Category Archives: Local Issues

Flying the Flag

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Here are two stories from this nearly naked city. I make no claim that they are related.

In April, 1982, my grandfather looked around at his life and said, “I’m 92 years old. I’ve outlived my family except my older brother. I’ve outlived my friends. I’ve outlived all the people I worked with. Let’s move to Florida.”

Kill BillSlippery When WetIn April, 1982, the United States Border Patrol set up a roadblock at the “choke point,” the Last Chance Saloon in Florida City, to search for illegal aliens and drug runners. See, the Keys are islands you can drive to, but just one, two-lane road connects us to the United States.

The blockade of the Florida Keys backed up traffic and shut down the rum-and-beer trade in the Keys.

My aunt and uncle loved the Keys and had spent several years scouting out the best places to homestead.

Boppa read the news and the tea leaves and had a finger on the pulse from the piper on Mallory Square to Theater of the Sea, the 1946 marine mammal park on Islamorada.

Roadblocks? Pissed off populace? Seceding from the Union? A naval battle with a loaf of stale Cuban bread?

Boppa put our 1734 farmhouse on the market.

The Border Patrol stopped every car leaving or entering the Keys.

“We seceded where others failed.”

Newspapers and television alike reported on the unprecedented “Border” roadblock within the United States itself. Expectant visitors canceled reservations to come to the Keys because the news said they wouldn’t get in.

I took another moving van of furniture north to North Puffin.

The City of Key West filed for an injunction in federal court but the court refused to enjoin the Border Patrol from treating the Keys like a foreign country.

The world press asked “What are you going to do, Mr. Mayor?”

“We are going to secede,” then-Mayor Dennis Wardlow replied.

Boppa auctioned some of the generations of family furniture (remember, we came from an old Quaker farm family that never threw anything away).

And on April 23, 1982, the Conch Republic raised its flag over city hall and the schooner Western Union attacked the US Coast Guard Cutter Diligence with water balloons, Conch fritters, and stale Cuban bread to begin the Great Battle of the Conch Republic.

The Diligence fought back with fire hoses.

Conchs valiantly fought the government forces to a draw and Prime Minister Wardlow surrendered.

Boppa bought a cute little 1968 cinderblock house here in South Puffin and the rest, as they say, is history.

33 years later, Conch patriots started celebrating the anniversary on Friday and will continue through Sunday, April 26. There will be a drag race on Duval Street, a sea battle featuring historic tall ships, a parade, and a bed race that may be “the most fun you can have in bed with your clothes on.”

Feets33 years later, Boppa is gone but well-remembered and I shall hoist a Rolling Rock in honor of those who can be hoisted by a schooner with water balloons or a 61-year old man on a flying bicycle.

 

Floodstock

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I never got to the 1969 Music & Art Fair everybody still talks about. I was in school in beautiful, downtown Hoboken and we were all too serious to drive a couple of hours north to stand around in a muddy field in the rain for a long weekend to listen to rock-n-roll music. Heck, we could get that for free (or for the price of a couple of beers) right across the river.

I got a sort of second chance.

The Trout River pummeled Montgomery, a small town halfway up the mountain on the eastern border of my County. Our friends and neighbors there lost houses, clothing, furniture, food, cars … The lasting image I have is the same as Marathon, Florida, after Hurricane Wilma or New Orleans after Katrina.

Fortunately, no lives were lost.

Local water supplies were destroyed, flooded septic systems polluted lawns and wells, and the residents had to dig themselves out by hand.

One of my musician friends said, “Hey, why don’t we have a concert to raise a few bucks to help out.”

This is the story of why we had no phones at the show, but I have to tip a rary to get you there:

THE MECHANICS OF A BIG CONCERT
Floodstock took about 23 days to organize, probably a record for a concert with two stages, a world class headliner in April Wine, and 17 other exceptional entertainers. We applied for and received an Act 250 permit, AOT permissions, and created a plan to shut down the airport in the event of problems. There were no problems. And it didn’t rain even a single drop.

