Unafraid and On Foot

Well, naturally enough, there is nothing to be afraid of in Key West, except an outbreak of immoderation. I thought I could resist anything but temptation, like Oscar Wilde, and walking through the deliriously sun-drenched streets toward the Historic District that I might suddenly find myself healed, and hurl away the cane and begin to dance.

The streets are starting to come into focus after several forays out from White Street on foot, fearing only a fall of my own initiative. White Street, my base of operations, is just a little north of the main Key West Cemetery. The building that houses the apartment is nearly a hundred years old- built on the site of the block cleared by the old cigar factory that went up in 1923.

Just up the block is the historic armory, a spired wooden building whose existence is due to the allegiance of The Rock to the Union during the Civil War, and the proximate cause of the informal national cemetery next to my building. There are several views about the cemetery, held by the drivers of the Island Trolley the rumbles under my balcony. “..found bones…” says one, depending on where he or she might be in the script, or “…Union dead of yellow fever…” or, “…never will built upon…”

So, the dead are next door, and also up a couple blocks on Angela Street. I was wandering that way because my journey to the Botanical garden would require either actually getting in the Panzer or buying a bicycle. I elected to do neither, dragged out the cane, stumped down the steps of the apartment building’s central staircase, and popped out into the street.

I adore the homes here- they evoke the pleasant gingerbread cottages improbably located in Bay View, the old Methodist Retreat in the Little Village By the Bay. Those pleasant Victorian fantasies are not winterized, by intent, and wait the long months in the winter fallow, even as their chronological cousins open up for the snowbirds, and harbor locals all the year round.

Here is Bay View in Michigan:

And here is Key West.

No wonder I feel like I am home. My pal in the Shenandoah sent me a link to a fine book that will help me decipher the styles of the homes: “A Field Guild to the American Houses,” by Virginia and Lee McAlester. I ordered it, not that it will arrive in time to help this trip, but what the hell.

And hell (and heaven) occurred to me as I passed the gate to the real Key West Cemetery, not the accidental national cemetery next to the building on White Street. The real one is something else completely: a jumble of white rectangles that houses perhaps 100,000 former residents- hell, not former, they still are here in the off season- of The Rock. The full-time population is only 30,000, so it is an impressive thing.

The guidebooks tell me it is a sprawl of almost twenty acres on the highest point in town, Solares Hill. Non-residents might not notice the hill at all, but even a few feet of elevation can make an enormous difference when the hurricanes come, as they always do.

The city began to place their dead here after the storm of 1846, when the wind and waves washed human bodies from the earlier plot on the coastal sand dunes on Whitehead Point near the West Martello Towers.

I wandered into the cemetery looking for the memorial and graves associated with the disaster on board the USS Maine, a controversial event that propelled the United States into the mad imperial quest in the Caribbean and Western Pacific.

I took a bunch of photos- there are two new albums on the Facebook page with all of them- but will not trouble you with them here. Once I had my quota of time with the dead, I wandered again down to Truman and took a left, heading downtown. It may have been five o’clock somewhere, but I was determined to postpone cocktail hour to a reasonable moment, and savored the sun-drenched streets.

I wandered down past Mile Marker 0, and looked for a way onto the old Navy Base from Whitehead Street. I managed to find the Key West version of the Projects, and realized I was going to need a better plan to find my way to the Fort Zachary Taylor, which a new pal indicates has “got a lot of ghosts.”

I have not seen that many since I was in the engine room of Admiral Dewey’s Flagship, the ex-Olympia, so I guess I am ready

I won’t tell you the moment my feet began to follow the cane back in the direction of Duval. I passed the Green Parrot, thinking of the note from a pal about why Ernie Hemingway had no association with the closest (and oldest) bar to his home.

My pal Point Loma used to live here, and he has an explanation: “Word is that Hemingway got tired of being challenged to boxing matches on Whitehead Street, which is one of the reasons he fled to Cuba (as well as some of his relationships that were chasing him over some legal affairs). According to the legend, they used to have boxing matches upstairs in the corner building, that is now the Blue Heaven compound.”

It makes complete sense to me- when Ernie used to hang out at the Park Grill in the Little Village By The Bay, boxing matches were a regular event for him. I imagine the years and the booze kind of took the edge off things- and that the bartender at the Green Parrot was wrong. Papa probably was avoiding the pugnacious drunken Sailors who inhabited the place.

Nor can I tell you the precise reason I found myself sitting at the open-the-the-air downstairs bar of the The Bull, located conveniently below the Whistle Bar (second deck) and the clothing-optional Garden of Eden (rooftop). I do know that dark-haired Frank the carpenter and his bride Donna to my left, and that crazy drunk couple from New York’s Finger Lakes to my right had their issues.

I resisted the temptation to shop for souvenirs at the Lost Weekend Liquor store on the way out- I was still wearing my Ray Bans and realized I was going to have some problems navigating back to White Street in the deepening dusk. I resisted the temptation to shop for souvenirs at the Lost Weekend Liquor Store, and took the opportunity to hail a pedicab out on Duval.

I had not been in one of those contraptions since that visit to New Delhi years ago, and on this one, I had every expectation that I could be unafraid that terrorists would drag me from the seat and behead me.

We creaked along at a civilized pace, and it turned out the peddling cabbie was from Ukraine, and we had a quite animated discussion about Mr. Vladimir Putin and the future of the East as we rolled along. Most folks on foot were headed for Duval, a perfectly rational thing to do, but I thought maybe I might visit again tomorrow.

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

Where Ernie Wasn’t

All right- I had to do something productive rather than walk VFR direct downtown to one of the bars I missed and start drinking again. I think Hemingway would have said that, which in its good time led to an exchange with the bartender of the Green Parrot, an establishment that has been dispensing quality liquor from the same spot, Prohibition or no, since 1890.

I liked the place, the more so when one of the more formidable ladies behind the bar brusquely answered the question of a hungry tourist for a menu: “We don’t serve food.”

Remarkably progressive, I thought. But it did not answer a question I had, and I was not hungry.

“Can I ask you something?” I said, addressing the guy who was moving drinks around my corner of the bar. I rested my elbows on the solid bar so I could lean in and ensure I could hear him.

He looked at me with a smile. “You can try.”

