(I’ve Been Working) on the Railroad

(Canadian navvies in the green dark forest building the railroad that spanned a continent. Photo Wikpedia).

It is a chill but delightful day in Your Nation’s Capital. I was moderately pleased about yesterday’s outing- I got some positive feedback on the analysis of the “97% of Doctors Who Smoke, Smoke Camels” methodology of the Global Whatever hysteria, some semi-respectful agreements to disagree and one caustic observation that I am a dupe and a fool to Big Oil.

There were also three requests for re-publication and one quizzical forwarding of an article in which a nice scientist from U-Cal Berkeley mentioned that the sea levels were rising, the ice was disappearing and the temperatures were going up due to the distinctive human-signature of CO2.

The article was so breathtakingly filled with half truths and falsehood that I had to write back, and at the same time I was trying to download three years of statements for every financial account I have due to the latest legal nonsense in which I find myself embroiled that the day quite got away from me.

(Sea ice has rebounded in the Arctic, is at record levels in the Antarctic, and the computer models are not reflecting reality. Of course the climate is changing. It just doesn’t quite agree with the accepted narrative, you know? The green line is the satellite record, the most accurate measure since it began in 1979).

This morning I stumbled into the study to get a thoughtful note from a pal in Utah, who observed that the snowpack was way down, and it did not bode well for the summer to come. I suspect my pal associates the drought in the Southwest with all the other blather about climate change- I mean, something is going on, right?

Well of course it is. It is bad in the west, the mirror image of the ice and snow in the south and east this season. There have been deeper periods of drought in the Southwest before, and longer ones, too. Southern California is a desert, after all, and the history of the American Southwest has been about the control of water. Think about all those fabulous noire detective movies about the men- sorry, historically true- who built the elaborate system of reservoirs, tunnels and aqueducts that make life bountiful in the desert.

Now, one has to observe that the Golden State has not added significantly to the water infrastructure since 2000 with the construction of the Diamond Valley Lake near Hemet, California, and there are some rumblings about new storage facilities, but Governor Moonbeam himself and former Democratic Congressman Tony Coelho both support the position that while the population has doubled in the last forty years, the infrastructure to support them has not.

Meanwhile, billions of gallons of fresh water were diverted to support the endangered Delta Smelt, a three-inch long fish that is not edible, does not eliminate pests or have any meaningful commercial value aside from being food for other fish. Of course that is simplistic- any decent issue has all sorts of nuance and texture. But I think you see where we are going on this stuff. The drought is hurting farmers, and in defense of a single species, the Golden State has literally thrown the bathwater directly into the ocean, protecting no one.

Another pal wrote on what gets to the central core of the real issue. It is not that the Climate (is) Changing (it does) or Income Inequality, or the bizarre notion that being unemployed is a good thing that gives folks more time to get in touch with their inner spirituality.

I think the point is that we appear to have enshrined the notion that humanity is bad into the canon of public policy. I don’t know where precisely that idiocy came from- there are plenty of examples of just how far allegedly smart people are willing to go to make their visions- or delusions- reality. Most recently was the Harvard Student who opined in The Crimson that academic freedom was obsolete, and frankly offensive to her. Before that, it was the University of Oregon professor who thought that climate change skeptics should be rounded up by the State for re-education.

Chilling thoughts. Amazing notions have the strangest currency these days.

Maybe that is the real nub of the issue: We are the pestilence on the planet. Beyond the climate, entwined in all things economic, rooted in some vague concept of “fairness,” defined by no one in particular, and dedicated to the proposition that the Government can deliver us happiness!

I have been seething for the last couple days about the arrogance of the Left, the haughty hubris of those whose policies do not work: Jimmy Carter’s limp-wristed approach to the wild world gave us the Iranian problem that plagues us still, and is about to become a really big atomic problem. Mr. Carter’s economic malaise and Nanny-state approach is recreated in this hyper-political world.

The people seem to be waking up a bit- the disaster of the Affordable Care Act is the poster child for social engineering that doesn’t work.

The Act is too complex, it needs to ration care rather than provide it, and all the rest of the bizarre and intricate provisions of putting Government in the middle of 20% of the economy. Even the uninsured that the Act was intended to benefit don’t like it.

Let’s just take that as a metaphor for the whole enterprise. At the root of things is the world-view that people are the problem. The wise (and wealthy) ought to provide a framework for the peasants to live- closely packed in “sustainable” well-managed urban areas, and away from the pastoral paradise that is Mother Nature, untouched by grubby human hands.

(Gordon Lightfoot at Interlochen in Michigan. Photo Interlochen Arts Center).

I have been mulling the words of an old folk anthem, sung by the pioneering folkie Gordon Lightfoot. Remember him? His ballads and laments celebrated the brave new world of the 1960s that was being born. He celebrated the life and history of the Great Northland, and that resonated in his song “The Canadian Railroad Trilogy.” With the lament about the “Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” the two songs commemorate the stolid heroism of the working stiff, and the vision that built the West.

Let’s take the railroad song. I am confident it makes the Progressives squirm when they hear it. Commissioned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to start the celebration of Canada’s centennial year in 1967, the lyrics come in three parts and rising tempos. The slow tempo in the middle and the faster bits at the front and back make it a rousing anthem to those who built the Transcontinental Railroad.

“There was a time in this fair land when the railroad did not run,
And the wild majestic mountains stood alone against the sun.
Long before the White Man, and long before the wheel,
When the green dark forest was too silent to be real.”

Those words set the backdrop for the story of the human striving against the wilderness, and the death and sacrifice that went along with it. Can you imagine writing these words today? The vision of the Progressives is to return the mountains to wild majesty, alone, except perhaps a wealthy helicopter trip for some exclusive skiing by the right people. We are told that unemployment is good. Capitalism is bad, naturally, except for the select “renewable” industries which are not, but are well connected to the Political Class, our new masters, guardians of the vision of a human-less future.

Let’s close this slow and then increase in tempo like a locomotive accelerating across the Great Plains, and into a future that mankind could only imagine:

But time has no beginnings and hist’ry has no bounds
As to this verdant country they came from all around
They sailed upon her waterways and they walked the forests tall
And they built the mines the mills and the factories for the good of us all

And when the young man’s fancy was turnin’ to the spring
The railroad men grew restless for to hear the hammers ring
Their minds were overflowing with the visions of their day
And many a fortune lost and won and many a debt to pay

For they looked in the future and what did they see
They saw an iron road runnin’ from sea to the sea
Bringin’ the goods to a young growin’ land
All up through the seaports and into their hands

Look away said they across this mighty land
From the eastern shore to the western strand
Bring in the workers and bring up the rails
We gotta lay down the tracks and tear up the trails
Open ‘er heart let the life blood flow
Gotta get on our way ’cause we’re movin’ too slow

Bring in the workers and bring up the rails
We’re gonna lay down the tracks and tear up the trails
Open ‘er heart let the life blood flow
Gotta get on our way ’cause we’re movin’ too slow
Get on our way ’cause we’re movin’ too slow

Behind the blue Rockies the sun is declinin’
The stars, they come stealin’ at the close of the day
Across the wide prairie our loved ones lie sleeping
Beyond the dark oceans in a place far away

We are the navvies who work upon the railway
Swingin’ our hammers in the bright blazin’ sun
Livin’ on stew and drinkin’ bad whiskey
Bendin’ our old backs ’til the long days are done

We are the navvies who work upon the railway
Swingin’ our hammers in the bright blazin’ sun
Layin’ down track and buildin’ the bridges
Bendin’ our old backs ’til the railroad is done

So over the mountains and over the plains
Into the muskeg and into the rain
Up the St. Lawrence all the way to Gaspe
Swingin’ our hammers and drawin’ our pay
Drivin’ ’em in and tyin’ ’em down
Away to the bunkhouse and into the town
A dollar a day and a place for my head
A drink to the livin’ and a toast to the dead

Oh the song of the future has been sung
All the battles have been won
O’er the mountain tops we stand
All the world at our command
We have opened up the soil
With our teardrops and our toil

For there was a time in this fair land when the railroad did not run
When the wild majestic mountains stood alone against the sun
Long before the white man and long before the wheel
When the green dark forest was too silent to be real
When the green dark forest was too silent to be real
And many are the dead men too silent to be real.

You think we could build that railroad today? Nah, there might be some Delta Smelt out there. Hell, I am not sure Gordon would even try to write the damn song. It might offend some people.

– Canadian Railroad Trilogy copyright 1967 Gordon Lightfoot. Musings Socotra

www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303

Everybody Knows (This is No Where)

(Image copyright M. Ramos).

It is snowing again this morning. A little heavier version of what happened yesterday, which made the sixth or seventh “significant” snow in DC this winter cycle. We all know about the Polar Vortex weather pattern that has driven colder and snowier airmasses across the midsection of America. We used to call them Alberta Clippers, but whatever this is, I don’t like it, and was happier than hell to have avoided the last major dump of snow two weeks ago.

Weather is not climate, of course, though the average of weather over time is. That is why I have been so amused at the improbable explanations for why a warming world should get colder. When you laugh at them, the proponents of what used to be called “Global Warming” get all hissy on you, and call you stupid (or worse).

Famous Anthropomorphic Catastrophic Global Warming flack Mr. Al Gore briefly blipped the news the other day when he suggested that “fertility management” was the key to “fighting global warming and promoting economic development in poor countries.”

I know Mr. Gore is famously hypocritical- he sells his cable channel to Big Oil, flies all over spewing carbon dioxide to tell others not to, buys beachfront property while saying that sea-level rise will drown us all, and all that that nonsense. He is so famous for his alarmist line that there is now a name for unexpected snowfall: “The Gore Effect.”

All that is necessary for the elements to do something unusual (except warm) is to have him show up. Remember the blizzard in Copenhagen at the 2009 Climate Summit? That might be when this all started to fall apart, and the True Believers had to start calling whatever it is “Climate Change,” rather than global warming, since the “pause” in global temperatures began in the later Clinton Administration.

You would think that people would wake up and notice, and maybe they have. Most people put Climate Change about dead last on the list of issues of great concern. It is undeniable that the continued increase in Carbon Dioxide concentrations (it is scraping 400 Parts per million at the moment and continuing to increase) doesn’t appear to have a direct linkage to temperature.

That has caused a bit of a scramble in the climate change community, since the “greenhouse gas” argument is central to the whole scheme. For the record, CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and greenhouses like it, since it increases plant growth among other things. The problem for the theory is that if the level of CO2 in the air (it is a trace gas, after all) actually has a direct relationship with temperature, it would have to be based on observations, rather than the shaky computer models whose results have predicted wildly erroneous warming. Even the UN’s IPCC had to apologize for their poor performance last year in their fifth report on the state of the climate.

But oh well. I was disconcerted the other day when someone dismissed my observations as saying the debate was a train that had long left the station- “Everyone knows that Climate Change is happening.”

Well, yes. Of course it is. This is a large, chaotic and constantly changing world. But I was reminded of the famous 97% survey, the one touted by everyone from the President on down as part of Why We Have to Do Something Right Away. Every scientist agrees!

James Taylor, writing in Forbes summed it up nicely:
“Scientific truth is determined by facts, evidence and observations – not a show of hands. If a show of hands determined scientific truth, medical doctors would still be bleeding people with leeches and we would still believe the sun revolves around the earth. Nevertheless, there may be times when political leaders feel compelled to give special consideration to an overwhelming scientific majority when that overwhelming majority reaches strong agreement on a matter of serious public concern.”

And, of course, this is about politics much more than it is about science. Let’s take a quick look at the ’97 percent number’ Secretary of State Kerry was quoting after he flew to Indonesia (12 tons of carbon dioxide produced on his trip) to castigate the flat-earthers of the world. Mr. Kerry is a pompous and irritating fellow on his best day, so I took a look at the origin of his statistics just to remind myself where it came from.

The 97% number came from a paper which explored the results of a poll performed in 2008 by Dr. Peter Doran and then-graduate student Margaret R.K. Zimmerman at University of Illinois at Chicago. This is the crucially important number, since it is the first talking point in speeches by all sorts of bloviating people (which now includes me!). The study arguably has had more influence on the global-whatever-it-is debate than any other project of its kind anywhere.

