Clouds Over, Sewers Under, Cudjoe Key

It is no easy thing to determine what the weather is really like in the Keys when looking from afar. Temperatures vary wildly in how warm or cool the air actually is, despite what the numbers say...humidity changes markedly how hot it feels, and the breeze plays its part.

All of which is to say I never quite know how energetic my dog might be when we head out for a walk. When she feels cool she gets more energetic, finds more things to smell and suddenly I have a puppy leading me in the dance.

It's been a while since princess agreed to check out the back country of Cudjoe Key and I was delighted to make the acquaintance once again of the strange parking lot alongside the trail. This used to be a car from the 60s maybe. In half a century it has been reduced to a pile of rust. I am durprised we are still told that an abandoned soda can will blight the landscape for 500 years. Cheyenne seems likely yo blight the landscape for a year or two more:

It is very difficult to get away entirely from the sounds of traffic rushing on the Overseas Highway, especially if the wind is blowing towards you from the traffic.

But inside your mind, in these spaces you can find quietude, and as Cheyenne rooted around smelling stuff I listened to the wind rustle my ears and watched the clouds scudding overhead.

The ground is close to the tideline and salt water. In fifty years they tell us this will revert to the sea, but for now it is here, modest and scrubby lacking the majesty of mountains and the true void of the desert. But it is deserted as the tens of thousands who live nearby, or winter nearby, rarely penetrate these quiet places.

In winter I come across joggers sometimes busy improving themselves, but if I try to penetrate these scrubby woods in summer my only companions are mosquitoes.

It took us thirty short minutes to walk out and back, Cheyenne chose, at the fork in the trail to turn back and head toward civilization.

It is little wonder the trees are so small in the salt air, for there is no dirt.

People warn me with dire concern that rattlesnakes will be the death of me. None seen so far these past four years with Cheyenne. And it's hardly surprising as this land tends to flood in summer making it an unpleasant place for a snake that likes to live in dry sandy uplands.

There are alligators and crocodiles and poisonous snakes abundant in Florida. The Keys seem to me to be the least threatening environment, human or natural, you could take a walk in. The human predators, pathetic things, seek to bum a free drink or to sell you cocaine around Duval Street. Out here you are free of the constraints of fear and internalized oppression if you so choose.

And you can stand like an idiot and watch an aircraft carrier float silently overhead into the rising sun.

Back among the homes nearby the toil and trouble of centralized sewer installation is ongoing. Soon the street will be covered in dust and gravel and the air filled with noise and more dust. This work should have been fond twenty years ago when the Feds threw money at public works projects. Now it will be paid for in bonds and property taxes. And the reef has been literally eating shit for unnecessary decades.

Walt across the highway has won a victory in his quixotic drive to minimize technically unsound grinder pumps planned for installation across many streets. He fired up a lawsuit based on his own extensive engineering knowledge and forced scrutiny if the bidding process for the thousands of individual grinder pumps. Gravity fed vacuum sewers are getting a fresh look thanks to Walt and corruption noises swirl around now that the stupidity of burying pumps everywhere in wet mud has been exposed.

Cheyenne bore the mark of her wilderness walk through the suburbs.

Imagine the work of severing, every street, every home connected by pipes buried in rock.

Just thinking about it tires a girl out.

 

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Don't Stop The Carnival

Dawn smiles on Key West and South Roosevelt Boulevard is where I go to check it out.

It's an interesting headline in the newspaper, followed by a bunch of contradictory statements and very straightforward numbers. From what I read American and Delta are handing Southwest their lunch in terms of numbers flying to and from Key West. Southwest says their last flight is June 7th 2014 which gives everyone lots of time to talk, which is good because Southwest says the airport gives bad customer service to the airline with broken equipment and shabby facilities. Then they say their numbers are good and getting better but their profits are down. Sounds to me like they might reconsider for more favorable fees and judging by the knock kneed response from the Chamber of Commerce who are "shocked, shocked" that the airline is quitting Key West, they will fold like a cheap suit. And doubtless keep calling for cuts in wages.

However they are getting here they are here right now and the balmy Southernmost City is packed. That's what frigid winters Up North when it's a comfortable eighty degrees right here.

I guess this kind if behavior goes on in cities across America, otherwise they wouldn't do it here. What makes it so peculiar in Key West is that running in odd looking clothes is a seasonal affair only. In summer when it would take real sweat glands to go jogging there's only me and my panting dog. In winter the sidewalks are littered every morning with horribly active people.

I feel like an extra in Don't Stop the Carnival watching the Norman Papermans seeking a reconstructed reality on this little island yet like the hero of the novel unable to save themselves from their true natures. Everyone seeks the elusive Leprechaun of Laid Backland but like any self respecting leprechaun this one can't be found if the seeker searches too hard. You won't find it by running after it.

