I have been on Duval Street quite a bit lately, partly because Fall is the quietest time of year downtown, fewer people (outside of Fantasy Fest) clogging up the sidewalks, so I like to spend a bit more time down there until the flocks of busy snowbirds displace me, like chickens shoving aside the ibis. Then of course we all, except Hawaii, Arizona, Puerto Rico the Virgin Islands, half of Indiana, Guam and American Samoa, have to go through the brain busting time change. I like the fact that we are doing it a few weeks later than the rest of the world, and as a bonus Havana's Radio Reloj time checks match ours once again. The negative is that the sun is in my eyes when I commute into Key West in the evening, and it starts to get light as soon as I leave the police station in the morning, which give great dawns on the ride home but it's full daylight as I go to bed. It was even worse last year when they asked me to work days and I felt like a vampire, denied sunlight every workday through the winter.
Watching this guy haul his Starbucks breakfast down the street, I appreciate the fact that my point of view is skewed; early morning is a very pleasant time of day, the world hasn't yet gotten into gear, a moment for pausing before leaping into the business of the day. A time when I am usually busy sawing logs, so after I had my breakfast birthday with my wife, at El Mocho on Stock Island of course, she went to her normal daytime job of teaching and I took the Bonneville downtown to see what Duval looked like when all last night's partyers were also busy cutting zzzz's in bed.
The Green Parrot was closed to humans at that early hour but the chickens don't care, the crumbs are all they need anyway. Large trucks are not supposed to be in Old Town after noon which means they work hard in the early hours of morning to get their stuff delivered:
That last one was an unusual one, selling sea shells by the sea shore as it were. The shell man advertises his wares as the by-products (bi products in his words) of the seafood trade. We eat the inside and he sells the outsides as ornaments and decorations. They seem popular too, because there's lots of them in the truck:
I had forgotten how many people choose to do their jogging around Duval in the mornings, but my walk around town reminded me:
I used to see the early morning coming-to-life of Duval Street Monday through Friday when I worked at Fast Buck Freddie's, and I remember my time there very fondly. It was good place to work and I left with some trepidation to make more money and better benefits at the Police Department, which was as alien an environment to me as retail shopping. John was my boss at Fast Bucks and he still has a kind word for me when our paths cross.
"Shop keeper going to work" he joked as I snapped his picture. He's been working at Fast Bucks for thirty years, managing an environment that would make most people go mad with all the drama and difficulty of maintaining a capable work force. He seems to thrive on it. This guy looked like he was ready for a joust at the La Concha parking lot behind Fast Bucks. He was in fact making room for a cement truck to maneuver out of the parking lot: 
Around the corner at the County Courthouse on Fleming I saw a man sitting in the parking lot guarding parking spaces, the ones marked with yellow notices:
He said they were holding three parking spaces for early voters to use, and he said there have been crowds lining up to vote early in tomorrow's election. Personally I like to vote at my polling station near my house on the day itself, but that's because I work nights and I'm a traditionalist. This next early morning worker looked decidedly odd, sitting atop a truck parked in the middle of the street:
Actually it's a sensible way to keep the poinciana branches from dipping too low over Whitehead Street and he was going at them with a will:
It was a slow procession as he clipped, with co-workers on the ground feeding his clipping into a chipper that sounded like the advanced guard for the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse as it whined and shrieked as it ate the branches. I was glad I do my day time sleeping far, far away. When I hear the sound of a siren or I spot a fire truck "running code" my first thought is I'm glad to be enjoying my day off, but sometimes I see a fire truck waiting at a light and it's not one of ours: 
The Naval Air Station Fire department has specialised equipment that can come in very useful. They sent a truck to a fuel tanker that caught fire on the seven mile bridge and it was thanks to their foam truck that the tanker fire was put out as fast as it was (the bridge was closed for two days after that accident, which led to surprising numbers of shortages in Key West).
