Wandering Old Town 3

It's been a while since I featured a Key West street chicken. Well its the time of year when a new batch of chickens is seeing the light of day and here they are, learning to forage on city streets.Personally I prefer the silent dignity of ibis and other native birds but a lot of people are very fond of street chickens. I am very fond of this BSA 441 last seen for sale at the Yamaha shop. It was nice to see it on the street and in use.
A more stylish way to get around would be hard to imagine (Chuck's BSA caff racer might be a candidate...).
The beauty of simplicity. This next sign cheered me up. I was tempted to loiter as long as they would let me and then get into a semantic debate about "excessive,"but I rather think it is aimed at undesirable residentially challenged persons. Not here for instance, I'm sure she could loiter to her heart's content.I have to admit a certain prejudice in that small dogs not only bark excessively but they are not very....manly? I think less of myself for thinking this but I have yet to find a small dog support group that helps men like me with this attitude problem. I love it when I walk by and 85 pound Cheyenne ignores the yapping ankle biters. Which begs the question: why do some hotels allow only small dogs? The noisy ones? Key West businesses like to put put dog bowls and to my surprise Cheyenne dug in. She usually prefers foul gutter water. Breaking all dress codes here we have a Harley rider wearing a helmet (and clogs):

I wish I could remember the point she was making but it was most emphatic and it sounded urgent and serious too.

I have no idea what "milling the road" means but it was nice of them to explain why parking was prohibited.

A proper sized dog! Too bad he needs a restraint to keep his Labrador under control. If he'd done like me and gone to the pound he could have had an older grateful dog for just $50 bucks who lives to please me. I cannot conceive of paying $800 for a dog from a puppy mill. Cheyenne's collar is loose enough it can easily slide over her head.

Condemned city offices at Simonton Street with hurricane shutters in place.

A nicely decorated car with a non tropical theme for once. More Harleys trundling up Fleming Street. It must get exhausting having to decorate in the orange and black official colors of the Motor Company.

I wonder if puts the leather sheath on when they get off the motorcycle?

Joe Bageant

Joe Bageant, 64, died yesterday. Bummer.

Wandering Old Town 2

One thing I try to do with my blog is record the passing of time, or the way things look and what we take to be "normal" today that may be odd tomorrow. I also try to use my camera to take a look at things that otherwise I might not notice. Public phone use, there's something not easily grasped if you were teleported from life 20 years ago.So what's more stimulating, the Cypress House repository of lived-in history right at his back or some 139 character message from someone else wearing their headgear sideways? Had he looked up he'd have seen a sight not often noticed on Key West streets, a cyclist with intent. She rode a ten speed and pedaled easily and swiftly like someone with a destination in mind.A beach cruiser she was not. He was:The open space where Jabours Trailer Park was; and it remains open and unused though not protected by silly signs. Schooner Wharf bar in the background. Under the development plans that came to naught, some feared noise (aka music) from the bar would annoy the new upscale neighbors and lead to it's closing. Not so far! A Yamaha XS100, the super bike of my youth seen here in ghastly cruiser garb. I saw lots more older bikes around Key West this past winter. I hope rising gas prices bring more old machines onto the streets. See Chuck on Fleming if you have a free wreck ready for restoration.It must get annoying living on a street where visitors feel compelled to steal the street sign. Here Cheyenne stands next to a home made sign that reads "Donkey Milk Lane" according to The Streets of Key West this was a place where the owner of a donkey sold milk supposedly. Tourists feel compelled to steal the sign to take back home to their blandly named streets Up North. Sucks to be you I guess if you have to steal interesting street names to spiff up your life.
I thought I did an essay on Donkey Milk but I can't find one searching my blog so I guess one will appear soon enough. Doing laundry seems tough enough at a public laundry but to have a busy child in tow makes it much worse. She did not seem the least bit phased.

It just goes to show how narrow minded anyone can be but I had never previously considered putting a scooter top box on a bicycle. Yet here one is:Millions and millions for the wreckage you see before you. Who's going to loan you the money? A bank too big to fail? I think not.