I cleared my throat, outlining my thesis. “I just walked up from Hemingway’s House. This is the way he would have gone to get to Sloppy Joe’s, the original and the new one. He must have passed this bar every time he went out for a drink, which is, by my understanding, all the time. Are there any Ernie stories here at the Green Parrot?”

The bartender shook his head, making his long salt-and-pepper ponytail sway across his muscular shoulders. “Nope. Not one. In fact, we used to have a plaque on the wall that said “Neither Earnest Hemingway nor Elvis were ever in this bar. It’s gone now, though.”

“Pity,” I said. He went back to serving the needs of the later afternoon thirsts around the bar, and I mulled the literary problem with a vodka tonic. Could it have been that this was a Navy bar at the time? The Depression-era presence of the service was a powerful force, now largely dissipated with only a few relics left behind. Ernie had been with the ground forces as an ambulance driver in the trenches, after all, and maybe he considered the Swabbies below his notice. This was before his time as a make-belief ASW skipper in his yacht in the Second War, after all. After a few minutes of extra hard thought, my head hurt and I went back to trying to complete my notes about the Parade of Houses.

Scott, Marlow’s personable pal, had mentioned at Solo the other night that his home was a finalist for this Winter’s home show, but the 50-foot tree that had crashed down on his roof made that sort of awkward.

Seeing the first and the last, Houses #1 and #5, had completed the collection in good order. I wish I had done them sequentially, since a nice amount of thought went into what was displayed. House number one was the Eyebrow House, an example from just before the turn of the last century. Wait, I thought. This is starting to get confusing, what with the centuries now seeming to turn on us all the time.

Around the time of the Spanish American War, is what I meant to say, when Uncle Sam’s big footprint was jumping across the Florida Strait and absorbing the Old Spanish Colony of Cuba. Mr. Flagler was in the process of inventing what we know as modern Florida, or maybe better said, he was inventing the one that existed before Miami became the Capital of Latin America.

I was trying to process that as I stood in line with the other tourists in front of The Eyebrow House. “This home was built in 1898 in the Classical Revival style. It is unique to Key West, and there are about forty of these homes remaining, either restored or available for restoration. It has a two-story plan with the roof extending down over the second floor windows onto classically-styled porch columns. This restricted the view from the second floor of an Eyebrow, but provided desirable shade, which is now provided by awnings in more recently constructed houses.”

Eyebrow houses. Curious term for architecture, I thought. But the Docent explained the whole thing, something about the roofline being the brow and the upper windows being the eyes. “ This is an indigenous design has had some significant modifications since it was new. Originally, it had a cistern for rainwater catchment, and no running water. Outhouses were located in back. After serving as a winter home for a northern family since 1938, its new owners have continued the tradition of adaptation to the times. The pool area includes a hurricane-rated bathhouse.”

Well, it made sense, I thought. Why would you want to survive a hurricane only to have your bathhouse blown away? Actually, with a little less irony, I found it remarkable that these places had survived more than a century of hurricanes intact. They were doing something right. My pal Boats has an extended narrative about that, as a life-long resident of the Gulf Coast, which I will get to you presently.

The Docent let the people ahead of me enter the house, and talked to me about pineapples. “Henry Flagler’s railroad company began spanning the Keys for a railroad to Key West in 1905. Apparently Mr. Flagler was also interested in a grand agricultural scheme by which his trains running down the Florida Coast would be a steel highway for the ferries to Cuba. The pineapples being grown in Florida at the time were sweet but short, and lacking the rich meat of the version that the Dole boys were raising in another of America’s new possessions, in the Hawaiian islands.

Flagler apparently went out to confer with the Doles, and bought three shiploads of the big pineapples for plantation in Cuba. “Storms wiped them out,” concluded the Docent. I nodded, which seemed to be the only appropriate response.

“Thanks,” I said. “I know people appreciate what you are doing. I am staying over on White Street, across from the Bungalow you are showing as House Number 2. Interesting contrast between that design and this one.”

He nodded. “The big fire in 1923 changed the neighborhood radically. More than forty homes were burned down when the cigar factory burned. The Bungalow and the Victorian at Number 3 were constructed on double or triple lots.” He dig a paper out of his back pocket and handed it over to me to examine. “This is what things looked like.”

(State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory

I thanked him again, and moved through the house. The renovation again included the removal of non-structural walls to create a large sunny welcoming space with windows that folded out, now that yellow fever is no longer a problem. Upstairs, the eyebrow windows gazed out from two nice little bedrooms with Dade County Pine paneling. The wood had some miraculous qualities- it didn’t rot, was resistant to insects, and was as tough as steel.

It was so good, in fact, that they logged it all off to build Key West in the boom times and there isn’t a stick of it left. Pity- it is beautiful stuff, and panels the apartment where I am hanging my flip-flops at the moment.

I followed along the “watch step” signs on the floor to a lovely garden and sun-drenched pool, and then set off along the alley to the central cemetery fenceline that I followed down to Windsor Lane and House Number 5. I could not help but grin when I saw the brass plaque on the west gate, from a woman named Cheryl Heinlen:

(We’re all here because we’re not all there).

I had to agree with her, and marveled that I was born the year before she was, and had been granted the gift of six more years walking around- perhaps more- than she had. But she seemed to have kept some perspective on it.

I angled off onto Passover Street to intersect Windsor Lane and could see the commotion up the block in front of the handsome two-story house with the bright metal roof. Very stately, and as the ladies at the card table marked my ticket “complete” I strode up the walk and into the living room of the house. The Docent inside seemed glad to see me, for some unknown reason, and launched immediately into his script, which was amazing. “This tropical modern home was built on a double lot in 2013.”

“You have to be kidding me. It looks like it has been here forever.”

“Nothing is forever,” he said gravely. “But this one was constructed using modular techniques at a plant in Tampa and then shipped down and assembled here. It utilizes energy-efficient, eco-friendly materials that are storm-resistant. The décor, as you will note, is variations in blue.”

“The color is not what surprises me. What does is what you guys have lined out in terms of the architectural evolution of homes on the island. Eyebrow Houses from the Spanish American War, Bungalows from the 1920s, stately Victorians, cigar-roller footprint high-tech little houses, and now this. I can’t believe this is a manufactured home.”

The Docent smiled. “You nailed or scheme. Pretty amazing, isn’t it? Check upstairs. The sitting room between the two suites has flooring that is as close to Dade County Pine as the technology will permit.”

