Brief Escape

My last repeat broadcast as I hope to be back later this week and normal service will resume. Thank you for your patience: As Key West gets more crowded with people determined to be drunk in public this week, a middle aged man's thoughts naturally turn to places far from home. Ah escape! Even from Paradise! No-especially from Paradise.

Diggy pestered me for another ride earlier this week and we took a few hours to rumble over the Seven Mile Bridge and check out another eatery. This one, like Burdines is on the water, only its on the north side of town, what Marathon residents call Gulf side (as opposed to Ocean side on the south side of Highway One). Diggy has only just had his eyes opened to the possibilities of fleeing his hometown from time to time and he's developing a taste for the wide world beyond Key West.

Keys Fisheries is the place one chooses if one is in the mood to get Fish. They have a massive menu, overdone in length, but they are well known for their lobster Reuben, consisting of slabs of greasy toast with the other white meat nestled inside. As lobster can live up 120 years when not interefered with, I prefer to avoid encouraging their demise. I find the meat tolerable, overly sweet, and that encourages me to not eat them. The fact that lobster live low-key lives, tucked under rocks and not doing much of anything allows me to sympathize with them when they are torn out of their quiet nooks and allowed to suffocate slowly in our dry atmosphere to become human food.

My blackened snapper lived a much shorter life and tasted a whole lot more savory than the poor old lobster in the reuben at the table next door. My companion pronounced the restaurant "ghetto" which is a term I believe of disapproval. When young Diggy eats out he likes table service, not do it yourself which is the low cost theme at Keys Fisheries. But he did like the notion of using a pseudonym to order the food, sometimes a movie star's name , or a figure from history; the day we were there it was song titles:

Diggy took Low Rider, while I, with my search for the political in all statements went with Imagine. The view of the Gulf of Mexico was okay, blocked by a parked Catalina 27 and by the annoying waterfront fence.The fries were declared "not as good as Burdines" by my junior food critic. Next time we'll try elsewhere, always searching for good eats in the Keys.

Well, you gotta do something to justify the ride.

Third Space

I pulled this essay from the archive of 3500 essays I have on this web page. I am feeling nostalgic for some reason and I have been wandering my own history on this page. My daily life in this place is a routine right now that flows from day to day and I am learning to enjoy an apple cart that rolls and does not need to be upset for the sake of it. I am also enjoying looking back since I first started keeping this diary in 2007. So I shall, from time to time, pull up old pictures and old views of where I live. Just because this has always been and will remain a free form page, in my image, where change is always barely out of sight.I do this thing in public libraries, aside from borrow books and videos, that I call Power Reading. I named it after the well known habit of successful people called power napping. A "power nap" is a self aggrandizing way of saying "short nap" which is a way of using two words where one will do: "nap." In essence Power Reading means taking a read out of a book, but not the whole book just a bit of the book. I pick up a book, and dip in, while sprawling in one of the chairs in the reading area. If I like it I skip to the end (non fiction is best for power reading) and when I am bored I put the book down and try another title, selected at random. I get to peruse tons of books like this and have learned to feel less desperate as time goes by about the number of books still left for me to read as I slide ever closer to oblivion. Even our modest library on woodsy Fleming Street, South Florida's first public library seems overly filled with unread tomes: So there's this writer dude sitting in a hot tub with some friends and a bunch of strangers and he says he thinking about putting together a list of the best places to live but the only problem is he can't think of what the criteria should be. Much discussion apparently ensues among the occupants of the star lit tub (I remember this bit quite well, I think) and finally one of the nude bathers comes up with a truth that the writer grabs and runs with. The Third Space. That's the criteria for the best place to live.

Anyway I was spending a happy part of one day several years ago power reading in the library and I came across a book with an unprepossessing title, something like Ten Best Places to Live, and you will have to forgive the hegemony but naturally "best" referred to places in the US. I generally avoid books with lists in the title, but because I was power reading the obnoxious title obliged me to pick up an unlikely candidate: power reading is about broadening the mind after all, not filling it. Thus I learned about the necessity of public spaces. One of my current favorite Third Spaces is inside the Tropic Cinema, our three-screen Art House complete with bar/coffee shop/candy counter: The book with the crappy title introduced me to this grotesque notion of the Third Space alluded to above. The idea is that your First Space is your home, and your Second Space is your place of work, and these spaces can also be social centers to some extent. But the Third Space is where the social life of the community is on display and available. In other words if you think about places you might like to live you will find they offer vibrant and attractive Third Spaces. The dull, worn out communities don't.