Which is sort of sad, since during the survey itself, hundreds of responders from the Climate Science community told Doran and Zimmerman the poll was fundamentally flawed and could be easily misinterpreted. You can read the paper yourself. It is blissfully short and you have to really twist it around to make the 97% claim:

http://tigger.uic.edu/~pdoran/012009_Doran_final.pdf

Here is the methodology: Zimmerman sent the survey to 10,257 Earth Scientists of various stripes. Of those, 3,146 responded. Of those, Ms. Zimmerman excluded all but 77. That fact alone should have your bullshit meter on overdrive, but look at the two questions which lead to the headline the President (or rather his Gopher) tweeted about the debate being over, and the consensus near unanimous:

Q1: “When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant?” 76 of 79 (96.2%) answered “risen.” So, it would be equally valid to say that the vast majority of all those who were asked didn’t answer at all. Of the ones who did answer, the vast majority expressed no opinion.

Note: I agree that global temperatures have increased .8 (point eight) degrees Celsius since 1840. We are still coming out of the Little Ice Age of 400 years ago. I hope we are not headed in the other direction.

Q2: “Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?” 75 of 77 (97.4%) answered “yes.”

Note: I agree that humans are a contributing factor to changing the climate, look at any land-use issue in any urban area. But that is a long way from defining what the word “significant” means, and that was why so many professionals did not answer at all.

Anyway, sometime someone tells you that “everyone knows” that “97% of scientists” agree about anything, whether it is Al Gore or noted climatologist George Clooney, just tell them that most scientists didn’t answer the question because the questions wasn’t phrased with anything like scientific accuracy.

Or you could go with “Everyone knows.” Whatever. I am just hoping it is going to stop snowing soon.

Oh, even Dr. Zimmerman started to show doubt about what is going on after doing the survey. She said: “This entire process has been an exercise in re-educating myself about the climate debate and, in the process, I can honestly say that I have heard very convincing arguments from all the different sides, and I think I’m actually more neutral on the issue now than I was before I started this project. There is so much gray area when you begin to mix science and politics, environmental issues and social issues, calculated rational thinking with emotions, etc.”

Duh. Everyone knows that.

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303

Jiggedy- Jig

(Jim and Jeff, an associate from the building and real estate world. Photos Socotra).

Home again, home again. Funny- it doesn’t feel that way. It is snowing outside. Sticking, too, at least to the grassy areas. My very wise cousin wrote me about vacations yesterday. Her Dad the Famous Bomber Pilot had a maxim about the things. They were not officially over until the last day comes when you can say: “A week ago today I was….”

A week ago today I was sitting shirtless in the screen porch, thinking about where to walk in lovely Key West. I have a few days to go before I actually run out of the vacation, so I will bask in the memory of warmth and friends, old and new. And the jitters of being back in Your Nation’s Capital.

I slid into the Emerald City after the rush, and made the last bottleneck on I-66 managing to keep the knots up on the Panzer. Rhonda at the front desk had a daunting stack of mail, which I screened, looking for registered land-mines.

I found one, which is going to eat up a bunch of time and effort. That and the number of solicitations and magazines I don’t read were enough to convince me that the time to simplify has arrived. I was still digging out from that when I realized that the Willow was calling.

I could get right with the court, or I could get my body correctly and chemically aligned. So naturally I dropped the paperwork where it was and went out.

Old Jim was at the apex of the Amen Corner. A new bartender was there, too, Baby Jess, according to Jon-without- things change rapidly in the food and beverage world, and I resolved to ask for her life story at the earliest opportunity. A fellow named Builder Jeff was seated next to Jim, and Jasper had placed signs reading “reserved” at the four stools leading down the bar from where Jim holds court.

This was to be a dual observation of birthdays. Lovely Jamie and Old Jim were not born on the same day, much less the same half century, but it was close enough for Government Work, not that there is any of that, and we are nothing if not flexible.

Jasper slid a white wine in front of me, and despite the miles and the fatigue and the shell-shock of being back in Winter, life was good.

(Left to right: TLB, OJ, J and TLJ.)

To honor the occasion, J and K were also in attendance, and K2, who lives next door to Jon-without and TLB herself, and the cake was one of Kate Jansen’s exercises in whipped chocolate and dark cake studded with raspberries. When Jasper brought it out for the candles and cutting and eating, there were the predicable oohs-and-ahs.

 

(Birthday boy and girl with reinforcements).

What a cake- and the proof of it is in the delectable slices that Jasper carved off the three-tiered beauty:

It was a pity that we ate so much of it that the remainder fell off the pedestal serving-stand and careened across the bar, nearly arriving in Jon-without’s well-tailored lap.

(TLB comes to the rescue after disaster overtakes the birthday cake).

I could tell you more about it, but hey, a week ago I was wondering whether I should wear a shirt to go outside, and there is already more than an inch of snow on my patio table.

Jeeze.

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra,com
Twitter: @jayare303

Scan Rate

(Panzer parked at the Refuge Farm gate, unscathed after 2,500 miles. Well, in this universe, anyway. Photo Socotra).

Life is grand, but I have to say this seems like a dream. Friday, I was reading the iPad on the screen porch listening to the traffic rumbling up and down White Street, shorts and flip-flops, wondering if I should put on a shirt and who the musical talent was going to be at The Green Parrot that night.

It is said that there is a concept in Physics in which there is an infinite number of universes, and each one the product of every determined and random act in each of them. This was a trip spurred by a typical reason for me, which involve the heart and the head. Miles permit distance for the former and concentration for the latter, which defers thought.

There is at least one alternate universe in which I am hanging upside down in the seat belt in the Panzer in the median of I-95, and perhaps others with variations on the fireball motif, sort of like the closing ceremonies to the Sochi Olympics.

Call me a road asshole, and I will cheerfully agree, but Dad beat professionalism into his kids for the way we behave behind the wheel, and he taught us the Naval Aviation method of managing the cockpit work-load.

I keep statistics on these longer drives across America, and this one was respectable. Total over something right around 2,500 miles. Average speed yesterday was 73 MPH, including pit stops, a little over 21 MPG for 93 octane blend, and ten hours and seventeen minutes elapsed time for not quite 700 miles. Three pit stops. Nearly 500 miles the day before that, which included a late start and the 126 miles of the two-lane Zen experience of the Overseas Highway. Zero citations.

