If the previous post was the bad and the ugly there had to be some good right? yes there was some good, in fact there was some very good... starting with Key West itself... i've always loved the beach towns, they are haven for freaks and weirdos, drawn to a life a bit different than what could be classified as the norm and Key West is like the capital of such places... it took me back to the Ocean City years but in a different way as i noticed a lot of people near my own age were living down here... they were bartending, waiting tables, being tour guides, yeah they were working and maybe working two jobs but after spending an afternoon in a local pub with an old friend of mine now living down there i realized why this place was unique, i could sense it was a place to get lost, to dropout of the mainland rat race and move to where the weather never changes (sans the occasional hurricane) and one could live in relative anonymity doing what they want while getting by just fine, a different way of living or more apt maybe a different philosophy... my friend talked of riding his bicycle around the island every morning, riding to the bar, the famous Key West time which basically meant you get there when you get there, no rush... one could say it appealed to my Dudeist sensibilities...
Obviously one of the big highlights was seeing my old friend, a guy i met way back in the Wilderness Years when he worked at a bar and i worked out of that same bar... in fact one fine evening i was in that bar working, at the time i had a few different types of weed on me and i had unknowingly dropped a quarter ounce on the floor, after i left i got a call from him asking if i had lost something, a quick check of my inventory and i stated in fact i had lost something, this was during the raining money period mind you, he stated he had it and would hold it and i told him there was no need, it was his, he protested for a moment and i stopped him and stated i was fucking sloppy, i dropped the fucking thing but the real point was he called to give it back, how many people would have done that? most would have said nothing and kept it and so i told him it's his now cuz honesty and friendship should be rewarded... he laughed and said something like "thanks wastoid feel free to drop shit on the floor anytime..." we both had a good laugh at that...
So the highlights man the highlights... easily my favorite parts involved animals because as we all know i'm a cupcake when it comes to that... Key West is known for it's wild rooster/chicken population and i took great delight in watching them run all over town... there were many at the place we stayed and one particular rooster lived in the shrubs right near the steps i went up to get to the condo, i began making clucking noises, i do a killer chicken impersonation, and my rooster buddy would come rolling out of his abode every time i went by clucking, though i think if he could speak he'd have told me to knock that shit off as i may have sounded like an attractive hen to the randy rooster... at one point as i walked towards the car clucking away he sorta charged at me as if to say cut it you giant muppet... the sounds of roosters crowing could be heard wherever one went and i also got to see chickens fly into trees which is something i didn't know they could do, in fact i stood there dumbstruck and laughing the first time i saw it, learn something new every day...
As previously stated the place we stayed in Key West was fucking ace! even more so because the music that was played near the pool and in the main lobby was fucking fantastic... it was all roots reggae and dub for the most part, in fact i can attest i heard better reggae here than i usually do in Jamaica... in Jamaica it's nothing but a steady diet of Bob, mainly because i'm sure that's all the average Yank really knows... whatever streaming service this place had going was superb... i heard Lee Perry, Augustus Pablo, Max Romeo, Peter Tosh, i was fairly floored by the quality of tunes i heard over the five days we were there...absolutely stellar!
Which brings me back to the wonderful screened in balcony/porch the place had... yes it was warm and humid even at night, though at night the breeze did kick up a bit but not much, enough to make me appreciate it when it did blow through and while the boyos ran around and hung out near the fishing docks and the BW went to bed, i'd sit out on the deck in the dark doing nothing, drinking water and hitting the weed pen and listening to the sounds of the night, the wind through the palm trees, the symphony of insects, and of course when the wind and distant traffic dissipated i could hear the sound of the waves gently lapping on the shore, i couldn't see them but then again i didn't need to, knowing they were there was enough... i'd watch the coming and going of the other people staying at the place, i'd see them wobbling back in from Duval St., i'd notice who else was sitting on their screened in balcony, but mainly i just sat and listened, let the mind wander, sometimes dozing off, all i really needed were my cats to be completely content (because i always miss my cats when i'm away)... during the day when the boyos were at the pool or sleeping and the BW was taking her afternoon nap (just like at home), i'd sit out on the balcony reading Hemingway, seeing as he spent a good deal of time down here, a book given to me when i graduated from college by another old friend, Forty-Nine Short Stories... it was perfect as i flipped from place to place picking which stories to read... which of course brings me to what might have been the biggest highlight...
In my youth i loved the classics, so to speak... Hemingway, Steinbeck, F. Scott even a little Dos Passos for good measure... so this little trip would finally afford me the chance to see old Ernest's place in Key West along with those world famous polydactyl cats who roam the grounds and what could be more in line with my sensibilities than wandering the house of one of an early literary hero and hanging with cats? at present there are somewhere in the range of 57 cats living at the house and i got to scratch a few behind their lovely ears, wandering the grounds and the house where Ernest once roamed, drink in hand, probably meant more to me than any of the family understood, there were many photos and in back of the main house was a little cottage house where Hem wrote, the old typewriters, the first editions of old books, for a literary book nerd like me it was like heaven, add in the swimming pool, which for a long time was the only one on the island and one that was made to swim laps in (guess Ernest and i have something in common) and i could do nothing more than wander and grin at all the things, reading captions and studying bookshelves... with any luck pics will go up shortly but for me it was like wandering history... (it just so happened that day i wore a shirt that simply said Bokononist, a reference to Vonnegut and Cat's Cradle and it was funny watching the one woman who worked there gazing at it and then finally smiling when she figured out what it was, she then leaned over to me and whispered, i like your shirt, i smiled and said thanks...)
I'd also be remiss if i failed my drink at the World's Smallest Bar... to be fair there are many places vying for this title but apparently there are governing bodies that rule on this type of thing and the I-mac decided to research this claim and found that this particular place was recognized by various authoritative types as the world's smallest boozer... granted there were claims by other places but this seemed to have more than a few sites giving it said title... and of course there was my selfie with the Spongeman, i've always had a penchant for the strange and the stupid, aka touristy type shit, and this was no different, a mannequin outfitted in sponges outside some store selling trinkets, yeah gotta get a picture with that... it's the small things that please me the most...
As is usual with the BW she was fretting over if the boyos were having a good time and though they did their fair share of low key complaining they actually did (i kept reminding her that they were planning on a Jamaican party week so anything but would be a letdown) so since we had to drive back to Miami the day before we left she decided we'd leave two days early and hit Hollywood Beach, the typical tourist town complete with boardwalk and the like... it gave the boyos more time to run the streets and the BW shocked me by not minding my love of walking the boardwalk, sometimes sitting on a bench and watching the world stroll by... once again the place we stayed was excellent and we had a room overlooking the bay and i could lay in bed and watch the sunset over that bay... (i should add the Key West sunsets were some of the most gorgeous i've seen) and at night i'd leave the curtains open so i could stare at the moon over the water while drifting off to sleep... i also got to spend one glorious day swimming in the Atlantic which is one thing i truly love... all in all it turned out to be a pretty swell little getaway... but by the end i'll admit i wanted to get home and see my cats...
And so i close the page on another family vacation... it's not lost on me that these are probably coming to an end in the current form as the boyos are getting older and soon i'm sure they won't be all that jazzed to go on vacations with their parents beside the fact that they are growing up and will sooner than i realize be venturing off into the world to do their own thing... which is just as it should be... yeah someday there might be that other type of "family vacation" with the boyos and their significant others and possible children... or maybe not... anyone following along knows there's a lot of "ifs" involved in that scenario... but for now i'll take it all in and appreciate the things i've gotten to see, the time spent with the boyos... in short, enjoy the ride...
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