Mario Sanchez

The bald facts of Mario Sanchez's life are much like anyone else's who had the good fortune to be born in Key West, live a full life and die there. In this case 7th October 1908 till 28th April 2005. 96 years well spent.

Luckily for all concerned Sanchez devoted a large portion of his life to his art, which like all good art in my opinion started as a way to please himself and such was his pleasure it made a name for itself.

The Art and History Museum has an exhibit devoted to Sanchez and his particular way of recording his daily life in Key West. No pixels and web pages for Mario Sanchez. He worked with wood and chiseled out a record of town life through the 20th century. There is even a video of the young(er) artist discussing his work.

The intaglio art of Sanchez was recognized in 1996 by Folk Art magazine which is, according to the Gallery on Greene, quite the bee's knees. Check their website.

Also in the museum they have recreated his unique outdoor studio. The writer Hemingway's penchant for writing while standing is widely reporters by the guides at his former home. Back problems suck! But Sanchez's studio was in itself a perfect representation of that which we enjoy about the Florida Keys.

In a state devoted to all possible denial of the outdoors and the natural, the land of enclosed malls and "swamp" drainage we in the Keys have the chance to enjoy sea breezes and the smell of salt water and the silence of empty back streets. In a peninsula that encourages development over reflection, Sanchez's work and the manner in which it was produced is a reminder, in wood and color that a contemplative way of life is possible in Florida's southernmost islands.

Whimsy and animals, magic and then unexpected are part of Keys life, ably represented in Sanchez's work.

Part of the joy of the work is the ability of the observer to recognize parts of Key West. Like everything else in this constantly evolving town, memory is hip. The further back you can remember the more "street cred" you acquire. I find this need to prove oneself rather tedious but my earliest memories of Key West only go back to 1981, and not much do I remember of that first visit (by Vespa as it happens).

There's lots of Sanchez to see at the museum and it's website.

I leave you with an image of "la flaca" enjoying coconut ice cream. Such was her appetite she ended up "la gorda." Sanchez's observations were not trite or saccharine. They hint at the daily struggle of living in close quarters on a small island. Everyone knows your business. And some people appreciate it.

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No Trespassing. Keep Out!

For whatever reason Cheyenne doesn't much like walking the Loop Road on Sugarloaf Key. Perhaps she will develop a taste once again for it this winter if temperatures cool as they are supposed to. Perhaps in her doggy consciousness there is something repulsive about this pleasant public park built around a wide asphalt trail to nowhere. Perhaps it's just too shadeless and hot in summer for her. My dog's feelings notwithstanding I like the place and wish we could penetrate a little deeper than the massive gate and fortifications at the entrance.

Monroe County has, over the past couple of years devoted considerable energy to putting up cement barriers blocking backwoods trails to vehicles. These bright yellow barricades have popped up all over the Lower Keys in an effort to prevent mostly bored youth from seeking pleasure spraying mud and doing doughnuts out of sight of their elders and betters.

It was the sight of all these Loop Road barricades that got me thinking about the local passion for "No Trespassing" signs that sprout like mushrooms anywhere some snowbird imagines people having fun in their prolonged absences Up North.

I keep seeing these posted! signs everywhere I ride in the Keys and I wonder at the stress caused by being an absentee landlord. Beware of the dog?

The gate below is rather fetching if garish. I prefer a more low key approach, speaking as one who has no gates in his life. These barricades have to symbolize the alienation that is the subject of constant discussion in self help therapeutic sessions.

We should unhand the television they tell us and talk to our neighbors. Hard to do when Brinks is guarding the perimeter, however ineffectually.

The adirondack chair is a word touch. I imagine the guarded homeowner sitting in it, corn cob pipe puffing smokily with a big double barreled shotgun across his lap. Most likely the reality is mo one sits there. And the next hurricane to hit head on will blow the ornament into the middle of the next island.

"Keep Out!" "Posted!" "Beware!" the friendly neighbors screech, as though were I ill intentioned the signs might prove effective.

The odd thing is violent crime is decreasing and in the Keys violent crime between strangers is extraordinarily rare. Theft happens and there have been spates of bored teenagers stealing coin purses and fishing rods, and Miami crooks stealing outboard motors for parts, but on the whole on of the joys of living in the Keys is the small town lack of serious crime.

You wouldn't know it to see the home fortifications that line the streets.

I blame television for the suspicious and fearful attitude taken by most first worlders. At first blush if you have not considered such a proposition I know it seems weird but think about what television portrays as the real world.