One of the signs of civilization I look for is delivery of the daily newspaper. There's nothing quite like finding the little orange bundle in the driveway when you get up, though of course I usually find it when I get home from work. Some people like their Citizen delivered to their place of work:
At $102 for an annual subscription (plus a Christmas tip to the driver!) I find the daily paper to be a bargain yes, but indispensable. And for those that denigrate the Citizen, "the mullet wrapper," you won't find me among them. I admire the level of reporting in our small town independent paper. The paper seems like a helluva deal compared to the cost of some fashionable eye wear, like sunglasses:
On the other hand sitting around all day waiting to sell sunglasses seems like another definition of Hell on Wheels to me. He looked a bit cranky, or perhaps sleepy at the crepuscular hour of eight o'clock.
All those abandoned plastic cups and beer bottles don't clean themselves up, you know. Here's the proof: the city's maid service at work.
Street washing can't be much fun but they do get city benefits for their work. There are other corners where some clean up might come in handy too:
Complaints surface from time to time about noisy small motors in the city. Some people object to blowers and the like which add to the general noisiness of a busy small town and electric motors are much appreciated like the first one pictured:
Construction work has slowed a bit in the city but there are still jobs going on, renovations and the like:
The number of jobs that keep Key West functioning always comes as a bit of surprise to me when I take the time to think about them. We tend to take the tried and true shortcut government/military/tourism and leave it at that, but within these broad categories you find people working for the Federal Government on Simonton Street:
And I like it that the security guard can get away with wearing a harlequin hat on Halloween. I didn't see much dressing up inside the Bank of America branch on Southard Street when I walked by. Just early morning customers trying to stay awake at that early hour in line for their money:
This guy's big job at the start of the day was to organize himself a cigarette as he absorbed the first warming rays of sunshine:
I met a dog walker on Bahama Street as I made my way back to the Bonneville which I'd parked in front of Old City Hall. And as the dog walker and I crossed paths this guy popped out doing his job of guarding his upstairs landing:
Further up Bahama a woman was starting her day by doing some sorting out. I took her picture because I thought she showed one good reason why SUVs can be indispensable, at least for those among us trying to get the clutter out of our lives:
And the last picture in my essay on workers in and around downtown I caught one of the Police department's motor units pulling over a scooter:
Always a healthy reminder for me what it means when an officer clears a traffic stop over the radio with "One citation." And that's a crappy start to the day, for anyone.
My sister asked me to get a notarized signature on a piece of paper to clean up some pending land transfers that my family had failed to sort out decades ago - some of them extend back to the Kingdom of Italy when Mussolini was in charge and my grandfather was alive and selling property. She worried that if we waited too long these pieces of land might never get proper title for their owners in Italy and she wanted to have the power to sign off on them on my behalf. A notion that pleased me greatly as I have absolutely no desire to spend time in notary's offices when I am on vacation. However that did mean I had to make the effort to go and visit the Italian Consulate in Miami to get the job done. This was something I dreaded.
I had similar experiences in San Francisco when I lived in California, traipsing an hour and a half north to spend hours sitting around a Nob Hill mansion waiting for some extra-territorial clerk to languidly sign off on my identity and slip me a very expensive piece of paper that I could mail back to my sister for her ongoing battles over our inherited family lands. Every visit reaffirmed in my mind my decision to abandon farming, land ownership and dealing in any way whatsoever with the curse of Civil Law Notaries.
The notary in the Consolate was actually a very nice middle aged lady who smiled sympathetically when I told her I had emigrated almost thirty years ago and barely remembered the rules regarding franking, signing and stamping. She smiled wearily and read the document my sister's notary had prepared. "Let's hope for the best" she said. Speriamo bene...which is the approach one has to take with all Civil Law paperwork because none of the rules are linear and clear. Civil law takes the attitude that citizens are morons and not to be trusted and the State knows best; an attitude that would make any red blooded American boil with irritation. Getting irritated does no good; Civil Law government is not there to serve so patience is a requirement.
In the name of the Italian Republic, on this day, in Miami, etc...etc... Well, wasn't I surprised when Mrs Vilma had me signing the paper, had my signatures stamped and the fee paid, $55 dollars, cash only, and out of there in twenty five minutes, no muss, no fuss. Anglo-Saxon efficiency (!) and I had an hour and a half to go on the meter. I could hardly believe my luck. My head was spinning as I got in the car and tried to figure my way out of the maze of streets that is the Upper Class neighborhood of Coral Gables, wherein lies the Consulate.
