Thunderstorms

A little rain gave Duval Street a fresh clean look helped along by the repaving job undertaken during lock down. 

Massive amounts of public works have been continuing in the Keys to try to take advantage of the absence of tourists.

Naturally there have been complaints the city should spend the money on coronavirus relief, though anyone who knows municipal funding rules knows monies budgeted for certain types of projects if not specific work have to be spent on those projects and cannot legally be diverted. 

The counter argument then arises that government is slow to respond and too rigid and all that stuff whereas when I was younger we took it for granted that government spending required planning, public comment and transparency. In my old age I find my previously commonplace beliefs about governance to be quaint out of date and old fashioned. I rather like becoming an old curmudgeon. "In my day..."

Everything is a source of negative comment in the world in which I live. La Concha hotel on Duval, the tallest building in the city is said to be ugly. I find it endlessly photogenic perhaps because I am not surrounded by tall architecture and lack variety in my skyscraper life.

I wasn't sure why he was looking at me like that but he didn't shy away when I pointed the camera  at him so...

I did get part of Memorial weekend  rain-free but the week ahead is rather spoiled by the knowledge of three things. June 1st the Keys re-open to tourists. Dade County confirmed coronavirus cases are increasing in number, by a large factor. Social distancing in Dade has failed signally. The people responsible for the Dade County spread are coming here in large numbers.  Consequently I feel a measure of existential gloom.

Or:

The Spectator on why reopening isn't a problem. Color me continuing to be confused.


From the May 26th Citizen:

During the early staging of the impending reopening, Keys lodging will be limited to 50% of standard occupancy, in accordance with Gov. Ron DeSantis’ recent executive order.

Local leaders will examine the situation later in June to make determinations regarding the relaxing of occupancy restrictions.

Statewide, the number of reported cases surpassed the 50,000 mark over the holiday weekend, as deaths from the novel coronavirus rose to above 2,000.

The three most-active areas in the state continue to be Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties, according to the state health department.

The Flag Pole

When we moved to Cudjoe Key five years ago I was glad to get out of our street on Ramrod Key, a long narrow single lane where the neighbors at either end disliked each other and we were in the middle of a lot of angry people. I felt like the middle child in a family at war with itself. Change is hard but we fell on our feet moving four miles closer to Key West with a wide street, pleasant neighbors and a canal we can swim in with hardly any boat traffic. But every paradise has its serpent and we were warned in rather uncertain terms about the big downside.

 "Those people" at Venture Out we were warned "will ruin your life every winter." The cause of the ruination was never made completely clear except that crowds of snowbirds walk their dogs along Spanish Main and clog the street with traffic. Plus they live in trailers.  As you can imagine someone who has lived much of his adult life on boats isn't put off by trailer living or any alternative lifestyle (see: vans!). Dog walking? Nothing wrong with that; God forbid. And after five years of living next door the worst I can say is the occupants of Venture Out have a tendency to run the stop sign at the entrance to the park. Forewarned is forearmed and I look out for their rolling California stops as they leap onto Spanish Main. The dog walkers are careful and I have never seen any dog eggs left behind. They have to be the cleanest dog walkers in the Northern Hemisphere, people whose example I try to live up to with trepidation. I take Rusty on the street  as he likes to sniff their trails when we walk in the middle of the night and the ground I find is super clean. There is never a noise complaint from the park and I never see the Deputy Sheriffs over there breaking up relationships gone bad. They are ideal neighbors in my book.

One evening as we drove back from a trip to Miami my wife told me she always looks for the flagpole at Venture Out as she commuted home from work in Marathon, and indeed the slim white pole rises up out of Cudjoe Key, an unmistakeable landmark from across the water on Summerland Key. It is a landmark, a reminder of home all the way down the mile long drive on Spanish Main after you turn off the highway. If the flag is not there you know there's wind in the forecast. If it is halfway down making room for the flag of Death at the top you know they are telegraphing something to the neighborhood. This weekend obviously it's Memorial Day. And a windy rainy weekend we were promised too as you can see, yet the flag is still flying perfectly spread by the east wind.

Today is Memorial Day of course but every day when you drive past the Venture Out flagpole is a day to think about home and loss and good fortune and all those emotions that make up daily life especially in a time of pandemic.

The Monastery Of The Mangrove

Every other weekend I get Saturday Sunday and Monday off and every other weekend it has started raining to welcome summer. The end of a long drought is a good thing but why does it have to end on my days off? I am taking it personally.

A work day for me ends with an exercise tape at home, a swim in the canal behind my house and then I walk Rusty while my wife relaxes by cooking. I wash up not least because I am compulsive about stuff like that and let's face it a great cook isn't necessarily a great dish washer. Not in my home. Rusty licks a clean bowl when he feels like it but he's perfect no matter what.

I love my evening walks just as much as Rusty does.  This is my Florida, socially distanced and alone looking for anything that catches my eye.