Local "news" is a mixture of faddish "tips" typically how to barbecue meat for a holiday or how to lose weight after the communal feast and a series of ghoulish stories about some pointless act of domestic violence somewhere in the county.

The acts of violence that I see at work dispatching police usually seem to involve people who know each other and have a falling out usually field by mind altering substances like alcohol. Nothing has made me so inclined to temperance as a lifetime spent answering 9-1-1 calls. Alcohol fucks people up, royally.

Mix alcohol, sex, irritation or frustration and lack of money into a living space and the results are predictable. For the rest of us gasping at the TV screen it can seem the entire world around us is hellbent on taking us down with them. I grew up in boarding schools with no access to television and y vacations were chopped into two different countries so I never did get to follow programs or learn to enjoy staring the boob tube. As an adult I don't miss the nonsense that passes for local news. My fear level is I believe more commensurate with actual reality.

Check the sign above, full public identification right next to a Berlin Wall Style barricade. Below, welcome to America and Keep Out.

To me these barricades and enclosures and protective signs are a measure of how far we have fallen from country I chose to emigrate to, a place of self confidence and standing tall. A place where strangers represent an opportunity for hospitality not a threat.

I know the mainstream theory is that you can never be too careful that it's a dangerous world "out there" and traveling unarmed is an invitation to death by violence. I also know that trying to explaining an alternative reality to the cowering masses is a waste of time. I ponder the barricades and observe the detritus tossed to the curb outside the protected area. Trash in the grass cannot be seen from inside the stockade. Pity though as it's quite pretty outside.

It's a quiet neighborhood on a hot September afternoon everyone buttoned up inside their perimeter fences.

I remember President Reagan urging a bunch of communist foreigners to "tear down that wall," but he forgot to make the same suggestion at home. Berlin Walls everywhere.

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Old Bikes, Museum Pieces

I saw this old Kawasaki paused by the diesel pump which made me think of how agricultural we perceive our old bikes to be.


Looking at the Barber collection in Alabama I like how the bikes of my youth portended new and better riding.


I had no idea I was living a golden age even though the old awkward British twins were becoming historic, like this lovely Triumph:


And manufacturers tried to advance the design in ways sometimes bizarre. Ducati had a nice thing going with it's V-twin design but they insisted on trying a parallel twin 350 and 500.


The bikes didn't grab anyone's imagination, and they weren't put together well so they didn't sell.


I remember the bad review when this thing came out and I wondered at the time, in the 70s why they did such a thing. Those old Japanese bikes, like the one at the top of this essay looked the part, worked right and sold by the ton.so much the better for this museum to preserve the offbeat for us, the curious.



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Dawn On Cudjoe

Commuting doesn't always give one time to look around and enjoy the morning. Riding Highway One close to dawn requires more than usual scrutiny of the road as there is a surprisingly large number of mental deficients who think that a vague grayness in the sky obviates the need for headlights.

I have heard it said that in India drivers like to travel the hours of darkness with their lights off to prevent wearing out their cars. Why drivers in the Keys fear turning on their headlights I'll never know but it's always the imbeciles with the darkest, least visible vehicles. That sort of behavior makes riding a motorcycle unnecessarily exciting.

The nice thing about dawn is that it's the coolest part of the day and in these latitudes at this time of year that actually means something. I get home from work about 6:30 and it's dark. Park the motorcycle, load the dog in the car after a tail wagging greeting and then it's up to me to guess where Cheyenne wants today's walk. It's important too, because until things cool off she limits herself to one walk a day ad this time of day is her best shot at getting out and not suffocating in her fur coat.

Cheyenne can amuse herself quote well on a fishing bridge and with no anglers in sight I could leave her to her own devices snuffling for abandoned bait fish. I took the time to ponder the meaning of life, which took not very long, and the question of how to set up the tripod for dark sky photography, which took considerably longer.

Even with commuters quizzing by twenty feet way there is a certain serenity that comes from standing on a hundred year old cement bridge suspended over the very still waters of Bow or Kemp or Niles Channels. It's almost seven when the sun starts to appear, this time of year.

And the first signs of the arrival of the celestial heater box is a splash of pink behind the gray lumps of clouds hanging low over the still waters. No breath of wind was in evidence the morning I was out on the bridge earlier this past week.

The approach of daylight gives the tidal waters an eerie sheen like quicksilver poured between the islands.