This concept resonated with my wife and I because we were contemplating settling down "for a while" or pulling up our anchor and sailing on. One of the things we found wanting in Key West in 2000 was, we realised, decent Third Spaces. Key West had lots of them, but they were drinking holes. People gathered in bars and drank until they were attractive enough to take home. We asked ourselves, where are Key West's Third spaces? The White Street Pier perhaps... ...a place from which to watch the sunrise or even the sunset, far from the crowds at Mallory Square (which is too commercial and touristy to be a proper Third Space).

The little southernmost city has developed a few that aren't focused on alcohol.Weirdly enough I like Starbucks, which is embarrassing but its one of the few places that offers tables with a view on Duval Street to allow comfortable people watching. As is obvious in these pictures shot today this is definitely low tourist season in Key West.

Voltaire Books calls itself the last independent bookstore, and it offers a welcoming environment to sit and read and think: What used to be the only independent bookstore in town has competition now and thank god for that. The workers at Voltaire smiled when I remarked how nice it was to have a store with friendly people operating it. "We hear that a lot," they said. And yes I have heard from visitors who buy quite a few books here that Island Books is a perfectly pleasant place to shop. We don't frequent all our possible Third Spaces, some I enjoy more than my wife does of course, but there are quite a number of public gathering spaces, that we visit from time to time. Some get too much attention from our residentially challenged population, which rejoices in the mild weather of 24 degrees North latitude, but my attitude is to share the spaces with them and not yield my pleasure to their bullying and if they do bully me, the scruffy hobos who are threatened by middle class disdain, I stand up and say enough and make them yield to my demand for space. Public spaces are open to all, dressed in pressed designer labels or in reeking cerements or anywhere between.

"Drug Free Zone"...There's some governmental wishful thinking for you.

Aside from the Third Space concept every town has gathering points that are advertised as such, places that host events designed to bring people together, like theaters for performances, or even parks for outdoor events, but Third Spaces are simply places where people go and meet people, friends, acquaintances or neither, and chat.

Some people say Key West is going too mainstream, or too upmarket or too glitzy and that may well be the case. For my part I hang on to the bits that please me, and I find I rejoice in the wealth of Third Spaces that the town is, by accident or design, creating. I shall protest, futilely, if money and urban planning submerge or derail the process, but the ways of deliberate destruction are as forceful and more direct than the simplicity and beauty of accidental creation and my protests will fall on deaf ears. So the other lesson of the Third Space is don't get attached because change is inevitable, and not always for the better.

Riding Through Umbria

It has been a roller coaster of emotion for me, being in the place where I started out my life's journey and finding out that indeed, as the poet put it, "The past is another country; they do things differently there." Last eyar I made my first trip back to my roots in a quarter century. This time my sisters and friends were prepared for my return and I have spent a lot of time talking about te bad old days, what there was of good about them, and how glad I am to be bale to go back with a serene and open mind. I was depserately unhappy as a child growing up in a family that didn't much want me after my mother died, so my decision to disapper caused some to realise that I really meant it when I said I was out of there.

the good news is that all this good cheer means I may well choose to come back next year, perhaps fo a longer visit, which means I get to ride these mountain roads again, and that is pure pleasure. I have had some sunny weather and the green flowing hillsof Umbria are quite spectatcular and its unfortunate this computer ( which sucks by the way) doesn't allow picture download because the scenery is gorgeous and deserves to be seen. The roads are a mixed bag, some smooth as billiard tables and some, too many, as rutted as a Siberian track in the Spring melt. Public works do not get the attention they deserve in Italy, any more than they do elsewhere.

Riding a motorcycle in Italy is a whole other world. Unlike in the US where passing is viewed as an affront to one's machismo (among men and women drivers I might add) in Italy someone riding a powerful motorcycle gets a measure of deference which is sometimes embarrassing as I am not alwyas ready to ride the beast as hard as it will go. Sometimes a man riding a 170hp motorcycle wants to just tootle along an see the sights and that confuses passing motorists as they expect me to drive aggressively.

Then there are the occasions when I do just that and on this K1200R BMW I have discovered that when the dealer told me it goes from zero to sixty in less than two and a half seconds he wasn't exaggerating for effect On this motorcycle a slow moving truck is a blur in the mirrors and the BMW needs but fifty feet to pass a 35 foot truck. It's like flying while clutching a ballerina by the waist and being led through aerial pirouettes with no effort at all. I think about leaning and the BMW says "No problem!" and its done. I ough the brakes the motorcyle slows effortlessly and under perfect control. I go into a tight turn in the wrong gear and change down suddely and with a little sideways hope the BMW says "No Problem!" and off we go again, swooping in an endles spas-de-deux through the mountains. It is quite amazing.

