Duval Before People

A rooster wandering by himself on Fitzgerald Street is  a tropical vibe if ever there was one and the fact he started heading towards my dog full of menace was enough to ensure we doubled back and took the other entrance to Kino Plaza. Rusty lives in fear of wild chickens. 

I have been noticing this art in public places more frequently lately perhaps because I walk with my head down? There are several poems at strategic spots and this one is near Captain Tony's on Greene Street. 

Kirby Congdon, b. 1924, is the author of numerous collections of poetry, short stories, essays, letters, plays, sculptured constructions and music composition. A graduate of Columbia University, he has been active in the independent literary scene for over six decades. He has been the poetry editor for the Key West literary magazine, Cayo, the publisher of the litmag Magazine and was a regular contributor to The Small Press Review and The Key West Citizen. Congdon’s work is collected by the Kenneth Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas. He was one of the featured poets at the 2009 Key West Literary Seminar which included seven Pulitzer Prize winners and seven poet laureates – Billy Collins, Maxine Kumin, Robert Pinsky, Rita Dove and Paul Muldoon, among them. In 2011, he contributed a visual poem to All Insignificant Things Must Disappear, a group exhibition of work by internationally renowned artists at Trinity Museum in New York. In 2014, at the age of ninety, Congdon had a first showing of ethereal landscapes which he feels are his best work, created sixty-four years ago.  Also in 2014, he was the featured poet at the Frank O’Hara Poetry Festival in New York where he opened the event with his poem “Discus Thrower.”  Congdon is the first Poet Laureate of Key West, Florida.  He continues to write and compose music.

I rather like walking downtown before the people get there and this time of year it's quite cool too which is a bonus after a very long hot summer. I like the heat usually but if it was long and hot for me then you know it was pretty unbearable.

I don't know what got into me photographing bars downtown but there they are for a change.

Those are the oldies and now there is another hopeful trying out a location that lately hasn't managed to hold any one business for long: 

I walk around and see all sorts of new businesses all the time. This one below got an irritated note from someone who said the name high up violates some code or something. I cannot imagine the patience it requires to navigate all the requirements.

A new day, a fresh start may wash away all your woes. Or not. It looks pretty though.

Flying By Parachute

It was a perfect afternoon to go fly a kite off the south shore of Key West, and because it was sunny and breezy and pleasant it was also an excellent moment to have a lunch break. No surprise then when I showed up at the beach there was some parasailing underway.

Parasailing is the sort activity you just about expect to see when you look across the water from Key West. You'll see brightly colored parachutes wafting back and forth along the horizon like shadow puppets against a screen.

I ended up watching this flight as by chance I found myself observing the end of the ride, which was in reasonable range of my camera's telephoto, though at the limit of the high resolution view. The riders were winched down and the parachute caught and folded with no fuss at all, quite amazing.

It was in just a few minutes that the two passengers were coming right back to the Smathers Beach ticket office of the parasail company. Just like that it was all over, and I suspect they had a glorious ride.

Ready for the next ride and it really did look as lovely as it appears in the picture.

And no one knows the fun they had aloft, now they are regular beach goers, back in the world.

I was actually looking for an old landmark that used to crop up when I started dispatching first responders 15 years ago. The corner of South Roosevelt Boulevard and Bertha Street used to be known as "The Ramp," because there was an actual ramp at the spot. You can still see it here:

The ramp is not really noticeable as you ride by and you can see that modern traffic would not make it easy to back a trailer up to the ramp, position it precisely and leave the tow vehicle sticking out into what has become a busy roadway.

 It had to go I suppose, but in reality slabs of concrete aren't that easy to remove so here it still is, as steep as ever but simply cut off by use of heavy cement blocks.

 All ready for the winter months, and no boat ramp needed.

Flora and Fauna

I think of it as new but the H2O Suites hotel on Simonton offers watery rooms and has been so ding for a couple of years. Apparently you get a plunge pool with your suite and a rooftop bar witha swimming pool for all guests to enjoy when they aren't stepping out onto nearby exciting Duval Street.

It doesn't look exactly the sort of architectural style Old Town Key West is known for but it does catch your eye. Well it caught my eye; other people  have to spend a lot of energy finding their way.

Bright sunshine is supposed to be the time of day people with cameras avoid going out into the noonday sun. I like bright sunshine and I find that even with my camera bright light and dark contrasts make me happy. I do like the clouds to be interesting where possible but even a clear blue sky can turn into a backdrop that looks right sometimes.

If I had to wait around for gray skies, fog and drizzle and overcast I'd never go out with my camera.

The Italian restaurant on Simonton Street, Abbondanza, has found a way to discourage undesirables from camping out on their comfortable bench. They have removed the seat.

I found it inside the front doors ready to be installed fro guests when they start dinner service at the restaurant. It's how you take the imitative to manage your affairs when you are bothered by people hanging out. Pretty smart and self reliant.

The bright sunlight gave me a chance to nail some lizards relaxing and soaking up the rays.

Neither of them seemed intimidated by my camera pointing at them and the FZ1000 has a pretty big lense when it's pointed at you.

I don't often get the chance to hang out with stationary relaxed lizards so I gave them the treatment as they clung brilliantly to the palm.

