Some days I permit myself to wonder if there is a perverse fate at work in my life, taking my days off and turning them into large puddles of moisture. Yesterday was one such a day. I got home before dawn, thanks to the blessings of daylight savings time and when I awoke at lunchtime the scene outside the bedroom window was one of gray clouds and rain dripping from the eaves.
We had our cold front earlier in the week with sudden plummeting temperatures, cold north winds and lashings of rain. The progression then leads to crisp sunshine and cool temperatures as the land dries out and the waters try to warm up again. Instead I noted with some profound irritation that on my two nights off this week, Wednesday and Thursday, the weather forecasters predicted a fifty percent chance of rain. Chance would be a fine thing; this was a certainty and down it all came, watering the trees, around my house:
The barbecue on my rainwater cistern that acts as a deck:
And my reading chair which faces west across the salt ponds, from where I can look up from my book and watch the herons and ibis hunting for dinner among the mangroves. Chance would be a fine thing, and no chance for sunshine on a rainy day like this:
Rain is a splendid thing because this is the dry season around here and plants need watering. Naturally we need more rain on the mainland because our water piped to us by the Aqueduct Authority comes from the aquifer being sucked dry under Miami. But when my roof gets wet the fresh pure rainwater gets funneled under my deck:
Where it is stored in a 12,000-gallon cement room waiting for me to filter the water before pumping it into my house and using it. My home was built in 1987, one of the first in a subdivision that had no electricity, the house came with gas lanterns built-in on the walls which my builder took out saying they were dangerous and the system is hidden by modern clean Sheetrock now. The street was unpaved in those days but now its black with smooth tar. My house is supplied by the Aqueduct these days, but I only use that when I run out of my own supply of rainwater hidden behind the whitewash that springs the odd leak when the water levels rises high enough. Built in 1987 out of necessity, my cistern still works perfectly to original specs supplying the whole house with clean water:
I'm glad to drink the rainwater and shower with the rainwater and wash my Bonneville with the rainwater. I like to use rainwater not only because it tastes good and is, in a manner of speaking, free; but also because I have an historically ambiguous relationship with rain.
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Rain has always represented cold to me, because I lived where it rained in winter. Rain meant being stuck indoors, or in a car, rain meant limitations on my daily life. Rain meant being cold and feeling lazy and lumpy, rain meant dealing with mud and damp and smelly dogs. Rain has always been through the half century of my life, an imposition. Even yesterday when I had to go to school at the college I took the car, out of sheer laziness and a lack of desire to wriggle into and out of my motorcycling waterproofs. My nicely tarred street is wide enough at least for my Maxima.
I needn't have gone so far as to drive to school, but I knocked off a couple of chores for my wife, one ironically enough was picking up some water for us to drink, out of bottles from the discount store. It would have been hard to haul six cases of fizzy San Pellegrino on the Bonneville. So my motorcycle stayed home, under the house as the rain dripped down.
By the time I finished my mid-term exam the rain had eased up and the skies were looking a little lighter, with a feeble attempt at sunshine trying to break through. Highway One on the way home was dry in places, the temperature was hovering comfortably in the mid 70s. Lots of places in the country would have called it a warm day, an excellent day for a ride. My consolation when I see the cold rain come down here, is knowing that elsewhere people are fighting snowdrifts and blizzards. I'm churlish that way but as pretty as it may be, rain is limiting:
I need to get a fresh perspective on rain. It remains warm around here, especially as most rain falls in summer and despite raising the humidity a solid thunderstorm can bring temperatures down far enough to just about make me shiver in August. Rain gives life to plants and takes lives on the highways where people freak out when they are forced to drive in the rain, ignoring all that strenuous research to bring them the best tires humans have ever known. Rain is good, it brings variety to the seasons, and it barely impacts my life though I whine about it all the time. Its just another great thing about the Keys- here it rains when its warm, and when it rains it doesn't last very long. Here it rains and as I watch the drops splat I know they will be gone by lunch time, or tea time, or bedtime and pretty soon the skies will be blue once more.
