Peary Court Redux

What the Navy giveth the Navy, from time to time, taketh away... There are a lot contradictions in the relationship in the US between the military and civilians and it doesn't always seem that both groups are pulling in the same direction. Sentimentally speaking everyone cheers the people in uniform and some think that putting a magnet ribbon on their car signifies support for the troops but when it come's down to the almighty dollar, all bets are off. When the Navy announced the closure of the Outer Mole basin to civilian vessels the first thought wasn't support the troops by helping them complete their mission; no, the first thought was this will have a negative impact on tourism dollars in Key West. The almighty dollar is now interfering at the former Navy housing at Peary Court.

If you ever saw the movie CrissCross, arguably one of the best movies set in Key West, there is a scene showing a baseball game in an open space YouTube caught momentarily in this preview, which shows Peary Court as it once was. I used to walk across Peary Court from the informal dinghy landing on North Roosevelt to downtown Key West before the 29 acres were built up. I didn't feel as strongly as the protestor Molly Logan who fought the Navy by chaining herself to a tree for five days. The Navy prevailed. And now things are changing again, however a return to open space is not in the planning.

City planners recently rejected the latest proposal from civilian developers to turn the former Navy Housing into 200 civilian homes. The idea is that fifty of them should be "low income" affordable whatever that means in this crazy real estate market, but city representatives who saw the plans told the newspaper they didn't like what they saw because the houses were too cookie cutter for Key West. As though developers suddenly sould be able t recreate the genteel chaos of say Shavers Lane to order...

However Peary Court's status as a trouble maker is secure for the time being as there is also a dispute going on between the Monroe County property appraiser's office and the civilian company managing the land since 2007. Navy property is exempt form property taxes but Monroe County argues civilian management isn't. However it just so happens there's a state legislator from Pensacola who happens to agree, quite by coincidence you understand, with the the British owned management company.

It seems weird doesn't it, for a Florida legislator to be in the pocket of a foreign corporation and opposed to legitimate claims of Florida County Official. The claims are legitimate because the lawmaker wants to change the law to give Balfour Beatty a retroactive tax break to 2007... And thus deny Monroe County more than eleven million bucks in tax money. So much for working for the people of Florida! With lawmakers like these we need to start printing magnet ribbons saying we support local communities.

So the open space was transformed into crappy housing that it turns out the Navy never really did need. Imagine this: the navy is now building new housing on their own land on a piece of Fleming Key overlooking Garrison Bight. Why they couldn't have built there in the first place who knows.

There is some sort of obdurate pride at work amongst our leaders sometimes that in retrospect makes anyone who looks too closely scratch their heads in puzzlement. What were they thinking? Why did the Navy demand this land be returned fr housing they seemed never to really need? Would this open space just have become bum central? Now we are stuck with these homes which have been renting for two grand a month to civilians ever since the Navy shut shop here. Yet these homes aren't enough and must be replaced with two hundred do-overs.

But the city says a gated community look created in Truman Annex and similar to this Key West Style at the Golf Course is not appropriate for the future Peary Court. Why? I haven't a clue. Apparently it doesn't look real enough or something.

I was wandering Simonton Street last week with Cheyenne, and we got an eyeful of the real Key West, not, most likely what anyone wants to see in the new housing

I have to say I was quite ashamed of the passed out bundles of abandoned human wrecks lying like post apocalyptic victims of some plague lying on the beach. The Asian tourists who were fascinated by my furry bundle of joy and wanted to pet her, as indifferent as she was, took it in good part, affecting not to notice the shambles of passed out drunks looking like basking sea lions on a California strand.

I am so confused. I hope someone out there has the vision thing sorted for the future of this town on the cusp of some new reincarnation of itself.

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...Into Dust Thou Shalt Return.

I saw this proudly illuminated sign on Truman Avenue reflecting the new status of the Catholic church at Windsor and Truman. A minor basilica is a big deal it seems in a faith that eschews the value of the temporal over the value of the spiritual.

It's funny how hard it is to throw over the allure of the physical in favor of self abnegation, even among the pros who are supposed to show us the way. And yet on Center Street there is a small church that lives in the shadow of the minor basilica on Truman and the massive white wedding cake that's St Paul's on Duval Street.

