Closed Cemetery

The city Sexton announced recently that the Frances Street Gate to the cemetery would be closed so now the only way in is through the main Margaret Street entrance. Anyone coming to the Frances Street side will see this:In locking these gates the Sexton said it was in response to rowdy behavior and disrespectful people bothering mourners in the cemetery. The idea is that the cemetery will no longer be a through street across the middle of the town. A few years ago the city commission voted to ban motorcycles and scooters from the cemetery on the same grounds. Indeed I took the banner picture of this blog the day before the vote, as I thought a picture of my Vespa was worth having. The Frances Street side of the cemetery is well fenced these days: There has been the expected outcry from cyclists who liked to cut across the cemetery but the Sexton isn't budging. One letter writer to the paper suggested it was up to the city commission to make the decision but no one has chosen to grasp that nettle.It's a picturesque trail through the graves. The Key West cemetery is a well known landmark with above ground graves that always grab tourist's imagination. The water table is high in Key West and below ground burials aren't very practical.

You can imagine what it would be like in there if people were walking their dogs through the graveyard, so it's hard to argue with this sign.

I have always had a soft spot for this place and I enjoy bringing a picnic lunch here and eating among the graves. Personally I don't view it as being disrespectful, rather it's a way of incorporating death with life.

There are lots of well known last names dotted through this place.

I expect that, given enough time people will get used to the closure and the practice of crossing the cemetery from Frances to Margaret will be a memory for us old timers to taunt the newcomers.

Perhaps after a time of punishment the powers may relent and perhaps the lock will go away and with no fanfare at all those of us who care to may get to spend some time crossing the graveyard once again. One lives in hope.

Summertime

I have found to my amazement that 75 people have joined this website as Friends. I am not completely certain what that means nor how it's done (don't bother trying to explain Jeffrey, computers and I are barely on speaking terms), but it seems like a large number of people who want to see pictures of the Keys. I have tried reading the profiles and connections and to say they are eclectic is a major understatement. I never knew there were so many knitting blogs and craft blogs out there. Nor that pictures of Key West streets and a Labrador sniffing seaweed fit into them, but apparently so.

I started this blog in Summer 2007 to find something to encourage me to get out and wander by Bonneville, and recording the changing Keys seemed like a good idea. The blog thing came about because this remote, electronic way of storing the images is easy, cheap ($20 a year) and easily accessible. In the bad old days of print photography I took pictures with no idea how they would come out and spent a fortune processing variations on a theme of which only a few were worth keeping. Then with the advent of automated, drug store processing my pictures came back over exposed, under exposed badly cut and generally degraded. Living on a boat I never had room (nor the inclination) to devote a piece of my space to a dark room though I was best friends with a kid in school who taught me photo development years ago.

Blogspot, for all it's technical imperfections and occasional failures is a great place to store pictures of daily living and my sometimes acerbic commentary on the nature of the human condition and our apparently endless ability to fuck it all up. I invite readers who want me to photograph something to drop me a line at conchscooter@hotmail.com and I will do my best. Native Mom wants an essay on signs so I will see what I can do. I am really terrible at themes not least because most of these essays are generated on an impulse because I always have the camera in my pocket. For instance I have been meaning to go to Mel Fisher's Museum a place I really like, for years. And still...nothing!

I got a note from Special Services (HR in the Police Department) telling me I had accumulated too much leave and had to use it or lose it, so here we go. I have planned two vacations this summer, ten days in June to go to North Carolina to visit the sister-in-law in Asheville and then Outer Banks for a few days as we have never seen those islands. Then after a week back at work Layne and Cheyenne and I are taking off on the Poof Tour 2010, starting the 3rd of July, a cheap camping vacation to Maine visiting gay friends (yes, they are all gay, it turns out) along the way. We were going to go to Italy burning up a credit card on expensive Italian food and lodging and souvenirs (and motorcycle rental) but this economic climate does not seem the time to make impulse purchases in Euro even if the exchange rate is 1.20 to a Dollar. Secondary plans to go West got scrapped so now I get to see New England for the first time in my life (I want to move to Vermont and join the Secessionist Movement...fat chance).

What all this means is that essays will be irregular until late July or the beginning of August depending on computer access and time and all that. I am sure this comes as a shock as for the past three years I have managed at least one essay a day, but there it is, this is a chance to check the archive and take time off from wondering how many essays you have missed if you turn your back for the blink of an eye. Five weeks off is more vacant posting time than even compulsive, anal retentive little me can manage to fill completely ahead of time. However I have organized a bunch of essays that will appear three times a week until I get back.

