Florida Keys Quotes

The sea answers all questions, and always in the same way; for when you read in the papers the interminable discussions and the bickering and the prognostications and the turmoil, the disagreements and the fateful decisions and agreements and the plans and the programs and the threats and the counter threats, then you close your eyes and the sea dispatches one more big roller in the unbroken line since the beginning of the world and it combs and breaks and returns foaming and saying: "So soon?" E. B. White "On A Florida Key

Florida's full of old people-they don't call it God's waiting room for nothing-but precious few of em grew up here.

Natives of the Florida Keys often refer to themselves as Conchs, and for good reason: They have been drinking.

But that's not a very original idea, is it? It's really just a platitude ... sort of like a Florida sunset, Nevertheless, it happens to be the truth, and the truth deserves to be spoken... if you can say it in a new way, I tried to put it in a picture.

Yes, but in this case, the fatality was a shark. The tractor-trailer was carrying four sharks from the Florida Keys to an aquarium in Coney Island in New York City and one of the sharks was ejected during the crash. Fortunately, it didn’t hit anybody, but the fact remains that there was, briefly, an airborne shark on Interstate 95, and it could have hit a car, which would have been tragic, by which I mean pretty funny.

[Immigrants] who come from anywhere there is hunger, unemployment, oppression, and violence and who clandestinely cross the borders of countries that are prosperous, peaceful, and rich in opportunity, are certainly breaking the law, but they are exercising a natural and moral right which no legal norm or regulation should try to eliminate: the right to life, to survival, to escape the infernal existence they are condemned to by barbarous regimes entrenched on half the earth's surface. If ethical considerations had any pervasive effect at all, the women and men who brave the Straits of Gibraltar or the Florida Keys or the electric fences of Tijuana or the docks of Marseilles in search of work, freedom, and a future should be received with open arms.

Florida on my mind, that refuge of the newly wed and the nearly dead.

The Young Wrecker on the Florida Reef, and Reap the Wild Wind, Oliver Griswold’s The Florida Keys and the Coral Reef, and McGuane’s Ninety-two in the Shade.

Albuquerque, New Mexico. The Florida Keys. New York City. The North Shore of Lake Superior. A small island close to Seattle. Those

The only place tourists go is the Antarctic Peninsula, which is like the Florida Keys of Antarctica.

There was no Disney World then, just rows of orange trees. Millions of them. Stretching for miles And somewhere near the middle was the Citrus Tower, which the tourists climbed to see even more orange trees. Every month an eighty-year-old couple became lost in the groves, driving up and down identical rows for days until they were spotted by helicopter or another tourist on top of the Citrus Tower. They had lived on nothing but oranges and come out of the trees drilled on vitamin C and checked into the honeymoon suite at the nearest bed-and-breakfast. "The Miami Seaquarium put in a monorail and rockets started going off at Cape Canaveral, making us feel like we were on the frontier of the future. Disney bought up everything north of Lake Okeechobee, preparing to shove the future down our throats sideways. "Things evolved rapidly! Missile silos in Cuba. Bales on the beach. Alligators are almost extinct and then they aren't. Juntas hanging shingles in Boca Raton. Richard Nixon and Bebe Rebozo skinny-dipping off Key Biscayne. We atone for atrocities against the INdians by playing Bingo. Shark fetuses in formaldehyde jars, roadside gecko farms, tourists waddling around waffle houses like flocks of flightless birds. And before we know it, we have The New Florida, underplanned, overbuilt and ripe for a killer hurricane that'll knock that giant geodesic dome at Epcot down the trunpike like a golf ball, a solid one-wood by Buckminster Fuller. "I am the native and this is my home. Faded pastels, and Spanish tiles constantly slipping off roofs, shattering on the sidewalk. Dogs with mange and skateboard punks with mange roaming through yards, knocking over garbage cans. Lunatics wandering the streets at night, talking about spaceships. Bail bondsmen wake me up at three A.M. looking for the last tenant. Next door, a mail-order bride is clubbed by a smelly ma in a mechanic's shirt. Cats violently mate under my windows and rats break-dance in the drop ceiling. And I'm lying in bed with a broken air conditioner, sweating and sipping lemonade through a straw. And I'm thinking, geez, this used to be a great state. "You wanna come to Florida? You get a discount on theme-park tickets and find out you just bough a time share. Or maybe you end up at Cape Canaveral, sitting in a field for a week as a space shuttle launch is canceled six times. And suddenly vacation is over, you have to catch a plane, and you see the shuttle take off on TV at the airport. But you keep coming back, year after year, and one day you find you're eighty years old driving through an orange grove.