For some people in the Keys its going to be a long time before the skies go blue again, if ever. The State sent down some hatchet women yesterday to officially close down the PACE program (Practical Academic Cultural Education) for at risk girls. Just like that the program is gone at the end of the month, the Key West director was fired with no warning and the juvenile jail is probably next to go. They say Key West got axed to send a message to lawmakers currently in session in Tallahassee: no more cuts or facilities will close. Too bad the small town programs in Key West, where they make a real difference have to be killed off. Our at-risk youth will soon face a new education among the hardened young criminals in metro Miami where they will learn how to be real crooks and bring their new skills home to Key West. Budget cuts always hurt the poor first and load the land of unexpected consequences in ways we have reason to dread, even though we can't yet know the full ramifications of this fiscal shortsightedness.
A rainy day is nothing by comparison to what our leaders are wreaking upon us.
So here's the thing: you have a patch of shady beachfront in a town notorious for its sunshine and heat and you run the park system that takes care of this, the town's best beach. So what do you decide to do? Why, cut the trees down of course! It's as obvious as breathing if you run the State of Florida Park System.
The Park Service says the casuarina trees, also known as Australian pines, are an invasive species and have to go. This is the same argument California made in attempting to get rid of eucalyptus trees, imported from Australia to be used as fast growing wind breaks. Casuarina trees grow where other plants won't, but their needles are acidic and prevent undergrowth from sprouting and the pines propagate wildly when left to themselves. However at Fort Zachary they grow in an isolated stand and provide beautiful shade at the waterfront used by people on bicycles, on foot in cars and even riding motorcycles (imagine that!):
The arguments against the removal of the pines are made logically and concisely on the Real Key West Blog. The video convinced me the wholesale removal of the pines is unnecessary, expensive and generally a bad idea. For a long time I had been something of a fence sitter on the subject because I do like native vegetation, but the notion that the well developed pines should be hacked down at a cost of $275,000 with no replacement other than a gruesome cement Ramada seems absurd. The pines, non native though they may be,have their own beauty:
And they offer welcome shade:
The Park Service has removed trees around the food concession overlooking the beach and their modest native plantings sit out in the sun baking gently:
Visitors to Key West in winter love the sunshine we enjoy year round and they think nothing of baking on the beach fleshing out their tans, soon to be transported back among envious neighbors Up North:
The park is tucked away in a corner of the city at the entrance to the harbor and the roadway into the park is lined on one side by the Navy Base while the other side is now city property, soon to be developed since the navy handed over 33 waterfront acres to key West (those development proposals are a controversy all their own...).
I prefer the western end of the park, the area with least development with picnic tables littered all around under the trees. This where I prefer to take my lunch breaks:
But development is encroaching with the creation of paths and borders and plantings:
When it comes to cutting down the pine trees I favor a middle path, a compromise that wouldn't suit anyone I guess. I really don't see the need to immediately cut down the shade trees, as non native as they may be. I'd like to see the Park Service aggressively plant in the wide open space between the Fort and the waterfront. Thus far their efforts are not encouraging. No one wants to see the pines demolished to make way for this:
The destruction of the pines looks even more crazy when viewed from the middle of the open space, currently occupied by Sculpture Key West. The pine trees across the horizon make quite a statement:
I wonder what the Park Service is thinking. Actually I don't think the leadership is thinking, if they were they wouldn't bring the Service into disrepute by cutting down a bunch of trees that actually serve a purpose, cost nothing and require no watering. As it is Fort Zachary Taylor is living proof our State is a lunatic asylum governed by the inmates.
Once upon a time, long long ago there was a street in Key West called Houseboat Row, and it was called that because people lived in houseboats parked along the seawall. And there are photos on the 
They were a colorful lot the residents of the two dozen floating homes tied up to the seawall. Indeed there is a story that one of the home
Well its not quite empty, people still defy the city and tie up their dinghies to the seawall,
in the mangroves:
As well as their bicycles apparently:
You've got to have wheels if you are going to get into town, and bicycles mopeds and even motorcycles can be seen from time to time parked along the roadway waiting for their owners to come to shore.