I thanked him, talking to a nice older woman in the kitchen about the faux marble sink and island, and another one on the landing of the steps upstairs that I negotiated carefully.

The views from the decks, north and south, were spectacular.

I followed along the rest of the tour past the ground floor master suite, and joined several other tourists in the master bath, which was beginning to not seem the least bit weird. Eventually I found myself back out by the pool, and my Homes on Parade Tour was complete. I walked back out to he street and was looking at the south-is-north map when a woman asked if she could help me out.

I said, “No, I sort of enjoy being lost. I am trying to transition from architectural tour to literary.”

She nodded in agreement as if that were the most natural thing in the world, and strode off in an island pace. I walked toward Duval, thinking I might follow Hemingway’s ghost for a while, and ask the tough questions at The Green Parrot.

It is five o’clock somewhere, right? I adjusted my Ray Bans and walked into the sunlit street.

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

Homes on Parade

(This grand old place wasn’t on the official tour, so I did not invite myself in. All photos, legal or not, by Socotra)

I have absolutely no ide how I can get so far behind when I am doing absolutely nothing. I was going to read a book on this trip- I brought several- but so far I have been lost in controversy on the internet about Climate Change, a foot of which is piled on the ground between me and the Farm, and the other various social-religious issues of the minute.

I was musing with one pal about when the grim argument about us all frying in our juices was going to change to we are going to freeze in our boots and it is all our fault and we have to Do Something Right Away.

The President announced another of his King Canute initiatives to set up seven new Climate Centers (the climate was there first, apparently) to study the matter. The Alarmists are praying that the ENSO- the celebrated el Nino-la Nina cycle in the Pacific is going to cause temperatures to go up a little, validating all their hysteria, while ignoring the fact that temperatures have been constant for nearly two decades.

Increasingly, people are looking out the window and seeing that nature is not cooperating with the computer models.

My pal actually chuckled, and commented that if it really is the ocean and sun that are driving temperature and climate, we can stop worrying about CO2, but somehow I don’t think anyone is going to do a press release saying they were wrong and never mind.

Anyway, by the time that all swirled around- there was a digression on the astonishing Ivanpah solar farm in the Nevada desert which is about to come on line, delivering a modest amount of power only in daylight at about half the efficiency of a new natural gas power plant at more than twice the price. It is also killing birds, who apparently think the shiny garage-sized panels are lakes, and are frying themselves as they try to land on them.

Killing some of those species (like the wind farms do) is a felony for most of us, but apparently not for the “sustainable” energy folks. My pal again was laughing hysterically as he said “as soon as you hear the word Sustainable, check your wallet. Someone is lying to you really hard.”

Anyway, the fact that people are twisting the science into knots is no reason not to conserve and recycle where it makes sense. That is only prudent, and that is what the people of the Old Island Restoration Foundation are all about. Stop Number Two is across White Street from where I am staying, and from the screened balcony I could see the docents in their red skirts setting up at ten yesterday.

Marlow had taken me to one of the periodic showings of some of the local homes a few years ago and I thoroughly enjoyed seeing how the other half lives- or is it the 1%? I always forget who I am supposed to be envious of at any given moment. By the time I had gotten cleaned up and ready to display my public face, the sun was crossing the yardarm, and I knew I needed to get out and about.

I should have gone to House number One first, but my sense of the linear is challenged here in the Keys. I moseyed across White and bought a ticket from the nice blonde woman in a red top and white skirt. $40 is sort of steep, but she told me the House Tour “is our largest and most dependable source of funds for continuing the Foundation’s mission.”

“Which is?” I asked.

“Protecting these homes, maintaining the Oldest House, granting scholarships and preserving the architectural and cultural history of Key West for the enjoyment of those who come after us.” She did not claim it was sustainable, so I smiled and handed over the cash.

“You will enjoy this selection of homes,” she said brightly. “Key West has never been frozen in time from an architectural standpoint. Life went on as,times changed, and housing changed to suit the people.”

“You mean like the climate?”

“I suppose. Our five homes on this tour represent very different aspects of how the city evolved.”

“Thanks,” I said, and put the ticket in my shorts and walked into the yellow house on White Street. The Docents were all over, telling stories about the dwellings. A man in a red shirt said that this house was built after a fire in 1923 razed several homes. “This bungalow style home, popular at the time, replaced the cigar-roller cottages where the Cuban workers lived. Key West was once the largest producer of cigars in the world.”

It was a cool place. They blew out the interior roof and left the beams exposed, also knocking out the non-load bearing walls to make one great room that stretched from front to back. It was quite lovely and I took some pictures on my smart phone until one of the docents warned me that no photos were permitted.

I ambled around, admiring how nice the workmanship was, and passed through the nicely landscaped back yard and around again to the front. They handed me a map that was thoroughly misleading- south was north, and it took me a while to get on track to walk down toward Truman to find house Number Three.

I wish I could show you pictures of the inside of this place on Olivia Street. I think it is OK to share the exterior views- it was an imposing Victorian place built on what had been three lots, and now featured a guest house to the side, pool in the back. There was some historical patter at the front door about the man who had caused it to be erected originally, a man of the sea and commerce, and I walked through with a couple who lived across the street in a more modest (but impeccably) restored bungalow.

Like the yellow house, any internal walls that did not need to be there had been removed, and the current iteration of the place was airy and delightful. On the second floor, I saw there was a wet bar outside the master bedroom, and a fancy coffee maker outside the master bath, which featured a toilet with the original overhead tank as designed by the much-maligned Dr. Krapper.

Really cool. The kitchen downstairs, once I hobbled down the grand staircase, had been opened up to the Great Room, and featured two ovens, a master island with Jenn-Aire equipped island and double dishwashers. The stove was authentically scarred, so it was apparent that whoever lived here was serious about their entertaining and cooking.

Debbie the Docent ruled the kitchen and pointed it all out, and we talked about the appliances, a mix of designer fronts and stainless steel. We agreed that stainless is harder than hell to keep clean, and then talked about my Dad’s contribution to appliance design as incorporated in this kitchen, where the reefer echoed the décor of the impressive fixtures that held plates and artwork with a home-theater just off.

“This house had a cistern for rainwater before it was enlarged. The old cistern is now under the dining table, and the owners have turned it into a wine cellar with more than a thousand bottles in it under the trap door.”

