Ironies And Amusements

I couldn't help myself, when I saw the big Tarot-like sun face peering round the tree and the ridiculous sign hanging off the trunk.


Cheyenne had had enough of summer mugginess in winter. She stopped for a while and when she stops I pull out the newspaper...


...or the camera and watch my fellow humans honk their way past me.


A scooter is a fine way to get around town, with minuscule fuel consumption and ease of use, it makes more sense than riding the bus. Seen here from the bus stop at Whitehead and Truman:


This sticker struck a nerve. Just what?!


It will take more than bumper stickers to end the federal reserve banking system . However more people are talking about killing the privately owned central bank so Ron Paul could feel ,Ike he is making some headway at least.


This house is on Amelia Street, I think, and it has been looking rather abandoned and down at heel for some time, but now it appears to be on the mend:


I think the asking price on this Zenn car (Zero Emissions, No Noise) was north of five grand.


Now here is a mystery, a dog turd on a plant. How did the dog balance it on the leaf like this, and why? And where was the owner, foul human, with no plastic bags to hand?


"C.E.S." old timers will recall the old City Electric System, the publicly owned utility that became a Lower Keys operation over time and changed it's name to Keys Energy System.


I never knew the health department had a car dedicated to helping people get the message about quitting tobacco but here it is; I saw it at the Gato Building on Simonton.


My mind was in the gutter on Catherine when I spotted this sculpted bowl of, was it fruit or nuts?


And this magnificent sponge was hanging as a decoration in front of the House next to the Tomasita seafood shack...


...whose hand written sign comes in a style eminently reminiscent of similar signs I've seen all over the Caribbean.


It gets the job done with no frills.



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Cobweb

I left the house later than usual for Cheyenne's morning walk so the sun was higher in the sky than it should have been.


I couldn't help but notice the web spun across my dock.


I have read that spiders spin them fresh daily.


The mind of an ordinary mortal boggles.

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Celebrating Key West

The celebration at Mallory Square is mentioned in any piece of travel writing or advertising about Key West. And though it is far removed from the original gathering of Tennessee William's friends it remains a fun place to hang of an evening. I was there myself not so long ago, with my camera.


If you sit in the approaches to the square as the sun starts to head to the horizon you'll see a wild assortment of carts pulled by bicycles and mopeds and even cars heading towards their nightly jobs.


It's all part of the Duval Street thing that visitors come to see, the legendary bars on Key West's main drag.


They come in droves and bring their families and up and down they stroll.


I caught the little kid in her green hat glancing at the passing dog. Cheyenne has the same effect I notice even though my dog and I are far less butch than those striding along in the picture.


Spring breakers can be indistinguishable from regular beach goers.


Though locals tend to stand out by their bizarre costumes.


These cyclists look could be boaters as people who travel on the water like to use folding bikes for obvious reasons, as do folks in RVs.


She's riding the ever popular one speed beach cruiser, probably a rental.


Though rentals usually have a big sign on the front of the basket advertising their status.


Home sweet home.


Every day or at least for a while.


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Key West Lighthouse

It's on Whitehead Street between Truman and the Hemingway house and it's on the tourist route. It's an odd monument in the city of Key West because it's located in the heart of town, far from tidal waters and reefs and because it is in such an odd location it's actually hard to spot when one is walking nearby.


The last time I walked to the top, up the cast iron spiral staircase with almost 200 steps it cost as I recall ten bucks and it's well worth the price of admission for the unencumbered views of the harbor and town and the fresh breezes blowing off the turquoise waters south of the city.


The lighthouse and the museum that is the former keeper's home make up a very pleasant grassy garden in the middle of old town. It used to be that the lighthouse was on the southern edge of the city but destructive storms persuaded the city leaders it would be more effective to have permanent structure protected from hurricanes. In those days before electricity the light must have been a beacon but nowadays I can tell you from experience that seen from the sea the lighthouse only stands out as a blinking light in an island lit up by steadily burning electrons.


I have a tendency to look up when I'm strolling around town and thus it is that from time to time I sneak a peak at the cast iron and brick tower that struggles to make itself seen in twenty-first century Key West.
Here's my full essay on visiting the Key West Lighthouse

Visiting Key West

I have to confess, this winter as usual has got to me. Key West is not the first tourist town I have lived in but it is the first where local residents and visitors mingle so much. The difficulties of close quarters confinement with too many people is a known stressor and I am not immune. Not at all. Mostly I struggle with long lines of slow moving cars trundling the Overseas Highway into town. Not that big a deal when riding a motorcycle.