Franklin County Field Days donated the site that had housed the Grateful Dead two years before. We had a great fence but had to build new stages.

Floodstock was a family event, so a kids’ store set up a corral with toys, activities, and volunteers to keep the kids happy. We also had a splendid hospitality area for the handicapped and for folks who needed a place to sit down and relax in the shade, thanks to the Town Manager and his merry band.

More people have asked how we got nearly 700 custom tee shirts so quickly; here’s that story.

Natalie LaRocque-Bouchard designed the Floodstock logo and e-mailed it to me for the website, for posters, and for other publicity. A Northfield shop owner offered as many shirts as we wanted for the cause. The shirts were stored in bins in his converted mill building in Northfield; all we had to do was come down, count them, and truck them home. Two peeps volunteered. They drove to Montpelier Thursday afternoon to deliver the AOT contract and to pick up the shirts. They didn’t know about counting them, so they retaliated by picking an extra extra EXTRA large florescent orange shirt for me. Unfortunate, a traffic incident delayed them as they approached home with the load. Our printer finally received the shirts late Thursday evening and printed them Friday morning. We gave away shirts to almost 400 volunteers, community groups and band members, and sold the rest on Sunday.

Frank Barnes of 8084 and I co-chaired the effort.

Most of the back stage folks signed the orange shirt while I wore it all day Sunday.

MY REMEMBERIES
The biggest concert I’ve ever presented left my brain toast, my feet mush, and I couldn’t stop smiling. In 78 hours the Field Days/Grateful Dead site went from a bare field to a dual-stage major concert site, to a bare field again. All with volunteer help. Everyone who helped out took home a host of wonderful images; in no particular order, here are some of mine.

The National Guard lashed 4 flatbed trailers together for the main stage, leveled them with blocks and jacks, then built an extension out of Field Days’ bleachers.

The Friday afternoon phone call from Grover: “We can power the sound or the lights, not both.” While we searched frantically for a 120 KVA generator (rarely available at the local home center) and tried redesigning the sound, the Swanton Village Electric team quietly found us enough juice.

A pediatrician lopped the ends of the staging with his chain saw.

We ran short of volunteers around 5 p.m., so a whole gang simply stayed over and worked a double shift.

April Wine’s Myles Goodwyn hit the first chord and the lights in the production trailer browned out. The lights danced with the beat for the rest of the show.

Tech guys slept in hammocks strung under the trailer-stage through some of the loudest sets.

Jesse Potts bragged to me that he had never sounded so good. Jesse, I was in the crowd. The tech guys for each stage had a little friendly competition going and everybody sounded great!

Rebuilding the Field Days fence Monday afternoon with Highgate Town officials and friends.

The April Wine setup on stage included a canvas enclosure to hide the drum set until their show started. I was backstage for the 8084 set, watching April Wine drummer Jerry Mercer in his private tent play beat-for-beat with 8084 drummer Scott Belisle.

ZE PHONE ZE PHONE!
Cell phones were not widespread in Vermont in 1997. There may have been a cell tower. Somewhere. We needed a phone line but NYNEX/Bell Atlantic was dragging its collective feet about installing a temporary phone line to the Field Days site (the wire was already there — all they had to do was flip a switch back in the office).

At 4:59 p.m. Friday, I was in the Town Clerk’s office, on the phone pleading with the NYNEX supervisor who had his hand on the switch.

At 5 p.m. Friday, NYNEX turns off its phone lines. Bang. Static. Dead air.

I sat down. I hung up the phone gently. And I had an epiphany.

100 years from now no one would remember we couldn’t make any calls.

THE ENDING
All the bands played for free.

Vermont received about $7.5 million in Federal aid. That takes care of roads and bridges. It didn’t help the individual homeowners and renters who lost everything.

All Floodstock ticket revenues went to the Montgomery Flood Fund.

The Bands
April Wine
8084

Blues for Breakfast
Cobalt Blue
Jesse Metcalf & Good Knight Moon
Jessie Potts
Joey the Clown
John Cassel and Friends including Will Patton
The Johnny Devil Band
Land of Yo Variety Show
Mark Twang
Mary Ellen Missett (Frannie the Clown)
The Nobby Reed Project
Nocturnal Emissions
No Prophets
Patrice & Kathi
South Bound

Yankee Pot Roast
Zephyrs

 

Snippet Central

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The Eat-A-Puffin Day
Keys residents back in December sounded off against the genetically modified mosquitoes a British firm named Oxitec and the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District wants to release. The British company wants to beta test a gazillion genetically modified Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. (Those mosquitoes carry the dengue and chikungunya viruses; the modified ones would presumably kill the breeding population by making them sterile.) We’re the beta testers.

Oxitec and the Mosquito Air Force will start releasing the skeeters next month, I think.

My friend George Poleczech “figures anything is possible from the bunch readying a batch of GMO mosquitoes to release in the Keys.” Yeppers. E.coli, e.bola, e.ink.

The Don’t Eat-A-Puffin Day
Fort Lauderdale police arrested a 90-year-old man for feeding the homeless.

Alarming Food
Some of the houses here in South Puffin are vacation rentals and Florida has very strict safety regulations for emergency lighting and exits, fire-safety, and fire more. One is the requirement for multiple smoke detectors in each building.

I don’t think the unopened Jiffy Pop pan I saw nailed to the wall in one rental quite passed muster as a fire alarm.

The Penicillin Day
Most of Florida has simple microscopic organisms that thrive in most any moist environment. Fungi. Mildew. Mold.

In addition to wooden boats, mold loves ceiling tiles, cardboard, wallpaper, carpets, drywall, fabric, plants, foods, insulation, decaying leaves and other organic materials. It surprised me to learn that mold lurves my concrete dock and seawall.

I watched a man down the street pressure washing a tile roof this morning. I could smell the bleach.

Now that’s a great idea.

Speaking of Bleach
Cops arrested a naked man after he broke into two homes, raided the liquor cabinets, and used a hot tub at one of them.

Speaking of Nudity Again
Three naked men were caught breaking into a Bonita Springs restaurant. They stole 60 hamburgers, three pounds of bacon, three red peppers, and a paddle board.

A paddle board?

[Ed. Note: As of this writing, they are still on the lam(b).]

Whine in the Air
The Mosquito Air Force has started training with drones to find the mosquitoes’ breeding areas. With a camera mounted to the bottom of their quad-rotor drones, field agents will have “a bird’s eye view of mosquito breeding grounds and better range at killing disease-carrying insects.” And my naked furry white butt in my back yard.

Wine on the Ground
Friends from up north are serious wine peeps. They’re renting a house here for a month. I think they brought seven cases of wine with them. Perhaps South Puffin doesn’t have any wine emporia. They don’t buy cheap wine.

That was on my mind at the Circle K when I was paying for my gas last night. $2.159/gallon for anyone who needs to know. The man ahead of me bought two bottles of some kind of shiraz for $5/bottle so he’s “not out of wine anymore.” Yellowtail.

“It’s not bad for cheap wine. It’ll do in a pinch. Ditto Cupcake,” Liz Arden said.

I much prefer cupcakes to shiraz.

He told me he’s drinking it with bourbon and pomegranate juice mixed in.

“Okay, you just made me throw up a little in my mouth,” Liz said.

My work here is done.

 

Roundup

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Not the grass assassin. Some juicy tidbits have flowed in over the last couple of weeks while I was out goofing off.

Idle Hands
In the great state of Vermont, it is now illegal to let your car idle for more than five minutes during any one-hour period, thanks to a law that went into effect last week. Violators will receive a $10 ticket for the first offense, $50 for the second, and $100 for the third.

Police, fire, and other emergency vehicles don’t have to obey that law so when the cops write you that first, second, or third ticket because your car is “idling” in a Shelburne Road traffic jam next January, you can bet the police car will be running the entire time.