I tried my best to offer to sample a bottle in the wine-cooler built with easy access to the Master’s chair at the table, but Debbie was not buying it. I flowed through the house dreamily, and into the back yard, lush with vegetation around the pool and then through the guest cottage, every bit as elegant though judicious in its use of space. I figured I could live there without much effort, though the larger house probably put the decimal point in the price in a way that guaranteed I would never be invited.

Oh well. I thanked the volunteers at the card table out front and went back to attempting to decipher the map.

Down White, across Truman, and then a right on Catherine to Margaret street. These homes were much more modest in footprint, true to the original cigar rollers, and Number Four was almost invisible. An imperial older woman held court with a handsome young man out front, and she deigned to mark my ticket with a black Sharpie before waving me past. “don’t forget,” she said grandly, “your ticket also provides access to the Tropical Forest and Botanical Garden on Sunday, a five dollar value.”

I thanked her profusely and waked up the walk through a miniature tropical forest. The man in red inside was completing his pitch on the living area. “The owners have incorporated a lot of Ikea fixtures here to demonstrate that clean, spare modernity does not have to be unaffordable.” An architect’s model of the home stood on the glass table. I glanced at the description of the place as the docent pointed out the way things were liked together by gentle curve, and that all the available space was either glass to let in the light, or reflected on mirrors.

I gathered from the erotic art on the walls that a gay couple owned the place, and I envied their taste and means to live small, but elegant. The description on the back of the map said the place had been a dilapidated cigar roller ripped down in 1968, to be replaced by a square and practical concrete block structure. The current owners had blown the place back and up, and incorporated a cathedral ceiling and glass. They left the flamingo-pink tile in the master bath, a touching quotation to the past.

I can’t quite describe the back yard, which is accessed through a den/media room. It completely knocked me out, and I took a picture despite the prohibition. I am a pirate, I guess.

I got to the last house on Windsor Lane, Number Five on the tour just after the card table had been put away and the owner returned. I gathered this was an example of a new construction home, but I am going to have to wait till later today to see it. And Number One, over on Grinnell Street, which is supposed to be in the “eyebrow style,” whatever that might be.

I wandered on from Windsor Lane to Duvall Street, and then down the road of dreams, noticing that it was just about five o’clock, not that there was any point in waiting. There is another story or two- the drag show happening outside the 801 Club and the private tour of the Key West Armory with the current art curator, not to mention a discussion of the Civil War Union Soldier’s Ghost and his reason for haunting the place, but I have a couple houses to see.

Talk to you tomorrow about it, insh’allah.

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

Duval Street

(Selfie of Vic, 90 miles from la Habana.)

I had a good day in Paradise yesterday, considering the alternatives. There were some practical issues. I realized Verizon is not the long-term solution to access my e-life, which either is, or is not, of longer-term consequence. And longer term, of course, is where I want to be spending my winters, or whether I need an e-life at all.

I don’t know about that. I do know that my Pal Boats wrote to update me on the emerging nation of Greater Texas. I do not know quite what to think about it, but in the context of unsustainable things, if we can’t go on with what we are doing because it doesn’t work, what on earth will go on?

Boats is a shameless booster of his native Cajun Country, but he recognizes something greater in the region, and his view seems to crystalize the fundamental difference in outlook from Mayor Bloomberg, just to pick one, and Senator Cruz, to pick another.

Anyway, this is the view of the Master Chief Boatswain’s Mate:

“Glad you are enjoying the Conch Republic. Unfortunately, Florida is not really part of Greater Texas. It has been infiltrated by too many non-copperheaded non-natives. It has too many economic and social connections to New York and Washington to qualify, and Houston will not pursue any place not willing to join of their own free will.

The Conch Republic is something of an exception. Somewhat independent of the rest of Florida, Greater Texans don’t really regard it as part of the “Floridian Enclave” (of non-copperheads). Nor is it part of Greater Texas, but we admire its independent spirit. If ever they wanted to secede formally from Florida, we’d certainly be sympathetic and no doubt aid the effort. You can think of Key West as a sort of semi-protectorate, with “most favored nation” status relative to Greater Texas.

As a point of order, the real offshore outpost of Greater Texas is the U.S. Virgin Islands. Texans have invested heavily in the businesses down there and have moved there in some numbers. The Texans are slowly and quietly sponsoring a statehood movement, not annexation by Texas, but U.S. statehood, giving greater Texas more congressmen and two more senators. Again, the idea is the defense of the culture, and economy of Greater Texas from the inroads of the dysfunctional U.S. federal government.

If we could convert Florida we would, but the original “crackers” appear to be overwhelmed. The Conch Republic however is “a whole ‘nother’ place even without “crackers”. Enjoy!”

I had to think that through carefully. I decided to select “enjoy.”

The news from Virginia was about a blanket of snow a foot deep, ice and slush all the way south to Georgia. In fact, 49 states (including Hawaii) with only Florida snow-free. There is no getting out of there until the deep freeze thaws, and it is a fine place to be.

Still nothing is perfectly perfect. It turned chill yesterday, or rather chillier. Marlow had mentioned that it was unseasonably warm the day of my rival- I was bathed in sweat unloading the car- and the brisk breeze that rose yesterday found me trooping the length of Duval Street on a voyage of discovery.

I am treating this visit as a port call in a foreign land, absent of course the urgency that goes with only having 72 hours to see it all, and no particular need to sleep, or even sober up.

I wandered the eight blocks on foot to intersect Duval, and turned left, intending to walk both sides of the street and feel the texture. By the time I arrived at the north end of the street again, I thought it would be time for a cocktail.

I stopped at some of the more interesting shops along the way. Mel Fisher, the treasure hunter who found the wreck of the Spanish Atocha’s bounty of doubloons, lost since the great storm of 1622. His company has a storefront managed by a pleasant young woman named Caroline.

(One of Mel’s coins, set as a necklace pendant. Photo Fisher Salvors.)

I had been hearing Russian among other languages on the street, and asked where she was from. She said she was from the flat land that is either German or Russian, depending on which decade, but at the time of her birth was Poland.

I looked at some of the treasure with interest- Mel’s epic tale of finding the wreck, and then fighting for the funding to recover it and the battle against the State of Florida to keep it had gripped my imagination when it was happening. I restrained myself from the opportunity to spend money I don’t have any more, and lied that I would be back as I stepped out the door.