I like the train tour of the island because I enjoy history and I have an old fashioned curiosity about useless stuff that modern education eschews; stories that tell us about where Key West came from and how it was formed. Stories that have no pecuniary value at all. Except to the businesses that sell tickets and they make plenty of loot.


That's the constant thread that weaves the tapestry of Key West together. The interests of business versus residents sometimes seem to work in concert and at other times they seem to work against each other. The tension is at it's highest in winter.


In winter the three groups of Key West occupants, for want of a better term, jostle together in the very small space of the two mile by four mile island. Year round residents watch the snowbirds flock to town after the first winter blizzards Up North and together they wait for the hordes of vacationers who follow as the cold and the long nights Up North in turn get to them.


This city of 23,000 nominal residents gets an estimated 2.5 million visitors according to the Chamber of Commerce. Many of them come during the summer, families when school is out and Europeans on their annual holidays but winter is when the town bulges. And is crowding causes frustration.


Snowbirds generate a reputation for petulance, complaints about parking problems, bums and public drinking peak about now when the snowbirds start thinking of their summer homes waiting for them in towns and cities rendered closer to perfection by absence and distance and the presence of long lost grandkids.


Snowbirds create lines in restaurants and clog parking but more importantly they pay property taxes year round without homestead protections and limitations, but they use services just a few months in the year. And they know they contribute so that adds to the tussle between benefit and entitlement accruing from making those payments to the county tax base.


Cruise ship passengers are another bone of contention. Supporters say cruise ships bring cash in port fees and spending money ashore while detractors say the money spent strays no further afield than Lower Duval and the ships require harmful dredging and create horrible pollution that kills the reef and fouls the air and water. There is also the argument that Key West should cater to wealthy visitors and seeking to increase cruise ship traffic works against that proposal.


This is Spring Break season, talking of classy tourism (!), and my nights at work dispatching police and rescue are spent tending to the needs of drunks in all their public forms. Yet we have to remember that they too are another leg upon which stands the stool of the Key West economy.


Youngsters and oldsters riding scooters wildly and treating Key West street like a private carnival ride are another irritation. Tell that to the many operators of rental shops.


This guy, below, with the weird life jacket is going to his second or third job tying up or casting off cruise ships on the waterfront. A friend of mine has made a lucrative sideline out of this work which requires attendance at all the odd hours ships come and go. Like so much work in Key West showing up on time is the key to longevity on the job.


All these people, all this activity is why I ride my Bonneville into town every chance I get in winter. The ease of parking is a big thing and the pleasure of the ride too of course, from my little suburban home 25 miles out of town.


In all the calculations about cost effectiveness and value for money and peace and quiet the effect of the military presence in the Lower Keys cannot be forgotten. spouses work in the local economy which benefits from their access to military health care, and the bases offer technical civilian jobs for locals seeking a decent career in a town that lives off hospitality or the government to the exclusion of all else. Check out the clothing, all the protective gear and reflective gear on this rider and you know he's off a base.


I suspect I am mistaken for a rider off the bases as I commute in long pants, jacket gloves and helmet in a town that sees most riders in shorts and sandals.


I'm all about being practical on my bike, a place for everything and everything in its place when I ride:


So I expect I look like a visitor when I ride into town all loaded with luggage and gear, carrying a camera and a bright eyed desire to see and learn and enjoy. I'm going to leave the anguish about all the tourist and snowbird issues to the professional anonymous moaners in the Citizen's Voice. Sometimes Key West gets too filled with issues at the expense of too little pleasure.


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Conch Republic Summer Time

Today is the first day of long evenings and dark mornings for most of the US except Arizona, Hawaii and those few bizarre counties on the edge of Indiana that do their own thing. Clocks sprang forward last night at two in the morning. Except in Arizona where they moved from Mountain Time to Pacific Time.


We sprang forward in Florida too, both time zones, The panhandle in Central Time and the peninsula in Eastern Time. Newspapers everywhere did what they do which is tell people to change their clocks so we all do it together.


They warned us on Saturday of the impending change, even here in the Conch Republic. Except...


...the bright sparks on the night desk put up the Fall headline:


I wonder how many residents obediently did as they were told and instead of springing forward, fell back?



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