Pause for a moment. Two seriously uncomfortable cars on Whitehead Street. I am not a car fanatic, as much as I do like motorcycles...but these bath tubs looked real to me, they were driven, had touches of rust and did not look at all like trailer queens. I liked that. They had the swagger of use.

You know how car shops advertise check ups and "lube?" Well, once upon a time cars really find need lubrication. Oils needed changing every few thousand miles, spark plugs wore out and joints needed grease. Imagine that, every few thousand miles your car needed a work up. If you recognize the little grease nipples on the cross beams you are either an old timer or an old car freak. If not, you are used to cars that go a hundred thousand miles with nothing more than an occasional oil change. How d'you like your Yaris now?

Anyway when I see Norman Paperman jogging his cares away I wonder what Conchs think of all this carnival of money that comes surfing into town each winter. I guess if they made out when the money rolled into town they are okay with it. If not, probably less so. I was listening to a couple of lawyers outside the courthouse a couple of weeks ago as they stood sping coffee waiting for something or someone. They wore shapeless suits and one had extraordinarily bad teeth, which surprised me in the land of perfect dentistry.

For some reason I cam across the Southernmost Lump almost unattended. And the only woman there, attired in proper running gear, as far as I could see, had her back turned to the famous monument. Good job, not everyone has yo have their head turned by fame! I am proud to say Cheyenne also paid no attention to the buoy seeking more interesting sensations. Good dog.

Anyway those two lawyers started reminiscing about the good old days, fishing without regulations, crashing about in the mangroves (which are protected now) and Cuban coffee, a colada, and sharing it among a group of friends, not a care in the world. And yet, I wanted to point out to them as I overheard their longing, you had no lap tops, no instant view of The Game, no contact with the outside world except by newspaper, crackly telephone or very long drive. A flight out in those dark days was as expensive as a "long distance call" - and who now remembers phone calls cost by the mile... I remember when Atlantic Shores welcomed one and all at the spot shown below. I used to delight in describing it as "straight friendly" but more importantly they also took dogs. Even at the Thursday night open air movies when I would watch the film, eat popcorn, drink a beer and pet Emma lying on the lounge chair between my legs. Things have changed, and like the attorneys I too could go all rose tinted when I see this:

Cheyenne gave this kid a friendly sniff and he looked up from his intricate pencil drawing, quite lovely actually and I hope his parents recognize his talent incidentally, and it was only on my return trip up Whitehead I noticed him still there, waiting. I have no facility with kids and they are rather mysterious beings to me so talking with them is not easy, even when I know them. I wanted to ask how it was growing up but Cheyenne in any event walked the other way so the opportunity was lost. I've heard good and bad about growing up in Key West, the duality of freedom versus "nothing to do," and as hard as it would beyond convince them otherwise boredom is a constant for of youth everywhere. Adults too actually. Every young person I have crossed paths with has been very polite and respectful to me in Key West, despite the stories I hear to the contrary.

I tried to live in mainland Florida but Tampa, St Petersburg and Fort Myers did nothing for me. I don't fit in very well in suburbia. Key West I like. It's a bit startling to find I am attached but here I am. I am as much an incomer as anyone though I have found it easy to set out not to disturb the natural order of things. At work I have no particular feelings about how the job gets done as long as it gets done the way we are told. Because of my peculiar attention to detail I get vexed if it isn't done as we are told, but as to an opinion how it should get done, that I leave to the bosses to devise. Key West rewards those that don't arrive in town ready to upset the apple cart. And lots of things upset local people, like toilet manners:

Just like anyplace across the planet we celebrate the pagan rituals of a Nordic midwinter, translated into the Bohemian story of Good King Wenceslas, and flipped into story of the Son of God bearer of the season of goodwill, born into a Roman census mysteriously carried out for once in mid winter in Palestine. So we put out evergreens and color them red and play German hymns and in honor of the gifts from the East for the newly born King we exchange presents we cannot afford at the urging of merchants whose goodwill only goes so far. Toilets and seats require specie.

I love reading the Citizens' Voice column with its daily dose of anonymous community whining. Then you get the odd protest from some sane citizen who whines about all the whining. The trouble with living in Paradise is that it isn't always sweet loving heaven. Sometimes it sucks. The trick is to keep a sense of perspective and don't bitch about people. In a small community one disparaging remark can set you up against a phalanx of opposing opinion. You just don't know who sleeps/slept with whom, who wished they had slept with whom, who is related, who went to school, who lives next door, etc... Key West is more Byzantine than Byzantium when it comes to causing offense.

In the picture above I was struck by the young bucks sitting on the porch looking down at the dude maneuvering his bike loaded with his life on the street below. Even the poor like warm winters, but it's not a life I envy on the streets. Lose your job and it's that or a move Up North, Key a West is quite reluctant to offer second chances to working people. There's nowhere else to commute for a different job.

