A busted bicycle and a rooster on Southard Street:
I was wandering an area between Duval Street and Bahama Village one sunny morning recently taking pictures as I went, not thinking too much about the whys and wherefores and before I knew it I had a couple of other essays sewn up and some pictures left over, which as I laid out the other stories were stating to look like they end up as pictures without a story. But there's always a story or two to liven up a few pictures...I don't think I could do a "wordless Wednesday" as some others do:
The Miami Herald last Thursday reported that Key West Mayor Morgan Macpherson appears to have stretched too far in his determination to become mayor of the southernmost city, and is now facing foreclosure. Macpherson owes around 1.1 million dollars on his former residence on Rockland Key (Mile Marker 9) which is outside city limits. He chose to refinance that one a few years ago when made his first run for the office, rented it out and bought a New Town home for himself, his wife (a school administrator) and four kids. The Mayor's job pays just $10,000 a year and Macpherson's "real job" as a realtor has dried up. Hence the foreclosure.
I remember that after Hurricane Wilma flooded some seventy percent of Key West the year Macpherson first became mayor in 2005, City Commissioner Clayton Lopez, representing Bahama Village, was washed out of his home. The paper ran a story on how he struggled to help his constituents while he himself lived with the disastrous storm effects. In that same spirit Mayor Macpherson has been a noisy advocate for affordable worker housing in the city, even as he himself was losing his own home. There is a temptation sometimes to forget that our leaders have their own demons to deal with...
I found the Whitehead Street sign slightly amusing in an ironic sort of way. In the rest of the country bankers love their planes and their absurd office remodels, while in Old Town a space to park your car is worth all the prestige and gold...I felt wealthy myself, afforded an opportunity to simply be out on foot on a bright sunny morning with nowhere particular to go and nothing special to get done. I threw up my camera and snapped a couple of passers by attracted by his white hat which put me whimsically in mind of some Somerset Maugham story, possibly set in the South Pacific:
I can't imagine myself dressed all in white, I am too absent minded to be able to function and stay that clean...and as I thought about my distant relationship to starch I spotted an old timer across the street, paused, stuck in stationary mode, lapping up the early morning sunshine:
And then, without warning he started up again and strode off down the street. I wondered what his story was. The next picture is as close as I can get to saying nothing:
It just sits there with it's old fashioned air, and I wonder who the original Curry was, descended no doubt from Florida's first millionaire, the businessman responsible for the mansion on Caroline Street. And when i looked up and saw this I had to ask myself if it could possibly have been fate that lost the "L" or was it a drunken tourist with a sense of humor as puerile as my own?
A decade in an English boarding school leaves it's mark. And because this is my diary of life in the Lower Keys when I passed this next instrument of torture (we get so many 9-1-1 hang ups form these diabolical things!), I figured I'd better remember the day we used to have fifty cent coin phones:
This next picture is of the Honda motorcycle dealership on Southard Street, where the owner parks his machines awaiting repair on the street and every winter, regular as habit, the Citizen's Voice column records anonymous complaints against the practice of storing machines on the street:
On the subject of the newspaper there was a report on the meeting called to discuss the fate of the palms at the cemetery. I think its a storm in a teacup from what I could glean from the paper. Apparently the city arborist has determined that the extra tall Washingtonia palms (remember I'm no botanist) have reached the end of their lives and could fall at any time. Someone offered to donate some palmetto palms to replace them and even though everyone is a little on edge after the struggle to save the casuarinas at Fort Zachary Taylor . It's rather tiresome really, a nice controversy stymied.
I can't imagine myself dressed all in white, I am too absent minded to be able to function and stay that clean...and as I thought about my distant relationship to starch I spotted an old timer across the street, paused, stuck in stationary mode, lapping up the early morning sunshine:And then, without warning he started up again and strode off down the street. I wondered what his story was. The next picture is as close as I can get to saying nothing:It just sits there with it's old fashioned air, and I wonder who the original Curry was, descended no doubt from Florida's first millionaire, the businessman responsible for the mansion on Caroline Street. And when i looked up and saw this I had to ask myself if it could possibly have been fate that lost the "L" or was it a drunken tourist with a sense of humor as puerile as my own?A decade in an English boarding school leaves it's mark. And because this is my diary of life in the Lower Keys when I passed this next instrument of torture (we get so many 9-1-1 hang ups form these diabolical things!), I figured I'd better remember the day we used to have fifty cent coin phones:This next picture is of the Honda motorcycle dealership on Southard Street, where the owner parks his machines awaiting repair on the street and every winter, regular as habit, the Citizen's Voice column records anonymous complaints against the practice of storing machines on the street:On the subject of the newspaper there was a report on the meeting called to discuss the fate of the palms at the cemetery. I think its a storm in a teacup from what I could glean from the paper. Apparently the city arborist has determined that the extra tall Washingtonia palms (remember I'm no botanist) have reached the end of their lives and could fall at any time. Someone offered to donate some palmetto palms to replace them and even though everyone is a little on edge after the struggle to save the casuarinas at Fort Zachary Taylor . It's rather tiresome really, a nice controversy stymied.