I saw winter’s gray flank at Fort Pierce, and drove into it. The temperatures have been mild up North, but it is not over here. I am looking at the snow on the front yard at Refuge Farm. I hurt all over. I am very glad I came to the farm on the way home and did not approach the Imperial City on I-95 at the end of the weekend. I slept hard and deep and am still a little foggy.

Yesterday was pure interstate, starting at first light, a little before seven, Jacksonville time. Weather fair, track fast, and Daytona, site of the 500 race, was well in the rearview, a complication for which I was blissfully unaware.

Sunday morning is a good time for rapid transit- Jax was still asleep, and Savannah, when the wheels of the Panzer rolled through its environs, was at Church.

The biggest threat at that hour is bored cops looking for revenue, and the idiot in the van with the New York plates generously decided to provide some as he blew past me crossing the Georgia line. I thought he was going to lose some good speed-of-advance, sitting there waiting for the Florida Patrol to issue the citation.

I was working on my scan- three mirrors and rate of closure on traffic ahead. Miami has some fast movers- that is a challenging town, with road hazards including the elderly, the impatient and the high-flyers. Mirror, rearview, mirror, look ahead as far as you see, adjust speed, check Garmen Nav, instrument panel, repeat, repeat repeat repeat repeat.

Much of I-95 in Florida and Georgia is three lanes both ways (or under construction to become so) which does not make things safer; rather, it adds to the complexity and urgency of The Scan, since in addition to identifying the traffic ahead for a mile, the overtakers can be moving very fast in the blind spot, and advancing to the center lane from the far right just where you cannot see them, increasing the risk of merging into them as you clear the left lane for those with less fear of the police.

Naturally, the nearer to urban areas the more loony-tunes there are.

Back in the days of the outer air defense, we used to call the incoming threat aircraft “Leakers,” since they broke the Barrier Combat Air patrol. I had no wingman on this journey, though there were other drivers with out of state plates clearly heading the same way I was, and some were fairly talented drivers I could use as a blocking force, to display their marginally higher speeds to the radar of the cops at the trap sites.

I had been bouncing between 77-81 MPH most of the time, with the Garmen Nav system providing real-time speed limit advisories. I only had the one “leaker,” that was moving so fast that he got inside my scan pattern.

Or maybe it was a moment of inattention- but for me, scan always precedes lane change and blinker initiation, three blinks preferred. I am never surprised, or at least not in most of the universes.

I-95 was two lanes at that point, and traffic had become that I-95 congestion- trucks moving at or below the speed limit, four-wheelers the same, and the left lane congested getting past the trucks. It required constant adjustment and fiddling with the cruise-control, which allowed me to rest the bad legs and drive with my hands.

It pride myself on The Scan, and situational awareness of everything that is happening around the Panzer at any given moment, and the status of all onboard systems. I was approaching Fayetteville, just past the Fort Bragg-Pope Air Force Base exit; should be Joint Base Bragg-Pope these days- maybe they don’t have enough money to change the signs yet.

I might have been thinking of that and I might have been contemplating the consequences of the apparent change of government in Ukraine, but I swear my scan was automatic at that point. I had let one more aggressive F-150 pick up get by- he had demonstrated a predilection for riding my bumper and I dislike that and intended to lose him by adjusting the speed down a knot or two.

Scan, blinker initiation, mirror check and commence turning the wheel to initiate lane change and then there was something big that had been obscured by traffic closing VERY FUCKING FAST.

I swerved back to my right as the big thing went by too fast to register and image except black paint and camping gear lashed to the rear. It cut between the F-150 and the red sedan I had been about to pass, and he had another leaker concealed on his bumper that filled my rearview completely.

If there is one thing about V-8 engines I appreciate it is instant response, from the muscle cars of long ago to the magnificent CLK-500 Hubrismobile. It would have been the way out of this one, the driver of the sedan hitting his brakes, was to tromp on the gas and cycle around him. Even with turbo, the V-6 Panzer just doesn’t have it, and waiting for the engine to spool up was the longest two seconds of my worthless life.

If there is anyone from the Department of Transportation reading this, or if you know someone there, a quick tip to pass along: your new MPG restrictions are going to get a lot of people killed. This one could have been really bad, and maybe it was in the parallel universes.

I have no idea where the leaker thought he was going to go- I had been scoping the mile ahead and there was no place to advance except through smooth and polite maneuvering in the traffic. But the rules of professional conduct were clearly suspended and it was my fault for not having a more rapid scan rate to deal with someone determined to travel erratically and well above the speed range gate.

When my synapses returned to a normal rate of fire, I tried to analyze the situation. I had been traveling about 77 mph- an accommodation to traffic flow, vehicle separation and law enforcement. To break inside my scan rate pattern for overtakers, he must have been moving at least 10-15 miles above the average speed in which traffic was flowing- or somewhere around a hundred mph. That is enough to guarantee a call from the County Mounties on a clear stretch of super-slab, much less in noon-time Sunday traffic.

Fascinating, once my pulse was starting to come back down. Up ahead, I could see him continuing to weave through traffic, driving very fast up the gap behind the tractor-trailers and then swerving in to cut off the traffic obediently waiting to creep past. I could see the flash of blue from the bright blue tarp, and the flash of brake lights, and I waited for the accident but saw nothing.

I was rattled. I never get surprised on the road, but there I was, bagged completely by someone operating so far outside the normal traffic regime that it rendered The Scan completely ineffective.

Approaching Richmond, the Garmin wanted me to take the bypass east (when I wanted to arc west) and then up to Fredericksburg and I demurred. I took 288 to the northwest and Charlottesville, and then the two-lane 522 the last fifty miles up to rural Culpeper.

It is lovely rolling country- little pockets of 35 and 45 MPH turns, and snow still left in the shadows. It still covered most of the front lawn when I eventually pulled into the farm, a few minutes later than I would have with another hour on I-95.

The snow on the front lawn will take care of itself, though they are talking about a maybe last-gasp of Polar Vortex next week. I took the bags in to do the laundry and mix a very stiff drink. I cut the little Key Lime that Marlow gave me in half, and used it to cut the rich vodka and tonic mix. I was there yesterday, I thought.

I scanned the great room of the farmhouse. Why the hell am I here? And which universe am I in?

(There is really nothing like a fresh Key Lime, in this universe, anyway. Thanks, Marlow.)

