Astonishing Sunrise

There are days that just start out well and when Rusty rolled me out of bed I wasn't ready on my lone day off to be awake. Nevertheless the small brown dog was proved right. The morning in the mangroves was spectacular even by local standards and I struggled to capture the essence of it even as I found myself wading through high tides increased by heavy rains that broke records at the key West National Weather Service Office.

Today is supposed to be the day the Key West city commission votes to remind the mask outdoors all the time requirement. The idea is to fall in line with county regulations that require masks indoors and makes them required outdoors only when you can't be socially distant. It's a change that would make sense to me but it is going to be followed soon enough by relaxation of all sorts of crowd prevention rules across Florida. I find the whole coronavirus response somewhat bizarre and it seems as though we are now going into a phase this Fall of even less common sense.

I suppose in the short attention span world in which we live the expectation that we can hold the line on a coherent virus response is too much to hope for. I was never certain how the "Greatest Generation" was a title bestowed on my father's generation considering how much written history we have behind us, how many generations have struggled with issues of great moment. I supposed that the struggles of the 20th century were closest to us, well documented and relatively easily understood as the history was explained to us. Thanks to modern technology we saw how hard it really was to survive the Depression and the assorted ghastly wars, in color, in our faces. 

"The past is another country; they do things differently there." It has been brought home to me thanks to the virus, how differently we cope these days with challenges and  struggles that may or may not affect us all directly. I don't think our collective response to the virus could be described as "great" by any stretch of the imagination. I find coronavirus creates a lot of excuses to avoid doing right by your neighbor.  

I come out into the woods with Rusty and my camera and for me it's perfect social distancing whether there is a plague or not. The annoying thing about mask wearing, aside that it fogs up your glasses, is. that not wearing the cloth puts others at risk. If the non wearer was putting their own life on the line fair enough,  but because it's the weak and vulnerable at risk, not wearing a mask takes on the appearance of callousness that I find quite exasperating.  

I have in my own way tried to understand the nuances of wearing masks and social distancing and so forth and I never thought wearing a mask while isolated outdoors made much sense. I hope the city will have repealed that rule by the time you read this (or looked at the pictures).  I used to worry bout transmission by touching objects which was a giant pain but when the scientists decided that the virus is hard to transmit via objects I felt a lot happier. 

At work I worry about contagion but with the door locked and dispatchers isolated I just have to rely on the common sense of people I work with. While young they are exposed to the crap in life and so far they seem to understand the peculiar risks of this illness. It's hard to pretend coronavirus doesn't exist when you take calls from people watching their loved ones die from it. I hear the ambulance crews transporting patients while dressed in their special gear and their voices over the radio are muffled and after the transport they have to take extra time to disinfect the special covid 19 ambulance. We don't ask people to do CPR any more when they come across a person who isn't breathing. Our instructions for over-the-phone CPR developed by emergency room doctors with great care and thought over the years, are collecting dust. If you collapse in the street nowadays you'd better hope the ambulance is close by as no one, mask wearer or not, wants to touch a potential virus carrier. Coronavirus has long tentacles for all the politicians like to say it doesn't exist.

Many years ago I was taking a college course on some subject and one of the books was a novel titled "East Abides." It was a simplistic story as I recall but it carried a message that even after catastrophe life will go on, The title of the book springs to mind as I wade through the high high tides under dark blue skies.

I've been walking these trails for years and out here where nothing seems to change. No masks, no people, no pandemic, no worries for me or for Rusty. The sun was coming up like this on that Sunday morning in December 1941. It will come up the same way long after the keys are submerged by rising seas.

I find the more I watch the more clarity I gain from the natural world around me. The more I watch people the more baffling they become. I got a call the other morning from a man trapped in an elevator in town. He was unhinged not by claustrophobia but by the fact the elevator phone didn't work and he had to resort to his cellphone to call 911. Well I said brightly all's well as I can send you help. He went off on me as though I were the elevator phone technician ignoring his complaint. I dispatched the engine which released them from their predicament in less than ten minutes. The angry man was yelling at me that he got on the elevator once and it had stuck before releasing them, but on their second attempt it had stuck between floors. 

