt like midnight and I was well past my bedtime. Irish whiskey and Irish conversation will do that apparently. 

The Keys Paradox

Layne spent the afternoon with a circle of friends discussing a book. Layne the nomad participates online usually of course but was pleased to be able to reunite with her friends for an afternoon. I saw her off in the passenger seat of Carol’s car leaving Rusty and I alone, parked and plugged in secure in an absent friend’s front yard. 

Soon enough I got a text. Stuck in traffic, cyclist killed at the triangle. “The Triangle” is the name given to the intersection at the entrance to Key West where US 1 enters  the city and splits into a north or south direction.  I took Rusty for a neighborhood walk already determined to take a day off driving. 

A sunny November morning in Key West with higher levels of humidity than I would like, but pleasant nonetheless. Rusty mooched slowly along sticking to the shade perhaps because he is older and more sensitive to heat or because he has learned to enjoy the cooler air he has found on our travels and no longer funds sunbathing as pleasant as he used to when we lived here. 

I passed a man polishing his big black SUV so I said good morning as you do in Key West. It’s easy to identify the incomers in this town who bring their habits from Up North; they are the ones who avoid eye contact when you pass them in the street. Ray paused in his polishing and started a conversation. 

He slipped easily into politics and I started to back away fearing the modern descent into separate camps but he fell instead into the “pox on both your houses” camp. I just listened. But then the conversation got interesting. He and his wife retired from government jobs in New York and they decided to load their Lincoln with what they needed and no more. They sold their home and travel the country renting as they go. I was astonished, we had something in common. We discussed destinations. St Augustine is looking good to him, a destination I enthusiastically endorsed. Rusty got up and stretched. We set off for hone around the corner. More apparently retired  people riding for the beach: 

It probably didn’t go well for them. The rain started suddenly and came down hard for a while. Rusty doesn’t like the hammering of water drops on the tin roof of GANNET2 so he left his bed and laid down next to me in my driver’s seat swiveled around to act like my Lazy Boy at my desk. 

Layne texted me about the second road traffic accident they were stuck in further up Stock Island. A scooter rider had been killed by a car not a mile from the spot where a cyclist died a few minutes previously. She saw the rider cartwheel and die on the road and she was reminded once again of my own near death drama. I was largely oblivious as the rain soon stopped and I got comfortable with my Kindle. 

I am reading “Berlin Diary” by William Shirer as a primer for election season and spent a happy couple of hours delving into the arcane eyewitness story of the start of a cataclysm without the benefit of hindsight. When published the author had no idea how his story would end.

Locked away in Paula and Ivan’s garden, with inches to spare i had an afternoon to myself and my thoughts. Rusty snoozed among the banana leaves until we were interrupted by the start of the game and much hooten’ n’ hollerin’ from next door as the Astros won the World Series. 

Layne on Sugarloaf Key couldn’t get back as Highway One was closed southbound. Rusty had no idea what was happening and was reluctant to go for a walk lest he missed her return. I, who had always been at the mercy of road blocks in my tightly scheduled work life found myself idling the afternoon away with not a card in the world. 

After all these years I found the formula for thriving in the Keys. Sit tight, do nothing, don’t move and it will all pass. Instead of struggling as the first CBS correspondent in Berlin William Shirer might have benefited from the sane advice.

Key West Again

“It’s like you’ve never been gone.” Wayne and Chuck said that as they put us up in their driveway in Key West. 

I had my birthday dinner with them at Off The Hook on Caroline Street. Pasta and clams (and a whole lot more) for me.

Layne chose tuna. 
And they did the same. 

Of course I had dessert, banana pudding which Layne tasted but Wayne and Chuck are taking their exercise regimen very seriously and observed me non judgmentally overdosing on sugar. I shall celebrate no more 65th birthdays I feel pretty sure. This one I shall remember.  

“It’s like you’ve never been gone,” Kristi and Rachel remarked when I popped into the police station to see how dispatch is doing without me. Not too badly apparently. 

I found a room filled with smiles and good cheer and I had a thoroughly good time extolling the virtues of retirement and listening to their stories about work. I have too much to do to go back but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t greatly cheered by my visit. Dispatch is short staffed as always but they are on a upward trend impossible not to notice, in control, cohesive and smiling. I half wanted to rejoin the team. “Take the phones…” the captain said to me as 911 rung and honestly I am so used to that particular ring tone I was responding to the calls, twitching in my seat. 

I owe my ability to walk to the city health care plan and the support of the department. I owe my freedom in retirement to the pension plan and I am as grateful as I can be to them. It was a good job but I had fun showing a young trainee the road to Patagonia on Google maps. 

Rusty had a grand time trotting round getting pets and passing out on the cold linoleum in the kitchen. 

“Whose dog is that?” “Hey, Rusty!” and he flopped around like a fish out of water waiting to be rubbed. Now I remember how I did 17 years and four months in dispatch. There were some very good times. 

I went to Stock Island and had lunch with Nick. His apartment burned down during Hurricane Ian but he saved his dogs and his car while not losing his optimism. 

We had a Cuban lunch at El Siboney. We spent ten years working nights together in dispatch. We answered 911 together after Hurricane Irma. A clean up crew dropped a log on his car after the storm so I say if Nick didn’t have bad luck he’d have no luck at all. 

I went off the Cuban reservation and had stewed chicken fricasse with mashed potatoes. I usually have yuca but I was not following a script. 

Our neighbors were having a zoom conversation during lunch which I thought was odd. However everyone drives with their phone in their hand. Why not have lunch the sane way? Nick and I had an actual conversation. 

The weather is too warm and sultry to be enjoyed properly in a van. We have to plug in to keep the air conditioning going. In the evening Rusty and I spent some time walking to avoid the sun, like the good old days. 

We had lunch with a friend at Oasis an Uzbek restaurant on White Street. I had a kachapurri which is melted cheese in pastry with a loose egg on top. You don’t see these too often so I dived in.  Our friend lives in the Casa Marina district and his house was recently valued at more than four million dollars, despite no money put into a 600,000 home when he bought it. He was not happy because as he said there is no reason for such an over-valuation. The prices are ruining Key West and as one who doesn’t need the money he sees the negative side of the problem very clearly. 

I don’t know how the chickens survive but they seem to thrive in a world where their wandering is a tourist attraction. See here outside the Harvey Government center on Truman. 

I just shake my head when I see cyclists on the Seven Mile Bridge. I’m not that brave.

We spent some time swimming at the Ramrod Pool, a while in the ground dig deep and square for a development that never happened. Locals use it as a picnic location to swim their dogs. We swim but Rusty doesn’t.  

Take out the hours spent at work. Take out the drinking and fishing. That’s what’s left. Dinner with friends. 

Enjoy the water, if not the process of making a selfie. 

And enjoy being a tourist. Not a resident!