Cheyenne At Higgs Beach

I showed this pictures to my colleagues at work when we were talking about our pets. I explained how Cheyenne hunts down things that smell good and sometimes she needs my help. Nick and Shannon laughed at me indulging my old happy predator. I love Cheyenne but she is a dog and offering to read her a bedtime story won't do anything other than irritate her. She amuses herself but urban hunting and then when it's time to sleep she wants to be left in peace. Finding scraps is bound to be bad for her but to defy the common wisdom Cheyenne flourishes on a regimen of love and attention, travel and constant surprises. Here today, a road trip tomorrow, nothing taken for granted, her little doggy brain kept active by my willingness to indulge her curiosity. She gave the bone a gnaw after she found it under a van and retrieved by me as she couldn't reach it and then she discarded it and off we went again. She's smart enough to deserve opposable thumbs and fingers...

The cold front put the shrimping fleet south of the island safe from the north winds. Jack Riepe has re-surfaced on Facebook, a medium I do not enjoy as much as some people do, and asked what happens to the fleet of tankers of cocktail sauce when this happens...I have no idea. A sea of cocktail sauce with no shrimp sounds awful.

Sculpture Key West's tank still holding out at the beach, long after Sculpture Key West is supposed to be over!

Higgs Park, the open space behind the beach is closed by the county at eleven at night but during the day anyone can enjoy the open space...

...even chickens of course. As well as the idle poor.

I suppose one should be all Victorian about them and get one's knickers in a twist about laziness and lack of motivation but then one remembers how many homeless are people with mental health issues and how Reaganomics has masterfully deprived them of help and one wonders why we blame them and not our Dear Leaders. Mix in a few determined shirkers and the perfect al fresco climate and this, common sense tells us, is bound to be the result. And it will get worse as the economy only pretends to improve and the people in charge get more removed from us, the lower orders. Debtors prisons, the poorhouse, and indentured servitude soon doubtless be making a comeback as the bedrock of our social order. Deuteronomy 15:11 comes to mind.

This guy below was, like me, making a statement that we the housed also enjoy this park alongside the residentially challenged. He was using a small warped tennis racquet to bounce a ball off the wall. I wondered why he needed to make it so difficult for himself.

He said it was lacrosse, a "North Eastern thing," which I assumed meant people in pocket handkerchief sized states across New England spend the long lingering dusk of summer evenings chasing each other across statelines in pursuit of the impossibly fast ball. He spent a lot of time running around the park trying to scoop it into the absurdly small net attached to his hockey stick. Cheyenne and I ambled on.

Rain threatened but the gods were spent and they stopped weeping.

These last lingering winter storms defy the stereotype of a sunny humid town but they bring their own beauty and a certain measure of relief from endless summer days. If cold fronts brought snow and ice I would decamp for foreign parts and become a bum myself, a stranger in a strange land.

It will get too hot for her again far too soon.

 

My dog the hunter of unconsidered trifles.

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A Cool Front

No wonder it was so hot the past couple of days. Tuesday evening the sky turned black such that we seemed to suffer a premature sunset and night fell well before the usual half past seven-ish deadline. Then it started to rain and then the wind kicked up waving trees around and pushing the slashing downpour horizontal. There's an old sailor's ditty about wind and rain which says if the rain comes first the storm will be strong and prolonged. A topsail on a square rigger is the last sail deployed, used when winds are light to get some extra power out of a gentle breeze. Thus bringing them in is a way to make sure you didn't strain the integrity of the masts and rigging.

There are several versions of the saying: "Rain before wind, bring tops'ls in - wind before rain, tops'ls can remain." What it means is: if the rain comes before the wind, there is a major storm coming whereas, if the wind comes before the rain, it is just a minor blow (like maybe a squall). Just one of the ways sailors forcasted weather when at sea back before they had radios and the National Weather Service.

This squall did in fact go on for a while and I went in to work at ten o'clock in the car. Which act of motorcycling laziness guaranteed the rain dried up before midnight.

It meant a rather dreary day for visitors eager to get on the water Wednesday as it was fairly rough for gentle landlubber sensibilities with a steady northwest wind blowing. In the bad old days power outages were common when wind and rain lashed the power lines which run alongside Highway One. These days the main power lines are on huge steel poles, ugly as hell but effective they say up to hurricane wind speeds of about 155 mph. Even secondary lines are now starting to hang off solid cement poles which are slowly replacing the original wooden poles. Thus it was with a twinge of cheerful nostalgia that I noticed a momentary brown out at the height of the storm. It wasn't even enough to get the digital clocks blinking but it was a gentle reminder that things are a lot more industrialized than they used to be but the potential for chaos remains.

