Pouncing Tourists

The cold front has pretty much blown itself out and sunshine is back where it belongs, right over South Florida, my back yard.

 

I need to pull myself together and go into Key West for more than work, there are good movies at the Tropic and parking is available (which it always is for motorcycles of course) but here I am at the end of another short week and no sign of me idly away an afternoon in the metropolis. I am enjoying the outdoors in the out islands just a tad too much. It is pleasant with the added benefit of avoiding encounters like with these good folk who came by and disturbed me, but not my dog, as we hung out on Niles  Road on Summerland Key of an afternoon reading and tasting the breeze. 

I was sitting in my beach chair at the end of a dead end reading. I like to use a folding chair that I carry in the trunk of my Fusion as it gives me the versatility to stop and be by myself as the mood takes me.

Then they pulled up, got out, left the engine running and walked up to me and pounced.

"It's shallow here," she said staring at the water like a general planning a strategy. Then she turned to me and accused me of knowledge which I desperately wanted to deny. " Fishing good here?" she was as  brusque as a New Yorker trying to make friends. "I'm told so," I whispered hoping to escape with my testes intact. "Want to kayak," she barked. "I think its pretty boring," I said, foolishly offering an opinion, "when you've seen one mangrove, you've seen 'em all they say." I have watched squadrons of people battling wind and current on vast expanses of water and they seem to make such a meal of it. I like to paddle gently close in and take my time looking but she didn't seem the type. I figured she'd get bored but I needn't have worried.  They strode off ignoring the dog turd and his dog as though we never had existed. Cheyenne had already taken her cue from the visiting general and was practicing ignoring rude people.

I have been reading this  rather fun story about a Canadian and his Danish wife riding a Lambretta through Latin America in 1959. I am amazed how little they knew before they set off and I have reflected that they were probably greatly helped by the lack of Internet. Web fora  are full of  unsolicited advice and cautions that make any potential adventure sound like a death trap. Plus nowadays people seem to need affirmation on line for every planned adventure and ask strangers to tell them how to evaluate their plans for them. In those days knowing nothing we just tended to take off and hope for the best and no one was any the wiser which I think made it easier.  Reading this makes me want to get my restored 1979 Vespa ready for a trip before I die. First I need to get the P200 back from the restorer, an interminable process it turns out.

Meanwhile one has to be prepared for a few more years work, including quite a few short weeks when much of the time between Saturdays is mine own to do with as I please and frequently I please to sit and watch the water under the sun.

Hanging out watching other people, and birds, be industrious suits my  non-industrious temperament.

Most days even my dog looks more busy than me chasing hints of smells with much energy.

I like to stop and stare because I think of myself more as a human being than a human doing. Clyde Butcher calls clouds "Florida Mountains." I love his pictures, as technically brilliant as Ansell Adams but very much alive where an Adams picture looks like a still life, to me.

I was walking Cheyenne back to the car on William Street in Key West a while back when a stranger approached me and started shouting at me. I stared at him wondering if he needed an ambulance. In fact he had a question about parking but he was so aggressive about it I felt like Ukraine facing down Russia. Whatever happened to saying "Good morning" or "Sorry to bother you..." Instead these crass people just walk up to you and launch into some diatribe or another. This guy needed to know how long you could park on a Key West street and he asked a total stranger trusting me to be honest. Which, as I work for the police, I felt obliged to be truthful. I also felt like asking him to bring his manners  next time he travels south but I didn't want to sound like some petulant character out of a Faulkner novel. 

How to be a tourist might be the title of the next self help book that needs to be published except no one would buy it because no one wants to be identified as a tourist. Everyone wants to be a traveler, or worse yet, a local, or at least look like one but being aggressive marks you as decidedly not unless you are drunk. For instance, when you have a vast spacious empty parking lot in a beautiful place, park your car properly and take a short gentle stroll, enjoy the scenery, breathe deep of the fresh sea air. Or be crass and park attempting to evade any locomotion at all, and above all never turn your engine off to allow annoying nature to be audible.

But whatever you do, try to summon up those manners your mother never bothered to teach you. Make her proud even if she really couldn't care less, because as nice as it is to live here, being pounced on by strangers does not enhance the experience, y'all.

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More Bloody Alligators

I had to do some of those absurd chores that mainland dwellers only ever have to do. Here in paradise stuff like going to the bank and buying milk is not something we have to concern ourselves with, as this is like living in Disneyworld and everyday chores happen effortlessly after dark when the Disney gnomes and janitors come out and re-stock our fridges and launder our costumes for us so we can go about our day being locals in the Fabulous Florida Keys.

