Summerland Sunset

I realized with a  jolt that winter is closing in on us. I don't doubt that Up North this fact is being brought home with a  vengeance and traces of frost. Around here it remains strangely humid despite a fresh east wind blowing all day and all night as Hurricane Delta marched across the Gulf Of Mexico. It feels like it should be wintery and dry under crisp clear skies but it isn't.

One indisputable fact is that days are getting shorter and I noticed that fact Thursday night when my wife worked late (from home) and Rusty's evening stroll was my responsibility.  By the time we drove to the trailhead it was ten minutes before seven and night was decidedly falling. Fat Albert, the Air Force Blimp on Cudjoe Key was silhouetted in the sunset.

A lobster fisherman's work is never done. They sit out in the shade and the heat repairing traps. It is in a way the agricultural work of the Keys, labor intensive and physical similar to my memories of work in the fields when I was growing up far inland. It was not my cup of tea so I ran away from the farm.

Commercial boat names are not always comprehensible to me but I thought there was potential for beauty in the lines of this hull high and dry. The rest of the stuff was just colorful.

If you have the misfortune to find yourself lost at sea a red colored life ring could and should make you more visible. Failing that it makes for an effective if gaudy decoration on land.

This, below is what I think of as a winter sunset, a season when humidity is banished till summer and with the humidity go the clouds so the sky is clear. Which also cuts down the color and drama prevalent in summer sunsets. 

The rain keeps coming at random to remind me it's not actually the dry season yet. In two weeks we turn the clocks back and instead of dusk at seven we start to enjoy dusk at six, about the moment I leave the office. 

One thing I do miss in northern latitudes which I enjoyed in Michigan this past summer are the very long periods of twilight. The closer you get to the equator the less difference there is between summer and winter time and furthermore light and dark alternate very rapidly. Around here one minute it's daylight and the next it's night. Twilight is a very short part of the evening.

I am of the thought that year round daylight saving daytime would be good but I fear there are many unintended consequences that would accompany such a change. The European Union is trying to implement such a change so perhaps we can wait and see how the experiment goes. I have no children but daylight  saving time would give us extremely dark mornings all through winter  and I wonder how parents would deal with that for instance.

Winter cometh. Glad there is no frost to look forward to around here. 

Southard Street

I thought to myself "Amazing Cleaning" as the car drove by and then he strolled into the frame.  He actually looked quite well put together under his natty white hat which I think is a Panama, but I don't wear hats very often so I can only guess.  A fedora is made of cloth and a trilby is turned up at the back. Therefore by default this hat is a panama, no?  

By this evening Hurricane Delta should be grinding up the Mississippi delta as a major hurricane with lots of water to deposit on the already quite wet wetlands. As usual one feels relief that it's them and not us, a form of relief with some guilt mixed in. 

However the skies over the Keys have been quite peculiar for the past several days, a whirling mixture of sun one minute  and gray veering into back another minute accompanied by sudden bursts of rain and a constant thrumming wind. 

My wife working at home sends me grumbly texts to my desk 25 miles away reporting thunder, an anxious dog and rain flooding the ground. I look out of the window at work and see blue skies and tranquil sunshine. An hour later the situation is reversed. It is very unpredictable. 

What is predictable is the humidity hanging over us all. Lots of that all the time. This picture I took when walking Rusty early Wednesday a few moments after a downpour caught us on Eaton Street so we took sjhelter at the theater for five minutes and then strolled back to the car.

Hurricane watching, from a safe distance, is one way to take your mind off this grotesque political month.

Dupont Lane

In 1888 the 27 year African American Charles Fletcher DuPont was elected Sheriff of Monroe County and he served his term from 18898 to 1893. He has a lane named for him off Petronia near Duval Street at the 801 Bar.

DuPont had a hard time of it controlling the Cuban factions in Key West divided between supporters of Spanish rule and revolutionaries seeking independence.  When two two supporters of the Spanish colonial government gunned down a Cuban revolutionary in Key West the Monroe County sheriff found himself in one of those situations beloved of Hollywood, defending evil doers against a lynching mob. 

Sheriff DuPont acquitted himself well in that June 1891 incident and the two suspects were never sent to Tampa for a lynching but had several trials in Key West and finally found not guilty. It all sounds  a bit peculiar but the Sheriff did his bit. 

DuPont was the son of freed slaves  and his father Rome is believed to have been born in St Augustine as the property of landowners from South Carolina by the name of DuPont. It's rather mind boggling to imagine people being born as property and relatively speaking not that long ago. Amanda Shackleford was DuPont's mother and her family settled in Key West, hence her son the Sheriff elected by popular vote.