I took a short cut down a stretch of freeway to find my wife's favorite pottery shop in Deruta to order some plates for her collection and I was wondering why th traffic was going so slowly. I thought i was around the limit of 80mph (130kph) possibly a little more. I glanced at the speedo to find to my horror I was cruisng smoothly at 200kph (125 miles per hour)...Of course the damage was done and when I got down to a proper 80 miles per hour I felt like i was ambling at a slow walk and the ride got suddenly very boring. I was just glad Irondad wasn't there to witness my reckless fecklessness, when I snuck up on the 200 kph mark another couple of times just to..make sure I really had hit the mark! I was getting a taste for it I fear.

Its te best of all worlds, I get to see my old home, I get to ride through one of the most romantic and bautiful and least known regions of italy and I speak the language too. Best of all I have the Florida Keys to come home to, where i will ride sedately at 65 in a 55mph zone and I wil enjoy the views and the water and the warmth and my very enjoyablelife. The best of all worlds, Umbrian by birth, Conch by choice.

Photos of course to follow, when I get home.

River of Grass

Can one get too much of the Everglades National Park? And no alligators either. This essay first appeared in December 2007. It needs saying because it's true: The Everglades generally disappoint. First time visitors expect to see huge looming warped cypress trees with Spanish Moss drooping in a ghostly semblance of Baron Samedi.There are a few spots like that, and some harbor Roseate Spoonbills: Instead the bulk of the Everglades are as Marjorie Stoneman Douglas put it so memorably and vividly, A River of Grass.There's a lookout platform just ten feet above the grass and it gives a tremendous view across the sawgrass to the clumps of hardwood trees known as hammocks. This is the Shark River Slough, 8 miles wide I'm told: And in the foreground one can see a puddle of water, proving the truth of the title of Marjorie Stoneman Douglas's book, which I have adapted as the title of this diary entry.

The Everglades National Park, a slice of mainland Monroe County east of Homestead on the tail end of State Highway 9336, is a true South Florida Wilderness. There's nothing much there at all, especially since Hurricane Wilma paid a visit in 2005 and put paid to what little humans had managed to put down in the wilderness. Hurricane Wilma didn't do much to nature because the open spaces are basically floating on water anyway and animals that live there are pretty much used to coping with a semi-submersible habitat. I'm not one of those.Needless to say, but I'll say it anyway, I love the Everglades, whether I'm rolling down Tamiami Trail, or bouncing down the gravel of the Loop Road or taking the back roads through Seminole Country. It's a complete change from the rocks and water and narrow strips of land that comprise the Florida Keys. Also its totally quiet out in the grass, a place where just the wind whistles an accompaniment to the birds.I left home at 5am today and got home exactly 12 hours and 319 miles later. It started inauspiciously enough as the Highway was wet from earlier rain. Indeed it started to sprinkle around Mile Marker 90, an hour into the ride. I took cover for ten minutes under an overhang and forced myself to stay upright and awake as I had slept badly the night before and I was exhausted. Breakfast at Denny's in Key Largo at Mile Marker 99 woke me up with chorizo, eggs, tortillas and cafe con leche.After breakfast I had half a mind to turn back and tuck myself into bed by ten o'clock but streaks of blue to the north convinced me the low lying clouds would blow away and a glorious day would burst forth. Fortune favors the bold, and I was right; I spent the rest of the day in sunshine and temperatures hovering between 80 and 90 degrees. The road to Flamingo, 50 miles from Homestead passes through fields of agriculture that remind me of nothing so much as California's Salinas Valley.

Flamingo is the park headquarters located on the shore of Florida Bay, a shallow body of water that I'm told gets no deeper than 10 feet. I've sailed to Marathon from the eastern capes hereabouts and its only 30 miles south, more than 120 miles by road...This is the former lodge, an ugly 1950's style motel that used to house visitors at the waterfront. Until Wilma invaded and now the Park Service is contemplating what to do next. Hopefully something more in keeping architecturally with the everglades location. The headquarters building, equally ugly if a good deal more bizarre in design still operates with peeling paint and lots of hurricane induced rust. The views south towards Florida Bay are tremendousand there is an excellent exhibit about the life cycles of the bay inside the building. Looking inland from the observation deck one is forced to wonder who figured this sort of parade ground set the proper tone for "downtown" Flamingo! Pity the man with the mower.