The Keys Overseas Heritage Trail is an idea slowly developing alongside the main road bit it's in bits and limited mostly to the lower Keys. There are a few signs, some pavement markers ostensibly separating cyclists from pedestrians and tons of garbage cans.

Not all the mounds of trash generated by energetic amateur anglers stays in the cans. Cheyenne found a treasure trove scattered across the Heritage Trail and it wasn't worth the effort to tear her away. Better to take her picture and avoid her breath for the next while. Organic stuff decomposes rapidly around her in the summer, especially fish entrails.

On a happier note the sun was definitely making an appearance and that meant in turn that the night shift needed to head for home for the second and final time and feed the dog and put himself to bed.

No sooner said than done.



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Dog Days Of September

We think of Key West as a palm filled paradise filled with vistas of breeze rippled turquoise waters and greenery overflowing into the streets. Then occasionally reality intrudes and power lines, bent street signs and acres of cement prove the reality to be different.


Somewhat different I suppose because there are actually plenty of sight lines in Key West that meet the Chamber of Commerce criteria. The pile of palm fronds seen below was trimmed from trees as preferred during the height of hurricane season.


They still look full and dignified even though they have been denuded in preparation for the possibility of high winds. Hurricane season is looking good right now forKey West with storms curling up on themselves in the central Atlantic and thus no threat to the Keys. However the hurricane season persists into November so this is the time of year when one keeps a weather eye on the Atlantic basin. And one trims one's vegetation accordingly.


When I was sailing to Key West from California with my two dogs I wondered to myself if this small city would be large enough to hold my very active Labrador and Husky, by now used to roaming all over Central America pretty much at will. I wondered where would I walk them without them getting stir crazy. Silly notion. Everyone has dogs and Cheyenne loves street walking in the city, even in the summer heat. She's not alone.


However even though my furry Labrador loves a good street walk, she does from time to time, need to catch her breath. A hard, cool cement surface works well for her in the shade. While she pants and watches the world go by I play with my camera. In this case I was resting next to Cheyenne on a bench outside Finnegans Wake on Grinnell Street.


These vacation signs are everywhere this time of year. Vacations tend to be less expensive in Key West in September and there is are several reasons for that. summer has gone nowhere and it will remain hot and muggy until the second cold front of the Fall which will come in late October or early November to break the back of summer's heat. The first cold front doesn't normally have the strength to break the grip of summer's heat. Take a vacation and sweat.


Then there is hurricane season and this is the peak, historically speaking. Theft s a chance, albeit a small one, that your vacation may be interrupted by strong winds, heavy rain, flooding, power outages ad evacuation orders. Do not plan a vacation in Cayo Hueso about now unless you are cheerful and adaptable in adverse circumstances. Finally be prepared to see your restaurant choices diminish as everyone and her sister takes off on vacations. Why now? For the above reasons plus the fact that the tourist count is low, also for the same reasons listed above. You have been warned.


I am planning a week Up North to collect a scooter I purchased very similar to the black one pictured above. I'm a little concerned Fall may actually have started around Minneapolis and the ride hole may be cooler than I'd like but that will make my return to the land of endless summer all the sweeter.


Spring cleaning can also be done in Fall in Key West. Rentals are available as the winter season hasn't snagged the spaces for more dollars for fewer months. Some people choose summer to move back to the mainland when the weather Up North isn't so forbidding. Sidewalks are clogged with no longer needed furniture. Cheyenne also enjoys the hunting for unconsidered trifles in the shrubbery. Don't look too closely it's either dead, moldy or otherwise unsavory. She loves her found snacks.


September is the mellow month. Sure there are people drinking on Duval, and off, late at night but traffic is worse during the heat of the day and a city wanderer can catch the play of shadows and sunlight undisturbed in the city's many alleys and lanes. Like Hunt's Lane shown below


The color of the sunlight changes in the Fall in South Florida. Winter sunlight looks whiter and crisper than the softer yellow tones of summer. As the sun sinks lower on the horizon the angles change. Right now sunrise is sometime around 7am and sunset is around 8pm so the days, by tropical standards are still quite long. The closer you get to the equator the more even are the hours of day and night throughout the year.


So, after all these years and all these wanderings through mangrove trails and pinewoods, on beaches and around ruins I find Cheyenne really likes city walking best.


In the end though I think she gets more walks than many dogs, who spend their lonely lives in large or small yards behind fences whence they call out to my Labrador as she lumbers past. She ignores them.


She is in retirement and has eyes only for me.




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