The Conch Republic's Leading Edge

67 year old Peter Anderson, the self-styled and widely admired "Secretary General of the Conch Republic" died last week from a cancer that had reduced him literally to a shadow of his former florid self. It's a powerful force of Nature that can fell a man who seemed unable to stop himself from operating at full flow at all times in life. He reveled in his role as cheerleader for the mythical Conch Republic, generally described more as a state of mind, and less of a place.

He somehow turned the Ruritanian ideal of an independent republic, created in a dispute with Federal authorities in 1982, into a way if life and a successful business. This sort of enterprise never ceases to boggle the mind. I only really became fully aware of this man's enterprise when he filed suit against imitators in the Upper Keys. That battle ended less with stale Cuban bread at dawn and more with a businesslike agreement.

He sold knick knacks as one does in these touristy times, but he went one further and sold travel documents, charging extra for "diplomatic passports." You will read that they were sometimes used as the real thing but I have heard of only one documentated case of a Conch Republic passport being used to get a desperate traveler home. Once is enough in the jollity of myth making.

These pictures from the Facebook page of the man who romped through life in Key West.

While one historic leading edge got dulled this past week, next week could see Key West following on it's role in leading the Sunshine State out of the darkness of old fashioned fear into the sunlit uplands of marriage equality. Every time I want to throw in the voting towel, the Republican Party manages to do something crass or cruel, enough that I am reminded there is a difference, and even though Democrats are spineless and clueless on the big issues, on social progress they are worth supporting. A role that has made its mark in Wikipedia already:

On July 17, 2014, Judge Garcia issued a ruling in Huntsman in favor of the plaintiff same-sex couple and those similarly situated. The judge, in declaring that Florida's same-sex marriage ban is unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment, found that:

• Baker v. Nelson had lost its precedential value,
• substantive due process guarantees marriage and liberty as fundamental rights,
• liberty in marriage is an individual right that cannot be submitted to popular vote, and
• same-sex marriage is not a new right as "societal norms and traditions have kept same-sex couples from marrying," similar to the way women had previously been deprived of biting rights, and interracial couples of the right to marry.

Judge Garcia also noted that Florida's same-sex marriage ban denies couples equal protection under the law under both heightened scrutiny and (although the defendants do not put a basis forward) rational basis analysis. Amici argue a rational basis of procreation and child welfare, but the judge rejects these notions, despite not even having to, as Amici "do not have standing to raise issues that have not been raised by the parties."

While Judge Garcia did not get to the question of out-of-state recognition as the plaintiffs lacked standing as to that issue, he ordered Monroe County to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples beginning July 22, 2014. Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi filed a notice of appeal with the state Third Dustrict Court of Appealthe same day. This automatically stays enforcement of Garcia's ruling.

The picture above is from here: Steve Rothaus' Gay South Florida. Letting these two dudes and thousands like them get married is going to have zero impact on my heterosexual marriage. The Defense Of Marriage Act is defense of bigotry. A pox on Pam Bondi and her appeal.

 

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Back Home

The trip is done. Real life resumes.

We are back in the land of white picket fences and wild jumping dogs.

Conch  cottages.

We will go back and check out Duval Street and remember good times with friends...

Cheyenne will over heat once again and need to swim in her back yard. Not swim but cool off. 

And the bums, the street people, the local color will still be here sweating swatting mosquitoes.

There's no place like home. Glad to be back.

Blue Ridge Parkway

I may have mentioned it previously but some people think I spoil my dog. Maybe but unlike a spoiled human my dog is sweet as pie even if she is spoiled. And she had a hard life before she came to me so now she's happy and I'm happy making her happy.

It was my fault because when she nosed her way into an electric fence designed to keep deer out of a vegetable garden I was too busy photographing a bath tub masquerading as a rather nice water trough. After that yelp she decided she wanted to go for a walk somewhere else so we went back to the car and she made it clear she wanted to go someplace by car, thank you. What would you have done?

The fact is I also wanted to pay at least one brief visit to that wonder of government construction, the Blue Ridge Parkway, ten short minutes from my brother-in-law's home. Highway 80, the road that crosses the Parkway here is a fantastic motorcycle ride.

I saw a Top Gear episode where Clarkson and his sidekicks decided to drive muscle cars on the Blue Ridge itself. I did wonder what they were thinking as the speed limit here is never more than 45mph...and in fact they soon quit the BRP for a Nascar track as I recall. Speed is the underlying theme of that deliciously irreverent car show.

The BRP was built in the first Great Depression in the 30s and the standard of stonework on the bridges, tunnels and parapets reflects the values of the era.

It's a fine spot this, full of trees, views, twists and turns close to the big mountain. Key West Diary: Mount Mitchell from 2008.

Splendid views too. This road is a slow drive, and fun especially midweek with less traffic. I've ridden most of it, and not always restrained to 45mph, and I highly recommend it as long as you accept it for what it is, a federal park, enjoyed on the honor system which is refreshing in our Al Quaeda obsessed police state. You get on where you feel like, drive as much as you want, park and rest, enjoy the occasional exhibits and deal with the culture shock when you exit and face billboards, trucks, traffic lights and speed, all prohibited on the Parkway.

Harley rolling road blocks are the norm here, mixed in with plodding Goldwings, so this is their natural habitat. Enjoy!

I wanted to go for a walk and Cheyenne agreed to check it out with me. Very decent of her I'm sure.

She went as far as she wanted, then she stopped. I sat on a convenient log and she plonked down next to me. I was as far from the Keys as I needed to be, in no hurry to get back to flat vistas and salt water.

After a half hour of climbing twists and turns we came back to the perfectly manicured lawn in the overlook. I got out a Kermit chair and my Kindle on my phone. Perfect!

Cheyenne sank into the grass and passed out until the phone rang and the wife ordered us back to Celo for breakfast and packing.

You owe yourself a ride on the BRP one day.

And Highway 80 to Micahville.

We enjoyed New England with it's forests and mountains, but this part of the world is, frankly just as good with the addition of better weather and friendlier locals. Luckily it's also much closer to home! And my wife's family lives here!! How lucky is that?

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All In The Family

Walk up to some random resident of Western North Carolina, high up in the Blue Ridge, and ask them where they moved from to retire in the mountains. Chances are many of them came to Murphy or Cherokee or Asheville from Florida to live in rural bliss away from the ocean and warm wet summers. I'll be honest and say straight out it's not my idea of living happily ever after but there's no accounting for taste.

 

I do like hanging out at my wife's sister's place in the shadow of Mount Mitchell, the highest peak in the Eastern United States. The things I like are the trails through the woods, the long slow dusk that brings out the fireflies and the dew -that heavy wet dew! Bob and Judi came to Celo in 1978, joined the community and were awarded a plot of land to build their house in the woods. Judi became Geeta, a mother and as needed she took time off from job as a family physician to repair the kitchen fan. With less success than her doctoring. Fortunately. Her boys have their own kids, one in nearby Asheville, the other in California, she's retired with occasional stints filling in for local doctors she spends time in Kenya helping villagers to better health through her local Quaker meeting of Friends.

Bob retired from university teaching and loves living in the house he built forty years ago in the woods. The first time I struggled into the house twenty years ago after a long winding drive through the mountains alone with my then Labrador Emma in a quirky VW vanagon I was surprised to see the phone on the wall. It's still there and works quite well (except in rainstorms when the line crackles) but nowadays they have wifi, and if I stand next to the corner of the shed and hold my phone on the roof I can send texts by cellphone! Modern life!

I like the way Bob enjoys his life outside the mainstream, it's not like Key West, but it's that odd modern mixture of hippy refusal to go mainstream mixed with the self sufficiency desire of a prepper. Celo is seductive, a tight knit family of a hundred people, solar panels, cows for milking, organic gardening, good for all. Well, not quite but these people who came here as educated drop outs have shown the locals a way of life that has changed the place here they live, attracting outsiders and their money to an economically depressed Appalachian world. Bob grows vegetables, picks berries and has figured out how to grow his own shiitakes, and we enjoyed the very fresh mushrooms, log to table in half an hour. Delicious.