Spring Break is over and very grateful I am for that. However the Overseas Highway is still packed with cars coming and going. The wind was strong especially on the bridges and when I went to the dentist I took the Bonneville figuring the motorcycle would hold its own better than my wife's Vespa which I tend to ride at its speed limit in neutral conditions. Living as I do along one solitary highway the weather plays a big role in varying the daily ride and fighting the wind was fun as I hadn't done that in a while. Fighting is a poor choice of words as the best way to ride in strong winds is to relax and loosen your grip on the handlebars. That and paying attention allows the bike to find its own way and there is no drama riding in strong crosswinds.

Cheyenne loves the cool weather of course and a twenty degree drop from 91 to 72 was most welcome. She took off like a furry rocket when I opened the car door on William Street and we sauntered rather more briskly than usual all the way to the waterfront. We marched back and forth and roundabout until eventually she tired. The sun was appearing fitfully between clouds, the temperature was rising a little and Cheyenne sought out shade. I perched on the wall at the New Market on Caroline street and watched a young man unload a delivery of potato chips, food that is described by the manufacturer rather bafflingly as "fun." As I pondered the slogan and tried to imagine what "fun food" might do for amusement, I noticed the delivery driver eyeing me apprehensively on my perch. "I have a job," I called out, "I'm just practicing being homeless as a precaution," I said. He didn't seem to be reassured and carefully locked the back doors of his van as he delivered the boxes inside the store.

We plodded back up Margaret Street, the heat increasing as we walked either the breeze blowing from behind us. Cheyenne stopped here and there and adopted the full alligator position to cool off. I too am sick of people advertising their running. A Zero K is the perfect antidote to faddish adherence to a craze. Running will vanish soon enough and we will all be Zero K adherents once again.

Cheyenne is very clear on the subject. When I first got her from the pound and took her for walks she would try to run but I gently dissuaded her and she happily took to holding me up by sniffing everything with vacuum cleaner snorts. She seemed to enjoy every second of slow and thorough exploration with her new Zero K boss. My speculation is the bastard family that used to own her not only exploited her to produce puppies, bad enough in a world filled with too many dogs already, but also used her as an exercise tool to accompany their long legged runs. When she got too old and tired to keep up they threw her away. I wish there were a hell in which they could burn.

I let her rest here and there, a drink at Michael's dog bowl, a nap in the shade. We slowly made our way across town back to the car. The cool front was warmer, we were tired, and we ran not one step together.

 

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Truman Annex

I was in Key West yesterday without my shadow and so I went o see the Truman Annex, Key West's gated community. As you can see it prides itself on not being part of the Conch Republic:

The guard hut on Southard Street acts as a symbol of apartness during the day and no stops are required as there is no one inside.

This was the reason for my visit in the absence of Cheyenne:

However it's only ragamuffin visiting dogs that are banned from the sterile delights of Truman Annex.

The story goes that the man hi developed these 17 acres first came to Key West from New England and lived rough, as many have. He went on to bid on the Navy property being handed to civilian use as the Navy presence in Key West shrank. He went bust irst time around they say but rallied and pulled together the creation of a community apart "in the style of" Key West.

Apart behind fences and gates and guard huts.

The Key West style is pretty obvious...

...white paint, peaked roofs...

...white picket fences and palm trees.

to me it looks like Legoland, a version of Key West's Old Town for people who can't handle the real thing.

There is no smell of stale beer, no passed out paralytics lying in their own vomit on the sidewalks and no shop clerks soliciting you to buy dust catchers for fie' dolla'.

Okay, here's a test. Is this the real Key West, or a gated facsimile in the "Key West style?"

Some people say these homes are not well built but this place has been chugging long for years now and sure there re some signs of wear and tear but I think the mumblings are not spoken in the spirit of reality.

Truman Annex is effectively amaze of identical streets and lanes, and unlike the rest of the city this enclave went to court and secured the right to allow short term rentals (less than 28 days) without the property owner purchasing a city permit. This debate pitted permanent residents against future residents who wanted to make some rental income in the meantime and the outcome is in my opinion one more negative about a community that is neat and sterile set in a larger community that is messy yet vibrant and complex and chaotic.

The streets of the Annex make an attempt to act as continuations of the streets outside, beyond the gates. Above we see Noah invoked, not he of the Ark, but he who is the developer's son...as it happens. Below Fleming Street passes through an iron gate at the U S Post Office.

