Dog Days Of September

We think of Key West as a palm filled paradise filled with vistas of breeze rippled turquoise waters and greenery overflowing into the streets. Then occasionally reality intrudes and power lines, bent street signs and acres of cement prove the reality to be different.


Somewhat different I suppose because there are actually plenty of sight lines in Key West that meet the Chamber of Commerce criteria. The pile of palm fronds seen below was trimmed from trees as preferred during the height of hurricane season.


They still look full and dignified even though they have been denuded in preparation for the possibility of high winds. Hurricane season is looking good right now forKey West with storms curling up on themselves in the central Atlantic and thus no threat to the Keys. However the hurricane season persists into November so this is the time of year when one keeps a weather eye on the Atlantic basin. And one trims one's vegetation accordingly.


When I was sailing to Key West from California with my two dogs I wondered to myself if this small city would be large enough to hold my very active Labrador and Husky, by now used to roaming all over Central America pretty much at will. I wondered where would I walk them without them getting stir crazy. Silly notion. Everyone has dogs and Cheyenne loves street walking in the city, even in the summer heat. She's not alone.


However even though my furry Labrador loves a good street walk, she does from time to time, need to catch her breath. A hard, cool cement surface works well for her in the shade. While she pants and watches the world go by I play with my camera. In this case I was resting next to Cheyenne on a bench outside Finnegans Wake on Grinnell Street.


These vacation signs are everywhere this time of year. Vacations tend to be less expensive in Key West in September and there is are several reasons for that. summer has gone nowhere and it will remain hot and muggy until the second cold front of the Fall which will come in late October or early November to break the back of summer's heat. The first cold front doesn't normally have the strength to break the grip of summer's heat. Take a vacation and sweat.


Then there is hurricane season and this is the peak, historically speaking. Theft s a chance, albeit a small one, that your vacation may be interrupted by strong winds, heavy rain, flooding, power outages ad evacuation orders. Do not plan a vacation in Cayo Hueso about now unless you are cheerful and adaptable in adverse circumstances. Finally be prepared to see your restaurant choices diminish as everyone and her sister takes off on vacations. Why now? For the above reasons plus the fact that the tourist count is low, also for the same reasons listed above. You have been warned.


I am planning a week Up North to collect a scooter I purchased very similar to the black one pictured above. I'm a little concerned Fall may actually have started around Minneapolis and the ride hole may be cooler than I'd like but that will make my return to the land of endless summer all the sweeter.


Spring cleaning can also be done in Fall in Key West. Rentals are available as the winter season hasn't snagged the spaces for more dollars for fewer months. Some people choose summer to move back to the mainland when the weather Up North isn't so forbidding. Sidewalks are clogged with no longer needed furniture. Cheyenne also enjoys the hunting for unconsidered trifles in the shrubbery. Don't look too closely it's either dead, moldy or otherwise unsavory. She loves her found snacks.


September is the mellow month. Sure there are people drinking on Duval, and off, late at night but traffic is worse during the heat of the day and a city wanderer can catch the play of shadows and sunlight undisturbed in the city's many alleys and lanes. Like Hunt's Lane shown below


The color of the sunlight changes in the Fall in South Florida. Winter sunlight looks whiter and crisper than the softer yellow tones of summer. As the sun sinks lower on the horizon the angles change. Right now sunrise is sometime around 7am and sunset is around 8pm so the days, by tropical standards are still quite long. The closer you get to the equator the more even are the hours of day and night throughout the year.


So, after all these years and all these wanderings through mangrove trails and pinewoods, on beaches and around ruins I find Cheyenne really likes city walking best.


In the end though I think she gets more walks than many dogs, who spend their lonely lives in large or small yards behind fences whence they call out to my Labrador as she lumbers past. She ignores them.


She is in retirement and has eyes only for me.




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Flagler's Railroad At The Museum

The Museum Of Art And History set this exhibit up to commemorate the centenary of the arrival of the railroad in January this year. I meant to go at the time but...better late than never.

