Leon Panetta, from the BBC websiteTalk about stunned. I thought Leon Panetta had resigned from politics for good and now I read that he is to be the next CIA Chief. His family is from the Central Coast of California a place where Italian immigrants made lives for themselves fishing sardines on Monterey Bay or growing vegetables in the Salinas and Pajaro Valleys and along the coast towards San Francisco. He served in the Nixon administration when he was a Republican but his politics changed with the times and he became a Democrat and represented the Monterey/Santa Cruz District for years, unbeatable and a powerful voice for the region. I adored Leon Panetta in a way that was most unbecoming for a reporter and I was devastated when he was selected by Bill Clinton in his second term to straighten up the White House. Which he did, getting through the Monica Lewinsky affair without a stain on his character as it were, or his decency.
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He never had a future in statewide California politics, he wasn't radical enough or loud enough, he was too smart and too willing to see both sides of a story. He retained his Republican roots enough that he wanted a balanced federal budget but he was pragmatic enough that he talked the first President Bush into a tax increase that subsequently scuttled his chances of a second term in 1992. California, a state of 25 million (then) was too large to see a potential Governor or even a Senator in the Central Coast Congressman always labelled a leftist, somewhat unfairly I thought. Hell, I was further to the left of Leon.
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I was not happy that President-elect Obama chose the Governor of Iowa to head the department of Agriculture, but I acknowledged it was a sop to the vast millions that Obama received from ethanol producers so we are stuck with that...But Leon Panetta as head of the CIA sets a whole new tone for the country's foreign policy and standing in the world. Panetta is a pragmatist but he is honest and decent and smart, He opposed, loudly, the Contra War in Nicaragua, and he has spoken out repeatedly against torture. He is a canny and able politicians so he will change the mindset of people who think torturing people is ever justified. He will be effective and he will stay out of the limelight. I will eat my hat if he isn't judged the best CIA chief the Agency has seen.
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Panetta also has to his credit a remarkable sense of humor. When he was appointed White House Chief of Staff I asked him how the process went, that of getting a job at the White House. I mean haven't you ever wondered who goes over your W4 with you? And do they explain the paperwork properly? Did they make an offer? ( Kind of, not the kind you refuse, he chuffed with his inimitable held-in laugh). He paused when I asked if there was a pay raise. (A little more than his congressional salary but not enough to make a difference to a millionaire). He giggled, I guess I'll find out. Interestingly enough when he was a Congressman Panetta made a point every year of returning to the Treasury any portion of his Congressional expense account he hadn't spent. Every year. Washington could use more people like Leon. I wish him well.
No gears, no fenders, one coaster brake and in this case no lights, no luggage rack, no frills. Key West is one of the few cities in North America where bicycles replace the car, as the basic way to get around.
It was during the endless, repetitive multiple hurricane evacuations of 2004 and 2005 that city officials figured about one third of the city's 25,000 permanent residents had no cars and a plan was developed to evacuate them with an endless round robin of buses hauling people up to evacuation centers in Miami. Bicycles are one of the reasons residents are quoted as loving to live in Key West. It's a four mile by two mile island, no more than 14 feet above sea level at it's highest point, where a bicycle is all you need. Along with a few accessories of course, because bicycles in this city are serious transport, not hobbies or toys:
Baskets and water bottles, even of the cheaper home made variety are useful but lets not forget that many people in Key West also like living here because beer is almost as good as currency and for others, more temperate, a Cuban cafe con leche should be part of the riding experience. Hence the cup holder:
It would be a mistake to think that because bicycles are widespread, expensive bicycles are also important to their riders. Status is conferred in other ways in Key West and showing up on a four thousand dollar bicycle would most likely mark the rider as a visitor, a snow bird or as someone with more money than sense. A "conch cruiser" is all one needs to meet and make friends in town:
Tourists are also obvious and clearly labelled by the rental company signs littering their machines:
Tourists ride with grins on their faces and gawp as they float by Key West's architecture, giving themselves away as creatures of low status. Status in Key West is conferred by longevity, not wealth. Bicycle helmets are not part of the cycling scene in Key West either, helmets are expensive and dorky and the rest of the country, in a desperate search for security in an uncertain world, embraces passive safety above all else, so naturally the Southernmost City spits, en masse, on bourgeois fear: 
Indeed, far from wearing safety gear many riders take to the unsafe roads with not even a top on:
But thanks to the flat streets and protection from headwinds, (wind does make riding in the Keys tough) not even the unfit need fear using a bicycle:
The white plaque on the front denotes a rental so I assume (what else can I do?) the rider, when at home, wouldn't be seen dead on a low status bicycle. In Key West, anything goes...even helmetless. For some people in Key West, bicycles are literally a way of life:
With so many bicycles around town there would have to be bike racks everywhere you might think. True, but apparently there aren't enough of those even:
I should point out it is not legal to lock a bicycle to a city structure like a street sign or lamp post and Public Works have been known to sweep downtown and impound bicycles that block sidewalks and create nuisances....Also if you ride at night without lights, or ride anytime the wrong way on a one way street, you can and will be stopped by a police officer. I enter millions of B N L (bike no light) traffic stops every night into the dispatch computer. A cycling ticket is a moving violation and is a fine excuse for your insurance to raise your rates because where you live you drive a car... It is legal to ride on sidewalks but cyclists must yield to pedestrians and have an audible means of approach ("Excuse me!").
