Everything Happens

I saw a suggestion recently that life in the Keys in the 1950s was the Good Old Days, in referring to a sign at the Southernmost Point surrounded by Conch shells for sale. I tried not to think about it and moved on.

I have difficulty with nostalgia because it always shows up to bite me in the rear when I least expect it and I have an awkward habit of looking back at the incorrect moment and second guessing myself. Usually common sense reasserts itself  and daily life continues uninterrupted. Sometimes however I have to pause and think. Why are we nostalgic? Why do we think the past was better than the present? I like to say toothache will knock nostalgia out of your head. I like modern dentistry very much indeed. Medicine in general is much improved and surgery is a whole new pain free world compared to the good old days.

In the 1950s the Southernmost Point was in Black Town, not Bahama Village and there are still people in the city who describe it thus. Key West has struggled with its past and historians are the people who talk about those injustices these days, not politicians or advertising agencies. For example Key West Weekly  and the Blue Paper...exposing the city behind the advertising which goes thus: Visit Florida.

It  seems inconceivable that these peculiar ideas were commonplace in our lifetimes. A friend of mine who grew up in South Florida remembered the "Whites Only" and "Colored Only" signs that we see in historic photographs and my wife's family lived through anti Jewish discrimination in Rock Island, relatively modest yet hurtful rejections from country clubs with swastikas painted on walls of Jewish businesses even as the Ukraine branch of the family was gassed out of existence in the Shoah. better to be a Jew in Illinois than in the Russian Pale of the 1930s of course. My own grandfather, an Italian gentile and an anti Fascist came close to execution in those years of ferocious political upheaval.

I had a bizarrely sheltered upbringing, growing up in middle class England with a  Catholic mother who spoke with an Italian accent (and embarrassed me) in the genteel 1960s.  It was then I learned I was weird when one of my 8 year old friends expressed astonishment on finding out I was a Papist...I was shocked by his surprise and revulsion because being a Catholic was what my mother did (my Father was an atheist) as a matter of course. I went to Catholic boarding schools and spent  my summers in Italy where Catholicism was the state religion and thus observed in the breech more than anything. But in England, a land where church going was falling rapidly into disfavor, I was a weird minority. That was a lesson in being different.

I get lots of angry off the cuff bigotry at work every day. Anyone with a beef against the police, whose problem I can't solve over the phone, can casually attack me for my foreignness. At first it shocked my colleagues when they heard callers telling me to go home or demanding to speak to a proper American, but they are as used to it now as am I. I guess these days I have to be glad I'm not Asian as they rate more death threats even than Muslims...I haven't had a death threat for years now at work, and I have never taken the ones I received seriously. People just get mad and choose the easy insult. 

I was much more concerned to read about the new voting restrictions in Georgia where it is now illegal to give people waiting in line to vote, food or drink as they stand in the sun. Similar proposals are being considered in Florida. Some headline writers have dramatized the voting restrictions as Jim Crow 2 but I hope they are wrong, and I trust the people who think these voting restrictions are acceptable will be voted out.  Denying people the vote is a weird way to celebrate democracy. Even if they voted against you, especially if they did.

Its all enough to make one skeptical of human nature. So going for a walk with a  dog and seeing trees and birds and vast open spaces lapping gently at the shoreline helps to restore equanimity. I grew up an antifascist as matter of course, in a family that fought Fascism for years, was imprisoned for it and was hounded for it, and now I find being an antifascist is to be a weirdo. People confuse me as much now as when I was eight listening to stories of terror and repression carried out against people I knew by men in black shirts who kept order with castor oil and  nightsticks.

I hear people remark that everything happens for a reason, which is the sort of aphorism you can stand behind only if you ignore most of what goes on in the world.  Starvation happens for a reason? Cruelty? Bigotry? I find it odd to imagine so many people and animals are being hurt so that we privileged few might grow stronger or more aware or more capable of managing our own lives - for a reason. As far as I can tell nothing happens for a reason unless some human puts it into motion usually for nefarious ends.

I know why the Georgia state lawmakers voted in restrictions to keep themselves in office, I know why the Klan used to terrorize minorities in Key West (and elsewhere). I know why people protest saying black lives matter as black lives get  cut short. And I know why white people push back saying all lives matter because they don't see the disparities and are fearful of change. And none of it gives me much hope as the institutions, big business, churches, community leaders  stay silent and we on the sidelines look away unless we donate online or drop a secret vote in favor of some or other prancing politician full of promises and demands for money in exchange for favors. In that respect the good old days haven't changed.