I was actually quite surprised by the lack of fanfare that accompanied the one hundredth anniversary of the event that connected Key West by land to the of Florida. You'd think everyone would have been madly celebrating the event but in the collective memory, dulled by alcohol, and limited by the frequent replacement of many exhausted citizens by fresh incomers the whole centenary thing got barely any attention. It came, it went, this in a town that celebrates Hemingway as though he were a God riding a fiberglass bull, and pets as though they were put on earth solely for beauty pageants. Flagler? Who dat?

The fact is that cars are what move modern America and trains (like motorcycles!) are objects of curiosity. In fact the Solares Hill weekly has been suggesting, a bit tongue in cheek, that a modern monorail would be the way to connect the Keys these days. You can imagine that no one would seriously consider a modern rail alternative to connect these islands that lie in a perfectly straight line for a hundred miles. The museum exhibit has a piece of film from a 1928 ride on the rails. I could have started at it for hours, not minutes. Many of the island landscapes appears not to have changed in the past century, but the views from the bridges seemed like views from another world lost forever to our modern needs for asphalt, cement and guard rails.

It's a great idea of course to use electric rail but in an era when there's no money to build sewers something as esoteric as a replacement for the automobile will never get off the ground...We have lost the collective will to build and maintain infrastructure already in our country. What chance is there of a visionary coming forward to propel us in some new and uncharted direction? Fear is the only collective sentiment Americans respond to nowadays. I blame television but my critics scoff.

It was the railways of Flagler in the east and Plant in the west that opened up the Florida peninsula but nowadays trains are for commerce and recently our esteemed Governor turned down 2.4 billion Federal dollars for high speed passenger rail across the state. Thousands of highly trained space workers from the dismantled NASA programs found no replacement work in the Sunshine State as a result. Vision belongs to the past, when a man like Flagler could see swamps and envision tourism, and had the boldness of a pioneer to make it happen. Nowadays if the bank can't see the profit it's dead in the water and our leaders, anxious for campaign contributions lead by following.

The Florida East Coast extension connected New York with Havana by ferry so fruit and tourists could get into and out of the snowy north east in a couple of days and nights. The first class passengers were served real food with real cutlery and place settings, just like on the Titanic, everyone else traveled steerage. Yet its worth remembering that until the railraod came to the keys most of the islands had no names at all as no one bothered with them. Indian Key and Key West comprised the inhabited portions. Everywhere else was nothing more than scrub with the occasional homestead. Then came the rails and china tea services and monogrammed pots in the middle of the wilderness.

The work involved building cement bridges on a par with that other engineering wonder of the decade, the Panama Canal. And yet today we take for granted the cement structures here that are a hundred years and as solid as new. The new road flashes traffic past the delicate arches of the old structures, curved and fluted like things of beauty. The modern bridges stand gawkily on long cement poles about as attractive as scaffolding over the water. But the modern bridges work, built thirty years ago when public works were objects of pride in the United States, not scorn as they are today.

Flagler used to joke that were it not for Florida he'd have been a rich man. Despite his oil holding millions he had to take out a loan to complete the line to Key West. He did it because he saw the vision and believed in it. Personal wealth was not the goal. He treated his workers well, demanding hard work for real pay. people lined up to come south and labor, not all of them could manage in the humid conditions of South Florida.

He made his one and only visit to Key West on the first through train and the next day he went home to Palm Beach where he died 16 months later. Get to the museum and see the exhibit, it's wonderfully evocative. Celebrate the centenary on your own because in Sodom, Flagler's achievements a hundred years on count for nothing in a world focused on the short term gain.

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Coffin Night

The real meaning of Coffin Night in Key West is a Conch mystery shrouded in darkness and illuminated only slightly by the knowledge that coffin night is a form of celebration of the start of Homecoming at Key West High. Coffin night is not a school activity and no adult would be caught dead supporting it. yet it is a preternaturally Key West tradition, as local as a Cuban mix sandwich or a civic leader riding a scooter around town. It is unhappily Coffin Night this week and the eggs are flying.