Apparently the south end of Duval is the Gayer of the two directions, the north end being more heterosexual. A couple of the t-shirt stores had shirts with vibrant slogans (like “I’m so Gay that I shit rainbows!”). I could only find amusement in it all, a defiance that is no longer required, thank goodness.

A tall young African American man passed me on the left on the crowded street- I am still challenged in the ability to move forward with any speed or accuracy- and he was singing some tune of his own invention. He pointed at a pleasant looking pair of men in front of me, as he pointed and exclaimed: “Ha! You are the top, and you,” pointing at the other “are the bottom!”

The men looked nonplussed, and I could not tell if the declaration was correct. Singing still, the tall man walked on, and so did I.

Eventually I found myself on the beach on the south end of town, near the Southernmost Tattoo Parlor, and Southernmost Hotel and Southernmost Private Residence, and eventually at Mile Marker 0, ninety miles VFR direct from Havana.

I am going to have to leave it at that. Coming back up the west side of the street I looked into a couple galleries and was jostled with tourists covered in oil- wait, that might have been the music blaring out of Jimmy Buffett’s Original Margaritaville restaurant.

I did not stop. I know the man whose music resonates most for me, and it is Michael McCloud, who plays at Schooner Warf. I walked on, coming to Green Street.

If I had been wearing a watch, I would have looked at it. “It is five o’clock somewhere, I thought and turned left to approach Captain Tony’s. Marlow had taken me there years ago, describing the night that Papa Hemingway and his cast of ne’er do wells moved the furniture out and down the street to re-establish the original Sloppy Joe’s Bar in the place up the block where it has existed since 1937.

It was first in this place, though, and I walked into the dark space filled with second hand smoke to pay homage. I talked to Joe, the bartender from Silver Spring, MD, and knocked back a couple before forging ahead to the Hog’s Breath Inn, where I had a vague notion of catching part of the set of RSV, the band we saw two nights ago. I drank a rum punch when I could find an open stool at the apex of what would have been the Amen Corner, but shorts and t-shirt were not going to make it as the breeze from the north swept in.

I bought a souvenir long sleeve logo shirt to warm up and decided to go home. The woman who sold me the shirt was from Slovenia, and had been here since she could get out of the Balkans. I trudged on to Green Street to turn left and head home, but there was Sloppy Joes, and some animosity that happened over rent in 1937 really should not concern me, and certainly the rivalry of dead Captain Tony and the owners of Joe’s, so what the hell.

I went in and bellied up to the bar and ordered a goddamn piña colada. Shoot me.

The band on the imposing stage in the cavernous space was just finishing up. A tough-as-nails blonde was serving me and a party who were talking about a place where they all got poisoned the other day as I sipped the sweet slush in amazement.

Souvenir plastic cups in hand, I walked through the now-dark night back to the apartment. It was interesting, but I prefer conversation to music, and quiet to raucous these days, though I do like getting out. The walking will be therapeutic, and this is a hell of a place to walk around.

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

The Conch Republic

Man, You miss a day in this racket and things go to hell in a hurry.

Let’s see: I slipped the 9mm into the glove box when I left the interstate and passed the Last Chance Bar on the right, the only opportunity for a drink before embarking on the 120 miles to Key West.

I had no real time to think after that- nor, do I think any thinking was actually required.

I nearly drove off the road on Marathon Key when US-1 passed the ramp to the airport and there were two gigantic warbirds in original paint- a Flying Fort and a Liberator. Uncle Dick the Famous Bomber Pilot flew both for the Mighty 8th Air Force, and it struck me that I had seen the museum devoted to the branch of the service that was second only to submariners in absorbing horrific casualties somewhere in Georgia. Another thing to do on the way back, Should I go back, that is. Arlington is buried under a foot of snow, and these were the roads in North Carolina, according to a picture my pal on the Front Range sent me this morning:

It had everything in it except some doomed Panzers rushing the other direction to try to stop the Russian advance during the retreat from Koenigsburg in 1945. I shuddered when I saw it, but hey, life is hard in Key West, too.

Anyway, let’s take this backwards to forward. Last night, Marlow was flogging the Japanese sedan up Duval Street, water up to the hubs, when

we saw a striking lady in front of the bar at 801. She was standing tall, in fact, remarkably tall, under an umbrella, since the rain was still coming down briskly.

Marlow rolled down the driver’s window to offer some words of consolation- the show must go on, after all, but she apparently could not hear what was said, and came out in the flood to hand out a card inviting us to one of the two fashion shows that night, rain or no. Up close you could see the amount of makeup and the care she had used to put it all on to stand out in the elements, and I realized what the deal was- the lady was not one, though that is perfectly fine.

We demurred on attending the show, and she seemed mildly disappointed. Marlow me off in front of the two-story frame building on White Street where I am staying and I squished across the concrete and up the dark-painted wooden central staircase to the second deck and the slightly shabby apartment, thinking I have never been happier about my decision to drive south.

We had a ball last night. Marlow and Scott were fine companions for an adventure that Marlow had conceived as a sort of Key West primer for the newbie. Solo, billed as an American Bistro, was a delight. I had the yellow fin tuna appetizer, and the specialty de jour was some delightful flatbread. Scott, a lanky former high tech executor has been down here for nearly a decade as his wife pursues a career in watercolor art. Very good guy.

It started in the Solo American Bistro and wound up in the Hog’s Breath Inn, an open-air bar in the heart of the Duvall Street party district to hear a band called “RST,” a loosely Santa Cruz-based Baby Boomer harmony band Scott had discovered during a business bacchanal in which they had consumed a display of martini glasses that for some reason had been filled with the real deal at the bar where the band was performing.

It was great- we were drinking some sort of rum drink and singing along when the skies opened. And let me tell you, they opened.

Wait, I am getting ahead of myself, as usual. Marlow had graciously buzzed me around the island in the morning, identifying key locations for me, and making a stop at the Class Six and the Commissary which are embarrassingly convenient and dramatically not available to anyone except active and retired military folks.

I know these appurtenances of the old DoD system are doomed, but while they exist, this is unbelievable. There is RV parking on the beach, no longer than two weeks in any hook-up, but apparently folks play a sort of checkers residency, hopping from parking place to parking place.

I have seen the folks do that at Dam Neck, but I think the sleet would make that unattractive at the moment.