Which is not exactly how it happens in real life so I was in fact going to the bank and Winn Dixie and Cheyenne was snoozing so I figured I might as well ride. It was an overcast cool day and I was having as much as fun as one can have with a Vespa in a  corner of Flatistan not renowned for its variety of roads. But I have been around Big Pine Key a bit so I knew where there were some back roads I hadn't explored in a  while, so yesterday was the day to do just that.

Then  as Ixora became 17th which dead ended into Wilder Road I thought to myself: Self, how can we put off shopping for  food for a little bit longer while having fun puttering by Vespa? Why, we should go and see if there are any alligators at the Blue Hole, self suggested. And, by gum there were alligators in the Blue Hole, two of them sunning themselves in the weak sunshine that had broken through the cloud cover.   

Usually in winter there is always somebody at the Blue Hole, a former gravel quarry on Key Deer Boulevard but  winter season is over and emptiness is starting to prevail.

A loud family was walking across the opposite side of the pond but I was alone at the observation deck with two relatively large dinosaurs, the largest perhaps six feet long at most?

It was me, alone with my alligators, and the usual detritus of human visitors, plastic and trash. I wasn't going to reach in to collect the bottles thoughtlessly hurled into the water, but it was in fact a plastic toy that a previous occupant known as Bacardi swallowed and from which ingestion the alligator died. These creatures have more to fear from us than we from them it turns out. 

That lesson is brought home to any thinking visitor by the fact that there are no fences keeping these toothy residents away from stupid people ambling the paths around the hole. Last time I brought Cheyenne here she tried to get down to the water to take a drink but she is not necessarily large enough to frighten an alligator so a tight leash is a good idea around here.

It is true that people do get attacked by alligators in South Florida  so it is wise not to swim in fresh water unless you have a pretty good idea who is in it. The problem with alligators and crocodiles is that they are opportunistic, and will seize and drown victims even if they aren't hungry. they cannot tear very easily with their fixed jaws so they parked their drowned victims in  holes and wait for them to rot. This means that unlike sharks which hunt when hungry usually at dusk and dawn, alligators and crocodiles snag  food when available.

 Florida has  an abundance of fresh water alligators but the rather less aggressive (they say) salt water crocodile is endangered. The difference between the two is hard to discern, a slightly more square snout on the crocodile I am told and a shy retiring personality. Supposedly you can find them anywhere in the Keys and Florida Bay but outside Key Largo crocodiles are hardly ever seen and outside the Blue Hole there is no body of fresh water to sustain alligators.

Like pirates, alligators suffer from an image problem that has little to do with the reality of their lives, and like pirates that never hung out in Key West, alligators animate visitors' imaginations more than they do any reality of daily life in the Fabulous Florida Keys.

The truth is that laundry plays a far bigger role in daily life around here than alligators. It would be fun to be able to claim that alligator wrestling is a constant feature of an exciting dynamic life around here but you are probably more at risk of dying in a blizzard than I am of encountering an aggressive reptile.

 

If I am to die a violent death I am far more likely to be run down while amusing myself on two wheels than as lunch for a croc...banal but true.

My wife's ET4 Vespa is a mild unassuming thing but like alligators it moves surprisingly fast and has cut off more low self esteem penises on Overseas Highway drivers than you might imagine have been eaten by alligators. I am still waiting for my restored P200 Vespa to be restored to me, but that too should do a nice job of riding faster than car drivers expect and with a manual gearbox it should be easier to explore on dirt on the back roads of Big Pine. At least we know the alligators will always be at the Blue Hole on Big Pine assuming the humans don't kill them.   

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Sugarloaf Revisited

Every other week I work two nights as opposed to six on my "long week." So, on my short week I do chores and take my dog on extravagant walks, which this week has coincided happily with a very minor but very refreshing cool front. 75 degrees days are entirely acceptable to my wooly haired minor mammoth so I figured I had one last shot at getting to check out the Sugarloaf Loop before summer sets in.

Key West Diary: Sugarloaf Loop Road This picture below is of the vast emptiness of Old State Road 939A.

I took that picture yesterday thinking to illustrate how empty the Keys will be after the temporary residents of winter have left. Yet Cheyenne and I were not alone at the junction of 939A and Sugarloaf Boulevard. There were two other cars parked next to the entrance to the Loop Road. Oh well, it's hard to be alone on small easily accessible islands!

People do love their signs, so I am forced to wonder if anyone has ever been fined five hundred bucks for littering. Conversely do you suppose there is a dog to be ware of below? Do two "posted" signs double the value of one No Trespassing sign?

This fancifully decorated gate is just over 17 and a quarter miles from Whitehead and Fleming Streets, where Mile Marker Zero marks the start of the Overseas Highway at the Courthouse. 17.270 miles.

The entrance to the Loop Road is also heavily signposted. I wonder if we can ever return to a society of rational self reliance and common sense.

