On the one hand I find it tedious to point out how pleasant the weather is in the Keys this time of year. On the other hand I am constantly reminded that if the weather weren't what it is the Keys wouldn't be what they are. Which is to say we thought about living in the San Juan islands when we decided to leave California, but a visit in February, though pleasant, proved the point. The San Juan's, across the water from Canada's Gulf Islands, are real islands, with no land bridges to the mainland and they are isolated. Being part of Washington State they are eminently civilized, neat, tidy, eco-conscious polite and self effacing. Aside from the weather factor they are polar opposites to the Keys. But one cannot avoid weather issues if frost is not enjoyable.
The San Juans are astonishing lumps of land filled with a continent's worth of geography, forests, mountains, bodies of water, winding roads that stretch further in the imagination than they do on the ground. Their residents are of the woolly hatted variety, hardy and unfazed by drizzle and gray skies. And there's the rub: gray skies. Washington State gets bad press for having too much rain. I have found in my visits that Seattle is too frequently gray and overcast, not wet necessarily. 
The Keys offer what is not on tap elsewhere, and that is milder temperatures and more sunshine surrounded by accessible salt water. One wouldn't put up with the lack of topographic variety if the sun weren't shining. The absence of lakes, rivers, hills, forests or even deserts would make the islands highly undesirable were it not for the climate. Perennial sun, always around the corner if not actually shining, makes it easy to forgive the fabulous Florida Keys their monotony.
That perceived monotony attracts people of a certain ilk. Explorers need not apply for residence. Travelers come and live and take off and travel, but not many people live in the islands to explore the islands. I find it astonishing how many people say there is nothing to do in the Keys. They lack money or the will to own a boat and remain land bound. They live in Key West to avoid the dreaded commute. They walk or cycle and circle the rock, rarely leaving and only driving up the Keys under pressure.
I suppose it makes little sense to be a hiker and to choose to live where it's flat and the best views are snatched from the tops of bridges. Mountain bikers need not apply. Walkers will see endless miles of identical shrubbery, bush after spindly bush of mangroves, mostly impassable. Anglers will rejoice, fans of downhill skiing would cringe.
I like wandering the Keys, I enjoy getting to know the islands outside Key West, a city that offers plenty especially in relation to it's size but it is neither the be-all nor the end-all of life in the Keys. Perhaps for me the Keys retain value as destinations in and of themselves as I have washed up after spending decades in endless pursuit of the horizon. Seeking out the minor variants provides a more durable satisfaction when one knows there is nothing left to prove. I take pleasure in being if not doing all the time.
It was about a year ago, in the heart of the dread "holiday season" that I met a visiting long distance motorcyclist regaling a Christmas party with tales of derring-do on the road with his huge long distance motorcycle. He remarked that on his last visit he had rented a scooter for a week's stay and barely managed to put 60 miles on the machine. "There was nowhere to go!" he laughed, contemptuous of someone who could live restricted within these narrow boundaries. I could put 60 miles on in a day because there is everywhere to go.
Island living requires some adjustments and living in the Lower Keys is much closer to being on a true island than one might at first imagine. When it takes two hours to reach a fork in the highway one has to think twice before taking off for the mainland. Effectively it takes as long, if not longer than getting ashore from Friday Harbor in the San Juan's. It was especially true in the brief period of four-and-a-half dollar gas that the mainland seemed so far away, separated not only by time and distance (100 miles from my house) but also suddenly we were separated by the dollar cost of the trip to Homestead. 
I roll out my bicycle most days for a ride and each trip is a reminder of some place in a prior life, rolling silently through neighborhoods or past mangrove mazes my mind is free to wander, to fix the problems of the world, to contemplate why this or why that. A ride through Key West can be a pleasure too but suburbia is serenity of a different order of magnitude. I found an empty television box by the side of the road on the Torch Keys and it made me think of the decrepitude of civilization that the prophets of gloom offer up constantly. We'll be television-less and pedalling for our lives, and they tell us happier for it, which seems dubious to me:
One of my small town pleasure sis checking the Citizen of the Day photograph in the Citizen newspaper. They don't seem to pick wildly articulate or thought provoking citizens but perhaps if they did it would ruin the artless flavor of the daily photo. Invariably (almost invariably!) they remark on the weather as the primary reason they came to the Keys, and continue living in the Keys. Conchs cite family as their primary reason. Fishing or boating come close seconds. Exploring is never on the list though using a bicycle as primary transportation does come up from time to time.
