Key West, The End Of The Road

I took the title of this essay from my first picture shown here, which I made at the end of Blimp Road, not far from our new home on Cudjoe Key. I heard voices coming from the mangroves and expected to see kayakers rounding the corner coming back to their pickup truck. Instead a group of pedestrians came splashing back, long necks in hand. So, if you want to go boating and really save money forget paddling - try walking!

I posted this next picture on my Facebook page, a place for occasional, real time pictures, not words. I am no longer surprised by the ability of Key West to handle professional idlers. Visitors don't handle them so well, many call 911 freaked out and the more I try to reassure them the less they believe me that we handle these people. Memorial Weekend saw lots of people in town and many of them were freaked out by the drunks and it occurred to me that this is my normal. I'm sorry if you come to Key West and see bums (and visitors) passed out. It's not the best part of living here. It just is what happens daily in a frost-free zone devoted to the sybaritic pleasures of the hangover.

In one way or another almost all people here work to please the visitors and even though their grammar syntax and spelling sometimes leave something to be desired, the work gets done. Need your bags stored? Look for them at the turminal...

It's been a long weekend for those of us that worked in the police department, and we in dispatch always short staffed. I think a lot of people in town this holiday weekend had fun, and we workers make our fun where we find it between urgent calls. We have a new trainee starting soon in dispatch, the sole survivor of the last batch of six applicants and I was musing out loud about how the entire city operates when we can't fill our ranks in a job with livable pay, great benefits, and good hours. How I wondered do employers hire people who are paid half what we get, no sick leave, paid vacation, old fashioned pension plan and proper health benefits?

My young colleagues are fast food connoisseurs, not that they don't eat at sit down restaurants but they know the lay of the land in those places that serve food in a bag in a hurry. How do they find staff? Not well they said to me, I who don't eat at drive throughs much. There followed stories of crazy food orders filled by staff who seemed to lack a clue...Veggie flat bread replaced in the bag by a sausage croissant...Want cream in your coffee? Don't count on it...Hash browns half cooked and half frozen and dumped in the bag so they cover everything else... I love the stories, told through laughter by my colleagues interrupted by phone calls and radio traffic, sentences dropped and picked up as work allowed. The stories remind me that Key West sometimes tries to imitate the mainland but it doesn't quite work. Yes it's a franchise, but not quite the way you might expect.

If you want fast food the range is limited, Wendy's, McDonald's, Burger King, Dairy Queen, IHOP, Denny's, Dunkin Doughnuts, and a couple of sit down chains TGIF and Outback. When I'm on the mainland I like to try stuff not available here, ethnic mostly, like Indian or Vietnamese, but my coworkers crave places I am not familiar with, Sonic, Chipotle, Macaroni Grill and the homophobe chicken place. I think a lot of it has to do with craving what you don't have, a weird human genetic flaw that crops up in the most unexpected places.

There are those who think living at the end of the road is a privilege, as if longevity and eccentricity confer status. It's a nice conceit in a society that on the whole prefers to venerate wealth and fame and beauty. Dropping out is a suitable alternative for those who like to answer the question "Do you live here?" In the affirmative. When asked I reply that I work here but live up the road. I ruminated on this page a few months ago about living in Key West itself but my wife and I decided upon mature reflection that life in the city conferred few advantages and more disadvantages. Saving money by not commuting was negated when my wife hit a job in Marathon. The ability to visit bars without driving is not much use to us and we still get into town enough to let us feel connected, yet apart. Writing this overlooking our canal with no sounds of sirens or planes or traffic is an immense privilege in a world filled with noise.

When I lived in California similar pride of place was expressed by incomers who described themselves as refugees from reality who could go no further west in their efforts to escape snow or regimentation in uncomprehending families or cruel fate (unspecified). I liked the mountains close by the sea, the woods and the acceptance in a community where everyone had migrated and where one was from, mattered not at all. I was young and liked living in town where the lights and the girls and the events and culture were. In Key West one of the hardest cultural differences to overcome for me was the mixing of locals, winter residents and visitors in a constantly shifting kaleidoscope of people. In Santa Cruz tourists drove off the freeway, down Ocean Avenue in a constant stream and spent the day at the beach boardwalk. We locals lived separate lives, in other places close but separate. There were no locals' discounts to differentiate us. In Key West there is no separation, the end of the road bags everyone in one small place.

