Wandering Bill Butler park

I got out of the car on William Street and found this delightful creature staring at me with this penetrating gaze. I wasn't sure whether to be flattered or scared so I took her picture and moved rapidly on.

This one was special: Rusty wasn't with me. I had a short shift at work and even though it was hot as blazes I wanted for one to walk at my pace and allow my eyes to wander where they wanted not where Rusty wanted to stick his snout. Naturally it wasn't as much fun as I had hoped but I tried to make the most of it. 

The first question on leaving the police station was where to go. As I had recently walked Duval Street in daylight I wanted a different view and the absence of masks all over the place drove the thought of the any waterfront from my mind. Considering all tourist destinations off limits I decided my preferred inland spot was going to be the shade of Bill Butler Park. Where I found a white crowned pigeon busy at lunch.

Bill Butler died August 2nd 1984 and the city decided to dedicate a park to him, because he was a leading musician in Key West. That wasn't all though as he was known also to the organizers of the Florida Folk Festival and he showed up in Suwannee every year with his coronet band. So it goes and eventually what had been a rather shabby memorial has been turned into a clean well equipped park with shade trees and children's entertainments. This being Key West no benches are provided for patrons for fear of encouraging camping by less savory city residents. 

I like this spot, wedged into a wooded area between Olivia Street and William Street just off the cemetery. Millionaires are encouraged to apply to purchase several homes on the edge of the park which for some reason are all on sale simultaneously. Mind you, most of Key West is for sale, yesterday or tomorrow, wait a while and your dream home will be on the market.

It was a glorious day, full of the colors of summer, blue skies white clouds and green leafy cover. 

I read about photographers struggling to find inspiration during the pandemic with all the limitations this bloody virus has imposed and I count myself lucky as the colors at least of Key West and the beauty of its streets have never faded. Every time I walk the streets I find new things to attract my attention.

And then I see a shape that  looks even to my jaundiced eye as something more than a palm frond:

And next to it a street sign in the old style, cement cracking in the salty air, marking the corner of William and Windsor.

Time to go home and cuddle my dog as walking without him is half the fun.

The Sun Still Rises

I woke up late on my day off so walking Key West was out, too many people and too few masks for me to go to the city. So here we are in mangroves with a rising sun.  This summer our drive through the Great Lakes reason was a taste of other places and it was great. Back home where Rusty the dreary dog is happiest, I keep looking for the best mixture of light and dark. There just isn't the variation in small flat islands that there is among the mountains and deep dark forests.

Imagine Rusty running ahead and stopping to smell the mud, there is this summer a. steady breeze almost every day for which I am grateful, but aside form the wind blowing over my ears there isn't a sound. Commercial boats are sleeping, commuters are a few miles away pounding down Highway One, and even the birds are resting out of the sky for the most part. The heat is there, waiting for the sun to appear to ramp it up. 

Meanwhile the recent rains and high tides have left behind some puddles. Which suggests reflective photography to me. Ooh yes, variations on a mangrove walk...clouds underfoot no less. A busy Rusty trotting past my face nearly made me lose the decisive moment, and as it was I clipped his head, in an artistic way I assure you.

I watch him wander away and plunk himself down in the tannic mangrove water and I confess I envy him. I addle gently in the hot salty water in my Crocs but he goes for total immersion to relieve the heat. 

As you can see the sun has barely risen so the heat is about to hit the two of us waiting to turn round and start the trek back to the car.

By the time we get back to the car invariably my short is soaked and Rusty is ready for a big bowl of clean water. It's just the way it is this time of year. You walk, you think, you remember where you were.

Dozing Key West

There is still magic in Key West, even though I find the struggle to find it harder and harder. I was glad when they tore down the former city hall that stood at Angela and Simonton, it was a mold riddled wreck, built in the weird avant-garde style of the 1960s cement block and pink paint then ravaged by Hurricane Wilma in 2005. It had to go.

The construction was protested by a hotel owner nearby who felt threatened by potential noise and dust because everything that changes wrecks somebody's view of themselves. And yet here we are, a new city hall, so controversial on White Street, and a fine new fire station on Simonton Street with ambulances and fire trucks at the ready and properly rested crews in comfortable quarters upstairs. Let's face it, old buildings are for reasons I cannot analyze more picturesque than new ones, reeking as they do of past glories and nostalgically better times. Modern boilings are clean and crisp and angular and reek of nothing quite so much as change and modernity.

 

So in order that I might wield my camera and pass my time with my dog in a. way that contributes to my own meditative well being I have to try to find something within modern Key West that evokes a positive response. 

It's there all right and just as well that positive vibe is out there on the streets because at four in the morning when Rusty and I are completely alone there is nothing else to look at, no strange people walking by, no color, no chaos, just silent streets. Shadows and light. The Key West of always.

There is a fundraiser underway for an employee of the Saints Hotel badly beaten by thugs who resented being told they had to wear masks. I find it hard to understand how such violence has penetrated the Keys, how the descent into madness I have watched Up North has arrived Down South. I am I suppose naive. I have been spending quite a lot of my time reading about the 1930s and the epic desire for autocracy and scapegoating and militarism that drove the world of my parents to immolate itself. It seems we are on the same path, where the Brown Shirts of those days are replaced by militia today, ready and abetted by some police to kill to further political aims. I find it unbelievable and I find my inability to figure out a response maddening. I always wondered why people stood by and let it happen and now, here we are again. 

