City Electric

Old timers refer to it as City Electric but these days the public utility that supplies electricity to the Lower Keys is using a more encompassing name, Keys Energy:

The utility's headquarters is on James Street in Key West at the corner of Caroline and Grinnell Streets, kitty corner to Finnegan's Wake Irish pub. The bloodmobile was in the parking lot the other day when Cheyenne and I were passing and one likes to think they got what they needed (I can't give blood owing to a food borne hepatitis infection I got when I was young and foolish and riding a motorcycle through West Africa. The anti-bodies for Hepatitis A are for life apparently).

There was, I was delighted to see, a spare couch sitting under a tree across the street from the Keys Energy Services offices. I took the picture but the couch was a tad scruffy and well used so I preferred not to take a pause. The offices of Keys Energy are just a block away from the old Steam Plant, now converted to luxury condos but that used to be, in the old days the source of electrical energy for the city. I well remember the waters across from the plant when they were called the Toxic Triangle owing to the discharge of noxious wastes from the plant.Key West got it's first electric service in 1880 and after a rival company set up in business they went head to head for a while and then merged. The city bought the utility in 1943 and a very good idea that was too. I found this delightful picture of electrical repair work underway in the city in 1900.If you enjoy history half as much as I do this website should be of interest: http://explorekeywesthistory.com/ Their magazine is always a fascinating read and it can be found on the streets of Key West (I usually find it at Sandy's Cafe on White Street).I don't hold with the fashionable view of putting down public agencies, not least because I work for one, but public utilities must rate as one of the more sensible inventions. Keys Energy doesn't waste money paying stock holders, they pay decent living wages, employ skilled technical staff who stick around and now what they are working with, and they are constantly upgrading the system. That they are reluctant to get involved in alternative energy production is a sign they are simply no more forward thinking than every other utility in the country, more's the pity with all our sunlight going to waste. The result is the legendary continuous power outages of decades ago are a memory and service by and large is pretty reliable. Key West is on the national grid and electricity comes to the city via Keys Electric Cooperative in the Upper Keys and through a switching station in Marathon. They also have a diesel generator on Stock Island with fuel for two weeks supply of 80 percent of normal energy needs. The sort of back up plan the tornado ravaged citizens Up North could use in Alabama. I'd rather be here in a hurricane than there in all those tornadoes.

Hiding In The Shrubbery

The reality of a the worst drought in 80 years is that we are enjoying perfect weather.

When I say "perfect" I mean weather that feels perfect to someone used to living in the tropics. Anyone used to April in Chicago stepping off a plane in South Florida might find the heat sudden and oppressive but for someone used to, and perhaps dreading the endless heat and humidity of August and September these days of clean crisp sunshine, dry heat and a cooling breeze makes the weather perfect.I lived through a prolonged drought in California in the 1980s and I unabashedly loved every minute of it. Drought in Santa Cruz meant winters were short and mild, it meant motorcycle commuting was comfortable for longer and summers were hotter and less foggy. I reveled in the drought.Drought in South Florida is not quite the same thing. Rains here are dramatic interludes in summer days and nights. Rain comes and goes and doesn't hang around, usually, as a form of endless drizzle. Rain refreshes and restores life to trees whose leaves are drooping. Rain is welcome.Cheyennes answer to the drought is plonk herself down in the shade and rest frequently. Standing admiring the views on Royal Street I heard my dog rustle and disappear. She found dried leaves and deep shade under one of the tropical palms that seem drought resistant in the extreme where deciduous trees are dropping their leaves prematurely.

Cheyenne's biggest annoyance at the drought is the lack of muddy pools to wallow in. Bad for her, good for me, her designated bath attendant.

Truman Waterfront

If you were to park yourself on a street corner in Key West to watch the world go by not too much time later, you would see pretty much every car and scooter on the island go by. It's hard to convince people who live on the mainland that life in the Lower Keys really is different, aside from the obvious tourist-attracting behavior, not least because there are not many people and even less land. It wasn't three weeks ago I took a picture of Baron Samedi riding his bicycle n Whitehead Street and here he was napping under a ficus tree on Truman Annex. Had he not been asleep I might have been tempted to try to start a conversation with him. As it was this little bird tried to start a conversation first with Cheyenne and when the dog got tired of getting dive bombed and came to me for protection the bird (a noisy jay perhaps?) started in on me. I figured maybe we were encroaching on a nest or something so Cheyenne and I backed the car up but it was no good. we were told in no uncertain terms we had to leave. So we did.Things are coming to a pretty pass when even the wildlife is getting stressed out and aggressive. The thing is the recent census issued preliminary numbers showing Monroe County, alone among Florida's 67 counties lost population. The State is up to almost 20 million people, but Monroe County has lost about ten percent of it's population and we're down to 73,000. The good news is that unemployment is ridiculously low here, less than seven percent.The bad news is that's because when people lose their jobs they tend to leave town and head north, Ocala and North Carolina being the preferred destinations, if not a relative's couch somewhere.Mind you, if there are that many fewer people in the county that just means you'd have to spend less time sitting on the street corner waiting for them all to pass you by.