My dog could use a cooler climate but there again she isn't stuck in a yard anymore on a chain. Like I always say if there wasn't a pound with abandoned dogs I'd not have one. But she does polarize people, just by virtue of being a dog. Everyone has opinions about dogs, landlords don't want them, passersby disagree with how one walks them, they bark at neighbors (not Cheyenne happily), and so on. In a world filled with aggression among humans dogs to the uninitiated represent our feral natures at their worst. Even Cheyenne.

Norm Paperman's laid back escape is starting to look not quite so easygoing at this point, still the carnival keeps going and binging money to Kinja. In some quiet corners of this little town one sometimes gets a hit of Kinja, the way it's described, as not all Key West is in tourist use. This complex has been abandoned as long as I remember and it's a block from the infamous Southernmost Point.

Which is sporting a Menorah from the Chabad temple in Key West. I also noticed a similar public display at the entrance to the city. Florida's oldest temple is the venerable synagogue on United Street but the Chabad crowd according to the literature are even more conservative than the Congregation B'nai Zion and apparently now they are advertising their way into the city. I don't understand religion really, perhaps as little as I understand children, but when religion acts like a business my ironic sense of the absurdity of life surfaces.

We are closing in on the end of the big Non Event of 2013 in the Flowery State, which was the celebration of five hundred years of white people living in the peninsula, principally the settlement of St Augustine where Spaniards settled long before the protesting English refugees landed in Massachusetts. In order to mark this auspicious occasion the great state of Florida led by our absentee Governor put out more flags like this rather misleading advertisement for a local branch of a multi national corporation:

As for recycling in Key West, I think I have said enough on that unhappy subject. They are recycling pay phones though and I have to say I am delighted about that. I used to feel sorry that those symbols of my youthful independence were disappearing and then I became a 911 operator. It pains me to say it but some people take pleasure in walking past a pay phone and taking it off the hook which prompts the phone to automatically seek help. We are required, because we know where the pay phones are located to send an officer to check the phone. Therefore the fewer of these nuisances are left, the better as far as I am concerned.

I acknowledge my status as a fly in the wall, and honestly I have spent most of my life observing, as a reporter and as a disinterested human being so there is no reason I should stop now. Simply by being in Key West it is reasonable to argue that I too am playing my part in keeping the Carnival going, keeping the influx of money coming in some very small measure, as an outsider negatively affecting the native population. It's a bit of a leap from observing Key West's evolution to quantum mechanics but I think of myself sometimes sitting here looking out and wondering whether to open the box on Schrödinger's cat to see if it is alive or dead. In the end it doesn't matter because the cat will be alive or dead no matter what I do. Thank you Niels Bohr. And the buggers will keep on jogging!

So whether or not I care how they spend their time in Kinja, they will keep coming and bringing their frantic habits with them from Up North. Still too, they will seek the illusion of laid back-ness which is illusory for us who live and work in the most expensive city in Florida, but the mirage of "island time" is made real for them by their efforts exerted far way from this island paradise. There they labor, here they recreate and bitch about how their island paradise is being ruined by the local pursuit of lucre. Like the peasant said to me years ago: "Anywhere is great to live when you have money," and he went back to his dogged tilling of the soil for very little financial gain. Some of us are just born to be peasants and live on the margins and lucky we are when the margins actually suit us.

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Key West Ball Field Punt

Sports in Key west are hugely important to the parents of young Conchs. Boog Powell played in the major leagues and because I am sports illiterate let me allow the Baltimore Sun to tell his story, which, as they describe Key West as being seven and a half miles long may not be the best source. He still lives in Maryland they say, Boog Powell, celebrity traveler - Baltimore Sun so that should give them some credibility with stories of his professional life...

There are a large number of sports fields wedged in two city blocks between North Roosevelt and Flagler, and Kennedy (13th Street) and 14th Street (also known as Glynn Archer Driver- very confusing!). They share the hallowed ground with Poinciana Elementary school, a fire station and a skateboard park. They look vast to me, child free as I am and like I said sports illiterate, but a recent meeting brought up the point that there are too many children and too few places for them to practice sports.

It seems odd that in this town which is actually but four miles long though perhaps the Baltimore Sun meant to indicate it is almost eight square miles in size overall, there should be large tracts of open land, neither preserved nor actively used. Right across from Boog Powell Court this open space is a storage area I believe for a construction company. Not exactly intensively used.

I was disappointed to hear that practice fields are in desperately short supply, because as an outsider to the problem it seems to me the city has done a lot for the young people, including the aforementioned skate park, much longed for, and the shady roller hockey rink behind the high school:

The discussion came up when city planners started suggesting ways they might like to alter Higgs Beach and Park which is actually Monroe County land on the south shore of the city. There has been talk for a while about making changes to the land including moving the street (an extension of Atlantic Boulevard actually) away from the waterfront. A city meeting unveiled an assortment of plans to howls of protest according to the paper. The dog park might be split in two with small dogs being put here, in what is currently Rest Beach at the foot of the White Street Pier.