When I describe for my far-away friends the Northwest’s subtle shades of weather — from gloaming skies of ‘high-gray’ to ‘low-gray’ with violet streaks like the water’s delicate aura — they wonder if my brain and body have, indeed, become water-logged. Yet still, I find myself praising the solace and privacy of fine, silver drizzle, the comforting cloaks of salt, mold, moss, and fog, the secretive shelter of cedar and clouds. Whether it’s in the Florida Keys, along the rocky Maine coast, within the Gulf of Mexico’s warm curves, on the brave Outer Banks; or, for those who nestle near inland seas, such as the brine-steeped Great Salk Lake or the Midwest’s Great Lakes — water is alive and in relationship with those of us who are blessed with such a world-shaping, yet abiding, intimate ally. Every day I am moved by the double life of water — her power and her humility. But most of all, I am grateful for the partnership of this great body of inland sea. Living by water, I am never alone. Just as water has sculpted soil and canyon, it also molds my own living space, and every story I tell. …Living by water restores my sense of balance and natural rhythm — the ebb and flow of high tides and low tides, so like the rise and fall of everyday life. Wind, water, waves are not simply a backdrop to my life, they are steady companions. And that is the grace, the gift of inviting nature to live inside my home. Like a Chambered Nautilus I spin out my days, drifting and dreaming, nurtured by marine mists, like another bright shell on the beach, balancing on the back of a greater body.

Florida is not only unbossed, it is unled. Anything can happen in elections, and does.

There's spring on the west coast of Florida, but it only stops for a cup of coffee before heading north to do the heavy work.

A brick could be used to start your car, if your car’s keys are cube-shaped and huge. You know what else cube-shaped and huge? That’s right—my penis sheath.


Speaking of names, a word to parents: Stop using alternate spellings for your kids. Aimee, Eryn, Bil, Derik. You’re only costing jobs. The whole customized-coffee-mug and key-chain industry. An entire generation is being robbed of their roadside-Florida-souvenir heritage. “Daddy, why don’t they ever have my name? I see something close, but it’s spelled different.” “Sorry, honey, we decided to be pricks.

Ciò che ho scoperto attraversando il ponte tra le mie due vita", ripresi, "è che talvolta la bellezza sboccia contro tutte le nostre aspettative. Questa però non è un'idea molto originale, giusto? E' una banalità, se vogliamo, un pò come un tramonto in Florida. Non di meno si dà il caso che sia la verità e la verità merita di essere espressa...se sai esprimerla in un modo nuovo. Io ho cercato di metterla in un quadro".

Books of natural history make the most cheerful winter reading. I read in Audubon with a thrill of delight, when the snow covers the ground, of the magnolia, and the Florida keys, and their warm sea breezes; of the fence-rail, and the cotton-tree, and the migrations of the rice-bird; of the breaking up of winter in Labrador, and the melting of the snow on the forks of the Missouri; and owe an accession of health to these reminiscences of luxuriant nature.

When Augustus Townsend died in Georgia near the Florida line, he rose up above the barn where he had died, up above the trees and the crumbling smokehouse and the little family house nearby, and he walked away quick-like, toward Virginia. He discovered that when people were above it all they walked faster, as much as a hundred times faster than when they were confined to the earth. And so he reached Virginia in little or no time. He came to the house he had built for his family, for Mildred his wife and Henry his son, and he opened and went through the door. He thought she might be at the kitchen table, unable to sleep and drinking something to ease her mind. But he did not find his wife there. Augustus went upstairs and found Mildred sleeping in their bed. He looked at her for a long time, certainly as long as it would have taken him, walking up above it all, to walk to Canada and beyond. Then he went to the bed, leaned over and kissed her left breast. The kiss went through the breast, through skin and bone, and came to the cage that protected the heart. Now the kiss, like so many kisses, had all manner ofkeys, but it, like so many kisses, was forgetful, and it could not find the right key to the cage. So in the end, frustrated, desperate, the kiss squeezed through the bars and kissed Mildred’s heart. She woke immediately and she knew her husband was gone forever. All breath went and she was seized with such a pain that she had to come to her feet. But the room and the house were not big enough to contain her pain and she stumbled out ofthe room, out and down the stairs, out through the door that Augustus, as usual, had left open. The dog watched her from the hearth. Only in the yard could she begin to breathe again. And breath brought tears. She fell to her knees, out in the open yard, in her nightclothes, something Augustus would not have approved of. Augustus died on Wednesday.

Where the road meets the Gulf, it skirts the beach for miles. I wish it ran straight over the water, like the pictures of the bridge I've seen that links the Florida Keys to the coast, wish it was an endless concrete plank that ran out over the stormy blue water of the world to circle the globe, so I could lie like this forever, feeling the fine hair on his arm, my kids silenced, not even there, his fingers on my arm drawing circles and lines that I decipher, him writing his name on me, claiming me. The world is a tangle of jewels and gold spinning and throwing off sparks. I'm already home.

I know that people come to Florida when they’re old and sick because it’s warm pretty much year-round, but I think the Gulf of Mexico has something else going for it. Just looking into that mild flat sunlit calm is healing. It’s a big word, isn’t it? Gulf, I mean. Big enough to drop a lot of things into and

I know that people come to Florida when they’re old and sick because it’s warm pretty much year-round, but I think the Gulf of Mexico has something else going for it. Just looking into that mild flat sunlit calm is healing. It’s a big word, isn’t it? Gulf, I mean. Big enough to drop a lot of things into and watch them disappear.