We may not have fast food but there is a hospital, not much respected in some quarters, and the ambulances run back and forth much as they do anywhere in this US. Phones work like they do where you live and packages are delivered with no island surcharge. I find it difficult to disentangle the ordinary from the unexpected, I find it hard to know what outsiders see as unusual anymore. Too often the end of the road is sold as a permanent vacation, but as my idea of time is to explore, not drink in a bar, I am occasionally at a loss yo know how visitors see this little town. It's sold as a drinking town so I am surprised when people get astonished by the sight of the inevitable effects of excess. The ambulances are there for them too.

Making do with less is I think the theme of life here. It's unAmerican to conserve we are told, in the face of declining resources worldwide, and technology will save the lifestyle of conspicuous consumption we love. But in Key West large homes are rare, cars are optional, and high prestige cars mean not much in town where they can' the serviced. If you have a sense of balance and can ride two wheels conservation comes naturally, not labeled as a (subversive) lifestyle. My dentist rides a scooter to work. Don't be surprised to see women formally dressed and in heels riding through town. Bicycles do manual labor. It's not a response to climate change and the certainty of rising oceans, it's just a sensible response to local conditions.

Making do with less is a seductive mantra isn't it? It's not easy to do, I'll tell you that. I thought my wife and I were living compact until we moved, and boy, I moved tons of boxes to get us into our new place. The end of the road is a place of paradox, more so than most places I've seen. You'd think that by living close to the edge the principles of conservation, ecology and preservation would be not just a priority but a way of life. Oddly enough it's not. Some people get it, but those who live here to escape aren't necessarily interested in the state of the reef, or how to improve the trash stream. Just waking up daily is achievement enough in a town with an absurd cost of living, and where the seduction of pleasure outweighs the seduction of conservation. Hang overs cost real money on Duval Street.

I doubt I can achieve the proper Buddhist state of letting go, but I do try to live mindfully, enjoying what I can while trying not to let the outside world bother me, and it does. It bothers me that we as one of the richest nations can't work together for the general welfare, what the Founders intended as the most good for the most people. Jesus told us to be our brother's keeper, despite Cain's contempt for the idea, to be mindful of the least among us, (Acts of the Apostles 20:35) but we seem collectively to do a piss poor job of that, preferring to believe that least among us are a pain in our collective rear end, which they are! Freedom is our watchword, but freedom to live on the streets seems rather harsh to me in a world of declining jobs and increasingly expensive energy.

Yet Florida has a solid budget, Key West is trundling along, and our new home has two bathrooms and a solid dock on a canal quieter and cleaner than the one we used to live on. What's not to like? Besides my county seat is inhabited by people who still know how to wield a dustpan and brush in public places. Self reliance, old world style:

I don't live here, I walk my dog here, I work here, I visit friends here and I get entertained here. Tomorrow I'm having lunch here. Come on down, the end of the road is lovely, warts and all.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Duncan Street By Night

Duncan's Street most famous resident, I dare say, was the late Tennessee Williams. However the playwright lived a bit further up the street than the block directly off White Street. Furthermore his home is not exactly a shrine in Key West, so at night I like to walk this most picturesque block of a pretty little street.

It's not the first time I've been here on this mission but unlike last time in distant 2011 I chose to take pictures in color.

I drive by the entrance to Duncan Street on White Street and I always want to turn down this narrow defile covered by trees and designed in such a way it looks almost as though it is either not parallel or not exactly straight. In the geometric sense.

At  three in the morning it takes on its own mysterious mantle of silence with the sounds of the breeze rushing through the leaves. The trees seem to tower over the small Conch cottages underneath.

Twenty five miles an hour seems almost too fast for such a lane. Indeed It surprises me that this street isn't a one way, its that narrow. There again most of the city would be uni-directional  if the criterion were wide streets enough for modern cars.