Anyway, with some supplies laid in I moved on up the hierarchy of needs, striving for self-actualization: access to the internet was next, and I was dreading the experience. What was available? A full-up Comcast install was not in the cards- and I hate those bastards- but technology came to the rescue.

I sat on the folding chair out on the screened balcony with my ancient Droid smart phone and the iPad trying to figure out what my options were. I tried to call Verizon, but the automated voice system indicated that the telecommunications giant was sort of busy with outages from Alabama to Maine, and I sighed and thought I might just give up.

Getting a little shaky due to information withdrawal and the limited connectivity, I looked up independent contractors in Key West, and lucked out on the first call- Brett (I immediately thought of one of my favorite bartenders at Willow) said he could hook me up that very afternoon with an upgraded phone that actually serves as a wifi hotspot signal, which would enable me to generate the stupid stories about transvestites in the rain and other important issues of the day.

Which is where I am going to leave this installment. The water is down, and the sidewalks are drying and it is time to get our and about. With luck things will make more sense tomorrow.

Or not. I am in the Conch Republic, after all.

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

Vero

I have to say that I preferred the people of Santee, South Carolina. The people were nice, prices cheap, and the temperature was decent. Of course, the amount of time out of the left seat of the Panzer has been limited now to two motels and several gas stations, so perhaps it is not an appropriate sample population. The immediate problem with all that was the next storm. Georgia, an officious jurisdiction, all three-lane southbound with an ominous police presence, was burned cold by the last storm. It was a smidgin of ice, but that is all it took to bring Atlanta to its knees.

I knew I did not want any part of that, and skedaddled out of the Palmetto State as quickly as possible, putting Georgia in the rear view as quickly as possible. The skies cleared, Ray Bans went on, and in short order the Bold New City of the South was upon me. I glanced at the onboard instruments- temperature outside was slowly climbing into the low 70.

As I approached Jacksonville, I realized I had put the winter of 2014 behind, once and for all.

People were driving their convertibles with the tops down. For some reason the Garmen GPS wanted me to take the bi-pass around the downtown. it seems to have a mind of its own, and I remembered a time where a colorful piece of paper with intricate folds was the way we navigated, not some bossy disembodies voice emanating from a sleek black box on the dashboard.

I had hoped to see the Riverwalk, but instead found myself on the Southeast Connector. J. Turner Butler Boulevard- the road we used to take to get to Forrestal at the base at Mayport and visit the marvelous Beaches at Pnete Vedre and points south- went by, and an exit for Orange Park where we once lived went by, and then merged back onto I-95 south and miles and miles of construction. Florida drivers were- well, not particularly good. The truckers were all right, but I had the Panzer on autopilot and the inability of my fellow four-wheelers to maintain consistent speed was irritating.

My goal was Vero, but with Jacksonville and the threat of storm behind, I settled down for steady progress. I got off the road and drove into town, looking for something cute and saw some truly horrible places- the Norman Bates sort of thing- and being tired and dehydrated, I thought I would hole up and take a rest before sprinting past Miami onto US-1 for the 0 Mile Marker.

I should have gone to the beach and looked at the water. Instead, I found myself in an irritatingly upscale-downscale migratory Inns & Suites on the second try- the Howard Johnson’s was too depressing for words. I have had good luck with the old HoJos on the road- park in front of your room, easy access to daylight, very old school, but this particular one was across from a vast truck lot and new construction to boot.

So, Inns and Suites it was, with an exploratory visit to the 33 ⅓ Lounge just off the reception area. and a fascinating conversation with Duane, a crane operator working on the I-95 expansion project that is going to take years to complete. He had been a trucker, long haul, flatbed and break-bulk, and we discussed the finer points of the explosion in demand, and exactly who is behind the wheel of those monsters.

“A lot of old men,” declared Dwayne. “They just need drivers and they don’t care where they get ’em. I am happy to just be working my crane. But I wish the bastards would give me mileage to get to where it is on the highway.”

Dwayne said he had been drinking since four, and the nice man on his other side was buying shots of Boysenberry liqueur for the bar. I did mine neat, thanked everyone for their hospitality and went back to the room to try to watch some of the Winter Games.

Now it is morning and time to go. Five hours and sixteen minutes in current traffic, the the sleek little box tells me. OK. Let’s do it. The streaming audio on the computer tells me the storm will hit Washington tonight- maybe five inches of snow.

It is interesting to contemplate whether I should drive on in shorts, or wear jeans for one more day.

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

The Road

It is shortly after seven as I write at the Whitten Inn, in a place called Santee, South Carolina. I had hoped to make Savannah, Georgia, but that would have been another hundred miles down the road. This drive is much further than I thought- comparing the regular 800 miles to the Little Village By the Bay in Michigan and the slightly longer 1150 south didn’t seem like much until I was behind the wheel and on my bete noire highway, I-95, and then it got interesting from a technical perspective.

Roads were dry, and the threat of wintry mix was on my tail heading south through Richmond. There were a lot of utility trucks in the right lane, slow-moving with flashers- heading home after augmenting the NE during the recent storms. They may be turning around- the radio tells me the wintry mix is going to sweep in across the Southland tomorrow, so it behooves me to get ahead of it. The Winter will not quite let me be. The new storm is supposed to hit Georgia, again, so there is a certain urgency to getting my act in order. One tank of gas should get the winter of 2014 behind the Panzer’s formidable bumper. But I feel the urgency and imperative of the forecast.

As I mentioned last night, the light died approaching the municipality of Santee, in South Carolina. The Interstate 95 bridge over Lake Marion, man-made in the 1930s on the farmlands and marshes of the Santee River is picturesque, and apparently famous for trophy-quality game fish, notably small and large mouth bass. The bi-passed old road is now used as a fishing pier.

I must have been here before, or at least passed through it when we lived in the Bold New City of the South. The Cameo Bar, conveniently located off the reception lobby, offered a complementary drink with the purchase of one, so I got a chop salad from the Subway next to the Whitten Inn and then stopped by to cash in the freebie.

Debbie was the bar-tender. Lucky and Loretta were next to me at the bar, and a couple had fed the juke box with an eclectic mix of classic country- Patsy Cline- and Derek and the Dominoes rock. I had four drinks, total, for $15 before retiring to watch the Winter Games and sleep through the night.

