Key West Bight

Rusty enjoys walking Old Town. He was over it by the time we left last year but by then we were both a little tired of the repetition. I was looking forward to hitting the road; he had no idea what was coming. 

We spent an hour wandering from Caroline Street to Simonton Street and as I encourage Rusty to stop and sniff as he pleases our walks become more like gentle meanders. 

I figure the walks are his time so he sets the pace and direction. If a place doesn’t interest him he can let’s me know in no uncertain terms by stopping and staring at me. On the other hand he is polite enough to stop and wait while I make a picture. 

We are a team, he sits and I click the shutter. He doesn’t look out over the water, that’s my job and check it out, the little brown dog is turning his back on this splendid view:

It is also time for the powerboat races, this year delayed slightly out of respect for the distant passage of hurricane Nicole. 

I’ve told him a hundred times he needs to learn how to ask for phone numbers but as often as he attracts them they end up boring him. 

He got fed up with the attention and wriggled away and sat down on his own. I apologized for him then I explained that he does that to me too if I let him too much. I suppose he’s even more shy than am I. 

He’s lucky too that I don’t drag him round the waterfront in the heat not stopping to let him sniff and explore at his own pace. So often people get dogs as part of their exercise program. I tell Rusty his walks are his time to use as he pleases. 

Visitors to Key West get to use their time as they like, sitting and watching boats or sitting and listening to music at Schooner Wharf. 

The thing is they need to change the name of the bar. The Western Union has been replaced by a shrimp boat. A long time ago the entire bight was filled with commercial boats just like this lone survivor now in display. 

For less hardcore anglers there are the regular charter boats:

I have come to understand how to approach Key West in my new role as outsider. I am a visitor and once I figured that out I revel in the assignment. The city has lots of plans including hiring a new city manager and revamping Duval Street and fixing up the homeless shelter. None of it is my problem. I’ve heard the city attorney wants the top job. As long as he doesn’t screw up the pension plan he will be someone else’s problem. The newspaper says the mayor is mad at him already. And publicly. Bummer. I went swimming. 

It’s a great place yo north, to watch people, to know you are in Key West. 

Gary likes to know if the Galleon Resort is still standing. It was the last time I looked.  Though Rusty that particular dog, did not feel like walking out to the breakwater in front of the building. 

An excellent day to be a tourist in Key West. I enjoyed it. 

Friends In Key West

I don’t think of myself as a social being but I think I end up looking that way. I was at the Tropic the other night for a talk about Ft Jefferson and the Dry Tortugas and very good it was too. 

Standing outside waiting for the others of my party to escape the crowd I was accosted. 

A couple from New Jersey, long time visitors to Key West spend far too much time on this page sbd wanted to say hello. I hope I didn’t disgrace myself but then another couple stopped by…I managed  not to faint because they were all very gentle with me. I am really sorry I didn’t drag them a block up the street to meet Rusty. But Paula was there finally to manage my life and she took the reins and led us off to dinner. I was full of admiration for the blog readers who accosted me with charm and overcame my social ineptitude. 

Mind you, I can smile for the camera. Unlike Paula’s Dad who in person is really funny but he looks at a camera like Winston Churchill with indigestion. 

On the subject my wife says she is shy but I wouldn’t know it from the way she makes and maintains long distance relationships. I get exhausted by all the socializing she creates so what follows is a short and most probably incomplete list of what it takes to learn to be a visitor and guest in the town where people live their own full lives.

Doug lives downtown and has for as long as I can remember. He loves his Huskies and you’ll seem him cycling downtown on a tricycle with furry partner. We appreciate our dogs.

I have admired Doug's tenacity in a city that chews people up and spits them out. He and his wife have made Key West their home in a way few people seem to manage. 

They take joy in Key West, in friendships forged and new friends who have a habit of dropping into town. Doug’s retirement doesn’t look much like mine but we share a contentment and an appreciation for this town. 

Chuck and Wayne of course. Remarkable success story of learning to live in the Keys and Kry West. 

Rachel and Kristi holding down the fort without me. Rachel has twenty years in dispatch and started three years before me. Kristi has more than a dozen in the room. Their partners are both city employees which steady work gives relationships a chance. They both own their homes so they have stability. Success stories. 

Carol hired Layne as a teacher taking a chance on the lawyer who wanted a new less stressful career. Carol threw amazing parties in her sprawling tree house in New Town supported by rental  apartments she carved out of the house to make it economically viable. She’s retired to her long desired Old Town tiny house part of a cooperative of small units in a landscaped lot out of the flood zone. Happiness in a small package. 

Nick lives with three rescue dogs and extended family across the island. One of the reasons I didn’t go completely nuts sitting up all night answering 911 for more than a decade. And below Keith from New Jersey with a wicked sense of humor and the smarts to get his own place in New Town. He used to own his own business but realized working for city is the best retirement plan in Key West. A few more years…

My dentist of all people. Claude gets it, the van thing. He travels every chance he can and posts pictures on Instagram at his account msflossdaily  I think it’s Africa pretty soon. 

Jonathan last seen in Maine. Sailor and circumnavigator married to one of my wife’s best friends. We sat on the deck listening to the rain and drank red wine and I thought of the other sailor who inspired my travels Webb Chiles the writer. 