And while we think about wild tropical animals we can't ignore the ever present, ubiquitous wild chickens of Key West. People say they were brought from Cuba to be used as betting tools in fights, which never made sense to me. I've looked  at photos and paintings made in the early 20th century of Key West streets and there are no chickens to be seen. I suspect they were domestic creatures that just escaped and came to be accepted or ignored until they became darlings of the tourists. But that is a much more rational and uninteresting story than making them out to be descendants of prize Cuban fighting roosters. Perhaps Cuban roosters have figured out a way to reproduce than no one knows of, but I prefer rational thought to make believe. Boring is Me.

Key West Bight Shadows

I count myself a reluctant visitor downtown in winter when crowds are the norm. Key West with a population of 23,000 counts roughly two and a half million visitors a year, and I don't count them so I take public statistics as real for such an unreal number.

Faced with an empty lunch break the question is what to do? My wife does food shopping  as she feels she has a better grasp of what we need versus what Michael likes to buy on impulse when let loose in Publix or Winn Dixie. Car repairs are not an issue except on days off and other chores fall by the wayside when you have workday that lasts from 5 am to 6:30 pm. When I worked nights I would either roam Key West The Sleeping City or I would take a nap in the break room at work.

Now I work days it seems criminal to waste my one hour of daylight indoors so I head out to practice recording the town where I work.

Rusty gets his walk at four in the morning obviously in pitch dark unless the moon is up and we wander various roads and suburbs near where I live. He gets the day to himself sunning his lazy self in the driveway or using his private dog door going indoors and sleeping off his nap in air conditioning. I have to say I do envy him a bit as I pull out of the driveway and settle in to my 30 minute commute.

Some people commute by boat. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt and were I single I might do that again but Rusty wouldn't stand for life on a boat and though I am speaking for him I will venture a guess he likes being master of his bed, the couch, the sunny side of the deck and the bushes in the driveway as the inclination takes him. A small boat might be a step down in his world. Though one has to say as commutes go it looks pretty even to my jaded eyes:

So with an hour to burn and only a small town to walk in I come back to places that require me to look closer to see things through new eyes. Like the glossy paint on the hull of America 2.

Christmas decorations have sprung up around Key West including the waterfront alongside Schooner Wharf Bar. You might imagine boats docked nearby like the schooner America 2 gave the bar its name. These days the boats are for pleasure where once they were the lifeline of commerce in Key West a way point between both coasts and Europe and the New World.

You can rent a power boat or you can watch seagulls ignoring people. I did both at once. 

Refreshed for an afternoon of 911 calls.

Casa Marina

Henry Flagler, the 19th century oil baron knew that if he wanted his railroad to prosper he had to create destinations. So he built a number of palatial hotels down the east coast of Florida to fill his winter excursion trains with frozen New Yorkers coming south taking the place of ripe Cuban pineapples going north.

His Key West hotel is called the Casa Marina Resort owned these days by a rotating list of chain hotel names currently Waldorf Astoria is responsible for the old pile built in 1912 when the Florida east Coast Railroad arrived in Key West. Nine years ago (!) I wrote out the whole story and posted it on this page. Digital cameras have come a long way since then I discovered when I went back to look. This is the back of the resort which is the huge pile visible behind the lead bicycle rider:

Many years ago I overheard a conversation between two puzzled visitors. They were studying a  map, not on their phones as I said this was a long time ago, and one said to the other; "I'm amazed a town this small has separate neighborhoods." A comment I've never forgotten, apparently.

And it's true there are several neighborhoods in town. And furthermore I'll tell you this, kids who grew up on Big Pine divide themselves. North "Piners" despise South "Piners" even though Big Pine Key has a population you could conveniently house in your garage. The highway divides two ardent communities. Weird. Upper and Lower Sugarloaf is the same way. You drive down highway one oblivious but "As The Keys Turn" is playing out just beyond your windshield.

Casa Marina is an upscale neighborhood with expansive expensive homes a bit like Cudjoe Gardens is a cut above my neighborhood (Spanish Main) on Cudjoe Key (population: not many). If you live in Casa Marina you aren't in The Village or Midtown or The Meadows. But you are still under the flight path ready to get your TV drowned out by another load of trippers coming to town.

Like every upscale neighborhood in America and I dare say the world at large where there is wealth there are trees. and here they are spectacular. If you like tropical greenery that is. If you prefer coniferous forests you are out of luck.

Wind palms bowing and scraping in the air far above me. I really enjoyed that on my lunch break yesterday.

And the architecture of even the modern bed and breakfasts and homes reflects the Key West style:

This is where you come to escape the snowdrifts of your home town, a lounger under the palms, a barely adequate banana hammock and a fruity drink. If it ever comes up I prefer a gin and tonic to something that looks like a crushed coconut or blended strawberry.

And on the subject of snow going swimming on a day that registers barely 76 American or 24 degrees Canadian is not a day to go swimming. 

You just can't tell some people anything.

Even among the seagulls sunbathing space is at a premium.

A fine sunny splendid day on land. Swimming days are over but they will return in the fullness of time when in fact the time changes and we know Spring and warm-ish seawater is back.