I graduate from Florida keys Community College this May and I had to get my paperwork in order for the event. It turns out it costs ten bucks to process my paperwork so I lined up at the business desk to fork over my ten dollars (cap and gown: $39) and I saw this intriguing notice of a forthcoming class at the college:
"Now there's a trick," I thought to myself. The business clerk didn't share my amusement. Also this week Solares Hill, the formerly free weekly now incorporated into the Sunday paper, had an article describing the travails of the college president. Jill Landesburg Boyle has been the object of a whispering campaign because she has improved the college beyond all recognition and in so doing she trod on some well entrenched corns. One got the feeling from the article she may have reached the end of her tether which would be too bad.
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I figure it's just another way we get to pay for the banksters' bonuses. On the other hand riding the Bonneville makes up for it, at least a bit.
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"Now there's a trick," I thought to myself. The business clerk didn't share my amusement. Also this week Solares Hill, the formerly free weekly now incorporated into the Sunday paper, had an article describing the travails of the college president. Jill Landesburg Boyle has been the object of a whispering campaign because she has improved the college beyond all recognition and in so doing she trod on some well entrenched corns. One got the feeling from the article she may have reached the end of her tether which would be too bad.---------------------------------
We have been suffering through cold snap after cold snap, a pale reflection of the atrocious weather being dished out Up North. I saw Jack Riepe's pictures on Twisted Roads of immense blankets of snow across his Pennsylvania neighborhood, and it looked awful. Down here we have several nights with lows below 60 degrees (15C), which though it may not seem like much it saps the strength of people used to 80 degrees (27C). My Cuban American colleague Noel wore his very first scarf one slow evening at work and I commemorated the solemn moment.This was significant because he has never seen snow and has thus never owned a scarf:
The scarf actually belonged to Paula who grew up in New England and is used to the cold. Or used to be used to the cold before she moved to Key West in 1988.
She uses the scarf to keep out the blistering cold that the police station creates to keep our banks of computers cool and comfortable. We, the operators, just get cold, but it's weird to step out into even colder air...
The scarf actually belonged to Paula who grew up in New England and is used to the cold. Or used to be used to the cold before she moved to Key West in 1988.She uses the scarf to keep out the blistering cold that the police station creates to keep our banks of computers cool and comfortable. We, the operators, just get cold, but it's weird to step out into even colder air...-------------------------------------------
I took this picture about ten days ago at the Big Coppitt Shell and it's got worse since then. Oil is still hovering below $40 a barrel and the price of a gallon of gasoline keeps creeping up.
I figure it's just another way we get to pay for the banksters' bonuses. On the other hand riding the Bonneville makes up for it, at least a bit.----------------------------------------
I was walking by Solares Hill with my camera out and I saw a man peeing against a telephone pole. Why I took the picture I can't rightly remember. What I planned to do with it I couldn't say either:
As I trudged up Elizabeth Street it became abundantly apparent he wasn't peeing at all, he was just standing so for some reason I can't fathom I took another picture, perhaps because she found him interesting...
And as I crested the rise on Elizabeth Street (The Hill proper is 16 feet (5 meters) above sea level more or less, depending who you believe), all was explained:
A solid citizen, a family man, out walking his child and their dog. He called out to her that there was too much traffic as I approached but as they toddled off I wasn't sure if it was generic traffic or my arrival that prompted their departure:
No use, I suppose, telling them I am the police.
As I trudged up Elizabeth Street it became abundantly apparent he wasn't peeing at all, he was just standing so for some reason I can't fathom I took another picture, perhaps because she found him interesting...And as I crested the rise on Elizabeth Street (The Hill proper is 16 feet (5 meters) above sea level more or less, depending who you believe), all was explained:A solid citizen, a family man, out walking his child and their dog. He called out to her that there was too much traffic as I approached but as they toddled off I wasn't sure if it was generic traffic or my arrival that prompted their departure:No use, I suppose, telling them I am the police.---------------------------------------------
I found the Quebecois encampment in town at least during the day at Fort Zachary Taylor, all lined up and reserving a swath of the parking lot to themselves. Zut alors!
They remind me of how Germans used to take over large chunks of camp grounds when I used to ride around Europe with a tent. I had a friend visit Key West last week and she was huffing and puffing at the numbers and sizes of vehicles parked along city streets. I tried to point out that a most people who drive Hummers in Key West use a lot less gasoline than she does circling Palm Beach County in her Honda Civic, because most drivers here are reluctant to even leave town. My point was lost on her but the conversation did remind me of just how many cars are filling the city even in this winter of a catastrophic economy:
You'd think a cab would make a whole load more sense around town:
The pink cab is leased from the Five Sixes Company on Stock Island. It's called five sixes because the phone number is 296-6666. In the old days when phone numbers were standardized to seven digits, all prefixes in Key West started with 29 so residents got in the habit of describing their pone numbers as five digits. 292-1234 would be reduced to 21-234. Thus the five sixes. Cell phones have wrecked that five digit system.