The senior class hides a small coffin they build for the occasion and the junior class has to run all over key West looking for it. Coffin Week involves a variety of other activities but the hunt for the coffin is the highlight. The problem is that egging is also a highlight of the hunt and young people all over Key West's New Town neighborhood can be spotted hauling quantities of eggs to throw at people and vehicles. It sounds funny but it can be overwhelming, I heard of one passerby copping more than 50 eggs in a pelting. Raw eggs do terrible things to car paint and a vehicle parked overnight without the owner spotting the offending yolk can lead to an expensive repair to restore the paint. People get annoyed by egg throwing.The background to this madness goes back to a football tradition. Apparently seniors celebrated their team's invincibility by making a coffin at the start of the season and represented that superiority by building a coffin in which to bury their opponents. Then the Juniors took it upon themselves to try to steal the coffin to annoy the seniors. In the struggle to secure the coffin eggs became the weapon of choice, and so the tradition grew and has become enshrined at Key West High School. Coffin Night is a Conch activity like no other, it is reserved to the New Town half of the island and thus is invisible to the great mass of drinkers on Duval in the hours of darkness.

And in case you were wondering this year a responsible adult found the coffin in the early hours of Tuesday morning, not soon enough to end the madness which got wild enough that the traditional homecoming bonfire has reportedly been cancelled. That would be the bonfire designed to ceremonially burn the symbolic coffin.

That should have stopped the egging but I guess the kids had stashed a large quantity of eggs and I further suppose they can't actually eat all their ammunition. And so it goes.

Behind Bars

Brady of the blog Behind Bars asked me to write an essay for his page about my upcoming trip to Iowa to retrieve a 33 year old Vespa. I was happy to oblige as Brady not only writes beautifully but also has an innate understanding of what my plan is all about. I was honored he asked me to write for his page. He has a penchant for Hondas, preferably of course old ones. I have a penchant for old Vespas, especially if not too old. Hit the link and see why.

Key West Art And History Museum

I finally got around to checking out the Art and History Museum on Clinton Square. It's been a while since I was last in the old US Customs house and as always it was a pleasure to spend an hour wandering the venerable halls of the elderly building.

Outside as always we find the over sized statues preferred by Seward Johnson who enjoys reproducing well known two dimensional paintings in three dimensions. He has had a display of nudes dancing which I featured previously on this page so tough luck, I did not photograph them again. Johnson, heir to the talcum powder fortune, amuses himself rendering two dimensional paintings into three dimensions and doing them over sized frequently as well. a while back there was a great exhibit of famous paintings cast as sculptures. I'm not an art critic and I don't know if it was High Art but it was fun.

The museum is ideally placed to attract curious cruise ship passengers as they make their way towards the bars and knick knack shops on nearby Duval Street. At the moment the moneyed interests in Key West's business community are pushing hard to study widening the ship channel to accommodate the new generation of super large cruise ships, something that gets not much support from the moneyed retiree classes. The argument is that cruise ship passengers don't buy much as they have it all on the ship while clogging city streets. I was quite surprised by the number of visitors, in the dozens, in the museum, wearing colored cruise ship tags. I am sort of opposed to more ships but on the other hand Key West lacks any kind of unified vision of its future so worrying about a few thousand more temporary visitors swarming off the docks from time to time seems a bit, I don't know, capricious?

They sell a few books and knick knacks in the museum shop as well which might be an argument in favor of multiplying the number of such visitors but I suspect it's t shirt shops, tour operators, bars (including the ones owned by the portly city commissioner) and souvenir floggers that expect to profit. As far as I'm concerned what's happening in Europe is probably going to migrate over here and the more key West can insulate itself from economic Armageddon the better.

Or perhaps bigger cruise ships mean the city is selling it's historic heritage for a mess of potage. Beats me.

The building was abandoned in the sixties and was well on the way to falling apart, like most of downtown Key West. Gay visitors, attracted by the enormous Navy base saw the guest house potential and bought out the Conchs who built modern homes in New Town and left the ramshackle old town huts to the crazy outsiders. The smart ones held on, built and made fortunes, and some small portion of those fortunes spilled over into public works.

