higgs beach & tiki mythology

This Tiki dude hangs out on the side of the beach stuff rental hut on Higgs beach.
The beach was named for Clarence S. Higgs who I've read was a mayor of Key West but oddly, reading down a list of Key West mayors, didn't find old Clarence listed.
If anyone knows when Higgs was mayor, please let me know.


Anyway, "Tiki" is to Polynesian cultures in the South Pacific as "Totem poles" are to Native American cultures; the only difference being, Totem poles represent deities while a Tiki represents man (more exactly, the first man).
The carvings mostly served to mark the boundaries of sacred sites but these days, more often than not, tourist attractions and, are strongly associated with the origin sex.

See, Tiki mythology closely parallels our Judaeo-Christian myth of Adam and Eve. . .
God created Adam, the first man, from the dust and after a time Adam was lonely and craved company. So God created Eve, the first woman, from one of Adam's ribs.
The two lived in innocence for a while until the snake came along and tempted Eve to taste the forbidden fruit (sex) which she in turn shared with Adam.
(Christine O'Donnell would never approve)

Now the Tiki myth varies a bit from island to island in the South Pacific but mostly it goes like this. . .
God created Tiki, the first man, from red clay and after a time Tiki was lonely and craved company. One day, seeing his reflection in a pool of water, Tiki thought he had found a companion and so, dove in to seize it. Of course the image shattered and Tiki was disappointed. So God (compassionate fellow that he is) created Ivi, the first woman, from one of Tiki's bones.
The two lived in innocence for a while until an eel came along and excited Ivi. Her excitement turned Tiki on and the first horizontal mambo was the result.

At the end of the day, you've gotta wonder (well, you don't have to but I'm stuck with it) how a creationist myth born in the Middle East could so closely parallel a creationist myth born in the South Pacific nearly 12,000 miles on the other side of the planet; before the time of telephones or the internet.
Hmmm. . .

bike week - part 2

One strange day during bike week, I was on my early morning way to and from 5 Brother's Deli for my daily dose of con leché when I noticed two little-kiddie bikes leaning side by side on the curb a few doors down from my house. Nothing unusual really, Key Westers have an unspoken recycling process. . .
Whatever you've got, if you don't need or want it anymore, set it out on the curb and before long someone who does will pick it up. (It's a win, win for everybody)


Now me, I'm a single guy and my kids are grown so, I've got no rideable use for little-kiddie bikes but as the day wore on and the shadows and light played on the things I thought I'd get some pictures before the bikes found their way to somewhere else. (it's an artist thing)


Anyway, while I was taking these and a few more shots, a friend of mine drove up.
I've known Danette Baso Silvers for just about as long as I've lived in Key West but we hadn't seen each other in a while and so spent a few minutes catching up on this and that. Then she asked me about the bikes. I explained they'd been there for the taking and that I had no use for them other than that afternoon's photo-op. She mentioned that her nephew was needing a bike and one of these two might be perfect.


Without much hesitation, we loaded them both into the back of her car and off they drove toward a little TLC and their new home. You've just gotta love the synchronicity of island life.

bike week - part 1

I know I'm late to the party on this one but, what the hell, here goes anyway. . .

Personally, I'm not a big on motorcycles although I have every respect for people who are. My issue with motorcycles is nothing personal; just an aspect of my issues with unnecessary loud sounds. Other stuff like mopeds, car alarms, overbearing loud mouth women (you know who you are), garbage trucks, sirens, boats with motors (I prefer sail) and navy jet fly overs make me crazy too.

All that said, I did get out and about last weekend for a few hours to the annual bike week festivities and being of the "visual artist" and "all for fun and fun for all" persuasions was again excited by the bike designs and generous energy of the bikers who dig them.

For folks out-of-town, the thing that brings bikers to Key West is the last stop of the Poker Run at the Schooner Wharf Bar. Now, I was told by one biker I spoke with that the Poker Run is a mostly unknown event for folks outside of South Florida.
So, in a nutshell (or a conch shell if you prefer). . .

Every year thousands of bikers register for the annual, for charity event up in Miami and begin the rumble down the 150 or so miles of the Overseas Highway to Key West.
Along the way there are 5 (sometimes 7) stops where the bikers each draw a playing card and the biker with the best poker hand at the end of the run is the winner.

I tried, but never did, catch up with this year's winner so I don't really know what the prize for winning is (and if anyone knows, I'd be happy to hear) but, when the bikers roll into town, they get treated to a weekend with a hog roast and bikini fashion show at Schooner's and the Biker Bash at Sloppy Joe's on Duval.