Nice place. The median income here is right around the poverty level, but everyone seems polite and friendly. I am looking at places with a completely different view these days.

Gotta shower and see if the car was broken into over night, when such things can happen.

The pool is open, though I am not going to get in. Room 108 is just to the left on this promotional picture of the Inn.

This is my go-to place in South Carolina. $61 bucks for the night, with taxes, of course.

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

La Trahison des Clercs

(French Philosophe Julien Benda, 1867-1956. Sort of reminds me of Jim at the Willow)

I was going to jot down some notes about the general state of things this morning before I take my leave. Following the bombshells last week there is a rumor going around that the Administration is going to suspend the health-care mandate thing for three years, punting it over to the next Administration.

Based on the general incompetence of the opposition, at this moment in time, that would be Mrs. Clinton.

Ironic, don’t you think, that we will wind up with HillaryCare after all?

I can’t get myself that worked up about it this morning. I have the winter blues and am going to try to get away from it all for a while- take a quick break and wear shorts and flip-flops for a few days. Even a short amount of time away from winter will do wonders, I hope.

I was thinking about that while going through some boxes in the garage at the farm looking for summer clothes that got packed with the sale of the condo at Big Pink last year.

Time capsules in cardboard. It is more than a little like that Andy Warhol performance art thing. The legendary pop icon would make a weekly box of the detritus of his life- paperclips, dry cleaning, objects d’art and toss them into cardboard boxes and taken away to storage.

His whole life is being cataloged at the moment, paperclip by paperclip. If cans of Campbell’s Soup can be re-imagined as art, why not trash? That is precisely what I found in the boxes. Coffee cups and plates and cheap silverware and battered pots and pans; some things useful and a lot that is not.

I gave up looking when my fingers got numb- it is cold in the dimness of the winter-time garage- and wandered back up to the farmhouse in the dusk to get warm. It was there that I read that social security is now predicted to be bust in 18 years- or right around my 80th birthday, should I get there. That is more ironic than HillaryCare, since we all knew this was coming.

I don’t wonder that we have not got around to fixing the problem. It would involve honesty and some sacrifice, two traits not commonly found in Congress. Fixing it could have been done with much less travail than we are experiencing with the Affordable Care Act. That leads me to the title of today’s screed: La Trahison des Clercs.

The phrase was coined for Julien Benda’s interesting 1927 book, “a work of considerable influence,” according to the cognoscenti of the day. The title of the English translation was The Betrayal of the Intellectuals, although “The Treason of the Learned” would probably have been more accurate.

You can imagine the context for his writing the way he did- Goldman Sachs (Yes, the very same Goldman that blew the bottom out of the housing market) was about to blow the bottom of the stock market in The Crash of 1929, and all sorts of patent nonsense were floating around the UK, France and Germany as revealed wisdom.

Remember the “better Hitler than Blum” slogan thrown around in the 1930s as part of the long slide into the second installment of the Thirty Years War of the last century?
The intellectuals embraced all sorts of crazy things back then, just like today. We have the ability to look back and say that State Socialism, be it fascist or Communist, have some fundamental flaws, based largely on the unwavering force of human nature.

Alas, we appear to have lost the ability to reason dispassionately about political and social matters. Benda’s France paid a huge cost for the mass delusion.

So did everyone else, though it also resulted in The American Century. It was a treat to grow up in that, and Gen X and the Millennials will never have the opportunity to remember a time when things made a sort of sense.

I think the answer this morning, is not to try to fix anything. That is quite beyond us, I think.

Rather, the answer is a thoroughly Gallic one: surrender to reality and flee from winter and see if warmer climes chase the blues away.

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

Pivotal Experiments

(NBC cut to the hammer and sickle in the opening sequence of the Sochi Olympics. Really).

No kidding- the National Broadcasting Corporation’s coverage of the opening ceremonies of the Sochi Winter Olympics referred to Communism as “one of modern history’s pivotal experiments” while showing the friendly hammer-and-sickle logo atop the Worker and Kolkhoz Woman monument.

Pivotal experiment indeed. It is one that between wars of aggression and internal oppression killed a hundred million people.
Hell, this is a tough morning, and maybe the airheads at NBC just misspoke, meaning that the symbols of one of mankind’s worst ideas were just sort of ‘experimental,’ like a clinical trial that just didn’t work out.

Normally, I would be generating a puff piece with colorful recipes and some banter by the crowd at Willow- they were out in force last night- and they were a merry bunch, and all over the map. We were doing some power-mentoring for a Navy Lieutenant assigned to John-with-an-H’s office at Foggy Bottom, and we were carrying on about the new estimates for the cost of health care in treasure and jobs was the source of grim merriment for those sweating the prospect of being freed from wage-slavery, as I think Mr. Jay Carney put it, and then the sobering news about the anemic jobs numbers.

Someone from the Administration trotted out that afternoon to say that maybe slower growth was actually sort of good for the economy. That was a rip-snorter of a yarn, a pivotal experiment in rhetorical ju-jitsu, that I was glad there is still something to laugh about in town. Then our crowd moved on to something really pivotal.

(Tink in the former uniform de jour. Not so anymore).

The controversy of the evening was the introduction of the new standard uniform for the bar staff: plain black long-sleeved button-up shirts.

I think that is fine for Brett and Jasper and Rafael, but it has effectively banned the sight of Tinkerbelle’s colorful tattoo on her upper arm, and any hint of cleavage.

You can imagine the response that the policy change registered at our end of the bar. Oh well, you don’t have to like policy. You just have to coexist with it.

That is not the same thing as winter. If you stay in the same place, you have to come to terms with it: bundle up, hunker down, adjust the thermostat and wait it out.

Or strike out boldly and go someplace the weather suits your clothes, as Harry Nilsson once famously opined.

I think I am going to do something like that. I am not sure where I am going, but I think I am going to go someplace. I will start with the farm, and then make it up as I go along. Sort of an experiment in pivots, so to speak.

More from the road, unless I come to my senses in front of the fire down in peaceful Culpeper.

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

Moscow Mule

No, I am not talking about strays in Sochi. Like everyone, I think I am just hoping that these Olympic Games pass without something awful happening. Or the awful jobs numbers. I am talking about cocktails.

