at the speed of life

This is my bicycle. . .
My main means of transportation around the island.
It's parked here at the almost end of the White Street Pier while I'm sitting on a bench beside it enjoying my morning
con leché.
. . .It's a quiet way to start the day.

I've been riding bikes all my life, it's in my DNA I guess.
As a kid delivering newspapers and as a younger adult, racing and riding Centuries. (nut numbing 100 mile treks)
But in these old days, riding this hybrid like a mule
suits me fine.
Transportation to work or the sailboat dock, to the grocery store, for Saturday morning banking and post office chores and then the occasional speed demon workout up and down Smathers beach.

Bicycling is a healthy and sensible way to get around our little town. Involuntary deep breathing, unstructured exercise and no carbon footprint.

There's sort of a bicycle culture in Key West.
Like me, lots of locals don't own cars so, out and about on our bikes we meet.
They're all kind of slower going, calmer and more laid back. The kind of people I like, and strive to be myself.

I'll admit that for the year I took possession of brother Cooper's car after he got busted for DUI, a silver drop-top Miata, I got a little spoiled. It was easier to visit friends up the Keys on Summerland and Big Pine (although driving that cute two seater at 55mph on US1 scared the holy hell out of me),
I could buy more groceries in a single trip to Faustos, didn't have to time my weekly treks to do post office and banking chores between down pours on rainy days and I even got a few hot dates out of it.
(with my toned and tanned body behind the wheel,
the car was a "chick magnet")

But after a few months I realized I wasn't seeing my friends anymore. They were still in and of the bike culture and now I was driving. When that hit me, I parked the car in front of the house and got back on the bike. Suddenly all my two and three wheeled leg propelled friends were back on my radar.

The white haired guy who rides past on the pier in the mornings with a wave and his coffee in hand, Pete with the big straw hat, Jan pedaling along the sidewalk on her tricycle, Ray-Ray the beach bum, the lady who rides around with her African Grey (named Scorpio) on the handlebars and the gorgeous young girl heading home from her afternoon dance classes at CoffeeMill.
It was, and is, great to see and talk with them all again and, by the way, I never moved the car again. It sat safely in front of the house on my sleepy Old Town street for another 6 months until the court finally gave Dennis his license back.

The take away from all this, at least for me is,
friends happen at the speed of life.

grande con dos azúcares

". . .You're kidding, right?? Dad, you used to be the biggest coffee junkie in the galaxy!!"

This was the reply from my daughter during a recent phone
call when, for some reason, I mentioned to her that I was off coffee drinking.

She was right of course, I'd started mainlining caffeine really early in my Design career when I was, for a time, operating an offset printing press eight hours a day. (it's what pressmen do) Then came the corporate Art Director syndrome and a coffee maker in every office and then my ad agency adventure with long hours and never enough sleep. Living life in Paradise, stress is less but the habit was formed and the coffee just kept on coming.

Then, a while back, Doc Covington said my blood pressure was up and wrote me a script for a bottle of pink pills. I tried them for a while but they came with strange side effects and so I invoked my "do it with diet" rule and, in concert with a few other changes, coffee was a thing of the past.

". . .God Dad, it was weird enough when you quite eatin' meat and bread! Now you don't even drink coffee? You're gettin' strange in your old age. Don't you ever get a jones on?"
"Yeah, not a lot, but sometimes", I told her.
"Well, what do you do then?" she asked.
My answer? "I cheat."

It's true, I'm as good as I can be, about 98% of the time, but perfect, not so much. To be perfect, I'd have to deny myself stuff. (yeah, that might happen) Besides, being perfect is fascist and I've got no interest in being a Nazi.

But even though I cheat, it's a compromise. When the Blue Moon rises and I'm bugging for a burger, I won't go to Wendy's, I'll get some ground round from Fausto's and home cook a meatball from my Aunt Lu's authentic German recipe, with cheese and a salad. (No fries. Those things'll kill 'ya.)

When the jones jives for java, it's a different story. If I have coffee in the house, I know I'll drink it. So, I outsource. My supplier of choice is "5 Brothers" bodega. They (all 5 of them) are walking distance from the house (even just barely awake), friendly folks, inexpensive but really good con leché and, every couple of weeks, a cultural small step out of my normal day-to-day.

Where else would I get 10 minutes of Miami morning news, find out who, in the neighborhood, just had an operation or a baby, got a divorce or hit by a Conch Train. Or who Judge Miller threw in jail the day before, what Old Town streets would be closed to traffic that day and which son-of-a-bitch cheated on his good woman the night before; all in Spanish that I mostly understand but, probably speak with a Brooklyn accent. (sometimes I get some really puzzled looks)

Now that I'm thinkin' about it, I suppose my java jones has less to do with the con leché and more to do with being a more involved member of the community.