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303

Extra Tropical

Morning in the Keys and Michael let me down- his last chance this trip- since the truck at the corner of White and Truman was closed for second time when I needed him. Instead of a tasty breakfast sandwich, I had to settle for filling up the tank on the Panzer and got some cash out of the machine for the ride north around ten. Marlow stopped by to give me a Key Lime for luck, plucked fresh from his tree at the house, and I put it on the dashboard, wedging against the Garmin electronic navigation device.

The lime led me East and North, though frankly, the inclination was to turn it around and head West and South.

I won’t bother you with the details. It was bright and sunny and the light glittered on the water in the lower Keys. Weekend activity was happening on the bike-path and the fishing piers- and some irritating Special Events around a gigantic flea market on Islamorada- which I know was Spanish for “Isle of Morada,” but still reminded me of a name for a repressive theme park constructed by the Saudis.

Maybe it was just the slightly sour sense that this trip to Paradise really just felt like it was getting started. Key West is freaking magical in so many ways- the people, the sense of jolly anarchy, the hard work of the people who have made their lives there.

Marlow said it best just before he drove off to deliver meals to the shut-in community: “It’s not the Mainland, Man.”

I muttered that to myself as traffic stopped to permit people to amble across the two-lane, the public safety community wing their hands showing a little un-Ilsand like frustration. That slowed things up, and the 126-miles of Overseas Highway passed with beauty and a certain forbearance.

Once on the mainland, the homicidal hurtling started immediately: where there are three lanes, Floridians appear to be afflicted with the same disease as their brethren to the north, which is to say, a class of driver considers overtaking on the right, in the slow lane, be be the preferred mode of ballistic transit. I would call it annoying- that whole “Passing side, Sui-Side” the truckers used to paint on the left and right side of the back of their trailers, but I am not sure people would get it these days.

Anyway, I tuned in to the world as the wheels turned north: The events of the day included mass protests in Kiev, in Ukraine, the arrest of el Chapo, Guzman the drug billionaire, and a review of some of the lunacy of the week from Washington. The real event of the day for the Panzer was the return to winter, which occurred just north of Fort Pierce. I stopped to gas up and looked at a thick dark band of clouds to the north, and when I was back on the superslab to penetrate it, the resulting curtain of pounding water turned the windshield white-gray and completely opaque.

The good news was that it probably washed the salt off the car. The bad news was it meant emergency flashers through the construction areas on I-95, and a vague hope that no one would do anything really stupid up ahead.

Once through the front, I was extra-tropical again and the shorts that seemed so natural that morning seemed a little freaking cold. The dashboard told me the temperature had come down from the low nineties in greater Miami to suddenly seventy, and then the long slow decline.

I hit darkness in Jacksonville, and stopped at a high-rise Marriott. The bed was better than anything I own at the moment, and very comfortable indeed. The computer- oh, yeah, the radio told me my Apple operating system was compromised and I ought to stay off unsecured networks like those in comfortable Marriotts- so I guess I will.

Hope to make the farm by four. We will see how that works out.

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303

Where’s Waldo?

(Image of artist Sanchez, at the Sanchez Corner at the Green Parrot Bar. Photo Socotra).

I understood from Debbie, the sturdy and personable blonde morning bartender at The Bull that the muralist would be around in the morning to touch up his masterwork- the gigantic mural at the end of the downstairs bar featuring sailors at leisure.

The pictures from the day are posted on the Facebook page; I will attempt to be more focused here, though things are a bit foggy this morning through no direct fault of my own. I was doing historical research to buttress the odd mirror-images of Key West and Petoskey, the Little Village By The Bay.

Debbie wasn’t in, the usual morning drunks were distributed around the bar. The hard-edged older woman was behind the bar doing a crossword puzzle as the tempo of life on Duval started to come alive on a Friday. I leaned over to get her attention, and asked if the artists was around, and she said he was. Sure enough, a burly bearded man was at a back table surrounded by pots of paint and assorted brushes, working on a rectangular canvas depicting a bottle of rum.

I asked if he was the artist who painted the mural, and sure enough, he was. He said his name was Steve Heuel, mostly of Wisconsin, and he does heroic murals for a living. I asked him about this one, and he launched into the description.

A fellow named Waldo Peirce, of Maine, had been a pal of Ernie Hemingway’s, and had been encouraged to come down and play with Papa. He was an outdoorsman, fisherman and hunter, and a painter. He captured the Fleet of the mid-1930s at their leisure at the Silver Slipper Dance Hall, which was adjacent to the Hemingway hangout, Sloppy Joe’s.

This is the original, as done by Waldo. It is at Sothbey’s auction house for between ten and fifteen thousand bucks. The artist is the bearded man to the upper left. Through the door in upper left middle is Ernie, back to viewer, in ball cap, being served by the imposing African-American bartender-cum-bouncer, Skinner, in Joe’s proper.

Steve tried to find who had the Peirce estate rights to the work, and managed to track down an elderly woman who was the last of the family. She gave him permission to do this version:

Anyway, Steve told me how he had done the work and been faithful to the original artist’s intent. I thought it was cooler than shit, and would mention it to the owner of the Park Grill, the doppleganger bar to Sloppy Joes in northern Michigan. Ernie used to box in the lot next to that restaurant, too, and that is part of the spooky continuity of the Hemingway legacy. He thought he would like to get across the Lake to Michigan to do it, so I am putting that on my list of things to get on right away.

I thought about that, writing notes at Rick’s up the block, The men’s hockey game between the US and Canada was on, sort of appropriate, and I chatted with Kelly the bartender until the place filled up with Canadians shouting at the TV and with the singer shouting at the Canadians, and beseeching the women to lift their tops.

Rick’s offers a discount on drinks to military personnel, active and retired, which is a good deal unless you have things to do, which did not get done.

I did wind up getting an excellent Cuban sandwich at one of the oldest bodegas on the island, the Five Brothers, as a man opened the door as I was trudging by. weaving my way home for a siesta, which would enable me to power on to hook up with Marlow and his wife W, and then embark on another voyage of musical discovery.

