Pensacola

 

I quite liked Pensacola, the historic district, the waterfront, the fresh fish, the beautiful cool June breeze. There's lots of greenery interesting shopping and nice architecture.  Combine that with affordable living and you have quite the Florida town.

 

 

We walked the town, Rusty and I early in the morning. 

 

 

We took a drive to Alabama half a hour away, at most, and we entered a world of fields woods and filling highways through small towns apparently miles from salt water 

 

 

And we found s roadside restaurant, Jesse's in Magnolia Springs for lunch.

 

Delightfully old fashioned and courteous on the outside the device was prompt and the food delicious. 

 

 

 

A great pause on the afternoon drive to Fairhope. I like this part of the world. 

Petronia And Around

I took a wander along Petronia and Olivia Streets on a sunny afternoon, enjoying the brights colors of Key West. Petronia is named for Petronia Martinelli Wall and she was the mother of Olivia so there are a few street names taken cae of in Key West's genealogy...

I take pleasure in the shade of large trees and this year the newspaper is carrying a ton of comments about the city's tree commission failing to protect them. Just by my reading it seems to hate mail about tree cutting is out stripping the anger over cyclists and parking combined.

Some days I feel like key West will erupt into civil war, most uncivilly over parking or tree cutting while the rest of the country hunkers down and opens fire over religion or politics or some other perceived slight. Rusty and I say a pox on all their houses.

The Blue Macaw (LINK) is relatively new in Key West and I've heard people like it. It looks good if you are into the bright theme that appeals to me and the indoor/outdoor seating with live music and greenery looks to be very pleasant. Checking the menu I was surprised by how many vegetarian plates they offer in a  town that hasn't embraced the concept as imaginatively as one might like.

 Rusty is getting much better around people and vehicles and crowds that are not too thick. I wanted to go to the Gay Pride Parade with him and watch from the sidelines but it was a large crowd that filled the sidewalk, even to the end of Duval and I couldn't justify putting him through that. So we walked the back streets and worked up a sweat.

This building on Petronia's 300 block used to be an iconic barber shop and now it's an art gallery, a fine symbol of the transformation that is sweeping Key West.

 The exterior has changed juts a little but the interior changes are profound. Recently the city commissioner representing Bahama Village, Clayton Lopez was lamenting in the newspaper that only one business on Petronia Street is now black owned. He is trying to figure out ways to increase African American entrepreneurs in Bahama Village.

Looking pas the public housing on Whitehead Street north towards the AME church that looks so imposing. A symbol perhaps of the endurance of the community that surrounds it, pressed on all sides by money and gentrification.

Bamahenge

 

As bizarre as it is, there is still a certain atmosphere to the place that took me by surprise.  We visited on a Sunday and pretty damned close to the Solstice so even though I think sun worship is over rated Bamahenge intrigued me. 

 

Giant hollow blocks of fiberglass towering over you, set up over a decade to recreate exactly the sun worshippers' original on Salisbury Plain...

 

How weird is that?

 

Not half as weird as the rest of the showstopper that is the Barber Parkway in the middle of nowhere on Alabama's Gulf Coast. 

 

 

Yes. They also built dinosaurs to populate the pine forests. The weird part of this whole experience is that none of these bizarre attractions is advertised. No signage, no srrows, no parking signs...

 

 

Crazy stuff, all leading to a half unused Marina built by George Barber, the man who built my favorite museum outside Birmingham Alabama dedicated to old motorcycles. 

 

 The Marina is supremely well equipped with boat storage in sheds, several travel lifts, launch ramps parking,a store and not too many boats. The store also has a collection of restored antique outboards- a typical Barber touch. All in all well worth a visit. 

 

Elgin Lane

Pensacola Chill

To wake at six in the morning and step outside into cool morning air and to remember you are still in Florida in June is a shock to the system. But that's exactly what I did this morning.

 

Pensacola is and is not part of Florida and its status has always been a question since the young US took possession of Spain's southeastern conquests. Politically the Panhandle has always been Florida because it butted up to French Louisiana but after the purchase noises were made that the Panhandle should  be sliced off.  It wasn't given to Mississippi or Alabama and it is still Florida. 

 

And look at that, the same street name I live on and I hope the urban planners in this neighborhood know that John Avery was a remarkable pirate. They were some rare urban planners at that designing wandering streets, allowing for vast canopies of old trees, creating a city within a park.  Therese chose a lovely place to live. Odd, but lovely.

 

Pensacola is a huge military base for the Navy and for fliers at nearby Elgin. But it is also weird as it lives in Central Time. The state's capital was set in Tallahassee a tiny settlement nestled amid pine trees, like so many state capitals not the seat of economic power (in those days that was Key West 750 miles away) but a livable compromise.  Livable because peninsula Florida was a mosquito filled swamp and Key West was too isolated they said. No one lived between Georgia and Key West except fugitive whites and runaway slaves and recalcitrant Indians. So Tallahassee was it and it stayed in the Eastern Time Zone which ends at the western limits of Leon County. Beyond that, along I-10 there be dragons.

 

I exaggerate: not dragons but pine trees and live oaks, rednecks (lots of Trump signs) and myriad underpopulated counties with agriculture and fishing and beaches. The Redneck Riviera they call it. Beautifully described in the coming of age movie called Ruby in Paradise if you care.  This part of Florida is often referred to as southern Alabama and the notion that laws supported by the liberals and NewYork  Jews in Miami (my wife among them even though she's from California!) irks the good old boys of the Panhandle.  Luckily gerrymandering has made the state Legislature solidly Republican so the tail wags the dog in this pivotal electoral state.

 

It can get frosty in winter and rowdy at Spring Break. The beaches are remarkable but the waters are turgid. To arrive in a relatively large town on Saturday night and see no traffic makes it a delight to be in this suburb. Key West by comparison is a continuous traffic jam. 

It is the start of our vacation and I am traveling with a very curious dog so there is much to see. And we plan on  exhausting  ourselves seeing it all.  

Assorted Black And White

I have collected some random black and white pictures I like but with no attachments to any story or place. I have been pondering: why monochrome? I like the distance the absence of color gives to pictures along with the texture and the heightened perspective one gets from seeing what might otherwise be banal, or ordinary, turned into an object or a scene given distance from daily living. One thinks how startling were the first color pictures released from World War Two, how shocking was their immediacy. I've heard it said that color pictures of the atrocities were held back from public view such was the fear of public reaction. Sometimes black and white lends nobility to an everyday object, possibly even to lobster pots?