I am predicting prices even here will have to fall a good bit further to find bottom. Realtors disagree. Some people make do with no home at all and take up temporary residence in a church flower bed.Nice checkered underwear too. One gets the feeling sometimes that Prohibition was not a completely bad idea. In this next picture what you have is a pedestrian caught in the act of crossing Eaton Street against the light and getting caught by a car that had to slam it's brakes on. Do you see the resentment in his eyes? Better perhaps he should have got knocked over to learn the lesson. Just another reason I try to avoid downtown during busy winters. This next one is a man in a million who stops to answer his phone even if he did leave the engine running while he chatted.Who is Louise Bourgeois et pourquoi nous l'aimons?

I have no idea but perhaps the message is simply that the owner of the scooter takes exotic vacations.

Summer is coming and with it much needed rain. 85 degree days and 75 by night with still a light cooling breeze. This is the best time of year in the Keys.

Fausto's claims to be a social gathering spot as well as a grocery store. This is the Fleming Street store just off Duval. And they will tow if you dump your car in their small lot.

There were a lot of cyclists out with myself and Cheyenne.Key West: small town America the way it was meant to be.

Wandering Old Town 1

I paid my 25 dollar co-pay at the doctor's office, took my off work chit (four days off sick- doctor's orders) and said good afternoon to the office staff enjoying a classic American work lunch, hot dogs from the hot dog place around the corner, eaten hastily at their desks.One patient in line in front of me was having trouble figuring out his insurance. Changes had left him swinging in the wind. At the pharmacy they told me it would take 90 minutes by Walgreens staff to put my 30 antibiotic pills in a bottle. A man in line in front of me, 12 years younger than me, asked about his stomach medicine. "No word from the insurance," the clerk said. "Try tomorrow." The man shrugged cheerfully and walked off taking his untreated stomach complaint with him. "No Insurance?" read a banner at the pharmacy, "Ask about..." some plan to give away low cost medicines as charity for a while. The newspaper is carrying full page ads lately offering a free thirty day trial of some new chemical wonder guaranteed to improve your quality of life. A friend wrote to me recently saying he'd had to drop his four hundred dollar a month prescription as too costly. He opposes single payer health care as socialism. You get what you deserve I guess. I liked this picture of customers at Bank of America looking hopefully at their money machine. Their posture summed up my attitude toward banks too big to fail. I much prefer banking at my locally owned bank, First State. Key West continues to see an influx of visitors. I hope next year will be just as good, when we read that Detroit has lost about half of it's population. Not all municipalities do as well as the Southernmost City.I wonder what the world will look like when she's my age? The latest storm in a teacup has been about the new signage downtown. Street names are being painted in lower case like this:Instead of like this:Too hard to read they say in the Citizen's Voice column. Dear oh dear, so cranky over so little. Be glad you aren't the object of bombing raids and food deprivation I say. Life continues at the usual pace in Key West though I have heard a lot of complaints about how crowded the town has been this winter.I drank Fernet Branca once and I recall vividly throwing up copiously after I did. The memory came flooding back when I saw this odd sticker on the bike. Who drinks Fernet in Key West? I am very fond of Badboy Burritos on Simonton Street and when I see their purple Vespa 50 out making deliveries I am always glad to know I am not alone.

This old Vespa hack used to sit on Duval advertising boat rides but it doesn't actually run. If it ran it would have to be licensed another and more expensive way. So they push it back and forth around the corner. There is no dignity to commerce it seems.My new bougainvillea is stone cold dead. I am jealous every time I see some flourishing.More cyclists...

...out enjoying the best way to get around Old Town.

The Conch train is another way to get a round town, $22 for 90 minutes packed with information. It does get tedious for people who live and work where the trains run incessantly all day long. This the Casa Antigua was where Hemingway first lived in Key West, the street was informed by loud speaker. Now it's a gifte shoppe called Pelican Poope. Like I said, no dignity in commerce.

