key west history, part 1

THE FIRST CONCHS

 

 About 2,500 years ago, the Calusa Indians came to Key West from the SouthWest coast of Florida and called it home. They were, by all accounts, the first Conchs. They came and settled in to the easy Keys life and feasted on seafood.

But then something happened.

 

 In 1513 and again in 1521, Juan Ponce de Leon (remember him from your grammar school history books?) came ashore from Spain searching for his famous “Fountain of Youth”.
He discovered the islands and named them “Santa Isybella,” after Queen Isabella.

 Then, in Key West, he found the the Calusa Indians who weren't too thrilled about being invaded by the Spanish.
Ponce and his crew battled with the Calusa Indians for years.

The Calusa were eventually forced to move further and further inland by the Spanish. In time, exposure to the European diseases brought by the Spanish and all those devastating battles over the islands brought a tragic end to the
Calusa nation.

During one of those many battles, Ponce de Leon was wounded in the thigh by a poisoned arrow.
He retreated to Cuba where he soon died of that wound.  
(what goes around, comes around)

work-boats & live-aboards

The very first time Key West blipped across my radar screen was back in the mid '80's. I was at the peak of my design career and spending early summers flying out to the week long International Design Conference in Aspen, Colorado.

During one of those trips to Aspen, I met a woman and we spent a few nights together. Over dinner one of those nights, she talked about a subtropical island where she'd spend a week or two to escape her Chicago winters.
That island was Key West.

She went on and on through most of the night, with her melodic voice and so enthusiastically. But I don't remember much of what she was saying.
I was young, she was blonde and beautiful and my attentions were more than a little, distracted.

Later, what I did recall, through the haze of my lust, was "relaxed island life, beautiful tropical sunsets, work-boats & live-aboards". In the years that followed, at least that much of what she said stayed with me.

We made loose plans to meet in Cayo Hueso the following February. But, long story short, I didn't make the trip.
(life's eddys and currents, you know)
All the same, the seed had been sown; and the better part of 20 years later it sprouted. So, with all my northern ambitions satisfied, I headed south.

It's been a dozen years since I made my move. I've never looked back and never saw that blonde beauty from the windy city again. But her enthusiastic stories of "relaxed island life, beautiful tropical sunsets, work-boats & live-aboards" are part of my reality now.

Thank-you Blondie-Blonde, wherever you are!

a stretch of beach-front, a palm tree and a handful of colorful kayaks

Life in paradise, at least for me and most of my friends, is the greatest thing since sliced bread. But it is in no way an inoculation against "real world" horsesh*t.

I guess I've got the "real world" up my ass as much as
anyone else. . .
Death and taxes, angry ex-wives, workplace issues and maybe the occasional run-in with the sheriff's department.

When that stuff happens, I deal with it as best I can and try not to take any of it all that seriously. Then I'll retreat to a quiet corner of Cayo Hueso, catch my breath and remember that in spite of it all, life is good.

All it takes is a stretch of beach-front, a palm tree and a handful of colorful kayaks.

candid cayo hueso

columbus day (& other odd notions)

I didn't remember, until I picked up my con leché at Five Brother's this morning, that today is Columbus Day.

what the hell is he lookin' at?

The banks are closed (no rubber checks today), courts are closed, (anybody who got busted on Friday night, gets an extra day in jail) and the post office is closed (which always screws up my Netflix schedule). But not much else will be different for the day.

first, last & security?

It's pretty common knowledge, at this point, that when old Columbus made land fall at San Salvadore the Vikings had long since discovered, explored and, in a few cases, settled on North America. So suppose Columbus had sailed south of the Bahamas (easy enough for him to do, he didn't have a compass) and instead made landfall at Cayo Hueso. He could've got himself a T-shirt (it's hard to imagine Key West, at any point in history, without T-shirt shops) that read, "you can't be first but you could be next!"

corner buoys?

But it was not to be and the first European to land in our little island was Ponce De Leon which, I've always thought, starts to explain the "just short of normal" attitude in the island air here. I mean that knucklehead came here looking for the "Fountain of Youth" so, right from the beginning. . .

flying wallenda?