This church is usually open when I wander by on Center Street and I like to take a pause in the shadows, especially in the heat of summer when I'm not walking my soul-free hound downtown.

This is Lent, the time of self denial and purification in the Catholic and Anglican traditions. The Good Book says Jesus rode a donkey into Jerusalem to much acclaim and waving of palm fronds to sweep the path of the insurgent "king." Tradition requires the fronds be burned and used as ashes to mark the foreheads of the faithful on Ash Wednesday as a reminder that we are made of dust and into dust we shall return. Lent is a somber time, a remembrance of inevitable death.

Especially this year as tomorrow they are planting the former pastor of St Peter's. He was by all accounts a decent man who lived a full life before he came to Center Street. He was found dead at home which seems possibly as good a way as any to leave this Vale of Tears.

I doubt the Anglicans have all this fussing about minor and major basilicas and badges of rank favored by the religion I grew up in. Too bad really, I'd like to see this quiet decent little church made big. It seems everything has to be given a badge of rank to get attention in this world before we leave it, begging oddly enough for more time.

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Fish For Breakfast

It's called The Stuffed Pig and it's on Highway One in the City of Marathon and they make a pretty decent breakfast there in the diner tradition. It's where we go from time to time when we find ourselves north of the Seven Mile Bridge looking for an eggy way to break our fast.

They draw quite a crowd with their indoor or outdoor seating under the tiki in back. It's also dog friendly outside and as I was seeing my wife off bound for the airport and a frozen teaching conference Up North she was in the mood to eat breakfast with Cheyenne in attendance.

The menu includes the usual grits eggs meat and breads in various forms and on a sunny fresh winter morning it was quite delightful to sit out in shirt sleeves.

She was perfectly behaved of course and the server did pretty well too, bringing her cookies in a container that served as a water bowl as well.

The tables were fully equipped but my wife's complaint was no butter as she doesn't much like being served previously buttered toast or muffins. I really like the insulated coffee pot which allows one like me, who drinks copiously of coffee at breakfast, to help myself.

The food was unremarkable to look at but what I really like about The Stuffed Pig is the fish offerings on the menu, including grunt and grits where grunt is a mild white fish, shrimp and grits or fish benedict as ordered by my wife. I Indulged myself with an order that surprised my wife who finds me predictable sometimes in that department.

Instead of grunts and grits as usual I went with the over-the-top lobster and cheese omelette seen above. My wife's benedict hit the spot.

It was all an indulgence, especially as we rarely eat breakfast out and indeed with my nighttime schedule I rarely eat breakfast at all. It wasn't cheap but worth every penny of the thirty two dollars for the most expensive items on the very reasonably priced main menu.

Marathon is not picturesque, far from it, but is a fishing town, witness the lobster pots above, just a few of the miles of pots stored in the surrounding streets, so fish for breakfast seemed appropriate. My wife drove her rental car north and I took Cheyenne for a walk before I went home stuffed to the gills with nourishment.

 

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Captain Maurice Seddon

 

I hardly ever do this,  publish a bunch of stuff that is not my original work but I was wandering the Internet recently, leaping from subject to subject as one does and I came upon a reference to a Maurice Seddon, apparently a manic motorcyclist, on http://thebridgeclub2011.blogspot.com with this picture:  

 

 

Then I found a Yahoo group called feet forward about which I know nothing except I found this excellent descriptive narrative of a classic British eccentric. You may not love motorcycles as I do but this story of meeting a weird and wonderful dispatch  (despatch -  sic) rider must make you laugh, yes but also appreciate a world which makes  room for genius like this, because Seddon is not a figure of fun but  a remarkable man:

 

 

 

"I seem to remember an article from (I think) Bike magazine, in the 70's some
time, about some retired English chap who heated himself, not his house. He
wore a suit of some sort with an electric umbilical that gently heated him."

Well off the FF subject but...

His name was Captain Maurice Seddon: not just an electrically heated
man but a motorcyclist of distinction.

