[blueherons]

Originally Posted by jamies

Wow! I just stumbled into this thread. I lived in the Keys in the mid 70's to mid 80's. I first went there the summer I was 21 - to see what was at the end of the road. And a greater den of debauchery, pagan living, writers, musicians, drunks and heros may never be found again in our lifetime! I met Tennessee Williams my first night in town. I'd never heard of him, he was just an old dude buying drinks to me - and coming from Laguna Beach, I was used to rich old men who liked young gay boys.

I slept around, and around. Everyone on the island slept with everyone else in those days. Boys and boys, girls and girls, boys and girls, boygirls with girlymen - and sometimes all at once! Then people started getting sick.

On houseboat row we called it, "the pox." Nobody had heard of AIDS, and then friends started dying. Then it became an epidemic. How I dodged that bullet I do not know, but I did, and eventually grew up to became a productive, responsible member of society.

I was homeless at times, and later on I got moderately rich and back again. I remember sitting on a dock, maybe in '76, smoking a joint and watching a crew of guys unloading bales into a rental truck behind the Turtle Krawls - and I remember the time they arrested a bunch of cops and firemen and even yanked a proscutor right out of court for aiding drug runners.

I knew the old crowd from the Pier House, worked for Boog Powell, The Strand when it opened. I worked on a number of jobs for David Wolkowsky. I commercial dived. I was (I think) the last professional conch diver / poacher in America. Sold my shells to the shell guy at the Southernmost Point, and the meat to a couple of restaurants. Later I went into journalism.

I lived in a VW camper on the White St pier and county beach, back in the day. Later on Houseboat Row, I knew Homer, and Tomasina and Murphy and the rich long haired gay guy, can't recall his name (David?) and Kane Fisher, one of the few who actually worked! I lived a few houses from Buffett's apt back in the crazy days when Hunter Thompson was there. And a few years later worked on the reno when the building became a timeshare. For awhile I lived in the old admin building on Truman Annex. That was a deal - $50 a month, including utilities! And all the roaches you could kill.

I remember back around maybe '74, when "sunset" was a few hippies and lost tourists drinking a beer on the pier.

Bars made to look like dive bars, REAL dive bars. Remember the knife and gun club on Stock Island with the chain link around the bar - and the night the druggies got whacked? And drinking at the Simonton St beach. Well, drinking everywhere. All the time.

And my dear friend "Big Al" Sepe. Al was a big fat guy who lived in vans and for awhile, a big, rusty, orange UPS type truck at the beach, and worked winters at the dog track. If anybody reading this remembers him, please pm me. Al passed away a few years ago, but when I got rich and moved to California he'd come out and spend the summer. And crazy Rolinda, my bi lover for awhile. She gave up girls and got married to a rich Canadian farmer who bought her a Caddillac! She also passed away about ten years ago.

I remember opening night at The Strand, when Doc Severson played a conch like a trumpet, and the night I was so stoned I accidentally flipped off the switch for the stage monitors on "Firefall." And the night BB King wouldn't leave the stage, playing encore after encore, cause it was just so fracking Cool to be in Key West! I'd go to work and end up so drunk and stoned I'd wake up in my car behind the theater at noon the next day.

And now, 35 years later, I'm an aging baby boomer millionaire. I have fond memories of the Keys, the way it used to be. But I don't think I'll ever go back. It would hurt too much.

We got rich there, and destroyed paradise on the way. I'm sorry.

Fantastic post!! Really great!

[StarfishKey]

Originally Posted by jamies

Wow! I just stumbled into this thread. I lived in the Keys in the mid 70's to mid 80's. I first went there the summer I was 21 - to see what was at the end of the road. And a greater den of debauchery, pagan living, writers, musicians, drunks and heros may never be found again in our lifetime! But I don't think I'll ever go back. It would hurt too much.

We got rich there, and destroyed paradise on the way. I'm sorry.

Great stories. I think it would break your heart to see it now though, and every year it will probably get worse. They are trying to build a Walmart on Rockland Key. That should say everything.

It's just not like that anymore. We don't have conch really from your generation, we're trying to regrow them out there. Likewise rebuild all the reefs and seagrass fields that those in the 60s-90s destroyed, decimating much of the sealife populations. The Keys got way commercial. No more semi-romantic, semi-tragic life down here, no more celebrities interacting with locals... now it's all about money, and it's getting super crowded. The one improvement is putting in the sewer lines, and ending the reef-killing septic tank system.

The one thing that might be meaningful to you is to come check out the AIDS Memorial at Higgs Beach, which is really touching. I would guess you would recognize many of the names written on it. It is right beside the African Cemetery Memorial, for the hundreds of illegally smuggled people who were intercepted on 3 ships after the US slave trade had officially already ended. They were brought to shore and cared for by the local people, but hundreds still died from the horrific conditions they endured below deck in chains, and were buried at what is now Higgs Beach. Many of the remainder were "repatriated" to Liberia, which was yet another grueling trip and another foreign land for them to try to make their way in. That memorial is also very touching, and is a heartfelt tribute to those who lost their lives.

You can read the papers, like The Citizen, online now, if you feel a desire to get a taste for Key West and its surrounding locales today. But it might be more depressing than nostalgic. All the truly creative people have long since gone, and most who come now are burnouts living out a well-worn path of somebody else's originality. Most of these people don't care at all for the community, the people who once lived here, or who live here today. They want theirs, and will step over everybody else to get it. And when they're done, they'll leave without remembering almost anybody's names. It is a very different world. Old Town is nauseatingly commercial, and New Town insufferably suburban, loaded with chain stores and the pompously wealthy. If you like paying an 800% markup at Banana Republic, maybe you'd like it.

Most of Key West is a hack of a hack of a hack now. The one area that seems to me to still have remotely authentic people in it, is Bahama Village, but it is fast being gentrified out of existence.

[salegoi1]

Yeah I live on Maui and that is exactly the way it is here too. Don't come to Maui with no job, no plan, etc. There are no places to rent, many landlords do things that are illegal and get away with it, and if you don't like it there are 10 other people behind you to rent from him. Ran across this because I have a buddy talking about moving to the Keys and I'm telling him I would give him a year max.

I'm looking into Florida, but more like Gainesville, Tallahassee, or maybe Jacksonville. Mahalo for posting - speaks to lots of us that live in "paradise"

[BucFan]

I've been down here in KW nearly a week.......and ready to leave......come down once a year but usually ready to leave after a week. More to do in Tampa. Highlight of the day is my 5 mile run from AIDS memorial past airport and back........