Keys Disease Illustrated

When my wife and I were out sailing in distant parts we carried a supply of bits and pieces and some vague knowledge of how to repair some stuff, all that and the faint fair hope that we could bumble through. Things broke and I bodged repairs and when the latest effort was finished we'd look it over and say to each other our favorite punch line: "Fixed; for now!" We never assumed any fix was permanent, things were always breaking on all the sailboats out there traveling through Central America. The best thing about the Panama Canal was the supply of easily accessible spare parts. Fixed for now was the mantra, and it's one of those things we've never quite forgotten.

After a lifetime spent on boats bodging things I am a nervous, insecure handyman in houses and my wife likes a nice clean finish to a job in her home. Therefore when one of the PVC handles that switches the water supply between the cistern and the aqueduct broke and spewed water everywhere I decided to call in a professional. In the photo below the bottom right handle opens and closes access to the cistern and it's pumps, while the new big red handle on the left opens and closes the high pressure water from the aqueduct. I bought a house that can be completely supplied by rainwater collected off the roof, or from the main water supply piped to the islands from the South Florida Aquifer. The handle on the left was the replacement installed by a professional plumber at my request, after the original broke and leaked.

The plumber did the job while I slept and promised to come back and check his work and collect payment. He showed up a couple of days later unannounced just as Cheyenne and I got back from a walk (the one where the crazy lady yelled at me) and the plumber, who it turns out is also crazy, in a nice way, said there was a leak and he'd be back to fix it and collect payment. He never showed. I generally only use the aqueduct to operate the washing machine as the amount of water the machine needs taxes the cistern pumps so I open the aqueduct to do laundry and the go back to the better tasting rain water for the rest of the time. The leak was small but persistent so I decided to try a simple fix. Gorilla Glue to the rescue!

It failed and the water kept dripping like water torture as I washed my clothes. I pondered my options and decided first that there was no way I was calling the sad sack plumber back, after all he failed the first time, failed to come back and as the investment scams point out past success is no predictor of future returns- or is it? I figured I might as well give it a shot before calling another professional plumber, who most likely would be just as incapable of mastering the overwhelming task of successfully connecting PVC pipe.

I figured what the hell and I started grubbing around in the aqueduct meter out by the road. The lid yielded eventually to my probing penknife and inside I found a ton of dirt which I slowly removed, handful by handful. Then I found the little round switch shown below at the top of the picture. A quarter turn and the water supply to the house was cut off. So far, so good. Boat bum becomes handyman.

To someone used to this stuff it would seem absurd but I had to think about what I was doing every step of the way. The day after Christmas, Boxing Day, ACE hardware on Summerland Key was open so I scootered over there to pick up some supplies. I wish PVC was allowed on boats because its cheap and easy to work with but if it fails below the waterline the boat will sink so I had no experience with the stuff before we moved into this house which has lots of it.

I have to confess I was swearing up a blue streak as I laid out tools, pipe, fittings and PVC glue. Across the canal I could hear Chrismas renters whooping it up in the shady garden alongside their side of the canal. I didn't even have my dog to keep me company and give sound advice as I planned where to cut and what to glue. Oh shit, I gulped and wedged the hacksaw blade into an impossible corner and started cutting.

The reason why the plumber left a leak was because the pipe sticking out of the sheetrock was almost inaccessible. I got some pipe clamps on it and held down as far as I could and sanded the plastic. I had barely enough room for the joint and the corner pipe but I hoped for the best. Dammit I thought to myself, why can't people who know how to do the job come and set up shop in the Keys? They call it Keys Disease when you hire someone and they fail to show. You can blame alcohol drugs or an unhappy childhood but the inability to show up as promised is standard operating procedure in Paradise. Failing to complete the job is just as commonplace.

I hacked, sanded and glued with a will. I wanted it fixed by the time my wife got back from Alabama. I can do this I said to myself as I stood on my stool PVC dust drizzling onto my head. My repair spilled purple glue everywhere, over the joints, the pipes, my hands and my hair, everywhere. It was Ugly.

I dread the day my home takes a direct hit from a hurricane and I need professionals to do serious repairs on the structure. Victims of Wilma waited years to move back not their homes as Keys Disease ran rampant through the islands as repair people picked and chose their work and rip off artists made a killing. I couldn't get a plumber to connect some PVC pipe without drama and failure. Imagine if my bathroom were wrecked. So you really want to live in Paradise? Are you sure?