Imagine that, an American city where you too could earn a modest winter living pedaling a rickshaw...and not a snow flake in sight. 
And married her. And at work they got to insisting he take a promotion. Which was all very well as he was offered the very best job a park service employee could have, if he were also a climber. His bosses wanted him to take the Climbing Ranger position at Yosemite National Park, a unique job that pays the ranger to be a climber on some of the most sought after rock faces in the world. There was a hitch. There always is.
The thoughtful young man, seen here taking a reflective moment in his older brother's Asheville home, is a Quaker, raised as a pacifist from childhood and not someone who rejoiced in guns, or shooting or violent pursuits of any kind. The fly in the ointment of his promotion was that if he wanted to be the Park's Service sole climbing ranger he had to go to the law enforcement academy. And carry a gun at work. This proposal required some thought and family discussion and in the end pragmatism won out. He went to the Academy for three months, spitted and polished and marched and took time to qualify on the range. In the fullness of time he became the armed climbing ranger at Yosemite.
This elevation has given rise to endless questioning from family members not used to having a law enforcement officer in their midst. And furthermore, has created a new bond between myself, the dispatcher, and himself, gun toting lawman. He talks about traffic stops and citations, about the more bizarre aspects of ending up in Law Enforcement. His wife finds it onerous sometimes, "We had a mizzy thing in the closet for the longest time," she said with disdain oozing from her lips, "but finally he got a gun safe at the office." He lit up "It was an M-16, a veteran of the Vietnam War," he said reverently and it was in his closet paired with a Park Service issued shotgun. "The M-16 had a strong spring in the magazine, and all you had to do was touch it and it would release with a loud bang." He laughed at the memory of his wife leaping like a startled gazelle. Nephew #1, his older brother is by contrast a house husband, married to a nurse and raising two small children with all the humor of a man at peace with himself. Where his brother fools with guns, he messes with diapers (Clean, unused ones I might add):
It has been no secret Nephew #1 wanted all his life to have a family and home and a future in Asheville. It's where he grew up and where he mountain bikes and worked for years as a valued employee of a major bicycle manufacturer, Trek. He achieved his goals in linear fashion, never wanting to trot the globe or wander far from his home, though he did live in California with my wife and I for a few short months before giving it up as a bad job . His younger brother wants a home in Santa Cruz, our old home town, to live in when he retires from his Park Service subsidized home in Yosemite. Two worlds far apart, two Quaker brothers different in so many respects yet closer than one might think. How odd it is to see the same kids become men and on such different paths, which is I suppose the story of growing old. Both gun less, and child free, in my case, thankfully on both counts. 
It's winter and that means it's time to go and look for mud holes in the back country. I found a good one on Big Pine. I came out this way earlier last year one evening and found this wide open space far in back of the Blue Hole (subject of an earlier essay). At the time I had to get home but I promised myself a return visit to this area.
So I took the long straight back streets through the rural subdivision and found myself on Tampa Street, not overly populated as can be seen in the foregoing picture, and which dead ends into a fixed barrier:
It was cool sunny blusterous winter day, perfect for a walk so that was what I did:
This open space is one of those oddities which I seem to stumble across all too often in the Lower Keys. It sort of appears to be a possible development that didn't get very far. There's a road:
Which sinks into a depression and becomes a mud hole:
And there are those funny little ditches cut into the limestone and were to be used to house mosquito larvae eating fish and have sunk into disuse:
Unlike the Upper and Middle Keys where the islands tend to be smaller and more built up (Key Largo, closest to the mainland is the exception as it is the largest island in the entire chain), the Lower Keys, those islands south of the seven mile bridge, seem to revel in their undeveloped open spaces. There are roads built and abandoned, developments planned and forgotten like this area where there's a huge pit nicely squared off with no visible purpose whatsoever: 
One can only imagine it might make a superb swimming pool in the summer assuming there are no carnivores in residence...though certainly on its muddier shore I saw evidence of human predators. And you'd need an all terrain vehicle in this place:
I am not fond of tramping through mud so I back tracked and found my way to the drier side of the hole, a scrubby, rocky vague sort of apology for a path:
I would make a dreadful botanist as I can't remember the name of almost anything and I'm pretty sure I've seen a name tag on this bush at Fort Zachary State Park (I take a walk there from time to time to refresh my memory), but all I could think was that this tree reminded me of the walnut saplings I used to see in the Italy of my youth:
I also saw a couple of birds goofing off in the pale winter sunshine:
I zoomed the second picture to forty times magnification (!) but i couldn't figure out what he was doing perched uncomfortably in the mangroves. It was probably very sensible behavior but it looked odd from a distance. My behavior was actually pretty daft too, the 
So I gave it up for a bad job and buggered off home to a book and a cup of tea. At least I tried.
And other people who need to get across New Town take the winding path between shopping centers:
And the ubiquitous abandoned shopping carts all lined up by successive shoppers:
