Liquid Lunch

Garrison Bight is a brilliant marina setting if you want the most protected marina and easy access to all the city has to offer, as it is situated on the north shore in-between Old Town and New Town. Just like everything else in your life it is a compromise because that lubberly convenience makes it a bit of a trek to get your boat anywhere interesting. Unless of course you have a high powered center console with low bridge clearance and fast planing speeds. For everyone else you are about an hour from Mallory Square.

There is traffic on the roads that parallel and bisect the marina and from time to time people with cameras wander by trying to find shadows and light to wile away a sunny lunch break.

This has been a winter of rain and gales interspersed with sunshine and cool crisp days so I should not have been surprised to see a boater in long sleeves and well buttoned up though around here t-shirts are the year round costume for the active boating lifestyle.

Or wet suits.

I never really noticed  the pump  in the bow of the fire boat before but peering down from the sidewalk it looked fearsome and very industrial. What a strange and particular specialization: making fire boat pumps and nozzle sprayers.

I strolled across to Eisenhower Drive after I had squeezed the last bit of entertainment out of the waterfront and I saw an unfamiliar face:

I never cease to be amazed how much stuff I get to see in such a small space. I know people who live in Key West and don't have the least curiosity about things half way across the island. I was listening to two colleagues debating the layout of a new pocket park in town, and when I say new I mean a few months old. Neither had been by the look but both had opinions.  I was there in November, but I said nothing. 

I find myself getting older but never less curious about life which i think can be very annoying to the people forced into my orbit and who themselves couldn't care less what the currency of Mongolia is or how the Japanese tea ceremony unfolds or why France owns the Kerguelen islands. So I wander the city on my lunch breaks and I wander Google between calls for service.  

When my wife and I go to the UK next month it will only be for ten days (without Rusty! That's agonizing) and my sister will be the tour guide for most of it. However I have been looking at bits of England where I lived as a boy and wondering what my wife will make of Leith Hill and Dorking and the weirdly typical English lanes I used to bicycle along. And it occurred to me that in the decades before the Internet and street view and during those glorious years of unfettered net neutral Google you could learn more bout a place in an hour than previously in half a life time.

That sort of thinking puts my own feeble efforts to uncover key West and the Lower keys into perspective. I wonder what street view will reveal about Key West after we've finished traveling in retirement and plan to come back?

Moon Over Key West

It was  a big moon a few mornings ago and it looked good, a speck of white hanging above the sleeping town.

 The pigeons weren't sleeping, I think.  But they weren't yet very active. 

The angry mockingbird was hopping around but I made eye contact and for some reason he held back from bombing us which was nice.

The noises of the street cut no ice with this guy who had me fumbling with my camera settings and he walked by with his huge headphones clamped tight. I am told this big ear muffins are fashionable but they look kind of goofy to me shutting out the world. Poor bugger he was obviously busy while I was just ambling for a change.

I look aloft from time to time and I never tire of the spindly shadows cast by trees against a clear sky:

Yellow on yellow in a brown house. I liked the effect but I would never think to paint my own house like that.

 Fish. On a House. Weird.

 A hammock? A flag? Wrapped up and impossible to imagine what it might be. 

 I think the moon kept looking better. So I photographed it again.

Cemetery Again

It was a lovely bright day, I had a lunch break yesterday and I took advantage to go for a walk. Actually I went for a bicycle ride first and took my camera. Downtown Key West is hard to enjoy this time of year when you only have an hour and your starting point is Garrison Bight. The cemetery is close by the police station and thus easy to enjoy when you have little time. I love the serenity and history contained within this park like setting. Pinder is an old Key West name originating in the Bahamas where Pinders were famous Abaco boat builders.

Thanks to typical bad behavior the cemetery allows no vehicles with two wheels powered by a motor so I figured this was a quiet place to test my new to me electric bicycle's pedaling prowess. I found the Pedego Classic on Craigslist for a mere six hundred dollars, a third the price of brand new and I leaped on it. It came as illustrated with a milk crate no fenders and no front light and a little superficial rust..

It is basically a  six speed beach cruiser with a 350 watt hub motor and a ten amp battery good they say for 15 to 30 miles depending as it always does depend on variables when you are consuming electrons for propulsion. Living as I do in a suburb there is no real reason to use a pedal or an electric bicycle as there aren't enough nearby destinations to justify riding even though snowbirds enjoy the bike path alongside the highway for their winter exercise programs. I go to the gym for physical therapy and exercise. I bought the bike for an entirely different reason.

I am going to take some pictures on the subject but the bridge entering Key West is up for renovation over the course of a year starting supposedly in April. Traffic jams are expected to be monumental and my idea is to leave my car near Key Haven and lift my 60 pound electric bike off the bike rack, load it with lunch and my gym bag and ride at 17 mph to work the last three miles across the bridge and down North Roosevelt. Once there I will have wheels to ride around town and not lose my car parking space in our overcrowded parking lot. I'm lucky in that I get to work before 6 am and have my choice of spaces. By nine am when the administrative staff is at the police station along with visitors and maintenance people the lot if stuffed all day long.

It's not for the exercise, this bicycle, its to get me to work in summer's heat and humidity in reasonably dry  not disheveled sweaty shape. I think this bike will do the job. Some friends recently mentioned they bought Radpower bikes out of Seattle, really nice machines but they live in town and will use the hell out of them to get around instead of driving. For my purposes a used electric bike will do just fine.

The Cuban Martyrs Memorial in the cemetery is worth a visit. It's similar to the USS Maine Memorial but smaller and it only holds one actual grave. Key West has a long history of connection to Cuba, not just of people but of trade as well. Cuba gives Key West it's very own ethnicity, a Latin undercurrent made up of descendants of early emigres as well as many refugees from the oppression and lack of opportunity of modern Cuba. This spot along with the San Carlos Institute and the Jose Marti Monument in Bayview Park are citywide reminders of the history connecting Key West and Cuba.

It must be apparent that Key West, as small and geographically insignificant as it is, has played a huge part in the migration of people and money and ideas in the vast seafaring triangle that is formed by Cuba, Hispaniola and the Bahamas. This town is a powerhouse out of proportion to its size. The funny thing is in the United States Key West is a mere vacation destination. For people in the Bahamas, Haiti and Cuba Key West has been a source of refuge of life and opportunity.

And you can see it here across the cemetery. Memorials to bitter battles and reverses, memories of failure and success, revolution and emancipation.  Key West has it all. It really is an amazing place when you get beyond the bars and the sunsets.

Some people are freaked out by cemeteries and other people think they are a great place to commit acts of vandalism or to ride their scooters recklessly.  I am not frightened of the dead and I don't believe in the supernatural (sorry, I also get the flu vaccine every Fall) but I do enjoy the history and the sense of continuity in the community that rests in this field. 

These are all real people, family members, some of them buried before the Civil War and still remembered here. There is a thread running through the city expressing mild irritation at the state of the cemetery, that ancient tombstones aren't vertical, that cement is crumbling and so forth. what I see is a field of lives worth celebrating, a place that should be filled with people walking and thinking and meditating on these lives already lived. Instead I see city crews mowing and cleaning and tidying to a degree I have never previously seen.

Every visitor to Key West should come and see the city as it was and walk the streets of the little city in the middle of the city. It used to be that people were put to rest at Rest Beach on the south shore of the island.  A storm in the 19th century caused so much upheaval that instead of reburying the bodies in the vulnerable coastal sand they put the new cemetery here on the edge of the city. Over time Key West's stable population of 12,000 residents doubled to the current 23,000 and the city of the living surrounded the city of the dead. That's why the cemetery is now in the middle of key West.

And of course the water table is so high the tombs have to be above ground making it a rare North American cemetery. It's worth half a day of your time to come and remember. And turn your electric bike motor off when you do.

Digging Up The Shoreline

I had two reactions when I returned at last to the Old Bahia Honda bridge at West Summerland Key. One reaction was puzzlement and the other dread.

There has been a concerted effort to rebuild the sandbag wall holding back the soil under the new (1982) road bridge. The sloping part under the bridge was torn apart by Hurricane Irma in September 2017 and now it is restored and very well done too. I suppose work will be done to restore the small park at the water's edge where anglers gather to hunt fish.

I was however very puzzled by the new efforts that have been started to repair the shoreline leading up to the bridge area. Where on earth I asked myself did the state of Florida get the money for these public works?

Florida has no personal income tax which means property taxes and fees for services are important sources of income, even in such a  populous state with so many demands on its money.Yet here we are tearing up the shoreline and the only reason I can figure is to shore up Highway One behind the remaining trees.

There is machinery everywhere where we used to walk and had I arrived unwittingly in the middle of the work we'd have had nowhere to stroll. Luckily there was no one there and we had the work site to ourselves so we strolled touching nothing and disturbing nothing. 

There are little wooden survey pegs in the ground so I suppose clearing the land and reinforcing the support for the road up above will stretch all the way along the seawall. 

Rusty wasn't to know our walks are going to be elsewhere for a while until all this digging gets done. He took advantage of being there. Another reason to like dogs as they remind you to enjoy the moment. Which is not say dogs don't fear the future or worry as I'm convinced after decades of sharing their lives they do lots of that. But when things are good they know to live the moment.

Out to sea a boat was slicing along under full sail heading towards Marathon, not stopping at Bahia Honda State Park. The moment at sea looked good too with enough wind to make smooth progress.

I see all this work and I get a feeling of dread which I hope won't be justified after all this work is done. I dread improvements as they encourage more people and less time for Rusty and I to be alone.

I have always liked walking here even before the hurricane when there were trees and thus  the place attracted van campers and people in tents sleeping illegally. Since the devastation in some ways though aesthetically challenged, with fewer people stopping off for less time it has been good for us two. We both need time away from the hurly burly of crowded Keys life.

Fiberglass boat bits have drifted ashore from somewhere and there they are all beached up. I wonder where that came from? Blown up by the recent storm I suppose.

I wandered back up onto the sidewalk which has been cleared ready for shoring up and rebuilding, all swept clean and cleared of any growth.

Rusty was enjoying his open space. I hope they leave the big cement wall along the roadway after they are done securing the foundations of the sidewalk and road. 

It's a big  job for sure:

Machinery gravel and construction everywhere. 

I fear that after it's completed it will look new and enticing and properly park-like and people will stop in greater numbers than ever and my selfishness will struggle with my inner sense of decorum and I shall be disappointed to find myself surrounded by people and asphalt and all that stuff. I shall have to be polite and evasive and seek hours when they are elsewhere. It could be a drag.

I have no doubt it will in the end be a good thing, and the people seeking a  clean modern suburban park environment will be properly grateful. I shall see one more sign of gentrification, one more sign of wilderness getting edged out. I hope I am wrong.

The Razor's Edge

"There is a line between good and evil, no wider than a razor’s edge. I hold the line. I am the line." 

Anon

When strangers find out what I do for a living they have a tendency to think I know more about stuff going on than I do. Most people have no idea how police dispatch works and it's as well they don't as when you call us your life isn't going as well as it might, safe to say. The fact is I know very little about the police work that follows on from a dispatch. You call we send they go and then I move on to the next call. And of course I work only a quarter of the time so things happen when I'm blissfully unaware of the calls that are being dealt with by the emergency services. Plus I live 20 miles outside the city, so when I am at home I am well away.

So when I read in the newspaper that a former Key West resident was killed apparently by her own son I was, to put it mildly surprised. The death occurred in North Florida but the suspect was apparently arrested by Monroe County deputies when he came back to the Keys. People ask and I keep saying that crime is less than you might imagine in Key West. I mostly deal with acts of stupidity brought on by drunkenness and infidelity and road rage, run of the mill moments of loss of control in ordinary peoples' lives. It is rare to come face to face with a hardened criminal and even the most appalling crimes are usually a mistake or a momentary loss of judgement. We have no cartels or gangs or hardened predators causing mayhem in the Lower Keys. Boat thieves, scooter thieves and crimes of opportunity abound like anywhere but murder is not common.

Indeed I would venture a guess that if you plan a murder don't do it in Key West where the clean up rate for serious crimes is very very high. I doubt there have been a dozen murders in the 16 years I have been dispatching and I don't know of any unsolved killings. You can't park your car facing the wrong way without neighbors calling it in. But I have to say when I read the story in the Citizen I was taken aback. If the young man did kill his mother as alleged the range of suffering that act will provoke is beyond my comprehension.  

A moment like this puts the other issues in this town into perspective for me.  Parking? Noise? Partying neighbors? I appreciate not working in a town where shootings are routine. I think about the way this community reacts to hurricanes and how locals really do pull together; where police work after a disaster isn't crowd control or preventing crime  but mostly coordinating efforts to help each other. 

But then things go wrong and its time to count one's blessings and around here that usually means being glad it doesn't snow. I was on the phone one day recently when a caregiver was calling for an ambulance to take an extremely elderly patient to the hospital as he seemed to be slipping away. I dispatched the ambulance and took the caller off hold to see if there was anything I could do and the caller told me he had passed away there and then and to cancel the ambulance. Which I did as the patient was in a medical setting and I sat there for a moment just pondering that end of life. Apparently there was a do not resuscitate order and there were family members present and all was in order and from afar I witnessed a good death. I was overcome with sadness for some reason, the loss of someone valued who must have lived through and witnessed so much life, almost a full century of  history.   

I was out walking Rusty around Mallory Square and the cleaning crew saw me checking out the doors to the restroom. Very kindly they came over and opened the doors for me while I tied Rusty off to a nearby tree. I do it to reassure passersby not because Rusty would bugger off just because I was taken short. I thanked the cleaner profusely as he pulled out his mops and brooms when I was leaving and he smiled because it was such a small thing. Small for him but enormously kind for me.

I see more crappy behavior during the course of my days than kindness but there are days when you get a reminder that it's better to be kind than it is to be bitter. It doesn't make it easier to be kind but  those numb nuts that provoke a sharp reaction are probably just having a  bad  day themselves. 

I wish I could have my mother back and I dare say the young suspect might very well have the same feelings now. I'm not sure I could manage the stress of living to be a hundred but if that fate befalls me in some inexplicable way I hope I shall be able to pass along something useful enough to make such longevity worthwhile. Till then we have to keep putting one foot in front of the other and try not to slip off the razor's edge of daily living.