It takes an army of workers to keep the grass short, the hedges trimmed and the coconut palms respectful.

Beyond the fence lies the rough grass of the park-to-be at Truman Waterfront. The city has agreed to follow through on a promise to put an old folk's home on six acres on the other side of the fence, between the private community and the harbor. There have been protests from people across Key West who want all 34 former Navy acres to become a manicured park but the retirement home now has the official go ahead.

The Truman Annex Master Property Owners' Association which runs the Annex took on the city a few years ago and proposed closing the gates on Southard Street. The city commission folded like a cheap suit giving up its rights to a public street but the Navy intervened and said slowly and clearly that they needed Southard Street to stay open 24 hours a day to service their waterfront base. The new Berlin Wall under construction at the gate was torn down promptly without a peep from the TAMPOA bullies. I never did expect them to assert their second amendment rights and show up armed with popguns to take on the largest military in the world but it might have been fun to watch!

The Annex's history has a few markers to remind the observant of the storied past.

Key West - The Weatherstation Inn above, gives you a chance to taste the Annex without commitment. and sleep not too far from the biggest attraction in this part of town, the Southernmost White House.

It's been years since I took the tour but it was memorable and I highly recommend it. Followers of this blog know I love history, and unlike the myths of piracy the Harry Truman stories about Key West are very real and beautifully told.

He used to stroll the streets of Key West accompanied by one very discreet Secret Service agent. He met citizens, shook hands and hung out in Key West totally unmolested. What a terrible nation we are become where we segregate the President as though a Monarch.

The Truman Little White House has events and regularly invites descendants of the Great Man to speak in Key West. I have no memories of my grandfather and had he been a President I am not sure what I could add to the recorded history of his life but the Truman grandchildren keep showing up and smile dutifully for the newspaper. These chickens are the only ones I saw polluting the grounds of the Annex but they were on Truman's hallowed ground so I suppose they got away with it.

There are a few benches near the Westin entrance on Front Street.

And the business og making money is never far away.

Walking tour anyone? Dog-free of course!

And there it is, Truman Annex.

 

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Meeting Jeffrey

I suck at taking pictures of people and I can only tell you SingingtoJeffreysTune doesn't look at all like this. But I did actually get to meet him in Fort Myers yesterday.

I think he has been following my blog as long as anyone and how silly is it we've never met? Done that, got the photo and my wife was there to witness the encounter in Southwest Florida.

We talked a good long while over a slow lunch so when it was time to go back to the blessed Florida Keys it was afternoon and the light over the Everglades was lovely. Check out those clouds. It was hot and dry and windy in the Everglades yesterday on the birthday in 1890 of Marjory Stoneman Douglas, the woman who write so passionately about this area that she is credited with saving it from total destruction. Florida is a state that has only slowly one to terms with the importance and beauty of its peculiar geography.

Jeffrey and I were talking about being slightly mentally deformed; he writes code for a living, I answer 911 calls. We talk to much and too fast and we understand each other perfectly. The world shrank, my wife was a spectator and my dig was asleep in the car in the air conditioning. At the Micosukee Service Plaza on I-75 she sank her forelegs into a retention pond and drank deep. No alligators appeared and she drank deeply.

Jeffrey wanted to meet Cheyenne, the dog of a million photos on this page but all she could think as she shook herself and descended from her air conditioned chariot was how bloody hot Fort Myers was of a Spring afternoon. 91 degrees actually. She posed for a picture and got back into our cool breezy Ford Fusion to escape the heat.

We stopped for a pee at the Indian service area off the freeway in the middle of the Everglades. It was hit and dry but it was break from the four lanes she malls of the congested I-75 corridor we had left behind on the coast.

The Miccosukee are a branch of the Seminoles who retreated to southFlorida swamps in the19th century along with a few runaway slaves to make a life away from white people and their intrusions. They have extra-territorial lands next to the Seminoles in the middle of the state.

We white transgressors pay fullump price out here as we stand and listen to the wind. I love this part of Florida as flat and uninteresting as it looks when you first see it. It is wilderness, hot and buggy and remote.

They live in villages behind privacy fences and they build tiki huts with palm fronds tightly woven as roofs.

We were but two hours from Jeffrey and civilization but we were a world away.

I miss you already, Parker's Dad, with the enthusiasm of youth and the wisdom of parenthood.

And no, I still cannot read computer code.

 

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