On The beach

Working an evening shift I drove into town late afternoon and paused at Smathers Beach. I figure in a few days the coronavirus carriers will be in town forgetting to maintain simple rules to keep our numbers low. Might as well snag a few pictures now to remember how it was.  

I was regretting not having my own swimsuit with me as the toilets/changing rooms were open and the freshwater showers were available and not being used...I could have been refreshed and dried and back in uniform in less time than it takes to tell. 

Those waters just looked too inviting and even the birds were maintaining their social distance. Unlike our crowded neighbors photographed in thick crowds Up North we in the Keys mind our manners..!

There are hard core athletes in the Keys, running in the summer like heat, showing up at the newly opened gyms where machines are spaced, classes are reduced and yet I know I am not hard core enough to share their breaths with them. Not yet. I exercise at home thanks to YouTube and keep my germs to myself.

I was left to sit in the shade in my long pants and closed toed shoes, which ended up trailing lovely yellow Bahamian sand all over the place, and I looked and thought and hoped for the best, while thinking about all the calls I have received at work from people anxious to vacation in the Keys. Are the Keys open yet? they ask, unable to use Google to find the answer for themselves.

I hope in the long run nothing changes, nothing happens, life goes on, money flows in, work blossoms,  and we return slowly inexorably to normal. They tell us we will be living a new normal in the future but my reading of the past tells me we will slip back to stasis, because entropy will lead us back to the old equilibrium because we want to fly across oceans, to eat out, to gather in crowded arenas, to drink in public to go shopping to walk the malls and what we are living now in the First World isn't normal.

I have read about plagues past and I am struck by how virulent they were, how little people knew or understood about what was killing them and thus they never figured out how to stop the next plague, the next yellow fever from coming back and killing them.

I have had dengue fever from youthful times in Central America. I was scared of being shot  as I found myself in the middle of a civil war but the bullets I dodged with not too much difficulty though they scared me whizzing past my head. Dengue fever instead got me good and I went home feeling the full effects of "break bone" fever. The Salvadorans I left behind got tortured and shot and they died of dengue, in droves. I had access to food and fluids, clean drinking and washing water, a proper toilet and lots of comfortable, stress-free rest. A couple of weeks and my girlfriend was nagging at me to get out of bed. Then she wondered why I didn't feel like marrying her. I like to be coddled.

When I was a teenager in Africa I met other overlanders talking about chasing down women and carousing in the brothels of West Africa. Even though neither I nor anyone else had heard of AIDS back then it dd not seem like a very good idea to me. I stuck to my motorcycle and kept riding and seeing and living my ordinary life in extraordinary places. I still got sick!  That time it was jaundice and I had to fly home from Cameroon a nasty shade of yellow and sick as a dog. The French residents of Cameroon to their eternal credit packaged my Yamaha SR500 and sent it home to me. I must have inspired much pity.

Central Africans died in droves from what I had contracted simply from being young and stupid and inattentive. I got an isolation room at the hospital in Italy, first rate care in the form of free socialized medicine and a month later I was the thinnest I had ever been and free to live my young stupid life. I got back on my motorcycle and looked for more horizons to ride to and get sick on. I toured the US on a Vespa and managed not to get ill. Yay!

It's easy to read the words and ponder the misery of desperate times in the past. For instance the 1918 'flu which originated in Kansas and killed millions in rapid and horrible ways all over the world. Again no one had a clue what was happening and they tried quarantine, isolation, face masks and prayer. And still they died.

We live in more enlightened times we hope and we chose collectively to try to save the old and infirm in a collective moment of economic shut down in the hope this thing will go away and not come back. I am betting that when I return next week Smathers will be populated and social distancing will be an artifact of another era. I hope not but if that happens it will be interesting to see what happens next.

I am not a social animal inasmuch as I don't miss the bars or the rituals of eating out.  I don't like crowds nor do I enjoy gatherings of people who don't know me and my quirks where I can't be myself. Yet I do miss the crowds and the people if only at a distance which surprises me as I'd have thought a total desert would suit me best. Thus I have learned of some deficits in my character by living through the throes of this very weird pandemic. I have had to work through the pandemic and maintain a schedule acting normal as everything around me shut down. It has felt odd I must admit.

What I miss is the effects left by the people if not the people themselves, the vapor trails they leave as they drift through the periphery of my life. I have discovered that contrary to my previous belief the zombie apocalypse subtracts photographic opportunities instead of multiplying them. The quirks of people and their inexplicable behavior are all forgotten in a world devoid of people where nothing changes, where streets are empty and the debris of civilization is covered by leaves and animal foot prints.  It's an odd feeling for me to discover it is people who in the end feed my photography and I am finding myself forced to admit that I am missing that part of my inspiration. I have tried to use the lock down to see beyond what normally makes itself apparent to me on my walks, to see details and angles and colors, but in the end the debris of our civilization is the part that is missing and the lack of it has made itself felt in an empty town.