I recall a comment from Sal in New York remarking how his Bonneville is better off than mine because he gets to ride in it's natural habitat, curvy mountain roads whereas my poor thing grinds long straight miles day after day. He is right, but in my head I am riding all the curves I've ever ridden, yesterday Corsica, today Umbria, tomorrow the Atlas mountains or perhaps the Sierra Nevada. It's all in the mind.
The Bonneville may look like its parked in Key West, but in my head as I sit smiling and sipping coffee at the White Street Deli, La Poderosa may be getting ready for a ride to Ushuaia. Or to Fort Zachary Taylor to stare out at the turquoise waters. And the weather really is great, no matter how little land or curiosity or variety there may appear to be in the southernmost peninsula islands.
The San Juans are astonishing lumps of land filled with a continent's worth of geography, forests, mountains, bodies of water, winding roads that stretch further in the imagination than they do on the ground. Their residents are of the woolly hatted variety, hardy and unfazed by drizzle and gray skies. And there's the rub: gray skies. Washington State gets bad press for having too much rain. I have found in my visits that Seattle is too frequently gray and overcast, not wet necessarily. The Keys offer what is not on tap elsewhere, and that is milder temperatures and more sunshine surrounded by accessible salt water. One wouldn't put up with the lack of topographic variety if the sun weren't shining. The absence of lakes, rivers, hills, forests or even deserts would make the islands highly undesirable were it not for the climate. Perennial sun, always around the corner if not actually shining, makes it easy to forgive the fabulous Florida Keys their monotony.That perceived monotony attracts people of a certain ilk. Explorers need not apply for residence. Travelers come and live and take off and travel, but not many people live in the islands to explore the islands. I find it astonishing how many people say there is nothing to do in the Keys. They lack money or the will to own a boat and remain land bound. They live in Key West to avoid the dreaded commute. They walk or cycle and circle the rock, rarely leaving and only driving up the Keys under pressure.I suppose it makes little sense to be a hiker and to choose to live where it's flat and the best views are snatched from the tops of bridges. Mountain bikers need not apply. Walkers will see endless miles of identical shrubbery, bush after spindly bush of mangroves, mostly impassable. Anglers will rejoice, fans of downhill skiing would cringe.I like wandering the Keys, I enjoy getting to know the islands outside Key West, a city that offers plenty especially in relation to it's size but it is neither the be-all nor the end-all of life in the Keys. Perhaps for me the Keys retain value as destinations in and of themselves as I have washed up after spending decades in endless pursuit of the horizon. Seeking out the minor variants provides a more durable satisfaction when one knows there is nothing left to prove. I take pleasure in being if not doing all the time.It was about a year ago, in the heart of the dread "holiday season" that I met a visiting long distance motorcyclist regaling a Christmas party with tales of derring-do on the road with his huge long distance motorcycle. He remarked that on his last visit he had rented a scooter for a week's stay and barely managed to put 60 miles on the machine. "There was nowhere to go!" he laughed, contemptuous of someone who could live restricted within these narrow boundaries. I could put 60 miles on in a day because there is everywhere to go.Island living requires some adjustments and living in the Lower Keys is much closer to being on a true island than one might at first imagine. When it takes two hours to reach a fork in the highway one has to think twice before taking off for the mainland. Effectively it takes as long, if not longer than getting ashore from Friday Harbor in the San Juan's. It was especially true in the brief period of four-and-a-half dollar gas that the mainland seemed so far away, separated not only by time and distance (100 miles from my house) but also suddenly we were separated by the dollar cost of the trip to Homestead. I roll out my bicycle most days for a ride and each trip is a reminder of some place in a prior life, rolling silently through neighborhoods or past mangrove mazes my mind is free to wander, to fix the problems of the world, to contemplate why this or why that. A ride through Key West can be a pleasure too but suburbia is serenity of a different order of magnitude. I found an empty television box by the side of the road on the Torch Keys and it made me think of the decrepitude of civilization that the prophets of gloom offer up constantly. We'll be television-less and pedalling for our lives, and they tell us happier for it, which seems dubious to me:One of my small town pleasure sis checking the Citizen of the Day photograph in the Citizen newspaper. They don't seem to pick wildly articulate or thought provoking citizens but perhaps if they did it would ruin the artless flavor of the daily photo. Invariably (almost invariably!) they remark on the weather as the primary reason they came to the Keys, and continue living in the Keys. Conchs cite family as their primary reason. Fishing or boating come close seconds. Exploring is never on the list though using a bicycle as primary transportation does come up from time to time.I recall a comment from Sal in New York remarking how his Bonneville is better off than mine because he gets to ride in it's natural habitat, curvy mountain roads whereas my poor thing grinds long straight miles day after day. He is right, but in my head I am riding all the curves I've ever ridden, yesterday Corsica, today Umbria, tomorrow the Atlas mountains or perhaps the Sierra Nevada. It's all in the mind.The Bonneville may look like its parked in Key West, but in my head as I sit smiling and sipping coffee at the White Street Deli, La Poderosa may be getting ready for a ride to Ushuaia. Or to Fort Zachary Taylor to stare out at the turquoise waters. And the weather really is great, no matter how little land or curiosity or variety there may appear to be in the southernmost peninsula islands.