I said nothing but spent some time pondering why you would take a second chance with a clearly malfunctioning elevator and furthermore why it was my fault the elevator clearly had some technical problems. I suspect my despair at the future of coronavirus in our country stems from these sorts of daily encounters with people who display a dreadful lack of common sense.

You can't lock economies down without some form of economic life support and in the same way you can't effectively legislate mask wearing without extensive education and encouragement.  It feels to me as though we have failed on both counts and now we will have coronavirus to contend with for months to come. 

To have been locked down since March seems intolerable, made less so by the canal for swimming behind my house, the van for isolated journeys away from home, work with energetic motivated youngsters and long walks with camera and Rusty to stay aware of what really maters.

I have been reading a lot of history, particularly of the privations of the Greatest Generation as revealed by the passage of time and distance from the events themselves. To read about the suffering of those years and to compare that to the freedom robbing inconvenience of wearing a mask gives me added perspective. I heard enough stories abut the privations of the period from people who raised me but faced with the complaisance and casual indifference this virus has sown so easily among us I wonder why I ever questioned why they were the Greatest Generation.

Boca Chica Beach

Its been a quiet summer at Boca Chica Beach this year. I usually turn up around dawn and let rusty wander around as I enjoy the sun coming up over the Straits of Florida. Sometimes we are alone but occasionally there is another car there. perhaps it gets crowded later in the day or perhaps there are just many fewer people around this September than usual even for low season. I would come down here on a whim and it was so crowded in years past I lost the taste for making an effort to drive south of Big Coppitt.

There was a time too many people thought this the ideal place to park all night until complaints caught up with them and the sheriff moved them along and in case you think this is a good place to sleep now you will be surprise. But during the day this can be a place to have a picnic, enjoy a breeze and take a walk.

Or paint some cement if the mood takes you. I suppose I should be offended but  the graffiti that bother me are the ones made in nature, rocks piled on each other in a. river bed, trees scarred with initials and stuff like that. I don't think anyone likes being in the wild only to be reminded others have gone before them and behaved badly while doing it. Around here there is no doubt people visit and a rainbow cement barrier is no worse and may be better than institutional gray. I like the wild artwork.

The US Navy has the beach surrounded and they patrol the other side of the wire. Further down the beach there are signs which have closed what used to be a pleasant lonely meandering walk.  I took the dog there but others took off their clothes and often acted as though no one was there to see them. I guess it all gets too much from time to time and shutting everything down is the answer.

What is left is still lovely and I enjoy fifteen minutes of alone time here with Rusty. I've photographed the sunrise here a million times but I suppose I have yet to get tired of it. I tried black and white for change.

It has been a more than usually lovely summer in the sky this year with clouds and bright streaks of orange and red and pink clouds and all manner of excitement. I'm glad I'm out here to see it.

This one I took with the full moon, a tiny speck of white under a black Jamaican dogwood tree.  It's not the sort of detailed orb a 10 inch camera would yield but I like the modest effect.

Sometimes Himself just likes to sit and watch the world go by.  So we did and I either did an excellent job with the repellent or the no see 'ums are less vicious than previously because I wasn't bitten at all. Usually they go so far as to crawl up the leg of your shorts and chew you in some very inconvenient places so if you see me dousing my shorts with Off that's why. I find it aggravating they don't seem to bother Rusty.

As Rusty is used to biting insects so are shorebirds apparently used to people and their impedimenta because they didn't notice me at all. I noticed them.