I opened the aqueduct yesterday and to my astonishment my joints weren't leaking. Victory! Sweet victory!! However let's remain rational...Yes it's fixed, but only for now.

 

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Jack Riepe's Conversations With A Motorcycle

I was susrprised and delighted to receive a package from Jack Riepe just before Christmas. I know Jack has been going through the torments of Hell since Hurflooded his publisher's offices and his local Post Office destroying stacks of books and any prospect of producing more quickly or easily. But Jack Riepe doesn't give up easily and the priority mail envelope was proof of that.

 

Jack Riepe's blog Twisted Roads is  known and widely read and  this book is an extension of that writing style - 186  pages of lyrical descriptions of the rides of his youth, the dark vortex that was Jersey City, a place filled with vivid male characters the author tried to emulate and the women he wanted to "get to know," all brought to life in Riepe's  inimitable style. 

 

I met Jack Riepe once and stayed with him at his  former home in Pennsylvania and yet after three days in his company it's as though I've known him a lifetime, which isn't far from the truth as Jack has a penchant for living a great deal all at once.  I've read his blog and you might imagine this book is a collection of blog essays; well,  it's not. This book is a coming of age story simply told, with self deprecating humor and penetrating insights into what makes human beings idiots.  

 

For reasons explained early on, the cover of the book depicts a classic Vincent motorcycle while the star performer in these recorded conversations, foil as it were, is a particularly lethal form of Japanese motorcycle that was produced briefly in the 1970s by Kawasaki  laws of physics and health and safety regulations. The bike was fast and qufriend in Italy who was lucky to walk away from a wreck on two stroke Kawasaki triple not known for cornering abilities. That Jack learned on one these monsters and failed to kill himself on it is not cause for self agrandisement in these pages, but it ought to be. Typical of Riepe he mocks himself for buying the one motorcycle that would reduce his sex appeal in a field of hard core riders, whereas he should be telling us he was a hell of a rider for learning to cope of that Kawasaki.

Conversations With A Motorcycle records young Riepe's life and tells us how his puke green Kawasaki helped mold him and showed him the path to manhood. As odd as the premise sounds it works beautifully, not least because Riepe's facility with women at age 19 was devastatingly absent. He pines for a love he has yet to meet, intwines his hopes and dreams with his bike, and by the end of the story reminds us how foolish we are who seek, find and throw away what we so eagerly sought in the first place. This is a lot more than  your typical Riepe flourish and a few descriptiosn of nubile curves and trombone solos in dark alleys with impossibly beautiful women.

 

I have never read anything anywhereJack's ability to describe the act of riding a motorcycle, never mind the peculiar joys of terrestrial flight produced by two wheels and an engine. Riders will see the hand of a master at work as they nod knowingly as Jack explains the emotional stupidity of our first motorcycle purchase (mine, in Italy with an MV Agusta 350 was so similar to his it was uncanny to read it), then his words will leap off the page as he the rides of his youth for the reader. the brilliant part of this book is how all this technical derring-do in such a way as to embrace readers who have no idea what a motorcycle is nor why any sane person would ride one. An affinity for motorbikes isn't necessary to appreciate this story, this is pure story telling in an ancient tradition. One can read The Hobbit without knowing anything about Tolkien's imagination. Equally Jack Riepe's imagination, descriptive abilities and narrative pace will carry the reader far beyond the simple world of 1970s motorcycling.

And it was a simple world a weekend ride could be done on less than ten bucks with enough left over to help out a stranded rider.  It was a world that kept at bay an aspiring rider over-educated and excessively sensitive for the Bucket of Blood pub in Jersey City, but it was also a world that we all know wherever we grew up and for a few short hours Jack takes us back there, where life was simpler and more fun and more crowded with existential angst than we care to remember. 

 

I know Jack Riepe and I like him and that makes me a terrible reviewer of his book, for I was bound to enjoy it. I'd like to think everyone who has read his blog has purchased a copy of his book, but I know that's not the case, and I wonder how that could be. I cannot think of a reason why a rider wouldn't be clamoring to read it, and I hope I have transmitted the idea that non-riders will be doing themselves a disservice by not buying a copy of this first edition piece of literature.  

 

 

 

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Woods For Pleasure

To find myself at home with no obligations left me puzzled: what to do? I figured I might as well go for a ride.