The US Postal Service is an institution I have long admired. Which puts me in a decided minority in the US, a nation that makes a national sport of mocking the postal system. I guess you have to have lived elsewhere to appreciate the USPS and its customer service attitude. These days the mails are transported by a semi-autonomous branch of the US government. As far as I can tell that means the postal service has to deliver the mails and not lose money because none will be forthcoming from the Federal Budget. I guess they will declare themselves a bank if they end up needing a cash infusion.
Key West has two post offices, a nondescript hole in the wall next to Winn Dixie in New Town and the main post office a splendid brick structure whose official address is 400 Whitehead Street, but it actually exists in park-like grounds wedged between Eaton, Whitehead and Fleming Streets:
The rear of the Post Office nudges up against the Truman Annex and its where the big trucks load up with the mails and haul them up to Homestead to be sorted. The weird thing is that of you post a letter to Cudjoe Key, 33042, which is served by the Summerland Key Post Office, the letter will go to Homestead for sorting and will come back down the next day for delivery, covering 200 miles to go 25...Whatever works I guess.
When I'm at work we often get calls from people living in islands ten or more miles up the Keys, convinced they do live in the city when they are far outside city limits. That's because their address reflects the fact they are served by this post office and are considered to be part of zip code 33040- the city of Key West.
When I used to live on sailboats the first thing I did when I settled in a city was to get a PO Box, it was my way of establishing residence and getting settled. In Santa Cruz, California, in 1983 there was a wait for a box as I recall, and I felt I had arrived when I got my slot in the main post office.
In St Petersburg when I got a slip at the city marina in Demen's Landing I was enchanted to discover my little brass box lived al fresco in an indoor-outdoor post office. Key West has a similar arrangement:
The fenced walkway around the front of the post office is usually open, but there are shutters that can be lowered ( in case of heavy weather of course):
This a post office subjected to massive rains too so the gutters and downspouts are solid. Too bad they aren't directed into some sort of receptacle to store the rainwater:
The post office has a light airy feel, its a place weirdly enough I enjoy visiting just for the hell of it. The parking lot is vast, and it has chickens too, but human visitors are strictly regulated of course:
The post office parking lot is very convenient to downtown and the postal employees get testy when people park there in the day and don't use the facilities, so cars do end up getting towed. After hours though it's a different story. There used to be a parking lot attendant at night who took money to let people park and boy, he was as mean as a snake. I never used to go anywhere near him. Now he's gone and someone else will have to claim the title of meanest person in Old Town.
That last picture I took on a night time lunch break, last winter. Always pretty the post office on Whitehead Street.
On the north side the front portico still looks the same as it did in the postcard, but the passage of time has given some trees a chance to sprout:
The passage of time may explain the apparent passive aggressive nature of the handicapped parking space. Give it enough time and the tree won't leave enough space even for a bicycle to park:
The Harris School started out in life as the equivalent of a high school I believe and ended it's educational career as an elementary school in 1980. Late enough to make mention of skateboarding which was quite popular back then as I recall.