Empty streets and clean empty sidewalks.  Nothing to see here, move along. Until next week.

Thunderstorms

A little rain gave Duval Street a fresh clean look helped along by the repaving job undertaken during lock down. 

Massive amounts of public works have been continuing in the Keys to try to take advantage of the absence of tourists.

Naturally there have been complaints the city should spend the money on coronavirus relief, though anyone who knows municipal funding rules knows monies budgeted for certain types of projects if not specific work have to be spent on those projects and cannot legally be diverted. 

The counter argument then arises that government is slow to respond and too rigid and all that stuff whereas when I was younger we took it for granted that government spending required planning, public comment and transparency. In my old age I find my previously commonplace beliefs about governance to be quaint out of date and old fashioned. I rather like becoming an old curmudgeon. "In my day..."

Everything is a source of negative comment in the world in which I live. La Concha hotel on Duval, the tallest building in the city is said to be ugly. I find it endlessly photogenic perhaps because I am not surrounded by tall architecture and lack variety in my skyscraper life.

I wasn't sure why he was looking at me like that but he didn't shy away when I pointed the camera  at him so...

I did get part of Memorial weekend  rain-free but the week ahead is rather spoiled by the knowledge of three things. June 1st the Keys re-open to tourists. Dade County confirmed coronavirus cases are increasing in number, by a large factor. Social distancing in Dade has failed signally. The people responsible for the Dade County spread are coming here in large numbers.  Consequently I feel a measure of existential gloom.

Or:

The Spectator on why reopening isn't a problem. Color me continuing to be confused.


From the May 26th Citizen:

During the early staging of the impending reopening, Keys lodging will be limited to 50% of standard occupancy, in accordance with Gov. Ron DeSantis’ recent executive order.

Local leaders will examine the situation later in June to make determinations regarding the relaxing of occupancy restrictions.

Statewide, the number of reported cases surpassed the 50,000 mark over the holiday weekend, as deaths from the novel coronavirus rose to above 2,000.

The three most-active areas in the state continue to be Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties, according to the state health department.

The Flag Pole

When we moved to Cudjoe Key five years ago I was glad to get out of our street on Ramrod Key, a long narrow single lane where the neighbors at either end disliked each other and we were in the middle of a lot of angry people. I felt like the middle child in a family at war with itself. Change is hard but we fell on our feet moving four miles closer to Key West with a wide street, pleasant neighbors and a canal we can swim in with hardly any boat traffic. But every paradise has its serpent and we were warned in rather uncertain terms about the big downside.

 "Those people" at Venture Out we were warned "will ruin your life every winter." The cause of the ruination was never made completely clear except that crowds of snowbirds walk their dogs along Spanish Main and clog the street with traffic. Plus they live in trailers.  As you can imagine someone who has lived much of his adult life on boats isn't put off by trailer living or any alternative lifestyle (see: vans!). Dog walking? Nothing wrong with that; God forbid. And after five years of living next door the worst I can say is the occupants of Venture Out have a tendency to run the stop sign at the entrance to the park. Forewarned is forearmed and I look out for their rolling California stops as they leap onto Spanish Main. The dog walkers are careful and I have never seen any dog eggs left behind. They have to be the cleanest dog walkers in the Northern Hemisphere, people whose example I try to live up to with trepidation. I take Rusty on the street  as he likes to sniff their trails when we walk in the middle of the night and the ground I find is super clean. There is never a noise complaint from the park and I never see the Deputy Sheriffs over there breaking up relationships gone bad. They are ideal neighbors in my book.

One evening as we drove back from a trip to Miami my wife told me she always looks for the flagpole at Venture Out as she commuted home from work in Marathon, and indeed the slim white pole rises up out of Cudjoe Key, an unmistakeable landmark from across the water on Summerland Key. It is a landmark, a reminder of home all the way down the mile long drive on Spanish Main after you turn off the highway. If the flag is not there you know there's wind in the forecast. If it is halfway down making room for the flag of Death at the top you know they are telegraphing something to the neighborhood. This weekend obviously it's Memorial Day. And a windy rainy weekend we were promised too as you can see, yet the flag is still flying perfectly spread by the east wind.

Today is Memorial Day of course but every day when you drive past the Venture Out flagpole is a day to think about home and loss and good fortune and all those emotions that make up daily life especially in a time of pandemic.