Away from the reconstituted marina and the still functioning campground, I found a chunk of dirt road with the intriguing notice No RV's Low Overhang, so naturally I decided it was time to test the 500 pound Bonneville's off road capability. I though it went quite well, but after a mile or so the potholes were still holey and the vegetation was dense as ever and the road kept rolling merrily along. So I turned back, deciding whatever there was to see at the end would have to wait for another day. I expect it was a campground unsuitable for RVs, but the road was potholed enough it wasn't terribly suitable for Triumph Bonnevilles though the machine acquitted itself just fine. I got tired of bouncing is all, and I wondered what I'd do if I got a flat. It was hot and very quiet down there, all by myself.

.

Back on the main road I set my sights on the outside world, however to get there I had to overcome one more obstacle. And I should point out the Park Service does not offer supplemental oxygen to get over the top.I was tempted to coast downhill from here but I had taken my time in the morning and now it was time to pick up the pace back to civilization which was still there,not improved, I'm sorry to say, since I passed through Florida City in the morning.

All good fun comes to an end, with just another two hours down the Overseas Highway to home, but it won't be long before I'm back in range of the black spot, you are here. But not in summer, never in summer unless suicide by mosquito is on the agenda.

Melatonin

1) Put the little orange flavored pill under your tongue before going to bed the night before you fly.
2)Put the little orange flavored pill under your tongue before sleep on the plane.
3)Put the little orange flavored pill under your tongue the first night in the new time zone.
4) Rent the motorcycle as soon as you arrive at your destination and get riding.
Melatonin- how to overcome jet lag the easy way.

And with just ten days to go before I have to give up this remarkable motorcycle I
have some riding to do. Thats the good news. the bad news is that Italy is going
through a cloudy thundery rainy period this week and my desire to ride this 170 hp
1200R BMW is overwhelming my common sense.

Italy is horribly expensive notwithstanding the exchange rate that has dropped the Euro all
the way down to 1.55 to the dollar. And I haven't even had to add gas to the crotch rocket
yet at $9 to the gallon. The good news is, if I fall off the thing (and it is REALLY fast!)
medical care is free.

Giovanni looks tired and he is looking forward to a few days off, goofing with me.
His wife Rossana is tired too and dispirited by the cramped economy,
the lack of raises and the cost of maintaining and supplying the expanding needs of two teenaged
children. When I visit Terni, in Umbria, and see the reality of provincial Italian life I am reminded of the popular US stereotype of La Dolce Vita and Fellini films which doesn't translate into 21st century reality. It's great to visit though, with a fistful of dollars (even weak ones) and no obligations a all ( my wife's
present is secure already. I know which side my bread is buttered on). I probably shouldn't say it but it does make me more glad than ever that I found the common sense at a young age, to emigrate. That I landed up in the Keys wasjust icing on tha particular cake.

Gotta go find a real cappuccino and a jam filled pastry for breakfast, oh I miss eggs over easy,
and there's a tank full of horribly expensive gas to burn in them thar hills. And this computer sucks eggs. It has a mind of its own.
Aren't vacations great?

Further Moods of Highway One

This post I published originally in July last year, and as I am on vacation here is a repeat from the days I used to ride my Vespa 250 everywhere:

Its closing in on 5pm and that means its time for me to start thinking about pulling it all together for my commute into town. I collect my bag and my lunchbox, slip into my formal going-to-work shoes and head towards the Vespa, which is parked under the house.

I wear an open helmet with goggles, leather gloves and a broad smile as I putter down my street attempting civility at a sedate 25 miles per. Its always a hassle leaving the house, the quiet, the dappled sunlight, the comfort of the arm chair, the books, the radio, the whatever-I-want-to-do-next. The desire to stay is mitigated by the desire to ride, as ridiculous as that sounds.

So off he goes, Snoopy to the Rescue, all I lack is a scarf as my Vespa makes a nice substitute for a dog house. The riding position of the scooter requires a straight back which makes for good posture but its also very comfortable, unlike most motorcycles which usually demand contortions from your arms, and a bottom made of asbestos the seats are so uncomfortable. Burning ass syndrome. Why do we ride motorcycles? Because we like our self image I dare say...

And because we like to skirt complex traffic situations which do arise from time to time in our Florida Keys.