Prize or no prize the events around town seem like ample incentive to come rumbling down the Keys.
There's my "all for fun and fun for all" thing again.

Still, with my loud sounds thing going on, I'd personally pass on it. But if there's ever a Poker Run for smooth cruisin', quiet riding drop top Cadillacs, I'm there.

hand rolled

. . . and what a smooth smoke it was.

snail mail

Just a bit of fun with photoshop here.
(or should that be phun with fotoshop?)


Anyway, late last Saturday morning it started crazy raining and I put my plants out from under the porch roof to catch some of it. While I was gettin' it done, I noticed a snail climbing up the side of my mailbox and in my head, heard Curly Howard's voice say, "ooo! snail mail!".
He was about in the position you see him here but by the time I'd finished with the plants, grabbed my camera and got back out there, he'd moved to a place that didn't tell the story so well anymore. (either snails move quicker than we usually think or I was having a slow moving Saturday morning)

So I waited and watched and eventually decided the little bugger was not gonna give me another one shot photo-op.
So I shot one of the snail (yes that's really him), and another of my mailbox. Then this morning, with a little time to kill on my hands, put this image together.

Artists, go figure. . .

remembering labor day

Widely accepted as the brainchild of Peter J. McGuire, (general secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and a cofounder of the American Federation of Labor) Labor Day is "dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers."

The first ever Labor Day celebration was scheduled in New York City on the first Monday in September of 1882 but, for one reason or another, was held off for a day (probably called on account of rain) and so the parade and picnic were held instead on Tuesday, September 5, 1882.

Held as an annual "workingmen's holiday", by 1884 labor organizations in other cities joined the celebration.

The first governmental recognition of Labor Day came through local municipal ordinances passed during 1885 and 1886 and from them came a movement to secure state legislation. By 1894, 23 states had adopted the holiday in honor of workers.

In June of that year, in the aftermath of the deaths of a number of workers at the hands of the US. military and US. Marshals during the Pullman Strike, President Grover Cleveland made reconciliation with Labor a top
political priority.

Fearing further strikes and riots, legislation making Labor Day a national holiday was rushed through Congress and unanimously signed into law just six days after the
end of the strike.
Cleveland also signed a bill designating the first Monday in September as Labor Day while hoards of hungry unemployed were marching on Washington to demand relief.

But here in the Keys, the first Monday in September
is notorious for only one event. . .
. . .The Labor Day hurricane of 1935.

75 years ago, on September 2, 1935 a category 5 storm made landfall in the upper keys at Islamorada bringing sustained winds of at least 160 mph and storm surge of 18 to 20 feet.

It would be the first of 3 category 5 storms to find their way to the United Sates in the 20th century (the other two being Camille in '69 and Andrew in '92)

Damage from the Labor Day Storm was estimated at $6 million (1935 dollars), it kicked the holy smoke out of Henry Flagler's Key West Extension of the Florida East Coast Railway and took 408 souls. Those, ironically enough, mostly World War I veterans who were "workingmen" along the rail line.

So to close out this post for Labor Day 2010, I'll borrow a line from local songwriter Terry Cassidy's tune,
"Henry and his Railroad". . .
". . .This morning we'll remember what not to forget."

take a bow

The Key West Maritime Memorial Museum at the old navy pier on Truman waterfront features two World War II era ships; USS Mohawk and USCGC Ingham are both berthed at the inner cay wall and both, as you might expect, have interesting histories.

USCGC INGHAM is a "Treasury-class" cutter and, to date, the most decorated vessel in the Coast Guard fleet with two Presidential Unit Citations. She was built at the Philadelphia Navy Yard in 1935 and formally commissioned in 1936.


Serving with distinction during World War II on convoy duty in the Atlantic theatre, she sank an enemy submarine in 1942. Transferred to the Pacific theatre in 1944, Ingham served as an amphibious flagship.
She also served during the Korean War (1950-1953) and in Vietnam (1959-1975) where she earned one of those Presidential Unit Citations I mentioned earlier.
After Nam, Ingham was reassigned to regular Coast Guard duties until 1988 when she was decommissioned.

From 1989 to 2009 Ingham was on display at Patriots Point Navel and Maritime Museum in South Carolina where in 1992 she was declared a National Historic Landmark and at the end of her time there and a little refit in drydock, Ingham was brought to Key West.