Even in those days of slavery, segregation and Jim Crow Key West was always a bit different thanks in part to the numerous different groups attracted to the city by its port and the trading ships passing through. It's hard to imagine any other southern city electing an African American as sheriff. Maybe they did in drives but it doesn't seem likely.

All this history is contained in the small one block land that leads north off Petronia Street. You could drive by without even noticing it.

Looking toward Petronia from the dead end of the lane:

And there is the sign on Petronia that marks the lane:

Shadows

The sun is dipping closer to the southern horizon as we head into what is technically going to be Fall in the Northern Hemisphere. The shadows are moving with the arc of the sun.

I have never figured much protection comes to golf cart riders from the weather they drive through but the flat roof on this one gave welcome shade:

In Florida it is said that the best parking spot is the one in the shade and I have found myself, no matter what the climate, looking for shade when I leave the car. I did it in Michigan this summer where the locals were sweating and my wife and I were looking at each other feeling too embarrassed to say out loud we were nearly feeling a chill in the air. I still looked for shady parking for the van.

In two years we hope to be showing Rusty the wonders of Alaska but I have to admit we are both a little dubious about our ability to thrive in the tundra. My wife has heard that mosquitoes in Alaska make Florida insects look like punks and they suck their victims dry. Despite the appalling heat this summer I am no aficionado of cold damp weather which they have in abundance even in summer near the Arctic Circle, I am reliably informed. However for now I shall enjoy heat and light in the tropics or thereabouts.

One umbrella isn't necessarily enough in this sunlight, but even without a sunhat  he wears a mask which tells you he's a local. No matter how hot it may be the tradition of stopping to chat on the streets of Key West must go on, preferably in the shade.

The Last Full Moon

My walk last week just before the full, full moon was memorable because Rusty was very patient even as he watched the sun set and I was too busy to leave the house. By the time I looked up I realized it was actually dusk at 7:30 and I was blowing his evening entertainment.

That would never do so we leapt into the car like caped crusaders and blasted off at a suitably sedate pace to find some serene spot to take the evening air together. 

The irritating thing about cameras is they are simple light collection tools  and when there ain't no light there ain't no use for a squeeze box. Oh well, I took my little black box with me anyway never sure what I might see.

I had no tripod so the moon escaped me but the moon always looks the same anyway, and on an almost full moon the road looked like a strip of gray felt as the day faded to black. Rusty was a dark shadow silently circling me in the night.

All I could see was a strip of blue sky near the horizon and above the mangroves which grow about ten feet tall around here. 

The leaves look like etchings against the sky. The breeze rattled the palm fronds filling the air with the sound of rattling and shivering of palm fronds. In the distance I could hear, as always, the distant rumble of cars on the highway.

I played with the moon while Rusty sniffed around at my feet. All I could get, hand held, was a fuzzy gray disc in a black plane. I needed the big camera to photograph the moon but we all know what the moon looks like anyway.

I stood and listened to the night. A quick rustle and my dog was at my side ready to jump into the car, now a pool of golden light in the blackness. I thought of all those nights he spent in the bushes, one eye open just like how he slept when we got him. Now four years later he sleeps the sleep of the just in his bed at home. Both glad to see the darkness, both glad to leave it behind.

Earning A Crust

It's a popular schtick on Duval Street to set your dog up on the sidewalk and earn a  living. 

I don't get it but I suppose if all else fails I could dress Rusty up as Harlequin and have him earn us a crust for a change.

The other way to earn a living is to take your clothes off, not recommended for everyone .  The notion that drinking a  beer with a  naked Eastern European woman is somehow a good way to spend your money does help keep people employed.

I quite like the color scheme and roofline of the Red Garter on Charles Street.

Across the street the slightly more dilapidated rear of Rick's is in a  way more picturesque.

Art flourishes.

And takes a break occasionally in the shade.

Sloppy Joe's has reopened after months closed. The precise levels of precautions to be taken are more or less up to business owners now. The Governor has decreed that fines and citations for mask violations are void so everything is voluntary on the street and up to the business indoors. As far as I can tell every business requires masks as they are trying to encourage people to come in and shop. 

According to the paper the Tropic has re-opened and is showing one movie ('The Way I See It") to 25 ticket holders at a time. It's a start.

What next I wonder as the infection numbers start to go back up. Patience is a virtue I keep telling myself.