The discussion had actually been going on all day. My pal Annie out in Shenandoah is always on the look-out to take care of her “kids,” the merry band of officers in the back room of the Navy’s Office of Legislative Affairs. She used to serve as the Minister of Thoughtfulness for the dozen odd (and we were odd) Commanders assigned to do liaison with the various Committees on the Hill; you know, gifts that would appeal to the wives and significant others.

Wait, let me strike that: replace with spouses OR significant others. Much better.

Anyway, her “M” key was jammed and she sent me an image of what she described as >OSCOW >ULES mugs. She thought of me for some reason when she came across the solid copper drinking mugs. Pretty things, I thought.

I could use some more specialized barware I will use a couple times a year, like those pumpkin bowls from Williams & Sonoma. Practical, you know? I bought a set of four in hammered solid copper, a wonderful evocative metal with the functional benefit of retaining the coldness of the cocktail.

I wrote her back: “I think you meant “Moscow Mule,” right? It’s funny you mention that drink. Boomer the new Beverage Manager at Willow has rolled out a new specialty cocktail list, and the Mule is on it. Jon-Without has been working his way through it, “mixing it up,” as he says, sometimes “calling an audible” at the bar.

Cursory research (which did not actually involve pouring one, though it is getting on to noon, right?) indicated the Mule is a refreshing and easy vodka highball made with ginger beer was from the classic era of high-balls, and a drink that was designed to sell vodka to U.S. drinkers.

As if! But there really was a time when the Russian rocket fuel was a distant third to whiskey and Scotch. I still like my whiskey, but rocket fuel is the way I like to roll.

There are a couple of claims about who created the Mule. One dates to 1939, on the eve of Great Hate, Part Two. The other one dates to 1941 in the same bar, the Cock’n Bull pub in the sun-drenched streets of Hollywood.

A quick note about the ancient past, before the American drinking Public woke up and realized that Vodka was the next-to-last stop on the Oblivion Express. The Smirnoff brand was the result of a dramatic technical innovation by Pyotr Smirnov at his vodka distillery in Moscow in the 1860s: charcoal filtration. In a clever combination of influence peddling, advertising and patronage, he captured two-thirds of the domestic market by the 1880s, and the brand gained a Royal Patron, since even the Czar enjoyed his Smirnoff.

In fact, the Czar liked it so much that he nationalized the company in 1904. During the October Revolution of 1917 the Smirnov family had to flee the country via Turkey, Poland and France, though the brand by then a shadow of its former self. Smirnoff arrived in North America in the 1930s with the Kunett family which had supplied grains to the Smirnov distillery before the Revolution.

Smirnoff was a bomb on the market, and no one cared whether the Czar liked it or not. By 1938 Smirnoff couldn’t pay for the licenses to sell the product. John Martin of the Hublein beverage concern bought the distilling equipment for a song- literally the cost of the distilling equipment- and there the matter sat, a product looking for a market.

According to the 1939 story, Martin teamed with Morgan at the Cock’n Bull to pour Smirnoff into some fancy copper cups with ginger beer in about equal proportions and called it “The Moscow Mule” to promote the brand and the bar’s house ginger beer.

Or maybe you like the other story, from two years later. In that one, Cock’n Bull head bartender Wes Price needed to unload stock that wasn’t selling. This was enhanced by a marketing campaign in which the Moscow Mule (made with Smirnoff )was served in copper mugs, which became a trademark vessel for the drink. The campaign was a success and people have been stupefied since.

Here is the recipe, though if you know the ingredients, it really doesn’t matter; you know, “vodka to taste.”

Traditional Moscow Mule

Prep Time: 3 minutes

Drinking time: Variable

Total Time: 3 minutes

Yield: 1 Cocktail

Ingredients:

2 ounces vodka or more. I use Popov, which is the loss-leader for Smirnov and a link to tradition. People tell you it is the bottom of the Smirnoff barrel. I say, after you choke down the first one, what does it matter?

1 ounce lime juice

Ginger Beer (Fevertree is a personal favorite for the ginger notes and fizz).

Lime wedge for garnish

Preparation:

Pour the vodka and lime juice into a copper mug with ice- I like crushed.

Top off with the ginger beer.

Garnish with the lime wedge.

Employment: raise copper mug to lips. Quench thirst. Drive carefully.

Anyway, immersed as I was in the back-story of the Smirnoff brand, it was a positive tonic to be seated next to Old Jim and Jon-without at the Willow Bar last night. Jim was drinking his Bud long neck and I was drinking the Happy Hour White as usual.

Jon-without was stepping up his game. He started with a Lost Rhino pale ale, sort of a change up, before he decided to sample a couple of Boomer’s Specialty Drinks.

“I had the Cucumber Thyme Refresher last night,” he said. “It wasn’t bad. What do you think for tonight?”

“It is a voyage of exploration,” said Jim.

“The Los Cabos Margarita?” I suggested, looking over the menu. “But wait, they have Moscow Mules. I just bought some copper Mules mugs for today. Why don’t you try one of those?”

Jon looked thoughtful and wagged a finger at Brett the Bartender.

“What’s in a Moscow Mule?” he asked.

Brett was enigmatic. “Strictly speaking, “ he said, “It is a Texas Mule?”

“What do you mean by that?” I asked suspiciously.

“We use Tito’s Vodka, and that is distilled in Austin.”

“What kind of ginger beer?”

Brett leaned forward, conspiratorially. “It is a secret. We actually use a dollop of Domain De Canton ginger liqueur. They make that stuff with the finest, fresh baby Vietnamese ginger herbs, spices and cognac to unlock the essence. ” He walked down the bar and came back with a bottle of Domain Canton and poured a fnger into a shot glass. I tasted a sip, and damn, it was complex and gingery.

“I like it,” I said. “No ginger beer?”

“Nah, we just top it off with some ginger ale from the tap and a couple lime slices.”

“I will try that,” saidJon-without . Brett came back with a plain glass with a vaguely green liquid inside topped with a couple lime slices.

Jon was just tucking into it when the Lovely Bea made her entrance. He handed her the glass and she took a sip. “That’s good,” she said. “What is it?”

“Moscow Mule,” said Jon-without.

“Texas Mule,” corrected Brett.

“I am going to serve Popov Mules at Big Pink,” I declared. “In authentic copper mugs. But I think I am going to try the Willow recipe with the ginger liqueur.”

“Good luck finding it,” growled Jim.

“It’s a voyage of exploration,” I said, and took a deep sip of Happy Hour white.

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