They remind me of how Germans used to take over large chunks of camp grounds when I used to ride around Europe with a tent. I had a friend visit Key West last week and she was huffing and puffing at the numbers and sizes of vehicles parked along city streets. I tried to point out that a most people who drive Hummers in Key West use a lot less gasoline than she does circling Palm Beach County in her Honda Civic, because most drivers here are reluctant to even leave town. My point was lost on her but the conversation did remind me of just how many cars are filling the city even in this winter of a catastrophic economy:You'd think a cab would make a whole load more sense around town:The pink cab is leased from the Five Sixes Company on Stock Island. It's called five sixes because the phone number is 296-6666. In the old days when phone numbers were standardized to seven digits, all prefixes in Key West started with 29 so residents got in the habit of describing their pone numbers as five digits. 292-1234 would be reduced to 21-234. Thus the five sixes. Cell phones have wrecked that five digit system. -----------------------------------
I went by the submarine pens, mentioned in an essay previously and found this shock horror at the entrance to the approach road:
I guess picnickers and terrorists will now only be able to approach the pine forest by boat. Bummer.
I guess picnickers and terrorists will now only be able to approach the pine forest by boat. Bummer.---------------------------------
Another bummer came up when the wife and I stopped recently at baby's Coffee at their shop at Mile marker 15. They keep inconvenient hours for my wife's commute and impossible hours for mine so we rarely stop in. That particular morning I was ferrying my wife to work a little later than usual so we stopped in. besides my wife needed some espresso beans and even though Baby's resolutely declines to stock Fair Trade or Organic beans my wife likes their coffee enough she was willing to buy a pound just for a change. I was shocked to see their products on the shelves individually wrapped in plastic bags:
Why I have no idea.perhaps just for the fun of wasting baggies. I washed this one and stuck in the drawer smelling only sightly of delicious coffee (Sexpresso? Oh dear Lord). The drinks sold at Baby's naturally come in most unnatural Styrofoam,- sigh-
the more ecologically correct paper, Starbucks style, has yet to penetrate the local consciousness. Besides Chris Belland had a column in the Sunday Citizen explaining exactly why Styrofoam is quite bad for one's health...
Why I have no idea.perhaps just for the fun of wasting baggies. I washed this one and stuck in the drawer smelling only sightly of delicious coffee (Sexpresso? Oh dear Lord). The drinks sold at Baby's naturally come in most unnatural Styrofoam,- sigh-the more ecologically correct paper, Starbucks style, has yet to penetrate the local consciousness. Besides Chris Belland had a column in the Sunday Citizen explaining exactly why Styrofoam is quite bad for one's health...------------------------------------
Finally I got a few water pictures while I was at Fort Zachary and I wanted to post them to remind myself that boating season isn't too far off. Cold north winds are not much of an inducement to go swimming so I haven't yet sanded and painted the bottom of the skiff, though I have changed the oil and spark plugs and the zinc. I looked out across the water and saw a cruise ship:
It turned out it was the Braemar of the Fred Olsen line, a smaller English cruise ship company that specializes in adult cruises, as in adults versus children, not pornography. I'd like to try the Olsen lines smaller ships, personal service and intellectually stimulating cruises, which is how they have been described to me. In this case the ship was doing it's bit spewing from the smoke stack as it parked downtown:
There are still a few voices protesting cruise ship visits to the city but the budget is shrinking and port calls are a much more needed source of income than previously. Looking out across The Lakes to the west of Key West you can get the critic's point, this is a beautiful view:
Some people enjoy the view from aloft:
But my streak of envy was directed here as I stood in the cool north wind and photographed the statuary at Fort Zach:
Jib and jigger on a broad reach- next stop Mexico! Or, more likely, Sand Key, seven miles to the southwest...
There are still a few voices protesting cruise ship visits to the city but the budget is shrinking and port calls are a much more needed source of income than previously. Looking out across The Lakes to the west of Key West you can get the critic's point, this is a beautiful view:Some people enjoy the view from aloft:But my streak of envy was directed here as I stood in the cool north wind and photographed the statuary at Fort Zach:Jib and jigger on a broad reach- next stop Mexico! Or, more likely, Sand Key, seven miles to the southwest... 