If like me life puzzles you at the moment and the railway of ordinary living seems to have gone rogue on a siding to nowhere all I have to offer is pictures of a town immersed in the past, a time of silence and patience waiting for daylight to return so things may start up again. Perhaps we can hope for a reset next year. Perhaps not, perhaps we have to ride the rails all the way to the bitter end like our parents did before us and take everything down so everything can be rebuilt. I find that prospect, as I close in on my 63rd birthday, rather daunting.  Meanwhile Key West slumbers at the very end of the road, not immune but well on the periphery of whatever unpleasantness is to come.

Two By Two

I didn't intend to draw from Noah's ark for these photos but as I pulled them out of the cloud I realized they had something in common. William Fleming House:

And in black and white:

Two stained glass windows at the Southernmost Prayer and Faith Church on Fleming.  I never see lights on there so this was a treat for an obsessive like me:

I love noticing stuff like that. Check out these next two I spotted on a short walk:

The spiky no trespassing gate and the spikes of nature:

A Bicycle.

Many bicycles:

This odd sign on a. low wall on Southard Street near Simonton.

I saw these well worn steps near Solares Hill which put me in mind one of the other.

Key West, not necessarily filled with people but not totally devoid of interest.

Streets Before Dawn

I liked the strange swirls of the street cleaners shown here at Southard on Duval Street.

You know this on, below, is Southard looking east as you can see the cell phone tower which sits across the street from the AT&T telephone exchange.

This is Duval looking south, the giveaway is the colorful Strand Theater marquee now advertising Walgreens. 

Simonton Street was getting torn up for some drainage job. A great long stretch of Simonton is now beautifully paved and smoothed. I am told some other stand out streets in Key West are soon to lose their lumpy character. A smooth easy to drive Bertha Street anyone? Yay!

This is Southard Street looking east up the one way at the bright lights in the distance of Peary Court.

I can't remember for the life of me if this is William or Margaret. I'm inclined to think it's Margaret as I think I can see Mangia Mangia the Italian eatery with the upstairs white balcony on the left.  Just another Key West street at five in the morning... 85 degrees and sticky. No relief expected till November and now we have a couple of depressions in The Atlantic. Fun fun fun.

Appelrouth Lane

The former Strand movie theater, now a chain pharmacy is the rainbow lighting on Duval Street that marks the spot where Applerouth Lane,  a one way street connects Duval to Whitehead Street.

Appelrouth Lane was previously known rather more prosaically as Smith Lane until 1981. The street got a new name in honor of a Key West merchant Billy Appelrouth. His real name was William Herman Appelrouth and he belonged to the Jewish community which has thrived in Key West from the city's inception. He lived from 1924 to 1978 and is buried in the Jewish cemetery which is part of the main city cemetery in the middle of town.

I was struck by the mass of pipes and cables hanging off the side of Virgilio's restaurant which is a fixture on the corner of Appelrouth and Duval. Other businesses on this short street have come and gone. Mary Ellens was one I didn't expect to last but...as usual I am a rotten predictor of these things.

They have a reputation of making astonishingly good grilled cheese sandwiches and they have created a quiz night mystique which, as I think about it could make this my long sought replacement for Finnegan's Wake, the only Key West bar I ever really liked. Perhaps in a year or two (!) we shall find out. I do like the signage outside: "a/c eats" makes me grin each time I see it.

I like this view of Duval Street down Appelrouth. People often ask me if aI am afraid to walk Key West at night which question I find quite funny. If I were, I wouldn't do it I guess. On the whole I do find fear to be overrated and too many people indulge themselves in it too often. On the whole I like fear as it keeps people away from placesI like to go so yes, walking the streets of key West in the dark is terrifying.

Appelrouth used to be home to a sex club where Mary Ellen's is now and Leathermaster a fetish shop still has a home there. Actually Leathermaster promotes itself as a place to buy inadequate clothing and whips and stuff, like the wrong sort of masks for covid protection for instance, but they also do rather quality leather work on mundane items or accessories you might own. You could bring your leather jockstrap to be refurbished but a purse would get the same quality attention. Needs must to make a living in Key West.

The courthouse deli has been on the corner of Southard and Whitehead for ages too and I like the bench outside as a perch to drink con leche and listen to the so called sound checks, afternoon performances at the Green parrot across the street. That famous bar has no air conditioning but keeps its barn door windows wide open, letting in air and allowing the music to get out. I have always had an aversion to crowds, even before Coronavirus so taking in the music without the sweaty armpits of close contact has been my preferred approach.

These days the bar is open for limited hours for take out only which sounds weird to me. The whole point of a bar is to sit inside and talk to strangers but I guess to go is better than no sales at all. As much as I enjoy being apart I miss the activity, seen from a. distance especially. Key West is supposed to be the happy place  and this is not a happy time. I thought the colors looked good though.