The Monastery Of The Mangrove

Every other weekend I get Saturday Sunday and Monday off and every other weekend it has started raining to welcome summer. The end of a long drought is a good thing but why does it have to end on my days off? I am taking it personally.

A work day for me ends with an exercise tape at home, a swim in the canal behind my house and then I walk Rusty while my wife relaxes by cooking. I wash up not least because I am compulsive about stuff like that and let's face it a great cook isn't necessarily a great dish washer. Not in my home. Rusty licks a clean bowl when he feels like it but he's perfect no matter what.

I love my evening walks just as much as Rusty does.  This is my Florida, socially distanced and alone looking for anything that catches my eye.

I have mixed feelings about people coming back to visit the Keys, though the good part for me will be, I hope seeing better pictures. Months of looking for still life worth recording is starting to wear on me and I never expected that it would. Empty streets are only interesting when you juxtapose the emptyness of after hours with the busyness of regular hours!  Everything is empty these days all the time...

I am not looking forward to the traffic, the increase inevitably of 911 calls, the undifferentiated impact of people not thinking or not caring about the pandemic they think they have left in their rearview mirrors.

The Sheriff has held the line with the roadblocks against all requests and demands that he take them down. From what I've heard they have refused entry to more than 13,000 vehicles and made several arrests related to the road blocks. It blows m mind that people are thinking its worth trying their luck even though it's clear the road is closed! I cannot imagine they will bring much social awareness when they arrive next week. 

That is a problem for next week. And even then I doubt any of the hordes arriving in the keys will be looking for long empty roads lined by mangroves, dull uninteresting and not worth stopping on. These places will continue I have no doubt to be my refuge even as they were before everything went weirdly wrong. You have to find your quiet place where you can.

Open The Flood Gates

Next week, technically next month, the roadblocks come down and visitors come back to the Keys and from everything I can gauge there will be no shortage of people to bring hotels to their fifty percent maximum permitted capacity. I have mixed feelings about all this as I have about the whole pandemic and the national response to it. I cannot for the life of me understand how we blunder about in this country turning everything into a political game of ping pong without facts, relying on opinions based on hope and with no numbers at all. I dread to think what Pearl Harbor would have ended up being if the greatest generation acted and thought as we do. Nevertheless...we are stuck with it.

Bearing in mind disruption to my life has been minimal inasmuch as my wife and I have continued to work and get paid, she for teaching from home and me for taking  911 calls. It isn't fair to ask me if I want the closure to remain in place as I have found the threat from the virus to have been very well contained by the Sheriff's determined action.On the other hand for those who are barely hanging on, told not to work and receiving no government support of any kind the question becomes an impossible one.

Given that Florida's unemployment system was deliberately wrecked by Governor, now Senator Rick Scott to improve his unemployment numbers one can hardly be surprised if people are desperate to get some income. If you think I am exaggerating Senator Scott's awfulness I invite you to read the incomparable Diane Roberts' column on the subject at the Florida Phoenix HERE. We live in difficult times for the poor and marginal and the virus hasn't helped.

I expect my wife and I will continue to quarantine ourselves as much as we can and from what I understand we are not alone in deciding to leave public social activities to Keys visitors. I cannot conceive of getting on a  commercial flight at the moment after all the effort we have made to contain the virus and keep it out of our lives. And the small matter of my wife's compromised immune system will make it impossible for her to mix publicly with people from all over the country until this business is finally put to bed. Self quarantine is not only possible for us and desirable, it is the only way forward as the Keys welcome back visitors.

Those among us who feel less cautiously inclined can lead the way and be the canaries in the coal mine. For some this will be an economic necessity as I said but for others there will be boredom or bravado to provide the push to socialize. I am not much good on Facebook as I am not inclined to hold strong opinions one way or the other on the virus and treatment and masks and I don't much feel like yelling about all this. Mostly I am confused and puzzled. It seems scientists are too as the CDC has changed its guidelines once again also. Only politicians and their minions are certain about anything it seems.

I will stay socially distant and where I cannot  I shall wear a mask. I have no idea how effective my surgical masks are but the way I see it they can't hurt if people are going perforce to get too close. Fortunately for my wife she is teaching from home for the rest of this school year before slipping into summer school and summer vacation so no decision on her job and her last pre-retirement year need be made yet. But if the virus comes back in the Fall as some scientists predict I wonder what we do then?

I am very cautious when it comes to firm statements about coronavirus because no one seems to know anything for sure not even what it does to us once we are infected. What was a 'flu has become more serious it seems, making blood clots in its spare time to slow the transfer of oxygen. Previously it affected old people now young people are getting sick, even children. Whatever next? Oh yes, US Navy sailors once infected and recovered have got the illness a second time, and as they are on a ship under close observation, thus they would seem to be a reliable control group. So, no inbuilt immunity then? 