The restoration has been well done and the building is lovely, with or without the art.

I like wandering the corridors between exhibits as much as the rooms filled with the attractions.

My plan is to illustrate several of the exhibits on show over the next few days in separate essays now I've introduced the brick building that houses them.

Next door to the Westin Hotel near the waterfront you will find this big red brick building with the pointy roof, designed to slough off the snows of winter on the Canadian border (no, really!) built to one government design for Customs Houses. Inside you will find Key West laid bare. Not to visit would be a crime. Almost as bad as being undecided about what to do with the ship channel.


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Trouble Is My Middle Name

So on the weekend the electrical system took a dump on the Bonneville, a fault whose full import has yet to be understood. Nothing too serious no doubt but enough to stall my commute. I was pretty sanguine about the problem as I got a ride and arrived at work on time, barely and Jiri will sort out if it is the new battery or or the old charging system. No problem, still I like to ride rather than drive and my 27 mile commute is my pleasure as well as my burden. My wife knew what was coming when I sidled up and asked if I could borrow her Vespa. "Sure" she said which was easy for her because her classroom this year is new digs and she hasn't figured out where on the campus might be a safe place to leave the ET4. Usually she commutes with gym gear and files and papers littering her car (my Asperger's causes me to shudder each time I ride in her car) and then she rides around town as needed on her 150cc scooter.

I like riding the Vespa and I sneak a trip on it as often as I can but I don't like to impose on my wife. However there are days when the prospect of being shoe horned into a car just burns me up. I get bored in my zombie box, just like the other dawdling commuters trapped in their cages. Better to ride the pretty little 2004 cream colored scooter, which does 65mph and shocks the hell out of complacent dawdling motorists when they see me zipping past them and treading on their SUV penises as I go. Ha!

Meep! Meep! I was having the usual ball perplexing an early bird tourist leaving Key West before dawn in a convertible showing off the Keys to his hot date and wondering why the moped was passing him like he wasn't there. Further along a car pulled out of a side road and paused in the travel lane while the driver gathered his/her bearings instead of adjusting to the road in the on ramp that was thoughtfully provided for the purpose. The devil was in me and I slowed barely perceptibly, took the speed up ramp and passed the dazed driver adjusting her/his crotch in the travel lane. That was decidedly a trampled penis because my temerity was rewarded with high beams aimed at my mirrors as I floated off toward the horizon. Better the high beams than the car windshield fluid aimed my way by zombies annoyed that they can't shake off the moped. I follow the two second rule religiously so fluid arcing over the car doesn't usually get me.

It ended badly. The engine ran perfectly but suddenly we lost way and I knew instantly the drive belt had split. I coasted onto the ample shoulder, parked the Vespa and in the beam of my flashlight saw wisps of yellow insulating like material poking out of the transmission. It happens that modern scooters break their belts usually without warning and when they do they disintegrate into their component woolly parts. I set off in the muggy airless morning to walk the four miles home. 23 out of 27 miles wasn't bad and the belt broke in a safe spot. All was well. I ended up catching the Lower Keys shuttle for the last two miles of the journey home. I arrived barely half an hour later than usual around 7:15 am. My wife slept through the whole drama and only awoke when I returned from walking Cheyenne and picking up the Vespa with the trailer.

Sooo, my Fusion needed new tires and had a failing battery, fixed by Sears Automotive, my Bonneville needs diagnosis and the Vespa needs a new belt and rollers. My wife says this is the series of three issues and my forthcoming ride home from Iowa on the new-to-me 1979 P200E Vespa will be flawless. Perhaps she's right. The old Vespa needs no battery and uses no belt and is said to have tires with lots of tread. I hope my streak of bad luck is over now. Please. But I do have to launch the boat for the first time since the little outboard was serviced this summer...When we used it last summer it wasn't working well and now I hope my new mechanic did actually find the problem as he promised he did. Just now though my luck with engines is terrible. If I didn't have bad luck I'd have no luck at all as the saying goes...