Sheesh.

Garbologists
Socrates TeachingAn “educational technology specialist wants students to connect with the land, and to grow with it. Literally.” So sayeth the newspaper about a man who teaches at a local elementary school. Students spent a day outside with him as they planted blueberry bushes, apple trees, and blue spruce trees in a field behind the school nature center.

“Educational technology specialist”?

We used to have “educators.” Probably then “educationalists.” Now “educational technology specialists.” What is wrong with calling someone who goes hands on with classroom students a “teacher”?

Sheesh.

A Fatal Wait
Speaking of gummint, veterans have languished and died on the VA’s secret list.

VA hospitals are killing people by not getting around to caring for them. At least 40 vets have died waiting for appointments at the Phoenix Veterans Affairs Health Care system alone, all while VA managers there tried to hide that some 1,400-1,600 sick veterans were forced to wait months to see a doctor.

Just a foretelling of what to expect as the Unaffordable Care Act (like HealthCanada) looks for ways to cut the cost of affordable care.

Sheesh.

Apologists
Some Liberal apologist will come along and remind us that the idle law will increase health benefits, cut down on carbon emissions, and save fuel.

No. Vermonters don’t need a nanny law for that but it will certainly help the ticket nazis raise revenue.

Some Liberal apologist will come along and remind us that teachers are professionals and the descriptors help lay people to understand what educators and educationalists and educational technology specialists do.

No. Vermonters know what teachers do. Teachers need to act professional, not make up multi-syllabic titles and print business cards.

Some Liberal apologist will come along and remind us that the Veteran’s Administration and the Health and Human Services (which runs the ACA) are completely different departments.

No. VA is funded by Congress. Obamacare is funded by Congress. That’s a CF. As funding declines and managing-the-finger-pointing increases (the usual route for any government program), we’re gonna die.

Fortunately, two apples a day reduces the risk of stroke by 32%.

 

No Trespass, No Launch

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You can go pretty much everywhere and see pretty much everything in Florida from the water. That’s particularly true here in the Keys. Unless you happen to be on Card Sound.

No TrespassingMonroe County has found another use for Jersey barriers, boulders, and “No Trespassing” signs: the Sheriff closed down four public access areas near Card Sound Bridge including the Jet Ski Beach. County officials blamed “excessive weekend parties” and rowdiness left the area littered with trash not to mention the graffiti. Four popular Card Sound Road spots are now forbidden territory. Illicit. A no-no. Out of bounds. Gone.

For littering.

Yeah, as if a couple of signs will stop the parties.

Hang on while a couple of bars of the menu at Alice’s come around on the guitar.

I understand the idea of attractive nuisance.

“The attractive nuisance doctrine states that a landowner may be held liable for injuries to children trespassing on the land if the injury is caused by a hazardous object or condition on the land that is likely to attract children who are unable to appreciate the risk posed by the object or condition. The doctrine has been applied to hold landowners liable for injuries caused by abandoned cars, piles of lumber or sand, trampolines, and swimming pools. However, it can be applied to virtually anything on the property of the landowner.” (USLegal)

That (presumably) doesn’t apply to a public parking area but I also understand what municipalities think the attractive nuisance doctrine means.

“The doctrine states that pretty much any improvement you put on public land will attract some nuisance who will hurt himself and sue our asses collectively and individually. As a corollary, that nuisance will make a mess.”

(The Florida Department of Transportation has also shuttered Sea Oats Beach on Lower Matecumbe Key. Reason: trash.)

The FWC page describes these access areas as “Government Owned for General Public Use.”

The nearest (free) launching ramp in Monroe County is now about 40 miles south at Indian Key fill in Islamorada. I’ve never launched up there but plenty of pro fishermen and fishing guides have.

Since the guides use it, that sounds like restraint of trade to me.

For littering.

Remember when the nun lined up all the boys and said, “There will be no recess until the bad boy who wrote ‘sister sux’ on the blackboard comes forward”?

That was bad parenting then, too.