One can still see the steps leading down to the water:
Over the protests of the people, and with assurances from local property owner Ed Knight that he wasn't planning on developing the land he owned in the area the houseboats were towed away to new homes in Garrison Bight Marina. I remember seeing the forlorn houseboats being towed down Hawk Channel 
Meanwhile onshore life goes on, and amazing to relate those inland acres did end up getting built on. Right after the ugly blight of polluting wrecked houseboats was cleaned up, a bunch of multi-million dollar condos sprouted like mushrooms across the street:
A cynic might argue that the houseboats were swept away to make way for the high end developments but 
Its just one of those things. Change happens and people come and others go to make way for them and so the wheel goes round. People are still managing to hang in and live on their boats in Cow Key Channel. When the west wind blows the planes come in to land over the head
Nothing stays the same, and every time I ride by on South Roosevelt I miss the mail boxes and planters strung along the sidewalk, but there it is. Modern Key West is better than no Key West at all.
It occurred to me this week that Pure Triumph (they also sell Ducatis at...Pure Ducati, the Italian half of the building) is an old fashioned kind of motorcycle shop lightly disguised as a modern boutique. South Florida seems to have a massive cruiser and crotch rocket market and the Japanese motorcycle shops are very different places. Pure Triumph has fast bikes for sale including the Daytona which has made a name for itself in the motorcycle press:
However, unlike the other dealers Pure Triumph is a shop run by people who seem to genuinely like what they sell. Everyone at the shop owns a Triumph and rides it, unlike the dealerships, all too common, run by neat clean people in clothes that wouldn't look out of place in a bank. Pure Triumph has a large showroom and on the surface its just another up market bike shop, albeit one with a ton of Bonnevilles on display:
And while I waited for my own motorcycle to get a new rear tire installed I got to wander the showroom, and check out some of the models. Triumph has cost its owner some $200 million dollars since he bought the name some 20 years ago after the original company went bust. Finally Triumph is reportedly turning a profit for John Bloor a businessman who made a multi-billion dollar fortune in construction. Aside from the classic air cooled twins the company, which assembles engines in England and the motorcycles in Thailand, builds three cylinder water cooled engines for the "modern line" in 700 cc and 1050cc versions. The Speed Triple:
And its smaller compadre the Street Triple:
Which if I were twenty-something is what I'd be longing to own, small light and very fast. The Triumph Tiger is an old model name applied to a modern concept, a tall motorcycle designed to be comfortable on the street if you've got longer legs than me:
And then my favorite alternative to the classic twins is the 1050 Sprint, the log legged tourer complete with hard bags and big old fairing:
And in order to make a statement Triumph also builds the world's largest production motorcycle, the three-cylinder 2300cc Rocket:
Conspicuous consumption at its most excessive. A walk round the showroom makes for quite a tour at Pure Triumph.
Lucho grew up in Peru and raced motorcycles there while earning a living importing them as well. A punitive new tax code killed the Peruvian import business so he came north and has settled down to work in Fort Lauderdale. Lucky for me. His cohort Jason usually does the warranty work on my Bonneville and so far he's done a bang up job.
There was my machine up on the torture rack getting its $169 tire, and there was Jason truing up the new rubber. Minutes later the taciturn English mechanic was on the sales floor waxing lyrical about his Daytona 675 to a young rider contemplating his first non-Japanese ride. 
At the 6,000 mile service Jason did a nice job and sent me home with a smoother running, better balanced pair of carburettors. Balancing the tire he didn't disappoint either.
Lucho told me how he met another distraught Guzzi owner who bought a new Griso, a $12,000 motorcycle, but the fuel injection wasn't working and the motorcycle wouldn't start. Apparently the Moto Guzzi "dealer" in Miami has no trained technicians, no parts back up and no skills. And the motorcycle is stalled and won't run. That was the impression I got when i went looking at the Guzzi 750. That conversation made me happy I went with the Bonneville. Plus the Goodwood Green I got isn't made anymore though its replacement isn't bad I suppose:
And I like it better than the Ducati 1000 Classic, a pretty motorcycle by any standards but it doesn't make my heart beat any faster than the Bonneville does. Which is just as well because Lucho says Triumph's parts distribution is second to none. I like to hear that. I like to see the smoothly operating shop and their respect for the notion of making appointments as it takes me four hours each way from my home.
