Well, that was an experiment not worth repeating anytime soon.
I am, of course, referring to last week’s blog which was composed, edited, published, and promoted all using nothing but my cell phone and a willing suspension of disbelief when it came to the advertised capabilities of modern technology. The result was perhaps the worst looking blog ever (even factoring out my little joke about not having a spell checker) with randomly missing spaces and characters, which were not in the original, appearing willy-nilly. I’m sure the conspiracy theorists among you can work something out – perhaps a message? I guess I’ll just have to return to my old practice of lugging my laptop wherever I go. Maybe I’ll give new technology a try in another ten years or so.
But now I’m back in the Pacific Northwest, safely ensconced at a real keyboard – with a real spell checker – looking back through the dreary morning mist at the now-fading memory of the Florida Keys. My mind settles on one mundane comparison.
Why is everybody here so slow?
Having lived most of my life on the east coast of the U.S., I am still having a rough time adjusting to the laid back, slow-moving vibe that is the Seattle area. Now, fresh from Back East, that difference is even more evident. Drivers who don’t know what the pedal on the right is for. Pedestrians who move like they’re walking through a mine field. Service, though with a patronizing smile, which promises results sometime after the Second Coming. Really, if you took the fastest moving person from Seattle and dropped them into any city east of the Appalachians, they would be dead inside of minutes. Trampled by the tide of humanity moving at what, to an outsider, appears to be the reentry speed of a moon shot.
Step out in front of traffic back east and it’s bye-bye Buckaroo. Step out in front of traffic in out here and it’s all squealing tires and abject apologies. I’ve got a bumper sticker – for the front bumper – that says: “Don’t wave, just walk.” It’s enough to make me nuts.
Coming back from Florida makes it seem even worse. My formative years were spent in New York City, home of the famous “New York Minute” which is what everybody else calls a second. But I originally hail from the Garden State of New Jersey where life moves at an even more hectic pace with the rush to 1) get down the shore before the traffic starts on Friday night or 2) get into New York City. In Florida, there are more people from New York and New Jersey than there are from actual Florida and at this time of year, the numbers skew even more. Couple that with a resident population of Cubans and Puerto Ricans, any of whom could easily tweak more speed from the starship Enterprise even after Scottie failed to deliver, and you get a pace of life that makes the Big Apple seem like it’s still hanging on the tree.
So my first venture out on the Bainbridge roads was even more frustrating what with dealing with drivers who operate by the rule: wait for the green and then count to ten, and pedestrians who move like they might be running away from an advancing glacier. In Florida it is almost impossible to find anyone who drives less than ten MPH over the limit. In the PacNW, drivers going more than fiveover are as hard to find as Bigfoot. In Florida there’s a popular bumper sticker that goes “When I get old I’m gonna move up North and drive slow.” The retirees tootling along in their Buicks causing this resentment? They’re all driving eighty.
And then you get to the Keys.
Supposedly the gates of Hell are labeled “Abandon hope all ye who enter here.” Well, US-1 coming out of Florida City has a sign over it too. It reads: “Welcome to the Keys. Check your rules at the door.” Twenty miles of roadway barely elevated above the swamp later, the highway rises over Jewfish Creek and drops you into Key Largo. This is the upper end of a hundred mile long string of parched, sun-bleached outcrops that ends in Key West. From space, the Keys look like nothing less than a tropical paradise strewn across a turquoise sea. In reality the islands are low-lying, soil-free, mosquito-infested boulders of the Florida formation; a limestone analogue of broken glass. It’s not a place to go barefoot. Indeed, when Juan Ponce de León “discovered” them in 1513 he named the islands Los Martires – The Martyrs – because, from a distance, they looked like people suffering.
Until the advent of intercontinental air travel the Keys were the last stop on many personal downward spirals. Pursued by whatever demons were after them, people drifted south, and south again, until, at last, they dipped their toes into the Florida Straits at Key West. There was nowhere left to go.
Lest you think that the Keys were home only to low-life rejects, the dregs of society, be aware that among the refuse of humanity were also such luminaries as Ernest Hemmingway, Harry Truman, Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, Robert Frost, and Winslow Homer. The definitive Keys-ster Jimmy Buffet – originally from Alabama – bailed on Margaritaville over two decades ago. He now spends his time between his homes in The Hamptons and Palm Beach. That is, when he’s not on the road milking the legions of Parrot Heads for $200 for a lawn seat convincing them that he’s still nibbling on spongecake instead of actually playing badminton with Martha Stewart on Long Island. He doesn’t count.
The Keys are home to a trans-infinite number of restaurants and very few grocery stores. There are restaurants with three – count ‘em – Happy Hours a day; the first starting at eight. AM. Yet, this is a place where an entire city turns out for a high school soccer game. It is a place of secrets and treasure. And, yes, it is one of those places where some people go to lose themselves, but also where some people go to find themselves. Most visitors seem to go to convince themselves that they’re still cool even if they’re working nine-to-five in Atlanta the other fifty weeks of the year.
The Keys’ locals, wear a separate, but better, chip on their shoulder with pride. When they go to the mainland they say they’re “going to Florida.” These are the people who formally seceded from the United States. On April 23, 1982, “The Conch Republic” declared independence with its southern border set at Key West and its northern at Skeeter’s Last Chance Saloon in Florida City. The Conch Republic has gone to war against the United States twice, losing the first encounter and winning the second (against the 478th Battalion of the U.S. Army Reserve who attacked in an amphibious assault on September 20, 1995) without a shot being fired. The “conchs”, as Keys residents are known, go into battle armed only with stale Cuban bread. They even have a flag.
And no, I am not making any of this up.
But it’s not all rum drinks, palm trees, and sunscreen, because the Keys are on their way out. They are vanishing before our very eyes. It’s not just the influx of people and it’s not just the rising seas and stronger storms. In the few decades since I’ve been going down there whole species of fish have vanished from the reefs. The markets now sell fish that used to be thrown back – or used as bait to catch something good. The reefs are overrun by invasive lionfish – from the Pacific Ocean – their corals smothered in algae because the water has gotten so warm. The islands are now home to endless hordes of green iguanas and the dreaded Gambian pouch rat. The pythons haven’t made it yet but give them a few years to get used to salt water.
These islands are like the canary in the coal mine. The symptoms are warning us of the disaster approaching and just now hinting at what happens when things start to go bad. These sun-scalded rocks, like wild places everywhere, are under assault. Sadly for them, they’re at the front lines and taking the brunt of it. It’s probably too late for the canary and we may not have enough time to make it out of the mine ourselves. And like everywhere else we just ignore the warnings.
On our last day in the Keys we were lucky enough to take a boat out to get some lunch. On the way we were given a great show by a small group of wild dolphins leaping into the air around the boat. It’s not something you get to see every day and it’s probably something you won’t be able to see much longer.
As we were tying up the boat this manatee came over and was drinking the fresh water we were washing the boat with. She came right up to us, rolled over on her back, and held up her flipper. It was hard to tell whether she wanted to be friends, or if she was just waving goodbye.