Life and Island Times June 27 2016 – More Loose Ends W and Marlow had been working to keep several loose ends from further fraying during the past twenty months. They knew that living on their isolated coral rock island was a risk. Their concern wasn’t the seasonal hurricanes that buffeted the island. The risks […]

Life and Island Times June 26 2016 – Loose Ends Endings are always more important than beginnings. If you flop at a project’s beginning, you may always put it aside, come back later and finish it off. Or you could abandon it as fruitless and move forward. But if the ending fails, then . . […]

Life and Island Times – June 12 2016 Last Mango Memories Marlow & W’s mangos: 2016 crop (c), 2014 juice (l) & harvest (r) In the absence of the Two Sister’s shade canopy this year, Marlow’s mango crop this year is gargantuan. Branches on the mango tree in their side yard are so heavy with […]

Life and Island Times – June 11 2016 Isle of the Dead Ponce De Leon discovered the Florida Keys in 1513. He came looking for gold and the Fountain of Youth but found neither. When the Spanish later landed in Key West, legend has it that there were skulls and bones scattered all over. These […]

Life and Island Times – June 9 2016 A Sovereign State of Mind Key West’s reputation as a quirky, go it alone place is well known to moderns, since its tongue-in-cheek secession in 1982 was covered by national print and broadcast media outlets. Back then, Conchs rebelled against the Federal government’s road block quarantine of […]

Life and Island Times – June 8 2016 TARDIS A beach-goer on Tuesday morning moves away from a crashing wave at Higgs Beach in Key West Tropical Storm Colin was downgraded to a tropical depression Tuesday as it cleared mainland Florida and headed into the open Atlantic Ocean. Forecasts for the Lower Keys include thunderstorms […]

Life and Island Times – June 7 2016 Another Erection in Key West Peary Court at night From the mid-1960s through 1993, the large undeveloped US Navy property at White Street and Palm Avenue was used as a park by Key Westers. Marlow had salvaged lumber from torn down housing units in 1974 to rebuild […]

Life and Island Times – June 5 2016 Men Who Talk With Trees Part II This morning your scribe sat down to read what he had found the previous evening. In a 2002 story Jeff Klinkenberg of the St Petersburg Times connected the dots of two tree addicts in the Keys that Marlow knew (Nick […]

Life and Island Times – June 4 2016 Men Who Talk With Trees Part I During the island fires two years ago, Marlow’s yard was awash in fire ash. The orange red residue was piling up and staining everything in sight, including W’s much beloved German sports car. Something had to be done. Upon consultation […]

Life and Island Times – June 6 2016 The Goddess of Storms Taino depiction of Guabancex: the Goddess of Storms Guabancex was a goddess of the native Tainos of the Caribbean islands long before Columbus arrived and Spanish colonization began. She was known as the “one whose fury destroys everything.” Taino idols depicting her revealed […]