There aren't many roads to ride for fun but what there is, in the Lower Keys, I know. I could have ridden ten miles to Sugarloaf and ridden the south shore. I thought about taking the eight miles out and eight miles back across Big Torch Key. Or I could have ridden twenty minutes north and stopped for the sunset at the southern end of the Seven Mile Bridge. Instead I rode to Big Pine, turned north at the traffic light and explored Port Pine Heights.

In the last light of day I headed back to the supermarket for last minute supplies. I stopped along the way for a short walk in the pines of the Jack Watson Trail.

I started out okay but the walk devolved into a camera exercise that soon lost its flavor. Cheyenne was in Alabama and walking without my dog seemed pointless. I was lonely.

A controlled fire got away from it's minders and burned a hundred acres of the Key Deer Refuge and the marks of the blaze are still clearly visible along the trail.

The greenery is coming back. Indeed pines killed by an infestation years ago are slowly being replaced by survivors who are coming bak strong across Big Pine Key. But it is winter and leafless branches are everywhere.

Sunset brings darkness around six in the evening on winter time. I am looking forward to longer days but it's not until we go back on summer time in the spring that we will see sunsets at seven pm and later. The closer you are to the equator the less seasonal variation there is.

I mooched around for a while until it was dark.

Winn Dixie the Sunday night before Christmas was hell. The store was crowded with frantic shoppers, the aisles were packed with freshly delivered supplies and the obstacle course made me crazy. Better to be in the woods and on the trails, with or without my dog.

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Vespa ET4

Bored of a Sunday afternoon alone at home I could have either gone into town and put money in a stripper's g-string OR I could take a ride on the Vespa. Guess what I chose to do: visit Big Pine Key that's what.

And I took my Android HTC phone with me. And I decided to play with the camera settings. This shit is weird and I wasn't the least bit high at he time. Bugger me.

 

Press a button and weird shit happens to your camera. Turn the camera off and all settings go back to normal. I have no idea who dreamed this stuff up. An engineer on LSD probably.

Well, that was fun. I may need to work on these settings in the year ahead.

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A Christmas Card From Key West

Here's a thought that came to me walking the docks in Key West, remembering my own life spent afloat.

Imagine a romantic life on the water anchored out, between Fleming Key and Christmas Tree Island, your floating home bobbing to its anchor, bow to the wind, wavelets lapping the hull in the still of a crisp winter's night. Candles are burning in the cabin giving a warm glow to the cold night air, the silence of the Christmas night is broken only by the guttering of the flames in synch with the patter of the water outside the thin hull of the boat...perfect!

Except it's a long hard row in the dark, across the vast empty great void of the night on water as black as the sky. Behind you the light of the city and the colorful people it contains, including your friends, is swallowed up in that very cold impenetrable night. You are as lonely as an astronaut in outer space in your little boat-module. And you've got dinghy butt, a well known discomfort for liveaboards who get water slop into their little craft as they head to or from shore and end up spending the day in wet shorts, or arrive home dripping salt water into the cabin...

Temper all romantic notions with a cold hard dose of reality. That's why you are on this page, in spite of yourself. I shall not lead you wrong.

 

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Key West Christmas

It's difficult to know whether one should be smug or miffed sitting in the sun wearing shorts, listening to the silence of a neighborhood filled with the absence of sounds created by temporary neighbors working off their party hangovers. On the one hand it's always pleasant for a lizard be basking in summer sunshine during the winter solstice, while on the other hand the less reptilian side of myself is forced to admit Christmas isn't properly defined without a chill in the air. This year we got both, so as usual the Florida Keys come through for the weather impaired, warm and bright for those of us that need it, and chilled and cool for the traditionally inclined. My canal side dock looked warm and sunlit but it felt like a cool day on the windswept steppes

Sitting at home wrapped in blankets on the couch sucked a fair bit. I was reluctant to turn the heat on as the heater coils in the reverse air conditioning get dusty from disuse the rest of the year and they give off a distinctive "singed cat" smell when you fire up the heat the first time and as my wife, who chills more easily than I, is away I figured tea and blankets would do. Besides I just received Jack Riepe's new book so I had something worthwhile to read.

It felt like a proper Yule to me, cold and wearing socks on the frigid bamboo floors, wondering if the sound of palm fronds rattling windily on the gutters is the equivalent to snow clumps tumbling off pine needles. I had promised to work some overtime Saturday night so I made a plan. Instead of tearing myself away from a snug nest of warm blankets at nine o'clock at night I determined to go to town early, get a sandwich and watch a movie and then amble over to the police station, put in four hours to cover lunch breaks for my overnight colleagues and to help with the midnight flood of calls and then ride home in the glorious cold dark of the empty Overseas Highway.