The funny thing for me, about Valentine's day is that I grew up in the Italian province that gave rise to the St Valentine's legend that is being "celebrated" and I had absolutely no knowledge of the connection. Poor self promotion you might say, and you'd be right but there is something refreshing about an entire city that has no clue how to sell itself as the birthplace of one of the more international and popular holidays. 
San Valentino da Interamna was a bishop who was martyred sometime between 250 and 300 A.D. for marrying a pagan Roman soldier and a Christian girl. As he was led off to his execution he reportedly kissed his jailer's blind daughter and pressed her hand whispering "from your Valentine" and as he was the Bishop of Interamna, the Roman name for Terni, and he was about to die, it was assumed his was the gesture of spiritual love. But the Church needed a new holiday ("holy day") to supersede a pagan fertility celebration and St Valentine was dredged up to fill the gap. In the next century Constantine declared Christianity the faith of the Empire and Valentine's gesture was no longer necessary. All this stuff is shrouded in myth and legend enough to make Terni the focus of worldwide attention today. However Terni has failed completely to capitalize on the myth. Besides my original home town is an industrial city famous for steel mills and Beretta handguns, not much of the city is ancient, or pretty like its medieval neighbors in the surrounding Umbrian hillsides. And actually living there surrounded by relatives is an intimidating prospect for a young man who harbors ambitions to see the world. Madame Bovary could easily have been set in the provincial chatterbox drawing rooms of this small city! 
The place got bombed flat during World War Two and now boasts a mostly American style grid pattern of streets in a natural bowl in the mountains that gets blisteringly hot in the summer and bitingly cold in winter.
And to think my mother could have raised me in Rome, The Eternal City, but there it is. I have come, in middle age, to really like Terni, a city overlooked by tourists, because of its unpretentious provincial style, its care of the few Roman monuments it has and the lovingly redeveloped old quarter that has enjoyed modest renewal in the boom years of the 1990s. And the fact I no longer live there, I enjoy being a tourist in my home town.
This was the street my grandmother grew up in, Via Barberini, before she left to become a teacher and a singer in the early 20th century.
Valentine's Day appears to be a day for the western world to celebrate chocolates cards and flowers. We are encouraged by radio stations to observe the proprieties for our "sweeties" ( I am not fond of that word; it makes my wife sound like a box of Goobers) and all that stuff. For me its a day that encourages thoughts of tolerance and kindness, the foundations upon which love is built. I'm a nominal Catholic (I'm Italian what else could I be?) my wife is a Jew and neither of "our" religions can countenance either of us getting married to each other. Little wonder I have not much time for them.
And that brings me to tolerance, and why I like Key West. Key West does a good deal better job than Terni of self promotion, but Key West, unlike Terni, tops the list of places to be an outcast. In California I found a great deal of judgement despite the stereotype, it could hardly be any other way in a state composed of 30 million type A personalities. The things that drive me crazy about Key West, the lackadasical approach principally, the lack of order and orgnization, are the things that give me hope for my old age. It's a small town, and one in which you can cherish chickens or put them (illegally) in a ring to fight, you can drink yourself into a stupor each night or appear toasted at the breakfast table and no one really minds. You can even be openly gay in 21st century America and no requires you to keep your fundamental self behind closed doors. Really, the absence of judgemental attitudes is striking, and it is refreshing, even though frequently irritating. Not passing judgement does not mean that one cannot hold an opinion, that would not be human, and as best as I can articulate it my definition of tolerance is not acting on one's (worst) impulses towards one's neighbors. Which in itself is a pretty loose definition! The gates to my heaven stretch wide when they are open...