No wonder we are all getting stressed out and nervous. I have developed massive amounts of empathy for people who lived through yellow fever epidemics in Key West (and elsewhere) in centuries past. Until Dr Gorgas supervising the health of Panama Canal workers worked it all out no one understood the relationship between mosquitoes and yellow fever. The 19th century in Key West was riddled with deadly pandemics like this one only with a much higher mortality rate.

Bubonic plague and rats were not connected for centuries and people died in droves, horrible deaths without a ventilator in sight. We aren't used to this sort of thing at all. The temptation has always been to just let things go and hope for the best. Numbers of deaths are relatively low and one could imagine keeping the economy going might be easier in the long run.

On the other hand watching the food supply chain get messed up by the numbers of sick people working in close quarters makes you realize, I hope, that profound sickness, never mind actual death, can have a hugely disruptive influence on our way of life. I fully expect to see surprising developments in the Keys as we move into June and the return to business as more or less usual. I hope I shall be pleasantly surprised even though my neighbors tend to the pessimistic with a knot of loud scoffers in their midst. Coronavirus has outstayed its welcome. I'm glad they suffered through the years of World War Two deprivations before I was born. It turns out I would have been insufferably impatient with all the time spent waiting for disaster to strike.

(And if the last photograph makes you go "Aha! Cartier Bresson! you get extra points).

It's a famous photograph by the French master who got people going on the idea of photographing casual moments, so called street photography. Some less than charitable critics suggest he had his  assistant race down the hill repeatedly on his bicycle until Cartier Bresson got his decisive moment correctly framed. The staircase is still there and is made immortal by this apparently banal picture. So I reversed the view and took the picture above of an equally banal spiral staircase...

Casa Marina

I have heard people ask if a certain part of the city is safe, as though violent crime is rife just as it appears to be as they sit at home agog in front of their television sets. The sad truth is that life in Key West is far less glamorous and lived at a far slower pace than outsiders seem to expect. 

The purchase of a home in Key West is less dependent on the quality of a neighborhood than on the type of people who live next door. You will hear residents complain about the parties in houses rented to vacationers who think loud music and pool parties are why Key West exists. They aren't completely wrong but their unfortunate neighbors think they are as they ponder an early start to go to work the  next day. Casa Marina Resort in a  time of coronavirus: 

Meanwhile one can identify individual neighborhoods in Key West.  I was walking Casa Marina after the rain as I wanted and I hope Rusty was okay with a change. 

Casa Marina is the upscale neighborhood in Key West. If you are a moneyed Conch you avoid the city by living on Key Haven at Mile Marker Five or distant Shark Key at Mile Marker Ten. If you are an incomer who wants tropical winters and at the same time demand typical American conveniences like roofs that don't leak and central air conditioning and a yard you can swing a rooster in, you buy in Casa Marina.

Here you will find a muddle of architecture and much greenery and cars that were not built in Detroit. Every rule has it's exception but Casa Marina conforms for the most part to my generalizations. I like it in summer for the shade offered by the greenery and year round this is a neighborhood fails to roll up its sidewalks so one can walk like a normal person from Up North. Sidewalks in Key West vary between bizarre narrow slivers, pavement resembling a ploughed field and no sidewalk at all. I learned that wheelchair locomotion and uncertain walking with a walker frame can be quite complicated. Not in Casa Marina. Here you may mobility challenged and still get around like Wiley Coyote.

Casa Marina is actually named for the Casa Marina a massive pile built by Henry Flagler as a destination for his railway tourists. They were bused across the city from the coastguard base where the train terminus was located on the north side to his hotel two miles away on the south side. In those days the cargo wagons were driven onto ferries to transport goods to and from Havana while passengers walked aboard a ship that would take them to Cuba. Others lounged around at the Casa Marina resort built in the style of other Flagler resorts in Palm Beach and St Augustine. The Standard oil millionaire figured he had to give train passengers somewhere to wile away their winters in this tropical paradise if they were to ride his trains.

During World War Two the military used the hotel and then it was abandoned in the way Key West has of wasting its greatest assets. Nowadays it is a first class resort with all proper amenities so you can enjoy Key West without mixing with hoi polloi any more than you want to. So it is with the housing, expansive well forested and easy to navigate. Oh and if you need a dentist Claude my cheerful and very capable tooth puller ( he loves pulling teeth and does it painlessly) has an office here which is as close as I get to sleeping in Casa Marina in his comfortable dentist chair waiting for the numbness to set in.