The tall buildings at the bottom of the street are Atlantic Condominiums and together with La Brisa across the street form a canyon leading north from the beach. La Brisa to the east:
Atlantic Condos to the west:
Florida is famous for its rows of massive condos lining beaches everywhere but it is a fad that hasn't completely taken over Key West just yet. The city now has a height restriction which attempts to control the desire of developers to build tall. These however snuck through...The rest of Bertha Street is pretty much just as homely, with an intersection at Atlantic Boulevard where cars take their lives into their hands crossing the traffic flow to head to Higgs Beach:
The rest of Bertha manages quite nicely to defy the common view of Key West as that picturesque little burg. Off to the right of this picture by a couple of blocks lies the Key West High School:
The houses and apartments lining the street reflect utility for the most part, but gthey show individuality nonetheless:
I never tire of noting that there are parents in Key West who nag on about there being nothing to do for their offspring in the city. Being child free myself it's a difficult judgement call to make, but here on unpromising Bertha Street we have this fine erection, a covered skating rink for the delectation of our bored youth:
Less magnificent but still critically needed by bored adults is the corner store further up the street. They were looking at me a bit old fashioned as I parked the motorcycle, so I sauntered off up the street looking for things to photograph and came across Hans Hamel's VW shop next to the new storefront church:
I've never seen the roll up door at Hamel's shop ever actually rolled up and that could be explained by the access alongside:
I also spotted this very useful looking contraption nearby; it almost qualifies as Art:
While across the street Shanna Key, the Irish pub, was doing a fair imitation of a sidewalk cafe in the evening sun:
The liquor purchases were still happening at the corner store down the street as I made my way back:
Gathering outside the package store is apparently a daily event:
And there you have it, the tough working class underbelly of the little town at the end of the island chain. Well, not really but it sounds good. Key West isn't all frou frou wine bars and conch cottages.
There is a street at the southern end of Stock Island, and it is only a block long but it is home to the two largest marinas for pleasure boats on Stock Island. Peninsular Avenue appears to be misspelled, a fact that always gives me perverse joy, but the old Peninsular Marine that used to live at the end of the street is long gone. Peninsular was a fabulous place, a slice of old Key West, that would give a bourgeois boater like me shivers of pleasure and dread. They hauled boats out at Peninsular, what landlubbers call "dry docking" and I spent many a miserable hour on the hard painting and sanding and getting sanded myself by the howling winter winds which raise dust clouds across the unpaved boatyard. A few hardy souls rented relatively cheap boat slips and lived in the marina year round. From the Florida State Library this is what Peninsular looked like in 1974 and it didn't change much until it was sold a couple of years ago. 
There used to be the fiberglass shop here and at the water's edge there was a sail loft where you could take a sail or a bag or a project and have someone peer down from their mezzanine space and tell you how much and how soon it could be done (that was in the white building across the water shown in the old photo above). On the other side of the sail loft there were some cranky old plastic chairs under an overhang and you could sit and look out at the boats in the slips and the travel lift nearby hauling boats out of the water.Even hardier types left their boats permanently "on the hard" and used them as apartments, as solidly aground as any house in Old Town. It was a weird place, with bathrooms that resembled Turkish prisons (as depicted in Midnight Express, at least) foul with God only knows what. That was then, Peninsular Marine was sold and a new Yuppie apparition took it's place:
Now it's all spic and span, fit even for my wife's Vespa ET4 to visit:
The travel lift still exists though in the former shrimp docks on the north side of Peninsular Avenue, now deserted and for sale:
There was a desolate air to the whole place. The old shrimp docks used to be vibrant with all the activity one associates with the fishing industry, and the crazy lifestyles across the street at Peninsular, and now this at the old shrimp docks:
And this at the gruesome new Yacht Club of the Americas, all big and clean and empty:
I guess the old Peninsular was more homey for me than this place ever will be. I'm no fan of gated communities with secret passwords and all that stuff:
Apparently I'm not alone. This place used to have some sort of a club house with a restaurant and they announced in the paper they were closing "temporarily" to regroup, but I doubt the world wide economic collapse has done their prospects any good. Down the street the old Oceanside Marina has been sold also and the new owners there took back the marina's old name Kings Pointe for whatever reason. And they too seem to be having difficulty adjusting to the new realities of life in the land of former abundance. $120,000 for a place to store a boat?
Silly me, banksters still need places to keep their toys...and Kings Pointe isn't a bad spot though perhaps not as flash as the moribund Yacht Club of the Americas (nee Peninsular). Kings Pointe has a gateway but mercifully no locked gate:
The docks here are of the fixed variety, and a few years ago you could buy one of these for something less than $200,000 as I recall. Oh happy days!
During the boom years they also built a bunch of apartments on the south side of the marina visible in the back of the marina:
The only good thing I can think of about this depression is that runaway development has come to a screeching halt. I just kind of wish Peninsular were still there, grody and grungy and always firm on their prices. I don't miss the haul outs at all, but now I realise I lived through an era that is gone forever.