That one wove its way, eventually, from their amazing home and through the Green Parrot with and a jazz fusion band with horns and enthusiasm and a host of aging Parrot Heads- real ones, not the Jimmy Buffet kind- and then to the upstairs cigar bar of the 90 Mile Lounge. Marlow knows the right people, and we watched the set unfold by the blues guys, the trio known as the Delta Swamp Rats, Steve Arvey, up front, who frankly knocked my sox off.

And not just mine. We puffed some of Marlow’s fine un-Cuban cigars, and were amazed when an older gentleman in a stingy-brim hat joined in on Fender jazz-base. The singer said he was a Cuban who had toured with Tito Fuentes, and by God it was cool to see his dextrous fingers pluck that bass. A complete professional from another age.

A couple good enough to be professionals were putting on a demonstration of dance, the almost scary stuff with the female inverted at times, and the drinks were cold and pleasant, and eventually we were cooking everything left in the fridge at the apartment on White Street. I was praying I had enough bandwidth left in the month’s account to post the pictures and the last story of the Key West part of the trip, and prayed I would not be too hung over to drive, and then wondered why the hell I am going back north at all.

I thought about Peirce the artist, and the vibrancy that continues apace on this strange little island in the sun. Maybe sometime soon people will be asking where I got off to, a sort of “Where’s Waldo?” in the mural of our lives in suburban DC and I will actually know.

Crap. Gotta get on the road. I need to call Marlow and W to say good-bye- or what is that thing the French do? Not ‘good-bye,’ but “adieu?”

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
twitter: @jayare303

The Yellow Jack

It is nice to get away from the bustle of White Street once in a while, and since all good things come to an end, I thought I would go up to Mile Marker 14 and have dinner and watch the sunset over the Saddle Back Keys and the Overseas Highway.

Off on the road again tomorrow, back to Bad Idea Central. This has been a fabulous visit, a real vacation for the first time in what seems like years. It featured serious discussions about The Iguana Problem, and whether the all-night crowing of the roosters is going to be a problem with the noise abatement regulations under intense discussion with the County Supervisors.

If anyone here was seriously concerned with the latest Federal Agency out of control (the FCC at the moment) or the collapse of the Syrian policy, or the imposition of martial law in places as disparate as Ukraine and Venezuela, or the astonishing hubris of Secretary Kerry as he flew a large jet to Indonesia to decry wasteful carbon emissions I did not hear about it directly.

And good riddance. There is nothing that can be done from here about any of it, except to vote to ignore it. I mean, the people ostensibly in charge of responding to all this don’t seem to be worried, so what the hell. They had things to worry about here in this place. The passing trolley reminds me each time they pass the field with the single granite marker on it that stands in memory of the soldiers who died of the Yellow Fever, the plague of the Gulf and SE Coast not so very long ago.

It would appear with a malevolence to which we are no longer accustomed- though of course with globalization, we are vulnerable to disease that flies as fast as Secretary Kerry.

There is a long list of things to do today in preparation for traveling again. First, I have to find the car and see if it is parked somewhere legal. Then I have to put some things in it. Then I believe I will go on the town this evening, and make preparations to get underway.

That is an appropriate turn of nautical phrase. I am reading the first novel in the “Honor” series “At the Edge of Honor,” by a fellow named Robert McComber. It is set (in part) in Key West in the depths of the American Civil War, and conveys what this place was like in the dying Age of Sail, with the running up of the Yellow Jack signaled to ships entering port that the killing fever was abroad.

I guess I am happy with the considerably lesser, if perhaps for complex things to worry about today.

I don’t know if I will be in touch over the trip back. I am thinking about you, no kidding.

Wish me luck.

(The international signal flag for contagion. If I see it flying near DC I am turning around.)

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303

BOGO

I was drunk before two, not my fault, I assure you. It was an unfortunate confluence of the fact that Marlow was off the leash, and I had a commitment to see Dora- sister of a pal of a pal- play at some bar in town, since she has the afternoon shift Wednesdays.

Marlow came by at one- a propitious time- and we struck out in his islandmobile. I don’t have to tell you it was a glorious day, just a shade south of perfect.I mean, there is no such thing as perfect, right?

Anyway, I had been told she was appearing at “Bill,” which it started at Cowboy Bill’s on Duval Street because I had been told Dora was playing at a place called “Bill,” and Marlow and I stopped at Coyote Ugly to inquire if that the the right cowboy bar- parking was a bitch, of course, and we should have walked or ridden bicycles, except that I can’t very well and don’t have one, respectively. The door guy said they didn’t have live music, which must make it the only place in town that doesn’t.

Further up Duval, in the 600 Block, we tried Cowboy Bill’s, which has a mechanical bronco and a cute bartender named Terrancita. She told us it was “Buy One, Get One Free” Wednesday, which of course is too hard to say, so we said, “BOGO.” There was no one named Dora there, nor any live music until Happy Hour, which we declared had already arrived.

The two BOGOS were enough to get us calibrated and message Michigan to refine the search, which as it turned out was actually The Bull, and typos are important.

We walked back up the street, past the Oldest House that Marlow remembered being rehabilitated, and the bulldog with the sunglasses and the rest of the street circus of Duval in the Season.

We could hear music drifting out of the open shutters of The Bull when we got across the street from the three-story liquor dispensary.

Dora was a dark-haired woman with the voice of an angel, when she started her set. After the first song- Blackbird, I think- I advanced to the stage to introduce us and convey the best wishes of the people trapped in Michigan, and the warmest of greetings from suburban DC. She laughed, and things took a distinctive upward bounce.

Debbie was behind the bar, but she refused to serve us. “It is BOGO at the Whistle upstairs. Why would I pour you singles when you could walk one flight up and get doubles?”

An excellent point, and Marlow bounded off to collect some drinks. We he returned he said the bartender was bored up upstairs, no one there, and BOGO actually meant “BOGT,” or triples.

That is when things began to come off the rails, and it was delightful.

Things get a little foggy aft that, though I recall the best song in Dora’s repertoire was a plaintive ballad entitled “Fuck You.”

Dora was a blast. As part of her patter between songs, she announced that The Bull’s Soup of the Day (SOTD) was tequila, and naturally the tourists (and us) wound up doing shots with her as the set went on.

During a break, I was attempting to take some pictures of the sailor mural behind the bar- it is an epic depiction, ten or twelve feet tall and at least that far wide. Debbie
Saw what I was doing and invited me back in her sanctum for a better shot. Behind the fucking bar! You know what that meant in The PI- you bought a round for the house, but she did not charge me.