USS MOHAWK was first assigned patrol and icebreaking duty on the Hudson and Delaware Rivers and at the outbreak of World War II, she had been stationed at Cape May in New Jersey. But at the start of the war in 1941, she was assigned to North Atlantic escort operations with the Greenland Patrol. There she served for the entire war launching better than a dozen attacks against enemy submarines in the doing.

At War's end, Mohawk was placed "in reserve, in commission" status with a skeleton crew and again stationed at Cape May.
Two years later, in 1947, Mohawk was decommissioned and mothballed. But the next year she was bought by the Delaware Bay and River Pilots' Association, and for the next thirty years served as a pilot boat on the Delaware River.

Years later Mohawk was rescued from a Staten Island scrap yard where she'd been rusting away for 15 years or so. She was towed to Miami for major repair by the Miami Dade Historical Maritime Museum who then established the USS Mohawk CGC Memorial Museum and brought her down to us here in
Key West.

As the faithful followers of Key West the Blog know, I am something of a history junkie and the United States Navy is steeped in noble history, myth and tradition. So where better to get an occasional history fix than at the Key West Maritime Memorial Museum.
To Ingham, Mohawk, all who have served on either ship or are serving now to preserve their histories, please accept my gratitude and, take a bow.

nightsky & small miracles

Not long ago I found myself a once weekly gig working the overnight. It's easy enough work, the pay's good and the extra bucks come in handy. But better than that, while I'm out and about getting it done, I can watch the night sky.

I've always been a sort of amateur, naked eye astronomer.
I can tell most constellations apart and usually the difference between what's a star and what could be a planet. Then, when I'm not sure of what I'm seeing, I know how to look it up.

That said, while I was out and about through the overnight this week, I was followed by this image of the moon and an unusually bright light to it's left. A planet I reckoned but honestly, didn't know which one.

Now here's where one of my small miracles comes in.
Earlier that day, during the daylight hours, I met a young woman walking her puppy; one of those marble pit bulls. Both the woman and the puppy were super friendly and we chatted for several minutes while I patted and played with the pup. The puppy's name, as it turned out, was Jupiter.

Now, I knew Mars was visible in the sky that night but that wasn't the right position for it. Then I remembered the puppy and thought, "what are the odds?" that's gotta be Jupiter
up there. (divine intervention strikes again)

Once I'd finished my gig I shot these few pictures (it's great having a digital camera with a 10 x 48 zoom lens) and judging from the spherical shape, color and random meeting with the puppy earlier that day, decided that it definitely was Jupiter
I was seeing.

But of course for things scientific you always need verification so I went to the "AstroViewer" and, sure enough, Jupiter was in the right position to support my decision but
so too was Uranus.

Hmmm, I wondered. . .
Can you see Uranus with the naked eye?
Well, it turns out that you can but, as far as I know, it only ever appears as a blueish pinpoint of light in the night sky.
My target was decidedly a planet of a different size and color.

So between the size and color, position on the skychart and a chance meeting with a puppy, I'm going with Jupiter.
Of course if any one of you knows better, please let me know.
I never mind being better informed.

laridae & phalacrocoracidae

sweaty palms

white street pier

Every so often I enjoy and hour or two sitting out on the end of the almost 1/4 mile long fishing pier off the Atlantic end of White Street with a sketchbook and con leché to watch
the sunrise


Out among the few joggers, bicycle riders, dog walkers, homeless folks, fishermen and seagulls, it's calm and quiet, the air is cooler than it is inland and the new day's sea breeze carries fresher air.


Well, on one such a morning I got to pondering the pier's backstory. (the why and when of it, you know?)
So when I got back home I climbed on-line to try to find the answers. To my chagrin, there wasn't a whole lot of anything about it. So the next day I got myself over to the library on Fleming Street to ask Key West's history guru,
Tom Hambright, about it.


What I learned was that back in the mid to late 1950's Monroe County had a little surplus money laying around and decided to spend it on infrastructure projects.
What they came up with was construction of a series of "roads to nowhere" like Loop Road and County Road 939 up on Sugarloaf Key.
In 1956, when some of that surplus money was allotted to Key West, the voters decided they wanted a fishing pier and the "unfinished highway to Havana" (another road to nowhere) was proposed and finally built in 1960.


These days the White Street pier is something of a tourist draw, every once in a while there'll be a fishing tournament out there or it'll be part of the course for one of
BW Promotion's official 5K runs and on special occasions (the 4th of July or New Year's Eve) the city uses it for fireworks displays.