My abiding memories of my sister are of a woman on the go, she carried a leather briefcase everywhere she went, a briefcase she still owns thirty years later, begging for interviews, pleading for consideration, signatures and patience. I compare that craziness with my recent ten minute trip to the DMV in Big Pine Key where my Florida driver's license was renewed for eight years, my photograph taken on the spot and my new document issued to me there and then. My wife has renewed by mail without even bothering to show up in the office, as she has plenty of lead time before her birthday in January. Such casualness with the Property of the State would be unthinkable in Italy. Happily I live in America.
It didn't take long for me to find my way through the extravagant suburbs of Coral Gables back to Florida's Turnpike and the road for home. Coral Gables is an exclusive place, the streets wind and twist in a most European way and street signs don't look like normal tinny signs seen elsewhere:
Italy is a great country to visit and I enjoy very much being a tourist, but daily living is just much more pleasant in the land of the free and home of the brave. I get annoyed sometimes when native born Americans assert the US is the best country in the world, because they really have no idea how good it is here. Sometimes I think the US is wasted on native born Americans, people who bitch and moan all the time about government interference and bureacuracy. I wouldn't wish Stamp Duties or Civil Law Notaries on my worst enemies. Hell will be an eternity of standing in line trying to line up the correct signatures on a piece of paper that has no relevance or meaning. I have come to deeply appreciate the value of customer service, and every time I leave this country I have to suck up all my reserves of patience as I remember what it takes to deal with surly clerks and disinterested public employees. Oh and there isn't much in the way of Mexican food in Italy either. But there is in Homestead:
I rewarded myself with lunch at Los Nopalitos on East Mowry Avenue; turn east at the Police Station on Krome Avenue in downtown Homestead. That's the yellow building barely visible in the photograph:
And for $6:80 I had lunch including a Coca Light, gracias, and a pile of steaming hot corn tortillas:
A quick stop at Lowe's to justify driving the car to Miami, and I shoved an outdoor fireplace in the trunk, on sale for just over a hundred bucks. My wife had admired our friends Lisa and Jacques fireplace and I figured she'd like one of her own.
"Have a nice day," the Lowe's clerk said cheerfully and yes, I thought to myself I really will. Nice of you to say it, I wanted to reply but she would have thought I was weird, because she's never lived in Italy and doesn't know how comforting the phrase "Have a nice day" is, especially when it comes from a stranger. 
It happened one day a few years ago that I was working in the shipping department at Fast Buck Freddie's and I'd just come in from the alley in the back of the store when one of my co-workers came up all in a lather and said; "Did you see Jimmy back there?" "Jimmy who?" said I, "Jimmy Buffett,of course, someone said he's out back." "No," said I, "but there was some bald dude back there." Which it turned out was the person I had exchanged pleasantries with while I was taking a break from humping stuff into the store. That's as much as I know about the mythical Jimmy Buffett, a singer who inspires a following, some people describe as 
Jimmy Buffett's public story is all American and it's tied tightly into Key West, where he washed up years ago with a guitar and a desire to sing and those modest beginnings turned into a worldwide following and fortune and all the trappings. Everyone wants a piece of him and now that the 
I am really vague about all this, but I believe it's called the meeting of the minds or some such and the acronym 
Buffett no longer lives in Key West but he has a music studio on the waterfront and he owns part of the building where Fast Buck's is located, so my meeting him in the back wasn't exactly an outrageous coincidence. That's the building wherein his restaurant is located:
Margaritaville is where Buffett fans show up year round. Frankly if all cults were like the 
The "nuns" who descended on 
"We're drinking to save your soul !" they cackled at him as they shoved bystanders aside to get their pictures taken. I could well believe it, the bit about his soul; it was barely one o'clock and they were tanked. These cultists are all about being cheerful and they exuded happiness as they stood around in the 500 block of 
Early in the day there were the unmistakable signs of a Buffet gathering on the streets of Key West:
And then 
And they wheeled out the food stands and the barbecue and the beer and the party began. 
And a final thought as winter closes in, from the bus of the band that played to the crowd:
Which would be, of course, Key West.