The Wildlife rehab center might be moved the planners thought, to land next to the airport, and from that might come the big dog park...

...and an extension of the well used bocce courts. Which seemed to leave bocce players the only happy campers in this whole re-shuffle of Highs Beach.

Expanding the pond is part of the plan and moving Atlantic Boulevard through the middle of the park to allow more active use of the waterfront is also under consideration. One comment in the paper pointed out the landing antenna for the airport is in the middle of these grandiose plans and the FAA might have something to say about that. The tower is protected by an ample fence designed to keep people away and protect passersby from radio waves emanating from the tower.

The dog park currently is located under the trees in the picture below, and it was created with thousands in private donations after the land was given for that use. For a while it was threatened by the discovery of apparent human remains belonging to the African cemetery across the street, but somehow that was all cleared up satisfactorily. Now the dog park users are upset with these new plans.i have to say I did not support the park at the time, I felt like they were cutting up a pleasant shaded walk and my dog at the time had no. We'd of a fenced in area. Of corpse I was wrong, and even though Cheyenne now takes less pleasure in the dog park than Emma did at the time I still see how much use it gets and how trouble-free the whole project has been; and there is still plenty of room to walk an anti-social dog!

The whole realignment of Higgs Beach brought the loudest protests from the ball park supporters who saw nothing in it for them. They announced that fields are in such short supply waiting lists are interminable and children have to practice as late as ten at night to get some space. Such a situation is untenable and suddenly the Highs Beach plan was being attacked on all sides. Except the bocce players!

Let's face it: Higgs each is not in every respect an efficient use of space even though there is a ton of activity packed into the tiny county enclave next to the Casa Marina Resort. The garden club uses the Martello Tower, there are two beaches, a protected swimming area, tennis courts, ample car parking, two children's parks and the aforementioned dog park. Yet despite all this there is a patina of "unacceptable" use over all the activity, which is of course the homeless bums and the cheap travelers who like to spend all day in their cars hanging around the park showering in the restrooms. That was the main reason I think they fenced off the pavilions as the picnic roofs are known and required adults to be accompanied by a child in that area. Solved the problem of bums drinking and carousing there...Until a branch fell and to "protect the children" they cut down every single casuarina and left the place a baking desert. Similarly I think the dog park got the go ahead because most of those picnic tables were used exclusively by bums who frightened off the good burghers seeking a space for ad family gathering al fresco.

So ow, if they move the road and slice up the park and shuffle the amenities, everybody gets mad (except the bocce league!) and of new ball fields there is no sign. Problem.

And yet there are odd fields scattered round the city, like this one usually enjoyed by soccer players, not a proper sport I grant you like the deadly dull footballers clumping around in armor and stopping every ten yards for a discussion of tactics. Anyway here it is at the end of Petronia Street next to the Navy Base.

Which conveniently leads me to the 34 acres of land given to the city by the Navy at the Truman Waterfront, former home to playing fields and with enough space to take care of any such need. And yet...not so fast! A proposal to,spend $170,000 for a temporary field got nixed happily by the city commission who preferred to think of such money going to a permanent solution.

I'm wondering how ball fields will fit into any proposal currently under review which includes plans for an upscale park and possibly a Marina if the Navy relents and allows it. I join with those city residents (which I am not, as I live in the county) who would like to see a more natural, less highly developed project. However in this day and age the question always raised to bat down esoteric projects is how does a park that looks like a park and not a community recreational center pay for itself? Which leads me to wonder why it has to pay for itself. The public works projects of the past are endeavors we take for granted now, Golden Gate Park, Central Park as urban examples of the breed, not to mention our much beloved system of natural parks and wildernesses.

Peary Court used to be a wilderness until the Navy reclaimed the land despite feverish protests by the citizenry. They needed the housing they wanted to build, the Navy insisted. Now they have built housing on their own base behind their gates on Fleming. Key and have abandoned the housing giving it over to civilian use. Ironically enough one of the mjodest land uses of the old Peary Court can be seen in the movie Criss Cross with Goldie Hawn, when they show Peary Court as was, as a softball field.

I don't see why the city or the county need to tear up Higgs Beach, but maybe some good will come of it as good came from the dog park. Though less and less do I understand why Truman Waterfront needs to be turned into the sort of park Boca Raton would be proud of. Perhaps if the Navy holds out and insists it needs to have full use of the waters inside the basin. The Marina project will go away and the rapacious Spottswood developers will give up trying to make more of this potentially lovely open space than needs to be done. That would be nice. Oh, and give the kids their ball fields, no?

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