Instead, she said the artist was working on the masterpiece during his current visit, and that he would be around before ten the next morning if I had questions about the scene being depicted.

I made a note to do that- and Marlow and I had a marvelous afternoon with Dora and the music and the BOGOs.

Dora dropped off a CD of her music, too, an album entitled “Larry Baeder and the MUSEGURUS,” on which she is the lead vocalist. I just finished listening to it- a rollicking collection, and there is a song with the refrain, “Talk me back to Michigan in September.”

I think I would like that, but we have all summer before that. Have I mentioned that I like this place?

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
TwitterL @jayare303

Word of Mouth

(Sunset from the deck at Kaya at Mile Marker 14, Next to Baby’s Coffee. All Photos Socotra).

I do remember what I imagined about White Street before I came down to the lovely Isle of Key West. I looked at Google Maps, of course, and saw that the apartment building was not quite a mile from where the action is on Duval and Whitehead Streets. I looked at Street View, and identified a dignified older frame building. I thought, therefore, it would be relatively quiet.

It is, to a degree, but the big trucks early in the morning and late, and the buses and the Tourist Trolley provide some colorful bangings-and-bumpings, and the high-pitched whine of the over-revved motor scooters and occasional rumble of the Big Bikes contribute a unique ambiance. Since everything runs at bicycle speed when cyclists are present, there is a considerable variation in tempo.

Which is in no way a complaint. It just makes conference calls on the balcony a little colorful.

So I have no huge issues for you this morning, and no death march of dozens of pictures. I decided to take a break from White Street and the hike downtown to venture out past Boca Chica and the Air Station to Mile Marker 14 and a traditional restaurant called Kaya. I watched an idle and lovely sunset from the deck and enjoyed the tuna sashimi. Delightful, but not exactly the epic span of history, from wrecked Spanish Galleons to exploding Battleships or picaresque outmoded fortifications near the site of a Nobel Laurate’s one-time home.

It was just plain relaxing, and as I contemplate flogging the Panzer north into the ice and snow, realized it was necessary.

I have not belabored you with tales of restaurant fare here. I don’t care much for fine dining alone, preferring to meet people at the bars. To keep expenses down, I have been doing my own cooking for the most part, but I can see the end of this larder and that will be it. There is too much good food out there not to comment on, and in fact there are so many places to consume it is daunting.

So, word of mouth is important here. I heard about this at Solo, an American Bistro, sandwiched between Scott and Marlow at the apex of the back side of the bar. They were doing salad, flatbreads and crab cakes. I had some interesting yellow fin tuna on circular wafers with some sort of Oriental greens and wasabi underneath.

I listened intently, since I am no more a Local than I am from the District, and the closest I can get on this trip is the equivalent of missing ship’s movement in some exotic port of call.

But Scott and Marlow qualify, and they were talking about something exciting: the opening of a all-new stationary food truck.

I listened with interest, always alert for local color.

“Michael Wilson just opened a food truck,” said Scott. “It is right around the corner from my house, and I tried their breakfast sandwich the other morning. They were still trying things out. Started great. They are going to try it without advertising, just word of mouth.”

Now, for those from uber-trendy Arlington, food trucks are no novelty. Well, maybe this winter they are, since the vendors would have frozen as they cooked. But this was an altogether new thing here in Key West, I think due to the limited amount of places to park and the hostility of the brick-and-mortar restaurants.

Marlow looked over at me, took a sip of a delightful cab, and said: “Mike and his wife Melanie run the best restaurant in Monroe County, bar none. It is over on the corner of Southard and Margaret. I think the patter goes something like ‘from first martini to the last sumptuous bite of the warm chocolate volcano, Michael’s will delight and satisfy,’” ending with an ironic flourish and a wolfish smile.

Scott laughed. “That sounds about right, but he has always wanted to crack the food truck mystique and now he has.”

“You said it was close,” I said. “Where is it?”

“Corner of White and Truman,” said Scott. “In the side lot of the gas station.”

“It’s far out. It isn’t a truck as much as a trailer- it is fixed in place. Looks like it has been there for years. Faded sign, off yellow color and old timey lights. Really retro and cool. Daily specials and all that.”

I marked it on my list of things to do on this trip, and it was not until this morning that I realized time was getting short. I had already dropped peppers and mushrooms and onions into the skillet and swirled them around in extra virgin olive oil, in preparation to fry up two of the last four eggs in the fridge.

Crap- three Most Important Meals of the Day to go, and I was going to wind up having to buy too many eggs. I went ahead and completed sautéing the mélange, and put it aside. I searched for a clean pair of shorts and t-shirt (a growing challenge) and stumped down the stairs to totter my way to the intersection of White and Truman.

I passed the Peruvian Restaurant- it is the closest, and I hear word on the street that it is good, but they are not open for breakfast.

The sun was bright and flushed out the lingering fog of the morning. Scott had not lied, and Marlow’s instincts were right on. The truck is battered and authentic. The food is local, and delightfully fresh. Two locals were inside cooking, and I ordered a breakfast sandwich special. The atmosphere was casual, friendly and approachable. No tables, just three battered ironing boards to put your plates on and eat standing up.

This was not a pre-made treat- it took a few minutes to cook up, but I knew this was the right place. They have only been open a little more than a week, and already the cops were parked there, ready for coffee and eggs.

White Street Station? That place is a winner. Marlow sent me a note, asking if I wanted to go back for lunch. Of course I said “yes,” but I don’t know whether to try the chicken Reuben, stuffed iceberg salad or the fish tacos. I am confident they are all dynamite.

I finished my breakfast sandwich and listened to the cop’s radio, which crackled with the news that the Finns had just crushed the Russians in ice hockey, eliminating them from competition. Only here, I thought, and realized just how much I am going to miss this place.

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303

Blue Heaven

The breakfast dishes are cleaned up; the long sleeve t-shirt put away from the dawn’s mild coolness; pictures taken yesterday are edited and posted.

I need to get on the story, but preferred to let the color blue rush over me as the light changed, illuminating the square of the skylight.