He was once a captain in the Royal Engineers and liked to use the
rank. I knew him when we were both despatch riders at Security
Despatch In Covent Garden in the late '70's; he must have been
heading towards 60 then, so I don't know if he is still with us. He
used to wear tight black one-piece leathers (full leathers were
pretty rare on the road at that time) and spoke in a piercing Patrick
Moore accent; he also used to lapse into German from time to time, as
he was proud of being half German.

 

 

He rode a fantastically filthy and oily BSA 500 single with a mass of
extra wiring. The dynamo was replaced by a big car alternator, driven
by an exposed belt that ran off an extra pulley fitted on the end of
the mainshaft, through a hole carved in the primary chaincase.

He tuned his own radio set; whenever he changed jobs (because the
money was better elsewhere, or he objected to some petty rule) he
wouldn't take the new firm's radio like the rest of us; he just asked
what frequency they were on, and then opened his top box and swapped
the crystals around.

Also in the top box, powered by the big alternator, there was a
pressure cooker with a 12volt element. He filled it up with cold
goulash before leaving home so that he would have a hot vegetarian
meal by lunchtime.

Other features of the bike included a 100watt headlamp and a prop
stand made of scaffolding pole that hinged from just under the seat -
he didn't trust ordinary feeble prop stands. Also a tow ball welded
to the carrier, which he used to tow other more expensive bikes back
from ralles when they broke down; the BSA never broke down.

He wore heated gloves, heated socks, heated long johns and a heated
waistcoat. He designed these things and had a team of ladies
assembling them; he sold them mail order, but this business was not
hugely profitable which is why he also went despatch riding.

His house was wired in 12volt throughout. There was a windmill on the
roof driving a dynamo, and lots of batteries in the basement; he also
stored sulphuric acid in the back garden, in containers that leaked
and did some damage to plant and animal life. The house was not
heated in the conventional sense; he wore a 12volt dressing gown with
a long flex and plugged himself in as he moved from room to room; he
also had a 12volt electric blanket.

Among other things he made his own telephone; it was less effective
than an ordinary phone because it was single channel; you pressed a
button to talk (like a single channel radio) and as a result you
couldn't listen and speak at the same time. My wife phoned him once
and thought he was deaf in some way, as you couldn't interrupt him
while he was talking, until he explained that he had his finger on
the transmit button the whole time.

PNB might have known him; Paul was a hot shot at Mercury Despatch at
about the same time that I was getting fired for crashing too often.
However Maurice would not have worked at Mercury: you had to clean
the bike.

 

As if that weren't enough the Thames Valley VW Owners Club in Britain also published this appreciation of the man and his car:

I first saw this car in a local supermarket car park, I almost stopped to see if the owner turned up, but was in a hurry, so missed my first opportunity. At first glance the car appeared as if is ready for the breakers, but first impressions can be deceptive, as I found out. Next the car appears in the local paper, and the small article just confirmed my initial suspicion that this is no ordinary car, and no ordinary Volkswagen owner. Before we get on to the beetle itself, here's a very brief outline of the history of the owner. I conducted a 4-hour interview with captain Maurice Seddon, and his life story and achievements are as fascinating, if not more interesting than his mode of transport. Indeed, it was only in the last half hour that I could hastily get some insight into the car behind the man. Read on.

Captain Maurice Seddon Born in 1926, Maurice Seddon was born into a privileged background. His mother, Margarete Gertrude had come over from Germany in 1911. She was a concert pianist, having studied in Hildesheim „ Germany, and caught the eye of Frank Seddon, younger son of Harry Seddon and heir to a salt and chemical magnate. Maurice Seddon is a careful driver, just look at the notice on the back of his car.

 

 

His disdain for speed was a direct result of his father's love of it. During childhood trips down to the family's summerhouse at St. Meryn, near Padstow „ Cornwall. Frank would take the family at speeds up to 100 mph in his Mercedes KompressorWagen „ often causing the young Maurice to be travel sick.

 

 

 

Maurice got his name from Maurice Baring (part of the banking Barings), a friend of the family. However, his upper-class privileges were soon to end. In 1936 Frank Seddon's infatuation with his mistress resulted in a divorce in 1937. Despite being the wronged party, Maurice's family were totally cut off from the Seddon fortune and thereafter lived in rented accommodation in the 1930s. Now well and truly poor, Maurice was lucky enough to come into contact with Kurt Hahn, who became a close friend to his mother, Margarete Gertrude, and a father figure to Maurice.
 

