A Still Night On The Waterfront

Imagine a still night on the Key West waterfront in summer, between midnight and one in the morning, with not a human in sight, and only the gentle breeze for company...I could hear machinery humming on the ships docked around the Navy basin, the place where once submarines were prepared for sea duty. It was warm enough to sweat, yet cooled enough by the breeze to be so pleasant as to induce in me thoughts of sleep. I wandered back and forth on the Inner Mole, taking pictures of the Coastguard Cutter Ingham, now a museum with inconvenient opening hours, and ships docked at the Outer Mole doing whatever it is they have to do. I took my pictures and went back to work refreshed. So much naval activity for such a small island!

Sunrise Trash

Bow Channel in the early morning. I love summers in the Keys, and I had the stillness and the fishing bridge to myself.

Of course I was not completely alone. Cheyenne was busy hunting dead bait fish. She loves them all smelly and dried by the sun.

Wasn't I surprised to get nearly run down by someone seeking not the solace of solitude but brisk sweaty exercise.

There was one dead fish Cheyenne could not reach, the line caught in the power cables leaving the poor soul to dangle for eternity hopefully not snagging some hungry bird in a chain of death by fishhook. 

 Cheyenne is not terribly keen on banana peel or orange rinds but she gave them a look see.  Why oh why cannot these people who seek the munificence of the sea, have the least consideration for the rest of us and throw their trash in one of the many bins put out for their use?

 I found mono filament dumped on the ground ready to snag a bird.

 Check out this perfectly functional hook:

I put it in the trash, unwilling to carry that barb all the way to the end of the bridge and the special mono filament tubes set out for that purpose. That hook wasn't going anywhere once I stuffed it in the trash.

 There are cobwebs of this stuff dangling from the power lines. These people need casting lessons.

 But never mind the human element, nature does fine without us:

Truman Avenue, Night

A quick ride down Truman Avenue to the Dion's chicken and gas station. It wasn't a night for delicious Dion's Fried Chicken but the Vespa ET4 needed premium fuel, about six buck's worth. While I was pumping fuel into the  150cc rocket ship I looked around and marveled at the ways people get around in Key West. The barefoot cyclist riding a home modified tricycle with a plastic box on the back stuffed a plastic grocery bag with supplies into his box and pedaled off, red and white lights keeping him legal and safer. Often you will see groups of scruffy tanned men squatting on the step outside the gas station talking among themselves. To me it is reminiscent of the Third World, those countries trying to develop enough to be like us, where we lock ourselves indoors and conversation is spread by electrons. These men don't bother me or anyone else, they talk and enjoy the warm night air. There was no one at Dion's so I moved off down Truman, my destination unknown.

 I saw the pottery shining through the window at the Key West Pottery shop. I stopped and approached with camera in hand, something like a moth drawn to light. Lovely stuff.

Next door I found an old fashioned barber's shop. I must have walked and ridden past a thousand times and never noticed it. I did this time. 

I found this picture on the Web at Foursquare and have to confess I am intrigued. Sometimes I wish I had to cut my hair more often, but I have an old fashioned place on Big Pine I have come to like just fine.

If you wonder at the number of hair dressing joints in the Keys, then you might also wonder at the number of  bicycle shops here as well. And local businesses do like to decorate their dumpsters, happily:

 I like taking pictures of piles of bicycles. It must be Aspergers and geometric almost random patterns or something. Doing it at night in the half light at Island Bikes was even better.

I went down to Duval Street to take pictures but it wasn't the night. The place was crowded and as I rode north on the famous street all I could see were crowds of drunks, on the sidewalks, on bicycles peeling off into traffic and the hubbub of the crowds, the sight of a man in underwear lounging outside the Bourbon was enough to remind me that I don't live in a  Fellini film and I needed peace and quiet for my lunch break. Some other night perhaps for Duval, as I had my pictures of the quiet corner of Key West I had not expected to stumble across.

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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