With so much signage is it any surprise the artists take it upon themselves to add their two cents to the freshly painted barriers? This one is a tad bit obscure but it probably means "No Sitting."

Cheyenne ruined any hope I had of making it to the bridge three hundred yards up the Loop Road. She stopped and looked at me in that way she has so I obediently turned tail.

I hate gunfire calls when I'm at work. "I know shots...I recognize caliber so-and-so shots...I have experience..." People always know they heard gunshots. So we dispatchers obediently put out a call for gunshots and when the officers hear that magic word on the radio their hackles go up. That's when I have to sit there, behind two locked doors and hope the terribly experienced callers are wrong again and they really couldn't tell the difference between a gunshot and a fire cracker... So far so good and no one I work with has been shot. But what a weird road sign. I suppose people like to drive these lonely four miles to find a spot to loose off their fire arms. A cheerful prospect!

This place has seen better days, gates hanging limply and not a sign to be seen. Call me sensitive but I didn't figure the absence of warning signs was an invitation to drop in so we went on by. The economy may be rebounding in Manhattan and D.C. but out here there are lots of abandoned properties.

And towards the end of the navigable portion of the highway the asphalt starts to look crappy. 1500 feet to go the sign says and then the road ends.

Which was where I found a bunch of people streaming out of the wooded trail necks craned skyward. They said they were bird watchers. They saw frigate birds and cat birds which I thought was an odd name for a bird. Cat bird sounds like lunch for a pussy. I left them staring aloft as though spotting the Holy Grail.

"A juvenile and an adult female" an authoritative voice called out as they craned their necks. I looked up and saw two black specks highlighted against a white cloud far above. Even I know how to recognize frigate birds, often seen floating far above the waves far out to sea. They have distinctive crossed tail feathers, but I'm buggered if I know what a juvenile looks like a quarter mile away or even right up close. Then another lot came tramping down the foot trail, the former state road now abandoned to mangroves.

See the dog? Once again deciding she was going that far and no further. The last time we walked the four miles to the end of the trail I ended up carrying her out. Key West Diary: A Short Walk On Sugarloaf Key I think that fiasco was the beginning of the end of Cheyenne's faith in me as a mangrove guide. We did overdo it a bit.

The pretty little park back at the bridge is looking a little worn. The gate has been smashed as though by some dipshit determined to prove that vehicles can drive into the park...

...the bridge on State Road 939A was looking unusually picturesque so I took a photo, though...

...this is the view most people come to see here:

A boat came zipping down the canal from God knows where, under the bridge and out to sea:

A fishing boat pirouetted interminably chasing it's floats and rending the silence with it's endlessly buzzing engine.

Even a couple of kayakers who put in at the kayak ramp in the park contributed their own raucous debate with their silent craft. He sounded like a small steam engine struggling up a steep grade as he humped the two person kayak from his car, thumping the stern periodically as he struggled. Once they got in the boat he issued instructions to his harassed woman with decided tone of voice violations which made the man in my pink Crocs cringe. "Not like that!" And "Where's my phone?" And "This way!" And on and on till mercifully they splashed round the corner and were out of ear-sight shot. They looked good though against the green and blue and white.

Cheyenne got up, shook off and looked at me. I obediently closed my book and got up to follow her. She was ready to go home.

We drove at the speed limit, alone at last, with only this peculiarly worded threat to remind us of the people we had met and signs we had read in the unsettled part of a Sugarloaf Key.

Thickly settled indeed. Well, even if they aren't too bright do we really need a sign pointing it out?

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Strange Doings In Key West

Last week was National Telecommunicator Week and our bosses let us work in street clothes. Our uniform requirements aren't too stringent, a polo shirt with a police logo on it (which makes standing in line at the convenience store on your way to, or from work a little awkward) non cargo pants and closed toe shoes. However last week saw shorts, plaid shirts, tie dyes and sweat pants, not all at once, but I have to say I enjoyed the momentary informality, even though uniforms make life simple in the long run. No bad sartorial choices can be made when in uniform.

I don't feel the daily stress of answering 911 calls or trying to hold radio conversations with muffled police radios, with officers in crowds, or radio microphones joggling on lapels while the officer has a dozen different things on his/her mind in the middle of the street. At the end of a long week though all I want to do is sleep, which suggests to me that I do tend to get a bit wound up. The three of us last Saturday morning were ready to be catapaulted from the room to enjoy a weekend off. Shannon had read somewhere that too much sitting down will kill you so periodically she makes us get up, Nick and I, which was how I caught her standing and typing while I waited for her words to reach my computer so I could dispatch the officers. Happy Telecommunicator Week! It was nice to be remembered but life, and it's failures, go on even in Key West.

"Key West Nine One One. What's the address of your emergency?" In emergency response, Key West is as modern as anywhere and I'm going to guess our callers are grateful we are up to speed.