Kurt Hahn 

 

Being a music lover, Kurt was aware of Margarete's previous fame as a concert pianist, as well as being a fellow German. Kurt Hahn is most famous for being a leading thinker and leader in progressive education. Having set up a school in Schloss Salem, by Lake Constance, „ Germany, his institute attracted some of the cream of the European classes, including the future Prince Philip. His progressive ideas, coupled with the fact that he was a Jew resulted in his imprisoned by the Nazis in 1934 and that could have been the end of his story. However, his British friends (he was also educated at Oxford) soon discovered his circumstances and used their influence to get the government of the time, (the Ramsey McDonald Lib-Lab government) to secure his release and transfer to Britain. Here, he set up the Gordonstoun School in Scotland and was the founder of in the International Outward Bound movement and instrumental in creating the Duke of Edinburgh scheme here in the UK. Kurt Hahn saw Maurice's potential and invited him to join his school in Wales around 1940. The school had moved from Scotland during the war and because of the preponderance of German teaching staff and boys, this caused too many allegations of Nazi sympathies with the local populace. Maurice attended the school in Llandinam where he founded the wireless club and joined Engineering Guild and the Motor Guild in the school. While in Wales, a Doktor Richter (the Biology master) was arrested for allegedly signalling to the Luftwaffe using a torch (he was actually looking for moths). It seems however, that Kurt Hahn spend part of his war years helping British intelligence monitoring German radio traffic, so was able swiftly to secure the masters release. While at the school Maurice made several radios for himself and the masters.

 

 

The Motor Guild also had extensive garage facilities nearby, halfway up a long drive up the local hillside. Maurice bought his first car, a 1916 Ford model T chassis for £1 and restored it with the help of his fellows. Its gravity-fed fuel system meant it would be starved of petrol half way up the Welsh hills. The solution, turn the vehicle around and drive up the rest of the way backwards. With the war still on and Maurice now at an age for military service, Kurt Hahn was anxious that he should volunteer and secure a post best suited to his skills. In 1944 he attended examinations at Cambridge for the Royal Corps of Signals, where he soon became known as the «mad boffin' and «wireless king'. His officer training was shared with notable individual, Geoffrey Howe „ later foreign secretary in the 1980s. Maurice rose to the rank of captain during his career in the army, and eventually retired in 1957, and in 1958 moved to his present house in Berkshire. The Inventor Maurice Seddon is most well known internationally as the inventor of low voltage powered heated clothing.

 

 

This is a direct result of his own suffering from Raynaud's syndrome, a constriction of the blood vessels in the extremities (usually hands and feet) that can cause pain and cold. He has pioneered this invention since 1951, his first client being his Classics master, and held many interviews in, among others, Germany, the UK and USA. Jonathan Ross, Jonny Carson and David Letterman to name just three, have interviewed him. His invention has given him little financial profit however; he has always failed to patent his ideas; while often, others have stepped in to copy his inventions. He is well aware that most would label him as the classic boffin and eccentric, and despite his poverty, he leads a full life and has travelled widely, had many experiences and known many famous people. He is so busy that it took me a week of last minute cancellations to arrange to meet him. At 77, he certainly has a full diary.

 

 

He is still active in producing bespoke heated clothing, maintains an historic wireless restoration business and also runs a private wireless museum. The Cars Why all the history? You cannot really talk about the cars without talking about the man behind them. Captain Maurice Seddon has run his cars on gas since the early 1960s and has run a 1934 Rolls Royce Phantom, and three Volkswagen Beetles „ as well as converting cars for friends, including a Mercedes 220S. His sister had moved to Rome with her friend and daughter of Gioia Marconi's first wife. Maurice Seddon often travelled there annually from the 1950s and in 1961 bought a 1946-7 split window beetle. At this time as much as 50% of cars in northern Italy were converted to run on gas and Maurice had his beetle converted in Italy, by the firm of Renzo Landi in Reggio. The car served him faithfully on his many trips to the continent and was often serviced by a German Volkswagen dealership, Dost Automobile GmbH, in Hildesheim. In 1987 the Beetle came to the attention of an Australian enthusiast, Graham Lees, who saw the car while Maurice Seddon was being interviewed on Australian Channel 7 TV. After tracking down the car he would not cease from pestering Maurice to sell, and so the car moved to Sydney „ where it still resides.