But that has always been the thing about St Valentine's day for me, its such an important day, the day of tolerance, I tend to overlook it, and I have all my life.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration weather synopsis for Key West:
I looked west as I rode into town and below the setting sun, bright in my eyes, I saw a bank of fog. Hmm I thought as I slipped onto Stock Island wedged in between rows of cars jockeying for position at the triangle. Hmm, this looks like a genuine California marine inversion layer, and I felt a cool blast of air hit my chest as I rode under the gray bank of cloud. It felt just like a summer day in Northern California. Behind me was the sun:
In front it looked like the Sunset district of San Francisco:
For me it was deja vu, for others it was an opportunity to get home without too much sweat:
Or to get some exercise in an unaccustomed cool breeze taming the afternoon heat:
When I got to work I talked to Noel who is certainly not used to these conditions, and he was marveling at how cool the air was on his skin. "Refreshing" he marveled. Out on the water it looked weird in a town used to unending vistas of blue skies and blue water:
I was meeting my wife for cafe con leche in Searstown, at the end of her work day and the beginning of mine, and we marveled at how much the low ceiling sea fog reminded us of Santa Cruz, California.
We neither of us liked it much, as we are both fans of crisp unadulterated sunshine, but like all less-than-perfect-weather in Key West, we know it will pass soon enough. It is a trial working police dispatch into the night though as the officers are grumbling at the lack of visibility and unaccustomed burden of "bad" weather:
It's not a blizzard or anything, I know that, but it is a bit weird when you're in the police station and can't actually see the fire station next door. I'm glad this is a temporary phenomenon. 
The numbers for January were 7,841 visits and considering last May the numbers were under 4,500, I have no idea where all these people are coming from. I guess pictures of sunshine in the northern hemisphere winter has to be an attraction but the numbers boggle my mind. So, let's mess with Sitemeter and everybody that reads this entry now has to tell at least one person they meet in the course of the day, to visit Key West Diary. There, that should freak the system out. It would certainly freak me out completely. Thank you for your attention. 
Appelrouth used to be known decades ago, according to J Wills Burke as Smith Lane and in 1981 it got a new name, in honor of a man described by the author as a Jewish merchant by the name of Billy Appelrouth. We get no more information on the man but I can't help but wonder if his appreciation for the peculiarities of this street would delight or appal him. From Whitehead Street Appelrouth is closed to traffic as this is a one way from Duval:
Walking the wrong way one passes a guest house which according to friends who know better than I, prefers the company of men (though others are not excluded I am assured):
I could hear the sounds of cheerful female laughter from behind the stockade as I strolled by...and made my way towards the back of the San Carlos Theater, the old center of Cuban culture in Key West. It had the air of a Spanish mission church in the early morning light, a touch of California I thought:
Across the street is the abandoned remains of a funky old German restaurant called Martin's which is now in a spanking new modern building on Duval. I liked the funky slightly askew diggs that Martin's used to enjoy on Appelrouth:
But closer to Duval things get a little kinky...which isn't something I am too knowledgeable about and if I were I probably wouldn't admit it here. Just thinking about a hairy man wearing these makes me feel a bit off kilter, but it does happen:
I managed somehow to miss this festivity, though friends that take great pride as it were, in doffing themselves up for these events say you can see the most surprising people being led round the event on a leather leash...
But if you feel the need for a leather, nail studded, speedo, Leathermaster can oblige:
I am told this is also an excellent place to bring your bourgeois leather goods for repairs, bland things like sandal straps and handbags and the like. There are limitations though:
There is also a handy rack on the street filled with straight, gay and lame publications for you to pick up and check out:
And if all this leather fetish nonsense isn't enough there is a rather nasty place further up the street called Zoo, or something Teutonic like that:
I have to rely on the word of friends who tell me you can meet perfect strangers here and take them home with you, if you like that sort of thing. It's not as seedy as the commercial parts of Amsterdam but you get the idea. They have a long "tasteful" spiel in the window if you need more clues and need to feel reassured that you can explore in comfort the more bored parts of your personality. Across the street is Virgilio's a clubby sort of bar and restaurant where everyone keeps their clothes on as far as I can tell, but I guess you might stand a chance of taking someone home from there too. Why else would you be in Key West? To enjoy the scenery? Only simpletons like me do that.
And then happily you pop out onto Duval Street:
And there's the cheerful converted cinema, formerly The Strand, now called Walgreens, selling sun tan lotion and mugs with "Key West" printed on the side. Not a leather jock strap in sight, and thus safe browsing for the most reticent of visitors. Caveat hospes!