The school building used to be surrounded by other cement structures of a 1950's or 60's style and they included the MARC house an acronym that has a rather dated flavor to it: Monroe Association for Retarded Citizens. They used to have splendid plant sales in back and I recall cycling Carstens Lane in the rear of the property and seeing rows of plants filling the back of the building. These days the land around the Harris School has been razed:
Somewhere over in the right side of the photograph there was also a culinary school and we used to get cheap high quality meals there, as guinea pigs for the high school chefs. It was a loss when they closed, and then there was the promise that the culinary school might re-open in the Harris building. That clearly didn't happen:
There were plans aired to hand the building over to a foundation for use as an "artist's colony" in the heart of the city but negotiations seemed to fall apart between Rodel and the school district. So the building languishes and sits there as sturdy as ever:
The walls look like they're made of stone are actually a kind of stippled cement. I've seen similar at the school district's facilities building on United Street. But for all it's solid Victorian air Harris School is sad and abandoned:
When negotiations were at their height a couple of years ago people standing on the sidelines expressed incredulous horror at the thought of the school being knocked down, as it needs huge amounts of work to be brought up to code and made usable. With the economy wobbling the way it is right now I wonder what possible use they can find for the pile. 
Modern libraries are so much more than simply book depositories it's hard to know how librarians manage their roles in society. The library in Key West, as it is so many towns is a refuge for people with no place to go, and as such it has become a sort of drop-in center for the dispossessed. It has computers to give everyone a chance to glean what they need from the Web:
The library is still mostly about books and reading, so we of course enjoy lots of heavily loaded shelves along with perhaps a seasonal theme:
But we have electronics to feed as well and the library is good place to stop by for a DVD, or if you are old fashioned they still have some video tapes:
They cater to youngsters and offer a room for their use, next to the meeting room at that end of the building which offers a space for lectures and movies and the like:
Despite the modern demand for electronic gadgetry the library holds firm on the no cell phone rule, pushing patrons out into the cold if they have to yell into the box in public:
The city-county library system in Monroe County has the usual problem facing public services in a county that is a hundred miles long and a mile wide in that there have to be lots of branches up and down the islands. I have used the Marathon, Big Pine and Key West libraries as well as the library at the Florida Keys Community College and found them all to be excellent refuges. And despite the usual lack of funds for a service that could improve the community immeasurably they do well with what they have.
I guess it is helpful for me that I work nights in that the hours do tend to serve the unemployed but library closings seem inevitable in our newly impoverished world.
In a city filled with retirees in winter the library is a hive of reading activities:
Some of my younger colleagues look at me in horror when I talk about books. "I don't read!" Belen announced proudly. So I looked at her and said: "The only difference between you and a dog is that the dog can't read!" which isn't original but she was annoyed enough to bring a book to work, on the Holocaust of all things. Illiteracy is something that is still often considered shameful but there's enough of it around that there are ads for volunteer reading coaches posted at the library bulletin board.
The library has always been a mark of civilization in a community and the fact that Key West's goes back in various guises at this location to the 19th century is a reminder that this was once Florida's biggest city. It seems odd nowadays to imagine that little Key West was the most salubrious town in a state plagued by heat, humidity, insects and illness. Key West was on the main shipping routes from the Gulf of Mexico and there was money to spare for a little culture in the town.
When I lived on the margins in Key West getting a library card was the ticket to comfortable living afloat. A library card offered free entertainment in a town that lacked NPR on the radio and that lost its free TV with the departure of the translator antennae up and down the Keys. I presented my card one day to withdraw a book and the librarian checked the address as they do. "700 Sailboat Lane?" I nodded holding my breath. " Hmm," she said looking dubious. "This sounds like a Cheryl live aboard special." I nodded acknowledging my address as the approximate location of the sailing club on Garrison Bight. I owed Cheryl a lot for her help and now she's died I can confess she weaseled me a library card at a most opportune time. She made the library a shore base for a lot of transient sailor and I think of her every time I visit.
The library is a handy place to park but overstaying one's welcome isn't a good idea. Its a county facility and there is usually a County Deputy hanging around ready to get scofflaws towed. On the other hand there is a rather decent little pocket garden next to the library which is a good place to hang when you do find somewhere to park:
The homeless population certainly seems to have shrunk this year. The garden was almost unoccupied much to my surprise:
How old fashioned.Not an electron in sight. We cannot however leave the library and this inadequate tour without a reminder that this is Key West, land of the million signs:
The notion that coughs and sneezes spread diseases seems rather quaint sixty years after the end of World War Two and it's public service announcements ("Careless Talk Costs Lives"). Someone at some point thought chickens were a public health threat and put up a sign to that effect. There are people who think chickens are a threat. Some controversies never die and happily the library will be there to keep us informed.