 

 

In 1974 he also bought his present car, a 67 Beetle, which was also converted to gas. This car may look scruffy from the outside, but I had a good look and it was solid, mainly due to the regular application of anti-rust treatments to the body and underside. Maurice also owns what appears to be a 64 Beetle with a 65 1200cc petrol engine. Both have got the somewhat do-it-yourself white painted covering ? the same effect that Graham Lees tells us adorns his original 46 model. The unique gas powered beetle, and notice the dual electric system The gas supply in his 67 is via a tank on the roof, above the engine compartment. The gas power gives only a slight reduction in speed and acceleration, but had meant that the car still runs perfectly on the original engine, with only occasional servicing and oil top-ups. The clean nature of the fuel puts less strain on the engine with a less violent combustion. Maurice's unhurried driving style must also contribute to its long life, note the sign displayed at the rear of the vehicle. He tells me that many modern gas conversions use an initial petrol supply to start the engine, his relies solely gas so takes 3-4 turns of the starter when cold to bring the car to life. A careful driver Many of you will notice that there is both a 6-volt dynamo and a 12-volt alternator double pulley system. So what's all that about? The car itself runs on the 6-volt system, which causes Maurice Seddon to try and avoid night driving. The 12-volt system attaches to his interior heated clothing system, including the most important components „ heated gloves and insoles, and his camping refrigeration. How many beetle owners out there could also benefit from such an ingenious set-up, especially in the winter months. Oh, and by the way, he has recently added two 12v fog lights to the car to aid night visibility, For his travels the car only has a driver's seat, the rest of the interior includes a flat bed and the refrigerator, to cut down on hotel bills. The fact that this car is so solid and runs so well is due to a combination of its unique fuel supply, the care taken by Maurice over its maintenance, his driving and (as he stresses himself) the over-engineered nature of the Beetle itself. If you ever see him on the road, give him a little wave, but if you end up behind him, be prepared for a sedate drive, and overtake carefully and politely. A fascinating man and an intriguing example of the continuing reliability and adaptability of the ubiquitous Volkswagen Beetle. May they both live long and prosper.

 

Finally I tracked down this brief article from the Windsor and Eton Express from Arpil 12th 2012 by Francis Batt. I have to confess I was quite surprised to learn he hadn't died years ago and I haven't found any mention of an obituary and I  think the inventor of heated clothing would get a prominent mention when he dies....so he must still be alive. I guess!

 

A dog lover whose eccentric lifestyle caused conflict with neighbours and the local authority has given up the fight to stay in his home.
Captain Maurice Seddon, 86, lived in his Datchet home for more than 50 years. But the numerous barking dogs he kept in his back garden led the Royal Borough to get a court order against him.
Captain Seddon always claimed he needed the dogs for protection against intruders who harassed him.

One of the dogs in Captain Seddon's garden. As the years passed neighbours complained of noise and nuisance.

The showdown lasted years, only ending when Captain Seddon was taken ill at home. After treatment at Wexham Park and Upton Hospitals in Slough he is now living in a care home.

This week his friend and supporter Datchet parish councillor Ewan Larcombe - who has criticised the Royal Borough in the past for getting the court order - praised the authority's handling of the situation since the captain became ill.
The borough sent men to help friends and supporters of Captain Seddon as they worked for 15 months clearing his house of decades of debris.
The captain's vintage 1932 Rolls Royce Phantom is due to go under the hammer at Bourne End auctioneers at Station Approach, Bourne End on May 2 and the money will go towards meeting his needs at the care home.
Councillor Larcombe said that many of the captain's dogs had now died but that three were still living at the house to guard against trespassers. He said they were being looked after by wellwishers.
He said the captain had adapted well to life in the care home, adding: "He seems very bright. His friends are visiting him regularly."
Councillor Larcombe who has lived in the village all his life said: "Captain Seddon has had an amazing life. Many will remember him fitting top quality televisions and audio systems in their homes, travelling round the village in his gas fuelled Rolls with a working television in the back.
"He pioneered electrically heated clothes used by everyone from hillwalkers to spacemen and travelled the world promoting the idea.
"He is an electronics genius, a tremendous guy, a one-off."

 

So there it is. I have no idea why I was smitten by this story but I was and I wanted to add a (lengthy) page to my online diary to remind myself of him. I hope you enjoyed the pieces pulled together here. Cheers.

The Living Dead

Residentially challenged city residents gather at picnic tables at Higgs Park

. 

Continuing his drive to leave his mark on his fair city, Mayor Cates has announced his support for a new homeless facility on city property on North Stock Island. Years ago the city annexed College Road to pave the way for the Golf Course development and associated homes and now has some spare land at the Easter Seals building, log since vacant and coveted by it's neighbors.

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Currently the city runs a facility next to the Sheriff's Headquarters also off College Road, known as the Keys Overnight Temporary Shelters - KOTS, also known by its original name of the "Safe Zone." Key West Diary: Homeless In Key West. And from there every morning hopeless figures can be seen shambling and hauling their belongings as they go. Storage at KOTS is not permitted making it harder for the residents to live working lives in the city. Pets aren't permitted either so if you seek comfort with a dog you are going to face arrest which puts the dog back in the pound and will be released only on payment of a fee out of reach to street people. What a system.

Many of the residents of KOTS are working poor, unable to collect the minimum two grand required to move into even the most modest rental housing in Key West or Stock Island. So they go to work and sleep at the shelter alongside the crazies and hopeless and exhausted who are truly homeless and always will be. Not everyone on foot is homeless, some of them have more than one home and are out taking the early morning air to improve their dispositions for a day of hard vacationing.

       

Florida's Supreme Court has ruled that local government must create spaces for people to sleep at night ('safe zones') if they are to arrest vagrants elsewhere in their jurisdictions. originally the Key West safe zone was open 24 hours until the interfering old biddies who hadn't the sense god gave a goose complained about the hobos watching TV on city property and the city reacted by closing KOTS during the day. The result of that piece of politically correct brilliance was to push the bums back into city parks and beaches, to the annoyance of neighbors. A predictable result of the usual belief that being homeless is an easy choice of the lazy who therefore deserve to be hounded endlessly. That many of them are barking mad and the rest are drug addicts, self tortured veterans and single mothers abandoned to the streets has nothing to do with the anger of the perceptions of the self absorbed tax payers.

I don't know how the city finds the money for all these improvements the mayor is pursuing but he is proposing a long term effort to do more than rotate the homeless through what is essentially a free campground. Supposedly there are plans in the works to build a twenty four facility that will launch its residents ack into te mainstream while maintaining the current drive to move the homeless out of parks and off beaches after closing time -11pm as it stands.

I have no doubt Cates will get his way on this project as he has managed to on the city hall reconstruction at Glynn Archer School and the Truman Waterfront development. One of Key West's phobias is creating open space that can be enjoyed by all citizens. Inevitably it seems benches tend to end up occupied permanently by bums to the detriment of the parks and other would-be users. as a result the housed tend to gravitate toward the gated beaches and parks like Fort Zachary where an entrance fee keeps the bums at bay. It's hard to explain to the still frustrated navel gazing taxpayers that you can't ban park access selectively to the smelly, disheveled or unemployed. First amendment? What's that when it interferes with your convenience?

They did the annual homeless count a couple of weeks ago and the numbers were down considerably on a few years ago, less than 600 in the Lower Keys if I recall correctly. The odd thing about the homeless in Key West is that their numbers fluctuate seasonally just like the snowbirds and tourist numbers...I suppose money everywhere is in short supply compared to years past and perhaps it's harder to scrape together the money needed to buy a bus ticket to paradise. Who knows...

I don't view the life of the homeless to be a cakewalk, I can imagine no life more boring not to mention uncomfortable and dispiriting than being abandoned to a life on the streets. We the housed avert our eyes for fear they will ask us for alms or worse friendship and thus they feel not only alienated but invisible too.