The thing about Christmas in the Keys is you can't avoid it. For some people the electric icicles are a celebration of their escape from the real thing. For others the fake snow and palms decorated like pine trees are ironic statements while a third group decorate with nostalgia and longing in their hearts. For my part as averse as I am to the whole Season of Goodwill and it's commercially induced stress I enjoy the light show wherever I find it and ignore the unspoken messages inherent in the celebration of snowy winter in a place where winter is a pale imitation of its Nordic frigid self.

There are the usual complaints in the paper about the lack of Christmas decorations in the city leading to inevitable declines in visitor numbers leading to loss of city income followed by visions of bankruptcy and social disaster. Ho hum. The Citizen's Voice is always hijacked this time of year by the winter snowbirds who rejoice in their four month long Bitch Fest about everything that should be changed in Key West to make the Southernmost City more closely resemble the dullard conventional towns they have left behind for the winter. Parking, bicycles, road construction, noise, drunks and irritating neighbors. It's a wonder anybody wants to spend winter in this nasty little town instead of enjoying the civility of Kansas or the industriousness of Duluth or the personality of Peoria. I sigh and remind myself to live and let live. Check this inventive, grounded, city-specific celebration of the season. By day:

After dark:

Tell me this celebration of the season, combining proper Christmas colors with artifacts of the city's commercial fishing and boating history isn't clever and sentimental and worth all the plastic dangling made-in-China Santas you will find in most municipalities? It's too bad the commercial fishing has gone to Stock Island but you can't have everything.

People laugh at me when I complain the temperatures have dropped to the mid sixties or upper fifties while they quote appallingly low figures from the towns wherein they are stuck, moving by snowmobile and husky. You would be surprised if you came to Key West in the middle of a cold front expecting me to be full of shit (yet again). I have heard many toughened Northerners admit temperatures here feel much colder than the numbers would indicate. It happens over and over again as visitors find themselves surprised by the unexpected viciousness of sixty southernmost degrees.

I think the frigid nature of the cold fronts cans be explained in part by the rampant humidity, the openness to the slightest of sea breezes, the nature of construction in these parts where homes are poorly insulated and geared towards the free flow of hot summer air. Besides, the human psyche is affected by the expectation of overwhelming heat whatever the time of year in Key West, city of eternal summer. You need to go further south, to the true Caribbean for that.

Winter catches all of us by surprise. While I was at work I got a 9-1-1 call from a small convenience store, and the clerk was severely agitated. I feared a robbery from the panic in his voice but I managed to help him articulate the problem as a fire in the store. I toned out the fire department while Nick sent a couple of officers for traffic control and soon enough we got reassurance over the radio. They had the heat on in the store and smoke was coming off the dust encrusted heater coils. "Singed cat syndrome," I called out to reassure Nick who laughed in sympathy. We've all been there if we've lived in the Keys for any length of time.

Some people love the cold of winter and I like the chill - at first. I enjoy the change of season and the first cold fronts. But winter lasts four months at least and it gets old. I work with youngsters who have never seen snow and they make expeditions Up North to find someplace where they can try out the joys of snowball fights like "normal" youngsters. One of them told me he felt gypped by snow. "It looks soft and gentle but it's nasty cold sticky ice disguised as feathers." I don't miss it at all; I thought Santa Cruz California was far too cold in winter, season of frost and mud blessed with an icy ocean year round.

They tell us Key West is a Caribbean tropical island, and it's none of those things. The Tropic of Cancer is sixty miles south of the Southernmost Point and when I listen to Havana's Radio Reloj (590 and 950 am) they report cold fronts sweeping the north coast of Cuba just like we have here and they are tropical! This little peninsula is well north of the true Caribbean so when I get tired of cold fronts I start yearning for the hot endless summer of Puerto Rico or the Virgin Islands, or the baguettes of Martinique or the goat roti of Grenada. And yet...

Life is compromise, and the Key West compromise isn't so bad. The cold fronts aren't so cold, the traffic isn't that bad, the whiners remind us to be grateful and the convenience of not being an actual island is inestimable.

Happy Christmas wherever you are freezing your toes off, from the almost tropics, on an almost island, set in a sea which if it isn't Caribbean makes a pretty good job of looking like it.

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