And so, home to bed for a nap before chores for tomorrow I work. Most tomorrows this month as there are people out on vacation but 911 won't stop ringing. Meanwhile I get to enjoy this:

An Acquired Taste

I suppose a human palate is an organ that can be trained though it often seems to me that the art of tasting food is magic. My wife likes food show on television and I absorb some of the lessons imparted by osmosis as I thumb through my photos and edit and sort them of an evening. No cheese with fish, please. Caramelization reigns supreme and  portions should be so small they can hardly be seen with the naked human eye. I do pay attention to the food but my palate sucks. I grew up eating institutional food in a place much like a prison where if you didn't eat the meal time passed you by and you went hungry you growing lad.

I marvel when I drive home and pass the Square Grouper, a restaurant that always manages to fill its parking lot. During lock down we picked up to go food but my last trip I found myself surrounded by mask-less faces and a great many of them. Now the masses are back we don't have to step up. But it amazes me that there are people who eat out all the time and I feel the fault lies in me. Rich food night after night makes me bilious, and the only way I know that is because I have taken vacations. Ah yes the blessings of the van and a wife who likes to cook. This last summer we ate well and we ate at home on the road and it was good. But there again my taste buds are poorly trained.

I have a feeling eyesight works he same way. I have heard the argument that we see what we are trained to see, and sometimes we see what our genetic disposition trains us to see. So what does that do for taking pictures? Or is it making pictures? Or snapping snapshots? Is it learned or is it an intuition?  

Modern life is one long and often steep learning curve.  The number of things we have to learn never seems to end. When I got my current job in 2004 I figured that was it for job interviews and now all I had to do was rein myself in and survive till the pension day dawned. What I didn't know was that to keep the job I had to keep learning, months of on the job training then refreshers, classes trainings and travel to keep up with what I thought I knew. I never had time to train my palate, nor I dare say the inclination.

911 dispatchers are notorious foodies, in a trade that requires much sitting and waiting. Some days are so hectic even in a. small town that food becomes a luxury but most days are epics of waiting for something to happen and when it does you become suddenly madly busy. In between the extremes is the constant low buzz of paperwork and radio traffic and phone transfers and general daily tedium. Food can become a highlight and a curse.

My shift these days sees me wedged between fashions, a ketogenic on one side cutting carbohydrates and a vegan on the other side eating weird pasta meals with nothing that ever remotely had a face. I'm in the middle bringing food from home and  zapping lean cuisines as required. It is as I have always said, a strange life in dispatch. When I pack my lunch box at five in the morning I reach into the freezer and take a box at random starting from the right. One a. day keeps starvation away. Many years ago when I lived on a boat  a waterfront breakfast of eggs at Turtle Kraals was a treat before a day spent on the water making money from sailing.  Turtle Kraals is no more. 

The last time I took the ferry to Fort Jefferson I recall the food and early morning sun over breakfast watching the ocean slip by outside the window. Eating on the boat even if it was just cereal and bagels gave the three hour ride a nostalgic kick, memories of eating on trains as a young European, or enjoying the ferry ride leaving England with my motorcycle and stuffing my face on fried bread and disgusting institutional English breakfast food of the 1970s. Except it sounds delicious and was at the time. In France I switched to ride on the right side of the road and looked forward to crunchy bread and sloppy cheese for lunch with the same relish I ate baked beans and white bread in England. I make no excuse for my appalling taste buds. 

It took a lot of nerve and a massive motorcycle accident for me to step up to the demands of photography but I had lots of time as I recovered the use of my legs to think about something other than motorcycling and God knows digital photography is incredibly complicated. The opportunities for error abound, the pursuit of your own vision is endless and subject to endless criticism from yourself and others and the results mean nothing much to anyone other than yourself. It's a bit like eating with a duff palate. I actually enjoyed most of the food in the hospital and looked forward to their chicken salad sandwiches and the chicken breast and mashed potatoes.  As when dispatching the food tray broke up the monotony of laying in bed unable to move a leg and the sweet Haitian woman who brought me the food was easy to flirt with as a cripple helpless on his back merits at least a smile. 