Dozens of Monroe County school children are homeless too and no one wants to consider that little problem. It's easy to write off the parents as lazy, but their offspring? And of course the critics of the homeless (there's an empowering stance!) forget the miseries of medical bankruptcy, divorce and the climate of economic prejudice against the older members of the population. If you're my age and looking for work don't you suppose the cost of your health benefits will be part of the calculation?

Against all these factors stands the Mayor and his ambitious plan, keep the parks and beaches clear, make the city unwelcoming to professional bums and hobos and provide real help for those seeking a way out. Now that the Easter Seals property ( on the left in the picture above) is up for grabs the SPCA (seen below), an institution close to my heart wants a little land for expansion while the Botanical Garden operated by bossy and outspoken imports from Up North want a piece of it too.

I like plants well enough but I hate seeing people's cast off animals housed in chicken wire cages. This was Cheyenne in her day pen when I first set eyes on her three years ago.

People first, as graceless and ingrate as they may be, animals second and plants a distant third in my book. I hope the mayor can pull it off.

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Navy Rescues Key West -Again!

We read recently that Fat Albert will be taken down in March and the blimp will never fly again over Cudjoe Key, its surveillance duties no doubt superseded by aerial surveillance of a more modern kind, drones known and hated around the world and now it seems they are to fly over the Homeland in their thousands to keep us safe. That sort of Federal supervision I could do without but my hat's off to the Navy announcement made public in the newspaper yesterday. It seems that a few days before Pope Benedict steps down as head of the scandal wracked Universal Roman Church the waters you see in the picture below will be restricted to Navy boats only. Bummer, especially if you use the Navy Basin Launch Ramp to conduct amphibious tours of Key West Harbor.

The Navy has been intertwined in Key West right from the start, sometimes to the benefit of the military and sometimes to the benefit of the city and over the centuries it's been a back and forth of benefits. The Navy has always needed a secure base here, in the early days to run pirates out of the Bahamas and make the Straits of Florida safe for merchant shipping. And then when the US wrested control of the Colombian province of Panama away from Bogotà and created the Canal Zone the priority has been to secure the sea lanes across the Caribbean Sea. In the 70s reductions in force caused horrid poverty in Key West as downtown slumped and empty waterfronts faced Dival Street. Some few people took a chance, like the head of HTA ironically, and bought up the properties in an effort to keep Duval alive and eventually that chance paid handsome dividends. After the Navy got run out of Vieques in the so-called Spanish Virgin Islands off Puerto Rico, Key West's strategic importance grew exponentially as the country's best training base. If you think Key West is an open air bar and gay resort you are partly correct but Key West always has been and is still a major military installation. And every now and again the Navy speaks up and reminds civilians who forget that fact. The launch ramp in the picture below is not a civilian facility it turns out.

The thing is the amphibian tour vehicles operated by Historic Tours of America use the ramp and tour the basin for three quarters of an hour four times a day and they had an agreement, according to the newspaper that the Navy would give them a week's notice of any military required closures. Six months later the Navy has announced the deal is off, it's not working for them, how sad too bad. Now you might think all these Second Amendment freaks would whip out their armories and march down to the military base and tell these autocratic Federal goons to stuff it but in point of fact that's not how it works despite the implications to the contrary put about by the National Rifle Association. HTA told the newspaper it's throwing in the towel and Duck Amphibian Tours will cease by February 25th, the Navy deadline. It turns out the massive brutes operated by eleven employees (unemployment? Blame the Navy was the not so subtle implication suggested in the newspaper by the well padded corporate CEO who is no danger of the breadlines) will be sidelined. They are too massive to launch from Simonton Beach and plans call for a base to be built off Trumbo Road at some undetermined point in the future. Anyone who imagines residents of Old Town will miss these monstrosities has to be dreaming. Frankly I hope they vanish and never reappear, and I don't live in the city, as it's bad enough civilians think Yukons and Escalades make sense on Old Town streets.