Garrison Bight Marina

This essay was first published three years ago and I figured perhaps while I am laid up I could give it another airing on my blog. Some people call this Houseboat Row, because this is where the houseboats of South Roosevelt Boulevard washed up, but to me its just part of Garrison Bight Marina. The City of Key West owns two marina properties, one is Key West Bight, near Schooner Wharf and the other is Garrison Bight in the middle of the island, with a narrow opening to the Gulf of Mexico to the north. (A bight in nautical lingo is an indentation in a coastline, or a loop in a length of rope).Garrison Bight is a well protected marina when the weather turns rough, and because it's city owned the dock rates are lower by a few hundred dollars month than those of the private marinas downtown or on Stock Island. However in a town like Key West where a one bedroom apartment can cost a thousand dollars month, a marina slip at less than $800 a month can seem like a bargain. But that's not all that goes on at Garrison Bight, people don't just live there:
Sport fishing is a big deal in the Keys, obviously, and there's a whole line of boats parked at charter boat row waiting for clumps of customers to show up for a day on the water. Humans aren't the only anglers, and hopefuls come in all shapes:For a lot of people the dream job is running a charter fishing boat. Its a dream everyone should fulfill, because speaking as a former Captain myself, the life has a bunch of drawbacks. It confirmed my opinion that the lucky man is the one who keeps his hobbies and his jobs separate. I enjoy writing my blog a lot more because I do it for fun, not a living. That was written as a former journalist, not a former boat captain. But youth is a great time to be sorting your equipment on your charter boat:But these are modern times so we have abandoned the old ways and no longer use roofs to collect rainwater, instead we suck water out of the ground and pump it 150 miles to our faucets with predictable results, not enough to go around:However this is the land of abundance so we still get to use plenty of it! It'll be a bad day in the Keys when boaters can't keep their vessels clean. Garrison Bight is a strangely shaped marina bisected by Palm Avenue and a low bridge, the bridge prevents sailboats getting into the inner sanctum but its a main artery out of Old Town and sees lots of use, especially in the evening rush hour:The top of the bridge, for all that its probably only twenty feet above the water gives a nice view to the pedestrian at the top. To the northwest the landmark Fly Navy building, properly known as the Bachelor Officers Quarters (or BOQ) a delightfully old fashioned 1950's style of architecture when viewed from the inside:To the left the cluster of buildings is the last boatyard in Key West, Spencer's, still a working boatyard with haul out facilities right on Palm Avenue- a minor miracle in this day and age. On the south side of Palm Avenue is the other working-class business a boat storage and sales facility owned by along time Key West family. They repair boats (and did a nice job of re-powering my skiff a couple of years ago):And directly due south of the bight lies the Police Station, coyly tucked away behind the mangroves. I get a nice view of the marina from our dispatch windows, especially during hurricanes when the winds reduce Garrison Bight to horizontal white spume:And finally to the north there lies that mysterious half hidden street, the only one of two in the city that offers back yard dockage to its residents. Its called Hilton Haven and it is the north east arm of garrison Bight, the civilian half opposite the Fly Navy Building.
And then the nitty-gritty, the docks themselves at the center of this geographical tour of the waters. The houseboats are frequently for sale, indeed I saw one, a thousand square footer claiming to be an original from Houseboat Row on South Roosevelt for sale for two hundred thousand dollars- described as affordable Keys living! Cramped Keys living if you like!

I suppose there is romance in life afloat, though after many years of doing it myself I'm happy enough to be living ashore. What I don't miss is marina living, and perhaps one needs to do it to be convinced of it. Living in a marina is like living in a cramped trailer park with the chance of drowning to paraphrase Doctor Johnson. Some people wouldn't live any other way. Of course living on a boat while traveling can be splendid, but to quote Admiral Nelson "Men and Ships rot in port," and Garrison Bight seems to see more than its share of rotting. Not forgetting that boaters themselves produce waste that needs to be kept out of the waters these days. There is a specially equipped pumping boat for the task that lives in the marina cheek by jowl as it were with its clients. The boat also serves the boats at anchor outside the marina:I used to pay fifteen dollars a week to get my boat pumped in Sunset Marina! Ah, living in paradise... To that end I like looking at the boats parked nearer North Roosevelt Boulevard, the main drag into town which is noisy as hell but from the roadway one gets to see the visiting boats, the vessels that tend to be more on the move, the smaller boats. Not all of them leave their slips but they look more like they could:Back on shore the parking lots, ample though they may be are choked with winter time drivers who will soon be heading back north, presumably leaving their boats behind to the tender mercies of storm season. This being Key West alternatives in transportation are catered to when it comes to parking areas:Motorized and not:Alternative living in a mild climate, and this is by no means the most alternative. Monroe County is now starting to eye liveaboards on their boats in Boca Chica Channel, between the Navy Base and Stock Island. That's where the free spirits are congregating that don't want to live within the confines of a marina. Monroe County is viewing the free anchorage with a jaundiced eye complaining of sunken wrecks, debris and anarchy afloat. Meanwhile in the Bight marina living is at least still possible for some in the heart of the city of Key West.