I like the picture of the spiral staircase on Eaton Street across from the movie theater (still closed). But if you think it's a crappy way to end this essay on taste remember that I'm the guy who thinks a meal at the best restaurant in the world which I ate in Modena a few years ago is no more memorable than a really good bowl of vegetarian bean stew from my wife's Instapot in the van. I admit I do like some sour cream and some hot sauce on it which veers toward foodie snobbery but by way of compensation I never turn my nose up at ketchup.  So sue me, or make a nasty anonymous comment, or ignore me. These are my pictures and this is my food. I have some vague idea the two are entwined and i'nm still not sure either is worth my time or more importantly yours.

Rainy Day Blues

Self pity is an ugly thing, a mood best shared with no one, except perhaps your dog, and even he doesn't amount to much as a rainy day for Rusty the wonder dog means nothing. When I first got him four and a half years ago (!) from thisisthedog in Homestead he hated the rain and tried to hide from it, a reaction I suspect from too many years spent in a back yard and on the street without shelter. These days he braves rain fearlessly, sure in the knowledge there is a towel and a dry bed waiting for him after his exertions. It's very annoying as I tend to melt in the rain and I preferred his fear of the wet.

Luckily I have hands and I can hold an umbrella so the new improved waterproof Rusty can't stop me from following behind him. The fact is every single day off I have had all summer has been spent under a dark rainy cloud. I'm not speaking metaphorically, nor am I referring to some depressive state of mind, I mean the phrase literally as we used to say before young people took the word "literal" and beat it to death in every inappropriate way.

Every day off I have had to deal with summer rains. I was at work on Friday looking out the window at blue skies, fresh breezes and puffy white clouds, but sure enough as six pm approached the black stripe on the horizon expanded and the closer I drove to my home 23 miles away, the darker the sky got. This weekend, my weekend off is a zinger: we have an actual tropical storm warning, The power of my days off!

If you were a halfway decent listener you would feel sorrow and a mild form of pity for me, but I know the only person who knows how to throw me a pity party is me. We had planned a Friday night in Miami in the van, some light shopping on Saturday and return Saturday evening in time for another overtime shift today. 

To drive to Miami with a promise of 40 mph winds and several inches of rain all day seemed in stupid. Especially as my wife would have to clean up the van alone while I am off earning overtime...That plan went over like a lead balloon as you might imagine and with my aversion to wet weather I couldn't see us teaching Rusty to have fun while living under a thundercloud. Poor me! Poor me! We stayed home and opened a bottle of wine.

We broke out some food we had bought and frozen on our summer road trip so we recreated a moment on the road while listening to the skies crack and boom and light up the canal behind the house. Aside from learning to enjoy rain, Rusty has also learned to not mind thunder too much. Far from running to the smallest darkest room he contents himself with looking anxious while hunkering down in his living room bed.

Rainy season is weird in Florida as it falls in summer a time of greatest heat and humidity. If you move here from Up North you will rejoice in winter if you aren't fond of snow and mist, but summers will confuse you. It looks like a damp nasty November outside but when you step out your glasses fog up and the hot humid air collapses over you like a furry fire blanket trying to suffocate you. Here there is no hint of cold damp Fall days leading up to Christmas.

September is the most frustrating month as you'd expect summer's heat regimen to be dropping away but it doesn't. September comes and goes as hot and humid as August with the added benefit of hurricane season reaching its peak of activity. Dry cool winter doesn't kick in properly until the second cold front which passes through usually in early November. There is plenty of time for me to have more days off turned into soggy days at home. Just my luck.

And then you drive home with a soaking wet happy dog with his tongue hanging down to his knees, your bottom wet and cold pressing into the leather of the car seat and not in a good way and you see Venture Out at the end of Spanish Main, the huge flagpole a landmark from miles away. And then of course you are forced to think how lucky you are and how dreadfully unlucky some people are. A wet damp day off doesn't always seem so bad, as it turns out.

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.