The Navy's assertion of its rights over the Basin has other implications for the city, pointed out in the newspaper article. There are 34 acres of open space deeded to the city by the reduction of the Truman Annex Navy Base and all this unused land is now ready for redevelopment. In a town where assholes have at least two opinions each, what to do with the waterfront land has been the subject of some...debate. Plans were announced for a not so Key West development of landscaped facilities in the style of mainland Florida while a proposed upscale marina was put on the back burner to try to keep the debate below incendiary levels. Indeed the marina was nowhere to be seen on the latest plans published for public consumption but in the story about the Navy decision the fictitious marina was again mentioned as being at risk thanks to the Navy's closure of the basin. It seems as though we owe the Navy a second round of thanks for the closure.

The marina plan was pretty odd actually as the developers suggested they build it at city expense using bed tax dollars, an idea that was deemed illegal. Nothing deterred the idea was that some other public funding build the marina, the developers manage it and pay a modest rent to the city for its own facility. It's the sort of public private partnership that brings government into disrepute for being taken to the cleaners by the private side of the partnership. However all that is now off the cards, thank God. This waterfront all the way to the Westin Marina in the distance will be closed to even millionaires' gin palaces. Money does not talk in this case. Thank you Navy.

Not surprisingly the military is pretty cagey about why in the world why they need the basin nor what they do with it but apparently their Mission is best served in private. They did tell the paper they use the forty foot deep waters to train in underwater activities and for that they even employ the venerable floating Museum called Ingham, a retired Coast Guard Cutter that survived the development plans for the waterfront. Its former colleague, the last survivor of World War Two North Atlantic Convoys called Mohawk has been sunk off Sanibel Island as a diving attraction. Which I still believe is a terrible shame, the more so now the marina's future is clearly in question.

The Navy also uses the Outer Mole to tie up visiting ships when they take breaks from patrolling the Caribbean Sea in an endless drive to stop the drug flow to the land of high chemical demand. The city benefits enormously from the Navy presence, not just because sailors spend money in town but because reliable Navy spouses work in local businesses and also because the Navy also allows cruise ships to tie up on the Outer Mole and so far there is no word that agreement is In jeopardy.

If that agreement were ever to go up the spout the city would have some fiscal issues to deal with and opponents of cruise ship expansion might cheer but city budget cuts might cause some second thoughts. Maybe not. There's no word on the future of the National Marine Sanctuary patrol boats tied up at the Eco Discovery Center. My guess is they are Federal Park law enforcement and thus exempt from the prohibition.

The last time the Navy spoke up on Truman Waterfront to devastating effect was when the Truman Annex honchos got it into their heads they wanted to put a gate across the Southard Street entrance to the gated community. The city commission curled up in the fetal position and told the property owners association it was fine to shut a city street with a gate when the Navy spoke up and said so sad too bad, do that and we will set your backsides on fire ( they used diplomatic language ) and you never saw a bunch of bullies step down so fast. Plans for the gate, like plans for duck tours, are on hold. The side benefit to that little fiasco was an alternative route onto Truman Waterfront that the city built off Petronia Street, which is quite useful, as it's not at all publicized.

President Obama's plans to launch 30,000 drones over the US seems oddly unconstitutional to an old fart like me, still struggling to come to terms with the presence of a tracking GPS in my smart phone. On the other hand his plan to offer a bastardized incomplete and inefficient form of national health care coverage seems like a step in the right direction and I keep hoping Republican obstructionism at the state level will produce a Medicare for All plan that much faster as the Feds are forced to take over state health care exchanges. When I see how the military leads in Key West and dithering civilians dither, I feel oddly comforted.

 

Think about this: Gay marriage is a tough toad for civilian leaders to swallow as they study popularity polls, as usual, Thus civil rights changes come from the military first and we ditherers follow later. Just as black integration came through the military, thank you Harry Truman, US gay integration seems headed down the same path. So the military integrate gay rights as the US Supreme Court dithers on how to rule on the nonsensical Defense Of Marriage Act. If Key West can't decide how to cope with waterfront changes, don't worry, the Navy will show us the way. It's that sort of decisiveness that leads to dictatorship too, no matter how many guns you store in the closet, as civilians gradually get tired of civilian leaders who can't bring themselves to act for fear of popularity polls. When the Gods want to punish us, they send us what we ask for. So do I want Navy intervention or not? Umm...

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