I have mixed feelings about people coming back to visit the Keys, though the good part for me will be, I hope seeing better pictures. Months of looking for still life worth recording is starting to wear on me and I never expected that it would. Empty streets are only interesting when you juxtapose the emptyness of after hours with the busyness of regular hours!  Everything is empty these days all the time...

I am not looking forward to the traffic, the increase inevitably of 911 calls, the undifferentiated impact of people not thinking or not caring about the pandemic they think they have left in their rearview mirrors.

The Sheriff has held the line with the roadblocks against all requests and demands that he take them down. From what I've heard they have refused entry to more than 13,000 vehicles and made several arrests related to the road blocks. It blows m mind that people are thinking its worth trying their luck even though it's clear the road is closed! I cannot imagine they will bring much social awareness when they arrive next week. 

That is a problem for next week. And even then I doubt any of the hordes arriving in the keys will be looking for long empty roads lined by mangroves, dull uninteresting and not worth stopping on. These places will continue I have no doubt to be my refuge even as they were before everything went weirdly wrong. You have to find your quiet place where you can.

Open The Flood Gates

Next week, technically next month, the roadblocks come down and visitors come back to the Keys and from everything I can gauge there will be no shortage of people to bring hotels to their fifty percent maximum permitted capacity. I have mixed feelings about all this as I have about the whole pandemic and the national response to it. I cannot for the life of me understand how we blunder about in this country turning everything into a political game of ping pong without facts, relying on opinions based on hope and with no numbers at all. I dread to think what Pearl Harbor would have ended up being if the greatest generation acted and thought as we do. Nevertheless...we are stuck with it.

Bearing in mind disruption to my life has been minimal inasmuch as my wife and I have continued to work and get paid, she for teaching from home and me for taking  911 calls. It isn't fair to ask me if I want the closure to remain in place as I have found the threat from the virus to have been very well contained by the Sheriff's determined action.On the other hand for those who are barely hanging on, told not to work and receiving no government support of any kind the question becomes an impossible one.

Given that Florida's unemployment system was deliberately wrecked by Governor, now Senator Rick Scott to improve his unemployment numbers one can hardly be surprised if people are desperate to get some income. If you think I am exaggerating Senator Scott's awfulness I invite you to read the incomparable Diane Roberts' column on the subject at the Florida Phoenix HERE. We live in difficult times for the poor and marginal and the virus hasn't helped.

I expect my wife and I will continue to quarantine ourselves as much as we can and from what I understand we are not alone in deciding to leave public social activities to Keys visitors. I cannot conceive of getting on a  commercial flight at the moment after all the effort we have made to contain the virus and keep it out of our lives. And the small matter of my wife's compromised immune system will make it impossible for her to mix publicly with people from all over the country until this business is finally put to bed. Self quarantine is not only possible for us and desirable, it is the only way forward as the Keys welcome back visitors.

Those among us who feel less cautiously inclined can lead the way and be the canaries in the coal mine. For some this will be an economic necessity as I said but for others there will be boredom or bravado to provide the push to socialize. I am not much good on Facebook as I am not inclined to hold strong opinions one way or the other on the virus and treatment and masks and I don't much feel like yelling about all this. Mostly I am confused and puzzled. It seems scientists are too as the CDC has changed its guidelines once again also. Only politicians and their minions are certain about anything it seems.

I will stay socially distant and where I cannot  I shall wear a mask. I have no idea how effective my surgical masks are but the way I see it they can't hurt if people are going perforce to get too close. Fortunately for my wife she is teaching from home for the rest of this school year before slipping into summer school and summer vacation so no decision on her job and her last pre-retirement year need be made yet. But if the virus comes back in the Fall as some scientists predict I wonder what we do then?

I am very cautious when it comes to firm statements about coronavirus because no one seems to know anything for sure not even what it does to us once we are infected. What was a 'flu has become more serious it seems, making blood clots in its spare time to slow the transfer of oxygen. Previously it affected old people now young people are getting sick, even children. Whatever next? Oh yes, US Navy sailors once infected and recovered have got the illness a second time, and as they are on a ship under close observation, thus they would seem to be a reliable control group. So, no inbuilt immunity then? 

No wonder we are all getting stressed out and nervous. I have developed massive amounts of empathy for people who lived through yellow fever epidemics in Key West (and elsewhere) in centuries past. Until Dr Gorgas supervising the health of Panama Canal workers worked it all out no one understood the relationship between mosquitoes and yellow fever. The 19th century in Key West was riddled with deadly pandemics like this one only with a much higher mortality rate.

Bubonic plague and rats were not connected for centuries and people died in droves, horrible deaths without a ventilator in sight. We aren't used to this sort of thing at all. The temptation has always been to just let things go and hope for the best. Numbers of deaths are relatively low and one could imagine keeping the economy going might be easier in the long run.