The Things People Do

On my walks around town I find it important not to forget to look up from time to time, rather in the manner of the hero in a horror movie who forgets to check the rafters for the lurking monster, clearly visible to the riled up audience. In my more prosaic world, looking up yields pretty views.There have been a few rain showers lately, enough to refresh momentarily but not enough to really soak the soil. I am looking forward to dramatic dark summer afternoons of wind and sudden heavy downpours. I will probably regret saying that by the time they arrive.I like to disguise myself in a brightly colored shirt as a tourist, not easy to do when walking a large dog very much at home on the streets of the Southernmost City. These are not disguised persons, they are genuine visitors enjoying a Key West Diary view of the city:Looking down Ann Street I saw a solitary plastic beer glass sitting ion the middle of the road. I started to have a Victor Meldrew Moment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Foot_in_the_Grave muttering to myself "I don't believe it," but of course I did believe it even though it was early afternoon. I suppose in the grand scheme of things a misplaced glass of beer is no big deal.Nevertheless I could not help but ask myself, how the devil did it get forgotten there of all places?

Big Pine Key

Though there is not much land and not too many streets in these islands of the Lower Keys, finding names to use for streets taxes the capacities of some people who abandon the bright and simple for the esoteric.Harbor Lights? What harbor lights? Though strangely named I like how this street, which is a gravel road at best, is also split in two by a wooded island right down the middle. >Cheyenne found a trail through the mangroves with a home made bridge carefully placed across a gambusia mosquito canal. Naturally my dog no longer constrained by a life of petty bourgeois boredom had to explore and tumble into the muddy filthy trench. I turned Cheyenne back as I could a roof;line through the bushes ahead and clearly the trail went somewhere. We contented ourselves with inspecting these weathered and artistic roots.It was a lovely warm afternoon, once again, and Cheyenne retired to the bushes for some shade bathing while I looked around and enjoyed the serenity.
I have lived on dirt roads before now and hope not to have to ever again, though we read of jurisdictions Up North especially in the Great Plains that are opting to turn costly asphalt roads into gravel to save money in the short term. Locally road maintenance turns to the weird to make travel more comfortable. I'll bet it's not everyday you find coconut husks doubling as road fill. I know I don't.I hope this isn't a metaphor for our straitened times.

Whitehead Street

There is a majesty and grandeur to Key West streets at night. It astonishes me how the city transforms itself after dark into something more than the sum of it's daytime parts.I could not stand to live in these well trafficked tourist areas of Old Town, the expensive desirable parts of old Key West, the source of musical noise and loud people staggering. The homes look quite majestic by night and one can see how a visitor might fall in love with this neighborhood, forgetting the realities of day to day life.It is often said that South Florida isn't part of the stereotypical south, a comment prompted by anti migrant feelings no doubt as city slickers took up retirement in Miami, and later Key West. While it's true that the ebb and flow of migrants has given the southeast of Florida it's own cosmopolitan flavor, it is also true that this is The South. One hint of the Southernness of the place comes from looking at the public architecture. The court house at 500 Whitehead Street is as southern as all get out, the beautiful colonnades, the bricks, the clock tower. It's pure In The Heat of the Night which could itself be construed as a cliche...Many years ago sitting on a beach in Nicaragua contemplating my future an American friend sitting next to me sucking down Tonya beer (Como Tonya no hay dos- Nothing Like a Tonya was the advertising slogan I still can't get out of my head) presented me with the paradox of my life. "You crave Northern orderliness in a Southern climate" he said, with a blindingly clear perceptive shaft of light into my troubled psyche. It did not occur to me I might find that, after a fashion, in the Southernmost City. Maybe I did. Or more likely old age allowed me to drop my excessively rigid social control issues.I think Key West offers enough orderliness to make life relatively easy, even though there is clearly a hierarchy of people who own the top jobs and maintain a close grip on the levers of power. There was a period when too much money was flowing through the city, the late 90s and early 21 st century was one of those periods and outsiders sometimes managed to weasel their way in, owing to a sudden series of job openings across town. Those openings have slammed shut with the economic retreat we are in. Consolidation is now the name of the game. Federal and State subsidies and grants are drying up, salaries face shrinkage and positions are starting to be cut. I don't anticipate the economy getting any better either and I wonder how tensions will rise in this isolated little town.

I saw incredible stress and solidarity after Hurricane Wilma gave the Lower Keys the shellacking of a generation. I'd like to think that as the economy shrinks, and prices rise we will be able to weather the difficulties as a community. 41 teachers face layoffs this next school year, but the cafeteria workers who protested absurd privatization plans pushed those plans away with community backing. Those state jobs with proper pay and benefits were saved. when the privatization sharks saw community solidarity.I feel lucky to face the ongoing Recession/Depression down here. And I hope our excellent public utilities keep the water and the electrons flowing.