I don't know what backed up the traffic going into Big Pine that day but whatever it was I had the camera with me so I could stop and make some good use of the moment. I have also made some good use of time by poking around the back streets of Big Pine Key, and this at first glance doesn't look like such a bright idea.

Big Pine is so named because of its size, not because of the size of the trees that grow there. Big Pine is also synonymous with down-at-heel stores, landscaping designed and implemented by moles and homesteads apparently occupied by residents who remain firmly convinced despite all evidence to the contrary, that planting a car will grow a new automobile. Nevertheless when Highway One is jammed this is one place in the bottle neck (Matecumbe Keys is another) where you can ride the back roads to avoid the arterial blockages that occasionally hold up traffic in downtown Big Pine.

Its a matter of slipping past the trailers in their lots, darting round long dormant cars, finding the gap in concrete barricades put out with the express purpose of preventing the use of the street as thoroughfares, and eventually making your way to Winn Dixie shopping center. Once there you have outsmarted Highway One, and wasted a fair bit of time too, because the back roads really aren't faster if Highway One is moving at all.

Heading south, past my street, Highway One opens up into a series of long open straightaways, open vista bridges, sweeping curves and occasional businesses, frequently modeled on the Big Pine style of minimum landscaping and maximum neon and plastic.

So, on the ride in to Key West, its a matter of inserting oneself into the traffic flow as best one can and taking the road as it comes. Some days, in summer mostly, especially in the later, hurricane prone months, the traffic gets lighter and the road is a fast run to Stock Island, sometimes even less than 30 minutes followed by a straight shot to work with cooperating traffic lights. In winter the highway becomes an endless stream of snowbirds. God only knows what they are doing on the road during commute hours but they successfully manage to clog the highway and slow everything down, by a few minutes.

The rise of the bridge over Niles Channel gives me the best view of the surrounding waters, in the morning its an apocalyptic vision of a blood-red sun rising through the thunder heads. In the afternoon its the same sun, this time worn out by a day of shining, that blasts into my eyes as I weigh up the chances of passing as we hit the down slope and the dotted yellow lines. (The old Flagler Railway Bridge alongside, vintage 1911, is now a fishing pier).

After the descent into Summerland Village, a mish mash of small businesses including the keys best pizza (Slice of Paradise) and a good video store that keeps us going, we have another quick chance to pass slowpoke cars at the entrance to Cudjoe Key but after that its long straightaways, sweepers and hedges of mangroves broken by bridges, views of the water and then more mangroves, more bridges more water.

The 55mph stretch through the Saddlebunch Keys is always good for a quick cheap passing thrill. If I'm in the mood and there's an end in sight to the traffic I can slide up behind the last car in the line and zip past in one of several dotted yellow line sections with good sight lines.

I think it shocks people to see a "moped" passing them, where a "real" motorcycle would be just a fact of life. Passing with the Vespa does tend to take a bit of planning. I don't do it if the line of vehicles is endless, I see no point in just moving up a few dots in the string. If the cars are doing a real 60 mph in the 55mph zone I also tend to hold back. But if they are dawdling at 50mph, they're dead meat. My dead meat. I hold back, eye the gaps in the cars in front and as the last oncoming vehicle approaches I wind up my gearless 250. I surge up to 70, pass the offending dawdler and tuck myself out of sight on the right hand side of the lane, where I can see past the vehicles in front on the inside of the right hand corners.

And then we get in close to Key West, the four lane opens up and I'm in the fast lane immediately and they think i will be a hindrance on my moped... There's only six miles of four lane, from Big Coppitt and East Rockland, past the Navy base on Boca Chica, through Stock island blending into the urban island) sprawl of North Roosevelt Boulevard in the city.

By the time I'm stuck at the light at the baseball fields I'm 5 minutes from work, so at a red light I pull my sweaty helmet off, stow it with my gloves under my seat and cruise refreshed in to work.

Commuting was never meant to be like this, and for millions it isn't. But for me, even on a rainy day smothered in my rain suit, passing wobbly giant SUV's whose occupants are terrified of water it seems, this is too much like fun. On windy days with gusts of fresh damp air tugging at my sleeves it is supposed to be a nuisance commuting by two wheels. Not for me.

The Internet forums are full of words of caution about small wheeled scooters, words that should fill me with dread on the crusty, tattered surface of the highway with its holes and its bounce and its patches and its dips. My Vespa eats the miles like they were velvet and my back shows neary a complaint. Not even when I'm riding my wife's 150cc Vespa with its modest 10-inch wheels- and it hits 65mph easily!