On the other hand watching the food supply chain get messed up by the numbers of sick people working in close quarters makes you realize, I hope, that profound sickness, never mind actual death, can have a hugely disruptive influence on our way of life. I fully expect to see surprising developments in the Keys as we move into June and the return to business as more or less usual. I hope I shall be pleasantly surprised even though my neighbors tend to the pessimistic with a knot of loud scoffers in their midst. Coronavirus has outstayed its welcome. I'm glad they suffered through the years of World War Two deprivations before I was born. It turns out I would have been insufferably impatient with all the time spent waiting for disaster to strike.

(And if the last photograph makes you go "Aha! Cartier Bresson! you get extra points).

It's a famous photograph by the French master who got people going on the idea of photographing casual moments, so called street photography. Some less than charitable critics suggest he had his  assistant race down the hill repeatedly on his bicycle until Cartier Bresson got his decisive moment correctly framed. The staircase is still there and is made immortal by this apparently banal picture. So I reversed the view and took the picture above of an equally banal spiral staircase...

Casa Marina

I have heard people ask if a certain part of the city is safe, as though violent crime is rife just as it appears to be as they sit at home agog in front of their television sets. The sad truth is that life in Key West is far less glamorous and lived at a far slower pace than outsiders seem to expect. 

The purchase of a home in Key West is less dependent on the quality of a neighborhood than on the type of people who live next door. You will hear residents complain about the parties in houses rented to vacationers who think loud music and pool parties are why Key West exists. They aren't completely wrong but their unfortunate neighbors think they are as they ponder an early start to go to work the  next day. Casa Marina Resort in a  time of coronavirus: 

Meanwhile one can identify individual neighborhoods in Key West.  I was walking Casa Marina after the rain as I wanted and I hope Rusty was okay with a change. 

Casa Marina is the upscale neighborhood in Key West. If you are a moneyed Conch you avoid the city by living on Key Haven at Mile Marker Five or distant Shark Key at Mile Marker Ten. If you are an incomer who wants tropical winters and at the same time demand typical American conveniences like roofs that don't leak and central air conditioning and a yard you can swing a rooster in, you buy in Casa Marina.

Here you will find a muddle of architecture and much greenery and cars that were not built in Detroit. Every rule has it's exception but Casa Marina conforms for the most part to my generalizations. I like it in summer for the shade offered by the greenery and year round this is a neighborhood fails to roll up its sidewalks so one can walk like a normal person from Up North. Sidewalks in Key West vary between bizarre narrow slivers, pavement resembling a ploughed field and no sidewalk at all. I learned that wheelchair locomotion and uncertain walking with a walker frame can be quite complicated. Not in Casa Marina. Here you may mobility challenged and still get around like Wiley Coyote.

Casa Marina is actually named for the Casa Marina a massive pile built by Henry Flagler as a destination for his railway tourists. They were bused across the city from the coastguard base where the train terminus was located on the north side to his hotel two miles away on the south side. In those days the cargo wagons were driven onto ferries to transport goods to and from Havana while passengers walked aboard a ship that would take them to Cuba. Others lounged around at the Casa Marina resort built in the style of other Flagler resorts in Palm Beach and St Augustine. The Standard oil millionaire figured he had to give train passengers somewhere to wile away their winters in this tropical paradise if they were to ride his trains.

During World War Two the military used the hotel and then it was abandoned in the way Key West has of wasting its greatest assets. Nowadays it is a first class resort with all proper amenities so you can enjoy Key West without mixing with hoi polloi any more than you want to. So it is with the housing, expansive well forested and easy to navigate. Oh and if you need a dentist Claude my cheerful and very capable tooth puller ( he loves pulling teeth and does it painlessly) has an office here which is as close as I get to sleeping in Casa Marina in his comfortable dentist chair waiting for the numbness to set in.

Water Reflections

Sunrise and wind, shiny palm fronds fluttering, I sopped by the side of the road and pulled out my camera. It was a relief to see sun and not rain.

I parked in the greenest leafiest area of Key West, Casa Marina, and set off with Rusty. I saw a little humor in the zen van sitting patiently under the weight and indignity of a fallen palm frond. Rusty said nothing so perhaps it wasn't that  funny.

After the rain the air is crisp and clear and colors are brighter.

I hope before too long these signs will become part of the folklore of a time in the misty past. Doesn't seem likely just yet. 

Slowly the flooding will shrink and as the rainy season sets in flooding becomes part of the summer way of life. As the country re-opens I hear people pondering whether the way we live under lock down will persist when things are allowed to get back to normal.

Everything I have read about past times of crisis indicate things will most likely go back to the way they were because stasis is easiest for people and we all prefer the easiest path we are told. Some of us don't but you can't generalize about exceptions.

It's odd to find oneself envying the general indifference of a flower which buds and blooms with not a care in the world about coronavirus or any other pandemic.It does it beautifully too.