The color blue has been with me of late. The marvelous rich sky, the paler blue of the Florida Straits…the faded blue of the sign jutting from the apex of the Blue Heaven bar, where Uncle Ernie used to ref boxing matches long ago.

Blue water, blue sky. A little blue emotion, too, thinking about what had been and what is to be.

To be, or not to be? Hamlet said that, and Sinatra answered across the centuries: Do be, do be, do.

So I did. I plodded over to Fort Zachary Taylor yesterday. Uncle Sam has been here a long time, not as long as the Spanish, of course (1516), but what we took with Florida were these marvelous islands in the sun. Key West is the end of the line for US-1, of course, but the isles continue on to the Dry Tortugas, and the magnificent brick walls of Fort Jefferson. I want to get out there, but may not make it this trip.

The closest thing handy is Fort Taylor, and that is where I headed after an abortive attempt to find a television that does not have to be hooked to a cable. I remember there were such things, and television, limited to a few channels, was just fine.

I heard on my clock radio that the Navy would be participating in some Homeland Security Drill, and would be manning the guard posts that protect access to the bastions of the Navy Exchange Gas Station, the Commissary and Exchange itself.

Being away from Washington, I thought I would try to just avoid the whole Homeland Security thing, but it really is a persistent issue here. The transition from Spanish to American rule is a complex topic, as is completely appropriate for an island whose heroes are pirates.

When England grabbed Florida in 1763, the Spanish contended that the Keys were a component of what they called “Habana Norte.” On March 25, 1822, Navy LCDR Matthew C. Perry sailed the US schooner Shark to Key West, surveyed the island and planted the U.S. flag.

The Spanish were not in a position to do anything about it, and there the matter rested. The real homeland security problem was piracy. Washington dispatched Commodore David Porter with a cool half-million dollars to establish an anti-terror task force- maybe I am updating the terminology, but that is essentially the seascape of the time
For some it was difficult to determine who disliked Commodore Porter more, the pirates or the residents of Key West, then known as “Thompson’s Island.”

Porter lost his command in 1825 due to accusations that he had exceeded his discretionary authority by invading Puerto Rico, which we would not seriously get around to until 1898. In 1826 the Navy moved the Navy base to Florida’s panhandle at Pensacola. A coal bunker and supply depot remained at Key West.

The raffish nature of the city was well established due to natural selection. The Strait of Florida was crucial to navigation of the Gulf Stream. During the heyday of the Age of Sail, a hundreds ships would pass by the island, with as many as one per week succumbing to the treacherous waters. The plunder in the shallow water sparked a tradition of wrecking-and-salving that went on for a hundred years and made Key West a wealthy place.

Key West became a “Port of Entry” for wrecks in the region in 1828 (see the Federal Wrecking Act of 1825 if you are curious) and the processing and selling of salvaged property became a primary economic activity. The Navy never has been very good about strategic thinking: after the Pirates were cleaned out, the Service turned its attentions elsewhere.

The Department of the Army had a different view. The Corps of Engineers was tasked with completing the vision of President Jefferson that the territory of the United States ought to be protected from predation. A chain of brick forts, most of them multi-storied bastions of masonry, were strung all along the East Coast.

At Key West, the building of a three-story brick fort began in 1845, and was mostly incomplete due to the damage caused by the big storm in 1846 when President Zachary Taylor is died in office in 1850. The facility was named in his honor, and became a bastion for the Union Forces when Florida joined the Confederacy in 1861.

The fort was impregnable, and never seriously challenged by the Rebels. Key West became home to the Union Gulf Blockade Squadron, After the Civil War, the Navy basically abandoned it’s facilities a surplus to the cigar and sponge industries. Armored Cruiser- 1 USS Maine departed Key West on the fateful “humanitarian” mission that resulted in the loss of the ship and most of her crew in Havana Harbor. Some of her sailors lie a few blocks up Angela Street.

The Fort was considered obsolete by the time hostilities broke out in Europe in 1914, and an effort to cut down the high profile of the ramparts undertaken. In the process, thousands of tons of bricks were ripped out, and the old cannon buried in the old foundations to support modern coastal artillery.

Anyway, after the last active service in the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Department of the Navy abandoned ship again, and a small rump of a base is left, and Fort Zachary Taylor was handed over to the Park Service, along with a perfectly serviceable beach. All that is quite apart from my mission to go find the fort, and get acquainted with it.

I trudged down Angela as the light was getting long. The Sentries had been re-posted while I was getting gas and at the Exchange, and I needed to get it in gear if I was going to do anything significant with the rest of the day.

It was so nice that I took off my shirt as I walked along, putting it back on as I navigated the discontinuity of the streets around what had been the wall of the old Naval Station. There were some curious structures onboard the property of the Truman Annex, and I considered seeing if my ID card would get me in. The legs ached, but I figured I had hobbled far enough that a little more pain would be tolerable.

I passed through the Park Service Gate and trudged up the access road to the fort, and the beach.

There were some tourists leaving as I arrived, and I had the place to myself for a half hour until two formidable Ranger arrived to toss me out.

Really a cool structure. So cool, that I thought it would be appropriate to transition from historical research to literary, which is how I wound up in a conversation with Mike from Cleveland, a young man with dark good looks and an aquiline nose who was tending bar in the courtyard of Blue Heaven, which must have been the closest bar to the Navy Base back in the day. It was old enough, in its original incarnation, that the sailors of the Maine might very well have had their last non-regulation tot of rum right there.

“Do you know anything about the boxing?” I asked him.

“About boxing? Sure, I know about boxing.” y

“No, I meant the boxing that happened here.”

“Oh, that. Sure. The open space under the tree behind you is where they used to have a ring. This place has been a lot of things: whore house, cock-fight palace, Speak-easy. Not with the current owners, though.”

“Understood. Every place has its story. But is it true that Earnest Hemingway used to referee some of the bouts?” I asked.

“Yep. Right there, he said, pointing to the tables under the tree.” Behind Mike a little girl and her brother were trying to work a hula hoop and almost succeeding. The light turned briefly sapphire, and then dimmed.

I managed to divide a twenty between drinks and a tip, and told Mike I would be seeing him again. He shrugged, and said that would be fine.

As I walked up to Duval in the azure night, I got the real sense that this is the beginning of something new, and also the continuation of something old, brought to the surface by the rushing blue water.

Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303