I have memories of people saying stop the world I want to get off. Webb Chiles calls it the monastery of the sea, where he is now. I call it going vanning where I will be soon enough. Then when people tell me to go home where I came from I can take my time driving there, the long slow way and enjoy the ride as I go. 

Black And White

I wanted a day of photos and no words. I made it so. 

Key Plaza

Rusty started whining as we came into town around 4:45 in the morning. I open the rear window for him at the Triangle, the place where Highway One becomes North Roosevelt as we turn into the city from Stock Island.

We rolled past Searstown (where Sears used to be) and started making the noise that dingoes make when excited, a high pitched repetitive whine which gave me fair warning to pull into Key Plaza and park in front of the new Publix (the old Publix is in Searstown as locals describe the two identical stores).

I got my Panasonic camera out of the bag only after I had opened the back door for Rusty. He scampered out into the parking lot not bothering to wait for creaky former night shift dispatcher to follow. I used to walk Rusty at night because I was used to being awake  at these awful hours but since I was moved to day shift Rusty hasn't lost the habit and even on my mornings off he will wake me for a walk at four in the morning. So here we are...

I like Key West at night, and not just because the pandemic mandates social distancing. I like the black sky, even with, or perhaps especially because the streets lights kill the stars. You get this velvet black backdrop to the lighted empty streets:

News has percolated to the Keys that K-Mart is closing stores in Marathon and the Upper Keys and the reduced circumstances of the Key West store would seem to indicate its future is limited. The proper name for this shopping area is Key Plaza (not Keys Plaza as the pedant in me will happily point out...). However this is often known locally as K-Mart plaza because of the presence of that one fading store. We shall have to build new landmarks for the 21st century.

Staffing shortages are critical around town, as is affordable housing and the pinch is being felt everywhere. We hear of unemployment that is obviously pandemic related across the United States but around here there are jobs galore. I heard new owners at McDonalds are offering $17 an hour to start but it's hard to live a life in the Keys when rents  are absurd and unobtainable. 

Traditionally the three shopping centers, including Winn Dixie's Overseas Market have created the modern shopping experience for Key West. In the mid 20th century America was shopping at malls and Key West wasn't  going to be left behind. So they built these modern blocks with vast parking areas and all the charm and character of the cement workers paradise I saw in the Soviet Union when I took a  train across that sad country.

It's funny how modern and smart becomes out of fashion and ugly with the passage of time. Originally people who owned old wooden homes downtown craved modern functional ranchettes in New Town with wide streets, car ports or even garages with lawns and all the joys of modern living. Nowadays we view the revitalized Old Town as  the best money can buy, judging by the monstrous prices. 

Tastes change and pandemics now encourage shopping by mail so it all resembles the old Sears Roebuck catalogues used by isolated homesteaders 150 years ago. They ordered and the US Postal Service delivered, just like today at a slightly slower pace.

If you walk Duval Street after more than a year of no cruise ships numerous downtown boutiques have closed because they did not serve local needs, and even though some people hope the empty spaces will be filled with local friendly stores it's hard to imagine how that could happen.

Jewelry and Pool Products side by side... it all works to keep a local building open. I like this gem shop which sells stuff my wife wears from time to time as though to prove I did have good taste for at least a few of her birthdays! I swim in my canal so the pool products are outside my knowledge.

Gas at $3:15 a  gallon, as if to welcome the summer driving season. Locals have no reason to go downtown when everything can be bought here if a personal appearance is warranted.

The virus seems to have heralded a period of change, of new ways of commuting, working, entertaining and thus you could say a whole new way of living.

I document these places, these stores, these places off the tourist track because Rusty likes to walk there, but also it occurred to me, because they may not be here soon. Certainly I won't be and I wonder what lives we will be living.

I saw one of the Publix trucks arrive with food we expect to see on the store shelves. They drive up and down the Keys and we assume they always will.  I hope so.

The shadow flitting back and forth, self importantly, silently, was my boy Rusty having the greatest time.  Weird dog.

I thought this was a cool picture of art in the industrial wasteland. 

This was me admiring the lines of shopping carts in the industrial wasteland. Rusty was rooting around out of the picture.

More industrial art, a play on the value of piping in modern economies. Or something.

I did not think this was the place to fuel my destiny (or yours) but advertising works in funny ways.

This building behind the shopping center is where people go to see doctors and dentists and to have their eyes examined. I know that because my eye doctor works there. It's called The Professional Building for a reason.

Driving into Key West look for the sign and turn left.