I parked the Vespa and went for a walk around the block, enjoying the play of light and shadow.

And one in black and white, just because...

The Dump On Cudjoe

I was out walking, as one does, and the gorgeous views were blighted by a nasty looking rag left, I hope by a fisherperson on the rail of the fishing bridge. I am not conversant with the habits of anglers but I suspect killing fish involves blood and scales and a rag might come in useful. Why it didn't end up in a convenient nearby trash can I'm not sure, but that rag set me to thinking.

The way things have been lately in my life I figured that trash was looming larger and larger on my immediate horizon and today was the day, signaled by the reeking rag, that it was time to clean up around the retired homestead before handing it over to the next occupants. So I took Robert's trailer and piled it high with an assortment of crap that should have been hauled off to the dump ages ago but I had never got round to dealing with, even using my own much smaller utility trailer...procrastination never really does pay dividends and looking around at no longer discreetly lurking piles of discarded stuff I remembered why one should clean up properly long before one is vacating. We never do though, do we? We always clean up and tidy for the next person, not for ourselves. I've done it with boats, with cars and motorcycles, so why not with a house?

I am not fond of stuff, but like cats, stuff seems to be attracted to those who dislike it most. I am terrible about throwing away stuff that could conceivably be useful one day. I hoard only books and will wear clothes long past heir dump-by date, but odds and ends that might one day find purpose and meaning in my life I discard as fast as I can. So how the hell do I keep accumulating piles of stuff? It baffles me. Anyway the pile on the trailer was big enough I attracted the attention of one of the Sheriff's motorcycle cops who fell in behind me on his green and white BMW RT1200s and he followed me through Summerland. I drove three over the speed limit, and because Robert keeps his equipment working I fearlessly used brakes and turn signals in an effort to show him everything was pukka, which was helped by the fact that the leaning tower of pizza was actually properly strapped down. Eventually he peeled off and went to find a miscreant elsewhere; no probable cause here officer...

I quite like the dump, even though I am appalled by how much we waste, and we all know that five percent of the world population in North America is responsible for 25% of the world's waste stream etc  etc... but I am astonished by how efficiently it works. Monroe County, being 100 miles long and occasionally more than a mile wide requires triple services for everything, like driver license offices, jails and hospitals even though the total population of the county (not including Key West) is around 75,000 permanent residents. So it is with the dumps in Cudjoe, Layton and on Card Sound Road. This one, off Blimp Road has always been convenient to me living just south of Big Pine Key and its open six days a week, so with mys schedule hauling crap is easy. Plue they make recycling hazardous stuff and engine oil and all that very simple too.

Sure it pongs a bit on a ninety degree afternoon but that's just the detritus of an over stuffed society. If we don't shop the economy goes south and if stuff isn't over packaged people won't buy it, they say, as a result garbage is filling landfills and threatening ground water everywhere. But hey, that's tomorrow's problem and like climate change if you don't think too much about it, it isn't real. Like I say I do think about it yet crap sticks to me in the form of unnecessary stuff. No wonder stuff sticks to people, and grows around them, those people who really don't ponder these very serious issues. People throw away three pounds of stuff each every day! in the US. 

Bob and I took a customer service course together several years ago and we renew our acquaintance when I drop by to create some open space  in my life. He took $42 off me on this occasion, giving me a perfect customer service experience, after which we caught up on the details of life. I keep expecting him to be gone but he is still here and planning his retirement as one does to go north for less cost and closer family contacts. It's the hard part of life in the Keys, most of us hang in and get used to a life as an employee. Life as a retiree frequently pushes people to seek a cheaper life Up North. And so the cast of characters changes. Change is good. Remember that. 

Driving scenic Highway One you will frequently see these covered trailers plying their way to Pompano Beach which is where the nearest available landfill is, 200 miles away. The city of Key West used to have a waste-to-energy plant that generated around a third of the city's electrical requirements. However the scrubbers wore out and rather than replace them and fight wealthy condo owners, the city yielded and ended the sensible disposal of waste.  