All these plans are subject to change of course (a hurricane threat would bring us home quickly enough, no doubt though Tim our house sitter is very reliable) which is why I dislike explaining a lot of stuff in advance on the blog but an absence of essays just means that I am too busy living to be downloading for a short while. To Cousin Lyn: I am sure Chicago will be on the cards this year as Layne and I will be ready to get out of town later when it is still hot, for a long weekend Up North. To everyone else I hope you have a pleasant summer, oil free, hurricane free and with a job and a roof over your heads.

The Back of Big Pine

So who named the streets that are hidden behind the Blue Hole in the backwoods of Big Pine Key?I look in the air to see the trees and clouds and sky while my dog sticks her nose in the gutter. Or where the gutter would be if there were sidewalks in these hidden streets.I read with amusement how some visitors to these islands think they know them well enough yet have no idea at all these places exits, people live here and thrive.A cheerful mailbox decorated with nothing remotely resembling anything tropical.
I've got a couple of these these and my tomatoes this year are not exactly thriving. Perhaps better empty like this topsy turvy.A conch car, fine except for the dreadful gas mileage. For a high mileage driver like me this is out of the question. It's too hot and humid to follow the deer trails through the pine woods.
A fine Panga out of it's element. I like these wooded homes but prefer my canal side house. Car alert. I am not a car nut, even though I like to drive, but everyone seems to like these classics, and here is one tucked up in the pine woods. When in raccoon country protect those trash cans! Cheyenne found these trash can protectors unneighborly.

A poinciana tree lurking in the backwoods. Actually it is a back yard tree on the next street.This pretty home appeared through the trees. Isolation in the Keys is possible if you want it.

Cheyenne and I were not alone.

I keep seeing stuff growing that looks totally alien to me.

This dude was hauling piles of mulch, with a cheery smile that he turned away as I snapped his picture...

He had a huge pile to move. I find the residents of these back streets to be cheerful and friendly whenever I come across them. Perhaps canals make people grumpy. Nice cactus.Some days Cheyenne has more energy than others, and this day was one of them.

I love this vegetation.

This a driveway anyone could desire.

I have photographed Dade Pine homes in Key West. They exist out here as well.

Dade Pine has been cut to death in Dade County and is now found in the Florida Panhandle. It's oily nature is resistant to weather and insects (and paint which is unnecessary).

This Aryan Naturist surprised me by popping out after we passed and started making cooing noises at my dog who ignored him.

I could have used a swig of something refreshing but the advent of rainy season means Cheyenne is rarely short of a puddle of something good.

There seems to be a revival of key deer this year, they are everywhere, but on this walk this was the closest we got to one. They are training their offspring this time of year which makes them extra skittish.

And so we stumped back to the car and the relief of air conditioning. It has been, as climate change has predicted, a hotter than average summer.

Flaming Buoy

Phillip is leaving Key West after seven months and heading, in retirement, to a teaching job in the south of France. He says he will miss Key West.He might miss Cheyenne too. We took Phillip out to dinner at the Flaming Buoy around the corner from where he lived. A short walk and we were ordering their now famous lobster mac-and-cheese as a shared appetizer. I had previously ordered food from this place for delivery at work and that little dish had been a highlight. Phillip ordered a bottle of South African white and so it went. The main courses were for sharing so we piled them in the middle of the table and helped ourselves buffet style.

Blue cheese steak, perfect; tropical chicken curry, weak on the spicy curry flavor, nice fresh fruit but it needed more of the Asian exotic; the grilled fish was interesting but it tasted, oddly, more poached than grilled. My wife wanted it more spiced too ( she likes spices). Phillip was happy. We got a second bottle of chardonnay and my wife was the designated driver. The room was subdued and romantically suitable for a first date, not a last one.
We ordered two desserts, one preferred by me, flamingo vanilla ice cream on tropical grilled fruit. Excellent. Chocolate waffle with chocolate sauce and more vanilla ice cream. They liked that better than my tropical fruit.

We were picking through the puddings and closing the store. I liked the atmosphere of the place, more than when it was The Good Life at the same location on Packer Street.

We talked for quite a while, and I played with the stupid camera.
Phillip taught at the juvenile detention center on Stock Island, following in my wife's footsteps so they had lots to talk about. I played with the camera.
It was time and we hauled ourselves out onto the porch. there was this weird illuminated chair. I played with my...camera.Phillip posed good naturedly like a little tin soldier.

We walked home to Phillip's place (for two more nights)to be greeted like long lost explorers by herself. Good bye Phillip. Enjoy the freedom fries.