I met Robert sailing the Bahamas in the 1980s. He’s retired to Cudjoe Key with Dolly. He came to Key West in 1976 and watched the bicentennial fireworks from the deck of his boat. A life spent on and under the water as a fisherman and later an employee at the marine sanctuary he initially opposed. He’s all about conserving the oceans. 

Me, the shadow drifting through their lives. 

Nicole, a healthy reminder of some of the challenges faced by Keys residents. Tough people. 

Duval Street

Barring some other catastrophic obstruction I’m hoping Rusty and I will be leaving Key West soon. Hurricane Nicole will I trust,  be soaking the just and unjust alike in the indecisive state of Georgia. The plan is to return here after Thanksgiving but in the meantime I have to meander to New Orleans to pick Layne up when she flies back from California.

My instructions are brief and simple and I seem to have forgotten the critical point. I think I have to be at the airport the 22nd but I fear I was doing something important like picking daisies when she got to that point in her pick up instructions. Never mind, it’ll all work out. 

I’m told it’s rather cold and damp on the central California Coast as one might expect in November but it’s not at all here. One can feel rather smug in the Keys at the moment, cool breezes, puffy white clouds, and a little sunshine to mellow things out. The rest of Florida has been wallowing in pouring rain and some gnarly winds. 

It has been rather pleasant. We got a walk or two in downtown did young Rusty and I, checking the state of Duval Street. Much of a muchness most of it with a few storefront changes. Fran Decker has an art exhibit in the local artist spot in the shop window at CVS. When the owner of Fast Buck Freddie’s put CVS in the old Kriss building at 500 Duval he specified a space for local art and of course Tony Falcone got his way. 

I find the obsession with winter stereotypes for Christmas slightly odd, but I’m not a retailer by nature, so I am forced  to suppose Santa Claus as improbable as he may be in the tropics, helps sales. 

It’s low season right now as cold weather Up North hasn’t yet kicked in to push snowbirds south, but the trickle of people on Duval look the same as ever. 

In the past I would occasionally come down and walk Duval before my overnight shift at the police station. Now I’m just another tourist and I like that.  

In a way it’s a fresh new view of the city. 

We were passing the Oldest House when I found myself behind this child dressed for the part and learning to be a Key West visitor. Start them young  I thought as Dad worked the phone. 

Rusty is his own dog and I love that about him.  He got tired of being the center of attention so he walked to the end of his leash and sat by himself refusing to pose with them.  

I’ve only been gone a year but it feels like much longer so I was stupidly impressed by Willie T’s still pulling them in enough to fill the bar. 

We used to get lots of calls asking for help to move the street people along who had a habit of panhandling the customers while listening to the music.  The homeless tend to be seasonal too in Key West and I didn’t see huge numbers as I walked around. I don’t think gentrification makes the place more appealing for them either.  

A former colleague was telling me about applying for “low income” housing for which he didn’t qualify as dispatchers earn too much, his rate is nearly $30 an hour. His girlfriend does qualify but she can’t afford the unit as they want $2500 a month for the “affordable” unit. He could have lived with her illegally (!) but he found something else as he is well connected. The economics of living in Key West make less sense than ever. 

The result is that the commute hours these days are extraordinary into and out of the city as workers come from

marginally more affordable islands up the highway. Construction at the triangle doesn’t help. 

If you have your foot in the door you can hang on. Roger sells knick knacks on Duval and watches the world go buy. After a working life didn’t traveling he is a very happy man sitting here chatting to passers by. I wonder why I am wired differently. But I am. 

Hurricane Nicole

You could say I am miffed to find myself discussing a hurricane threat on this page but when I say “miffed” I mean something far stronger and less delicate. I dare say I am annoyed that not only did Hurricane Nicole put in an appearance but the storm is heading dead due west to collide with my plans.

Layne was going to leave Thursday from Miami to fly to San Francisco to gather in Santa Cruz for a friend’s 70th birthday. However that plan got scotched by Nicole’s untimely appearance and she left yesterday flying from Key West to Charlotte and then off to the wild west. Leaving me looking at a map of the entire rain soaked state of Florida the next couple of days. So I’m hunkering until this wretched thing passes. I have books to read and a dog to walk. I am set and best of all I don’t have to be locked down at work. 

The first thing I thought as I looked at the wide sweep of storm weather covering almost all Florida was how ready are they in Southwest Florida to get rained upon? I think Hurricane Ian was plenty for them to deal with at the moment. This was Monday’s track when we started changing our plans:

The Keys, Flamingo of fond memory and Pensacola are spared a spanking. Paula and Ivan are okay with me staying put a few more days to wait for the weather to pass so that seems sensible. My plans for solitude in north Florida woods are delayed it seems, not cancelled. 

Originally we were going to see friends in Miami and stay the night with Layne flying out on Thursday morning. So much for that. We just have to stay adaptable and feel lucky that we aren’t in the direct path. These days even a category one storm feels excessive to my delicate nerves. The trouble is storms don’t act predictably and we have nowadays sudden unexpected increases in strength and changes of direction at the last minute. I don’t feel much like it but here I am watching a hurricane develop once again. 

Some rain and wind is the forecast in the Keys as we wait and see what Nicole does and what Rusty and I will do in response. This is way better than putting up storm shutters and making my bed in the police station. 

I keep telling Rusty we can’t close our eyes to the possibilities of foul weather messing with our plans but he keeps ignoring me. Maybe I should do as he does, closes his eyes and smiles.