Tonight the city commission meets at six at Old City Hall and will supposedly put its final seal of approval on a noise ordinance that some Old Town residents say will be a life saver, while others say it will kill jobs. Gentrification they say is killing Key West.

Imagine my surprise when I came across this newspaper article from 25 years ago, same exact issues, same people, same fears:

The News-Journal - Google News Archive Search

The same Pritam Singh mentioned is raising this 98 room hotel on Caroline Street and it's construction will have a few knock-on effects for gentrification. The city is planning to beautify Caroline Street to complement the hotel and merchants say bike paths and planters will cover their storefronts and reduce the flow of customers into their stores. Fear is pervasive in Key West as change ripples through the city.

This discussion, Key West with One Regret is a thoughtful nostalgic and wistful look back at the author's arrival in Key West and evolution through the changes of the last few decades. He laments the changes then offers his services as a realtor to help along the process he regrets. It's a measure of Key West's resilience that things change, amid much lamentation and yet those that lament loudest profit most from the changes even as Key West manages to hold onto enough charm to draw in more visitors and more money. Gentrification simply means new people will come to Key West and make new memories. Some of them will come to the mud pit that is currently the hotel being built and make memories of their own. I suspect this structure will put the future of the Schooner Wharf next door in some doubt, as a bar with loud music doesn't mix well with an upscale resort. The waterfront property would be good for the hotel though...and I doubt I am the first to have figured that out!

For some time now gentrification has been equated with a smaller gay community, as suggested in 2005 in the New York Times article Is Key West Going Straight?

It is undoubtedly true that Key West is less gay than it was a while ago. I believe part of that is due to high costs of living pushing away the next generation, gay and straight. Which means mainland gay destinations are going to attract people who would have previously thought of coming to Key West. I think that Key West's attraction as a gay destination has shriveled even as gay acceptance has flourished across the US. I mean, Key West is hardly unique anymore in a country which has largely moved past gay rights as being "special privileges." Those that feel that way are hold-outs on the wrong side of history, so being gay is no longer unusual or special in most of the US. Key West needs to find a new shtick.

The struggle to maintain Key West's elusive character is constant. From two years ago, by a reporter who came to town only briefly and then left, this story about charter captains pleading for the waterfront to keep its special Key West flavor. Fishermen: Don't gentrify the Bight | KeysNews.com. Yet the irony here is that thirty years ago the Key West harbor was filled with smelly commercial shrimp boats that were edged out by amateur sailors and charter captains catering to rich amateur anglers...who now are the red blooded essence fighting gentrification!

Voltaire Books and the Secret Garden are both gone now but this magazine article on the literary scene strikes a familiar note, money is displacing culture. American Scene: Key West - Articles | Travel + Leisure. But is it? John dos Passos anyone? The poet Frost or Bishop? Anyone read any of them lately? Ann Beattie the novelist high on your list of summer reading? The fact is literature, publishing, reading and writing are all in a massive state of flux. Measuring the worth of a place by its literary output seems an unlikely measure to me. Besides if you look closely at the people who lived in Key West and wrote, they came, they stayed briefly and moved on. Hemingway loved Cuba, his spiritual home was Finca Vigia not Whitehead Street. Besides Key West is still home to aspiring painters and artists, just that we don't know them as famous yet.

I think what happens is that time passes and that's that. I go back to Santa CruzCalifornia from time to time, the place where I came to grips with adulthood and learned to live as an fault on my own two feet. I go back now and I find it hard to believe the kids there now are having as much fun exploring their young lives as I did exploring my life in 1982. But they are! I've outgrown Santa Cruz because it isn't the place it was when I was in my 20s. It isn't the place I remember. And in the same way Key West, not pregnant with memories is suitable now as the place to grow old, if I can hold on as it out-gentrifies me. Before the advent of the internet Key West really was a back water and it wasn't what I wanted. I'm clear on that.

The fact is everywhere is changing. It's hard to believe but Miami was a backwater, and a cocaine fueled one at that in 1982. Key West somehow manages go stay literate, vital, funky and out of the mainstream and even if it isn't what it was thirty years ago, it's still a great place to live. I had a good life elsewhere, in a literary artistic gay friendly community on the West Coast so I don't feel like I wasted my youth in an unhappy place, and the great benefit of having friends in Key West, sailing here from time to time, yet not staying is that I could choose my moment when it was right for me to stay. It's what Hemingway did, Dos Passos did, what Bishop did, what Tennessee Williams did, and what you and I will do in the fullness of time. We have but one life and it must be lived, in Key West or not. And, if the city commission cracks down tonight on the noise ordinance there will be plenty of angry clucking but I'm going to guess nothing much will change. At heart it never really does in the Southernmost City.

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