Saturday, April 3, 2010

A Local's Life

I love wandering aimlessly and doing so with a dog in tow means one has to aim for places to walk. The Bat Tower which I haven't photographed in a while will do for a start on a drive into town.I left the camera in the kennel as there would be nothing to photograph of course. Yet I had to walk back to the car because I saw this and had no idea what it means. Are Honda Ruckus riders cool? The dog might not be cool but she was seeking refrigeration after a short walk in the sun.Cheyenne was suffering the after effects of our death march the day before. I saw these nerds on my way into town on the Boulevard. That they were riding has nothing to do with the fact that bare legs and espadrilles made me sniff contemptuously. Motorcycle envy does horrible things to one's immortal soul and I should have liked the chance to be riding, even in sandals. I had an appointment so I parked the kennel and took a middle of Old Town stroll. I enjoy the area around Fleming and Southard between White and Simonton because there is always something to see. This illustrates why hitches are quick release. Mine rides in the trunk of the kennel and doesn't trip people up or extend my car into the next parking spot. Southard Street and I figured I could work my way through on foot.
After I gave a couple of tourists directions to a likely lunch spot or two I came across this. I would guess, thanks to the color of the tail that it's a yellow tail snapper. However because anglers are so difficult it's probably a lesser spotter drum wrasse juvenile. Or some such inexplicable string of words.What happened to the head is a question that raises all kinds of unpleasant speculation. And why it ended up on the sidewalk...?Actually the sidewalk was closed by the digging and the side street, I think it was William, was closed. We turned back. I saw this pretty little porch arrangement which put me in mind of southern gentility. Bring me a mint julep. I prefer rum, so make it a Mojito on a doily. Look at this classic conch porch. Tennessee Williams ain't in it.This one is pretty classic, but imagine the fortitude of people who live in a house propped up by struts!How in the name of all that's holy did this get here?I walked past the former Haitian Art Gallery, now on Truman Avenue, and I looked inside the new gallery and it looked lovely.Mangroves are cool enough to paint so all I can do is take their picture. This man adjusting his velo is part of the housing agglomeration I like to call Quebec Ville Sud that huddles around Rest beach in winter. I no longer envy them as we too have almost, sort of, universal health insurance, similar to those northern latitude socialistes!Oh, wait a minute. We don't want any of that nasty Canadian stuff that egalitarian Canadians love so much. Hell, if we did we'd all have Cadillacs. What would be the fun then? But in Canada, land of niceness they don't have suave hostelries like Eden House. You need to visit Key West and spend tourist dollars here to see this classic hang out.This guy sent me a private e-mail about his classic blue Sportster I photographed recently. I saw him stepping out of the house and we said hello. It was great standing there having a wide ranging conversation about everything under the sun. He said he knew of people who live in Key West who read this blog which sounds inexplicable to me as I don't understand why people who live here would want to look at pictures of their streets. Chuck explained it on the grounds apparently some people manage to live in Key West and forget to smell the bougainvillea as they go about their daily business. It takes so much effort to get here and frequently to stay here that I find that odd, but there we are.Chuck is a smart guy and is working on some clever alternative energy ideas about which we nattered. It was a very pleasant interlude. I hope he succeeds because when I talk to engineers like Chuck I actually feel a stirring of hope that things may well get better one day. The fact that he rides a motorcycle is a bonus. I used to ride a Stella until it blew up a few weeks after I got it home. I saw this lovely vintage red for sale at the Yamaha shop which is doing a land sale business selling Genuine Buddys. I expect some optimist special-ordered the Stella all the way from India. I hope they have better quality control these days. My wife got agitated when I told her how lovely it looked. "Not to me!" she said, remembering the misery of the broken oil pump, seized engine and the fight to get it fixed. It had all of 2,800 miles on the clock when my $4,000 Stella 150 blew up. Not one of my better investments!I don't know what happened or why but please note the two wheeler comes off second best in every case. Here on the Cow Key Bridge northbound. This also held me back from my appointment so perhaps Chuck's intelligent conversation wasn't to blame for my tardiness.
I was trying to broaden my understanding computing and I slid into a seat at the back of the Adult Ed class at the College Library. Adult Ed is weird. We revert to childhood mannerisms at the drop of a hat. Look at this granddad, like me raised in a more polite educational era. Please, teacher!It was a long afternoon in town and lucky for Cheyenne I carry food, cookies and water in the kennel for use in emergencies:
And by the time we finally got home after dinner with friends in town, there was but one thing left to do: Sleep, tired nature's sweet restorer, as the poet puts it.

Friday, April 2, 2010

Southernmost Car Club

I know nothing much about cars but there are people in the Lower Keys that love them and they have a club, like all properly socialized people with a hobby.It's all about nostalgia methinks, an emotion I am learning to come to terms with after half a century on Earth. My pleasure in motorcycles never translated into a desire for cars, perhaps because as a yout' I never drove much. Even I have heard, vaguely, of Dyna flow automatic transmissions. Haven't I?
They don't just have these in La Habana...A gathering of cars is a good place to make a political point. Perhaps it really is time we killed federal subsidies to Kansas corn farmers?This car evoked some memories for me. My stepmother had one just like this Triumph TR6. I mean. it's not a real Triumph but it's the best the four wheeled world can do. I need to show up to work in one of these.
Let us speculate wildly what club members are talking about.Speaking of lack of nostalgia, my first wife had one of these, a 1962 Bug. This perfectly tricked out 1962 is a lot nicer and more pristine than Carol's daily driver we used in Santa Cruz.We drove it on our honeymoon through Glacier and Yellowstone to Denver and back in 1983. Cute weren't we? Poor woman she was not right for me and vice versa, but she had some adventures which were out of character for her. Perhaps it's the VW thats makes one nerdy. Check out this modern couple, Eric the owner of the Bug and Tammie his boss.Police officers are just like you and me when off duty. You thought they spent time handcuffing each other for the fun of the thing eh?Drooling in public is entirely appropriate in these kinds of gathering. Back to La Habana for a moment of 1950s (I think) nostalgia.I love the open hoods. Show me the engine!





"Ooh, look! A kayak!" Tammie said. It did look a bit odd. I saw it on the Highway the next week so perhaps this is a daily driver with kayak. Cool. Not even tempted.Nope.My grandfather drove across America in 1925 in a convertible Packhard. This is a 1938 sedan, very Bonnie and Clyde. I could be tempted by these lines!Look at them. Isn't it amazing these lovelies live and survive and thrive in these tiny islands?Classic wheels of a different sort.By the time I could afford a Spitfire I was too late and they were out of production. I guess I was a closet Triumph man all those decades ago.This stuff is way out of my cultural comfort zone.Register, sign in, be clubby.Magazines? Of course!This wouldn't be the Southernmost Anything without a picture of a palm tree. It was a short stop but I enjoyed tasting a whiff of car nostalgia. It was fun.