Life and Island Times July 1 2016 – Why Marlow Loves Key West
For many years during his current coral island sojourn, Marlow wrote down every day the reasons why he was thankful to live in Key West. By the 2012 holiday season he compiled from the thousands of random thoughts a “best of list.” In view of his and W’s imminent departure, he thinks it should be shared once again.
4. Sandals & shorts 24/7/365
10. Answering tourist questions like “Will the sun set tomorrow like it did today?” with a smile and not a snark or a smirk
13. The “Ah ha!” look that our mainland visitors display when they finally get it why we like this place
14. Loud F/A18s from the Naval Air Station five miles distant as the crow flies
16. Poetry on bar bathroom walls
18. Watching men dressed as 250 pound, 6′ 7″ tall women promote on Duval Street sidewalks the nightly drag show out front of the 801 Bourbon Street Bar
21. People copulating on public streets and in bar and restaurant restrooms
30. The running Cardinal of Key West
38. Amazing music you hear at local bars
42. Waving at someone the next day after chatting with them the night before at a wine or cigar bar
44. Tubing down Duval Street atop storm sewer back ups
46. Defaced street signs that read “pee Limit 25”
69. Finding a misplaced, two-week overdue bill from a mainland company and calling them to forgive the interest and penalties due to poor mail ship delivery service to our disconnected Caribbean location
70. Hot Russian waitresses and the Israeli green card exotic dancers and entertainers
125. Telling your “how I came to live here in paradise” story to a stranger in the time it takes you to pour them a sip of wine
151. Rainbows and waterspouts
155. The mosaic of Key West’s One Human Family
244. Good looking, painted females who, without being asked, tell you that the “curtains match the carpet”
268. Uplifting affirmations on public bathroom walls
269. Correcting bathroom wall graffiti grammar, meter and rhyming errors
270. Correcting my corrections when sober
272. Solar flares make us a bit crazier than normal
371. Standing at the corner of Duval and Green Streets facing south at 4 AM to watch the bars sweep out the last of their customers; for a few brief minutes it becomes an unforgettable, neon-lit, festival pageant of silly walks and Gumby body jive
400. Stepping outside, opening one’s eyes wide, breathing deeply and getting an instant attitude adjustment
453. Watching the daily 10 AM cruise ship tourist tsunami crest atop the sidewalks of lower Duval to hear the faint announcement in one’s head, “Attention WalMart shoppers . . .”
522. Southernmost Santas
555. Visiting and resident writers – celebrity, wannabes and clandestine – seeking a version 2.0 prolonged enhancement of their content and craft
640. Ambience of favorite haunts twelve hours after a visitor hurricane evacuation order takes effect
671. Doing laundry at the White Street M&M Laundromat early in the morning, sipping a cafe con leche and enjoying the to and fro of the local Hispanics and their playful banter
751. Monday mornings spent in phone teleconferences with mainland clients while ensconced under a “Coffee is God” sign in a zen garden while Kermit, the Key West Lime Pie tycoon, hawks his wares somewhere out just beyond eyesight on Caroline St’s sidewalk
788. Childlike sensation that it was Christmas In April when a new graffiti in the Green Parrott men’s room was found
903. A “we’re not in Kansas anymore” moment: overhearing Partridge Family’s song I Think I Love You emanating from a local gym
1001. Received wisdom: do not eat the last “all-breeds” hotdog at the Chart Room
1030. Brief cognitive dissonance moment: hearing James Brown’s It’s a man’s world wafting out of the Bourbon Street Bar
1255. The ceiling at Captain Tony’s Saloon
1282. After being here over four years, I believe there is no more intelligent and entertaining life anywhere else in the universe
1301. Mad(e) in Key West is not a misspelling
1418. While no one can give me a good reason to convince me that I am not in Mexico right now, yet why can’t I find a good burrito
1464. Helping a neighbor encrypt her laptop’s WIFI so her Skype-sexing sessions with another neighbor overseas would cease being publically available
1500. Observing yoga on the beach
1505. Escape tunnels are impractical
1573. Thankful that the Cold War was cold
1600. Chicks with tight buns — okay, some of them are not chicks
1627. Spring breaker hangover rush at two PM to local bodegas for native cures like a double buchi
1799. Cold toilet seat season does not exist here
1812. Impromptu collages atop bar bathroom floors could be considered modern art
1841. From my perch on the front porch of Vino’s, watching visiting drunk hetero males hitting on the 801 Bourbon Street Bar transvestites & being convulsed by the conclusion that their chances of getting a piece of ass is about as likely as their riding a unicorn
1881. The mildly perverted or slightly insane need not apply for Conch Republic citizenship
1889. The day I gave away my windshield ice scraper and driveway snow shovel collections
1911. Michael McCloud’s Conch Republic national anthem
1914. It is the perfect spot to observe the (choose one: global warming, world financial collapse, American electoral college, European and Chinese real estate implosion, war of terrorism) apocalypse
1915. Tropic Cinema
1918. The Cat Man act at Mallory Square
1929. Randomly sifting through moving boxes of stuff I have not touched in decades and trying to figure out where it came from
1955. The revolution started without me – I did not get the memo
2011. Late night bar closing parades on upper Duval Street are like dress rehearsals for Michael Jackson’s Thriller music video
2013. Air conditioning
2112. Given the dysfunctional mainland world, this is the new Camp Normal
2189. Stories of our grandchildren explaining to their Catholic elementary school classes in northern Indiana the suggestively named treats they ate and saw served at our island’s dessert-only Better than Sex restaurant
2244. My eyesight loss rate arrested/slowed
2393. Occupy Key West – WTFO? We were here first
2423. Halloween costumes may be worn year round
2447. The expression “What up, my bitches?” is considered acceptable in many island social circles
2472. Cocktails: key lime pie martinis at the White Tarpon; Courvoisier and a stogie at Berlin’s; mojitos at La Te Da
2489. The fifty yard advanced warning of a working woman’s arrival on your block of Duval by her bathing in a perfume that has bits of Amazon panther organs in it; absolutely guaranteed to turn heads to catch a glimpse of what is coming
2500. The non-celebration ICW the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” We never had a DADT, so its repeal didn’t mean crap
2573. US 1’s 17 mile stretch (MM 107 – 124) – proof of black holes for transportation purposes between worlds & dimensions
2874. Duncan Donuts is back in town after a four year long absence.
The “ladies” of the Bourbon St Bar
Duval Street late night
Two Southernmost Santas
Mallory Square bathroom wall over the sink, where a mirror would normally have hung
Various photos from 2008 through 2010 of the colorful waters along the lower Florida Keys
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