Celo is on the electrical grid and is flourishing with a second generation of inhabitants moving in. Homes are occupied, gardens are growing and people want to live here. I can see the attraction of a tight community in a world filled with uncertainty and social indifference. Celo is the happy place here strangers wave and smile as you drive by. Keys are unnecessary here and crime unknown. They do have electricty(!) and television...so beer chips and the World Cup Final, the new All American experience with a twist, was on the cards in Celo as much as anywhere.

That Europe beat the Americans was a consolation prize to some of us - me, just to piss Bob off- but we had a good time in a friend's house. I wish I had taken a picture of it, the walls had a Tudor look to them, wood beams and white plaster, But Celo specializes in gorgeous hone made weird structures popping up in the woods like fairy tale toadstools.

Who wouldn't want to learn music in a music shack at the Arthur Morgan School? Hogwarts has nothing on this:

My dog loves wandering the trails in the community, criss crossed by bubbling brooks, decorated by flowering rhododendrons mixed in with smells that had her running back and forth like a puppy. Winter in July works for Cheyenne.

 

 

 

My wife learned that Nancy was volunteering to hold down the fort at the craft shop across the river, so we dropped by so the women could catch up. The craft shop is next to the food coop that serves the peculiar food needs of the community. There are a couple of normal gas stations and convenience stores up and down highway 80 which sell junk food as one does. Years ago when things were a bit more hardcore among the you gsters it was not unknown for guests to take a ride into Burnsville 15 minutes away to sneak a hamburger stop at a fast food joint. Sometimes you just have to be a carnivore. It's your nature.

There are some pretty high quality artists living here. If you head north from the Blue Ridge Parkway on highway 80 this low key place doesn't shout it's presence but it has a collection of interesting souvenirs of this place. Sunday afternoon was quiet and Nancy the potter is also the volunteer bookkeeper.

Check out her "bottom mugs" which some anonymous prudish person had carefully positioned to turn the pink buttocks inward, away from public view. My wife liberated one of the mugs which will now be mooning the Keys.

Cheyenne would have been a Labrador in a china shop. She sat happily on the deck watching the traffic rush by on highway 80.

There was a small exhibit marking the 40 year history of the craft shop. The toilet is a delightful outhouse, to this day. Key West Diary: Outhouse Art my essay from 2010.

Nancy was the fourth adult from the right, the dark shadowy face framed by long dark hair.

Here she is building the structure in 1974 now filled with arts and crafts:

Summer is the time for outdoor gatherings. I find the constant socializing to be exhausting but it's part of the visit when you hang out in the community. Sometimes I have to beg off as I can't take it. This outing didn't start out well as Cheyenne made a spectacle of herself by borrowing a hot dog. They took it well but I couldn't very well explain that a disciplined dog works best around disciplined humans, not people who store cooked food at dog height.

Bob and Geeta enjoying their status as the grand old couple. They used to hang with Methuselah on his rare visits to Celo way back when.

Birthday boy below celebrating 31 years and his best girl who has expressed interest in moving into Nancy's home thus promoting the generational connections so dear to the community that is Celo. Nancy was hauling ice cream for some reason. I was stuffed already with chicken, sausage, potato salad, zucchini, bean salad and I can't remember what. Garlic toast I think?

I don't know that it's right as I am but a mere occasional visitor to this place but I got a strange and unexpected feeling of nostalgia on this visit. I got a feeling of a changing of the guard, new, young, different people raising children here now. Bob sort of agreed though we never explored the notion as I might have liked to. In the big picture nothing has really changed, sure the clothes are different and the term "hippy" is more of a derogatory epithet, but Celo is still a place for couples to raise children. Mothers may no longer wear mumus and now jog in spandex with ear buds, but at heart they are just mothers, not aliens. Time has passed and the energy is that of a new generation. We baby boomers are skipping off center stage, and it's about time I suppose, but at Celo I do find myself missing the days I never knew! Such is the grasp of the place. I feel nostalgia for a time I know only from pictures and stories.

Yeah, they sell a mean hot dog down the road too! I like stepping between worlds in a desperate effort to keep my feet on the ground, between the real world and Utopia. North Carolina looks pretty good for a non tropical place, but winters I can't stand.

 

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