In the end these are not subjects we can have sensible discussions about because we live in a  world where belief trumps  knowledge and facts are pliable. People who have strong opinions push hard and heaven help them if their timelines are wrong ( they usually are as the future remains as undecipherable as ever), yet the very notion that a finite world can have finite resources is unthinkable for those in the camp who believe technology will solve all and expansion can thus be permanent. Climate change? Peak Oil? Asset bubbles? How can we even think to doubt that the future must perforce mirror the immediate past? 

For now the rates to dispose of trash are affordable, the dump is open and after an aromatic visit one can do worse than take Cheyenne for a walk and let her cool off in the increasingly acidic, rising salt waters at the end of Blimp Road. Might as well enjoy life before Armageddon and there's few better places than this, and none that I can think of right now.

From The Archives: Road Trip!

The move from our old home on Ramrod to Cudjoe Key is almost complete and not a minute too soon. We get some time to settle in and then summer vacation looms which is a break to look forward to, in a year that has seen more than its fair share of change. We had hoped to visit my family in Italy but that's not on the cards one way and another so we will be doing the middle aged version of couch surfing and dog friendlty motels (La Quinta) to keep Princess happy.Were I to say I am ready for a road trip I would not be over stating the case, as I am also eyeing the end of June for a ride up the east coast to pick up my hopefully finished and completely restored 1979 Vespa. Well, that's the main excuse which will take us to Allentown in Pennsylvania and from there we aren't sure. This picture from a trip to the scenic and hidden Valle Crucis in North Carolina a few years ago: 

We also visited then, as we plan to this year my wife's sister and her husband at their Hansel and Gretel home in the North Carolina mountains. One thing I do like to do when we get out of the Keys is to see different stuff. I would wither and die in the mountains in winter but in summer its great to see the greenery and enjoy the long languid dusk that falls so fast at tropical latitudes.

They garden and there are no iguanas to eat their raspberries...so berry picking is actual fun for us, in weather that barely raises a sweat but puts mountain folk into full sunshade mode.

It was in 2010 we last went to New Orleans and much though I'd like to go back combining Pennsylvania and Louisiana  in one, two week drive is a bit much even for me. The bits I like of New Orleans are the bits that remind me of Key West, even though the food is better and the crime is a lot worse...

It gets hot in July and Cheyenne, on her first long trip had a tendency to try to overdo it. When we got her from the pound in the winter of 2009 she was frantic to be in the car and go everywhere as she had apparently spent much of her life getting left behind. She would sit in the car all day waiting for me to drive her, and I left her there with the door open so she could get out when she wanted to.  

New Orleans kept her amused.

 We ate beignets and she sat on the sidewalk outside the Cafe du Monde watching, in fact, the world go by. She was a long way from the Key West pound.

 I knew this dog was ready to see the world.

 She got as far as California, here seen playing at It's Beach in Santa Cruz. Pacific Ocean waves were a bit big for her but frisbee on the beach was fun.

She liked the woods and mountains of the west, here at Porter Sesnon in Aptos, her face artfully masked, and I felt a little twinge when i dragged her back to the mangroves ofSouth Florida.

 We got to met riders who (used to) blog. Dan Bateman in Oregon,

 Trobaritz who can be seen with her eyes open...

 ...her troubador with a penchant for Triumphs...

...and Bobscoot, always fiddling with stuff. Richard from Alaska is in the Witness Protection Program and avoided getting his picture taken.

Cheyenne got rather burnt out after three weeks on the road and a long drive home, but we were all three glad to be back as I know I shall be after our drive. Hopefully summer will be in full force in mid July and Duval Street will be properly empty:

 White Street Pier will look ready to serve as set for a post apocalyptic movie:

 But the reality is there will be people around. There are bound to be:

I am planning a summer in the water one way or another. The past two years have seen not enough swimming and we have an expansive and easily used 40 foot dock behind our new home on Cudjoe. It must be used.

 I will eat more fish:

I will enjoy summer rains and hopefully less flooding now the city has been working on drainage. Climate change is coming and the Florida Keys look likely to suffer quite a bit as seas rise.

Yes, vacations are good to look forward to, but iots nice to enjoy being at home.