I started carrying an old tour book for the Florida Keys in my bag with me at all times. I'd had it since I was a kid, and after my daddy died, I read it to escape back to memories of him taking me there. As I read it to my guys, we'd leave whatever hospital we were in, and go somewhere beautiful, away from trouble and worry. They'd all come home to Arkansas, a place that had birthed them but wouldn't claim them. So we left. . . . We went someplace else, where they were safe and warm. Where there was nothing to be hidden and nothing wrong with admiring the way the sun shone down on the beauty of men. As it it existed for that very reason -- to be admired and loved.

Like no other place on earth. Raw natural beauty, relentless freedom, unorthodox natives. A friend told me something else about the Keys I never forgot: Down here, nobody is who they seem to be. When people in other parts of the country want to reinvent themselves, they come to Florida. But when people in Florida want to reinvent themselves, they come to the Keys.

CHAPTER 1: Fourteen year old Augustus Tomlin's day started out just like any other—normally. He got out of bed, dressed, brushed his teeth, then headed for the kitchen to join his adoptive parents, Earl and Marge for breakfast. This was the first day of their vacation, and admittedly, Augie (as he liked to be called) wasn't as excited about it as he would've been had Earl and Marge decided to take them all to Disneyland instead, because firstly, he'd been dealing with a paralyzing fear of water all of his life, and secondly, they were staying in a cabin on an isolated stretch of beach in the Florida Keys. Nevertheless, there was no way for Augie to know just then that by the end of the day he'd be traveling in an under-sea carriage drawn by four of the most incredible creatures he'd ever laid eyes upon, heading for destinations untold somewhere at the bottom of the ocean at a million miles an hour.

Most people think the Lego corporation assembled a crack team of world-class experts to engineer Mini-Florida on a computer, but I’m not buying it.” “You aren’t?” asked Coleman. “It’s way too good.” Serge pointed at a two-story building in Key West. “Examine the meticulous green shutters on Hemingway’s house. No, my money is on a lone-wolf manic type like the famous Latvian Edward Leedskalnin, who single-handedly built the Coral Castle back in the twenties. He operated in secret, moving multi-ton hewn boulders south of Miami, and nobody knows how he did it. Probably happened here as well: The Lego people conducting an exhaustive nationwide search among the obsessive-compulsive community. But they had to be selective and stay away from the ones whose entire houses are filled to the ceiling with garbage bags of their own hair. Then they most likely found some cult guru living in a remote Lego ashram south of Pueblo with nineteen wives, offered him unlimited plastic blocks and said, ‘Knock yourself out.

At the end of 2006, people concerned with the “Cat” article could not agree on whether a human with a cat is its “owner,” “caregiver,” or “human companion.” Over a three-week period, the argument extended to the length of a small book. There were edit wars over commas and edit wars over gods, futile wars over spelling and pronunciation and geopolitical disputes. Other edit wars exposed the malleability of words. Was the Conch Republic (Key West, Florida) a “micronation”? Was a particular photograph of a young polar bear “cute”? Experts differed, and everyone was an expert.

Mook had chosen not to spend money on polling, to the great frustration of some of the campaign’s aides and advisers in key states. In Florida, Craig Smith, the former White House political director, and Scott Arceneaux, a veteran southern Democratic political operative, had begged Mook to poll the state in October to no avail. Mook believed it was a waste of money. He had learned from David Plouffe, Obama’s campaign manager, that old-school polling should be used for testing messages and gauging the sentiments of the electorate and that analytics were just as good for tracking which candidate was ahead and by how much in each state. Plus, the analytics were quicker and much cheaper.

Among the most virulent of all such cultural parasite-equivalents is the religion-based denial of organic evolution. About one-half of Americans (46 percent in 2013, up from 44 percent in 1980), most of whom are evangelical Christians, together with a comparable fraction of Muslims worldwide, believe that no such process has ever occurred. As Creationists, they insist that God created humankind and the rest of life in one to several magical mega-strokes. Their minds are closed to the overwhelming mass of factual demonstrations of evolution, which is increasingly interlocked across every level of biological organization from molecules to ecosystem and the geography of biodiversity. They ignore, or more precisely they call it virtue to remain ignorant of, ongoing evolution observed in the field and even traced to the genes involved. Also looked past are new species created in the laboratory. To Creationists, evolution is at best just an unproven theory. To a few, it is an idea invented by Satan and transmitted through Darwin and later scientists in order to mislead humanity. When I was a small boy attending an evangelical church in Florida, I was taught that the secular agents of Satan are extremely bright and determined, but liars all, man and woman, and so no matter what I heard I must stick my fingers in my ears and hold fast to the true faith. We are all free in a democracy to believe whatever we wish, so why call any opinion such as Creationism a virulent cultural parasite-equivalent? Because it represents a triumph of blind religious faith over carefully tested fact. It is not a conception of reality forged by evidence and logical judgment. Instead, it is part of the price of admission to a religious tribe. Faith is the evidence given of a person’s submission to a particular god, and even then not to the deity directly but to other humans who claim to represent the god. The cost to society as a whole of the bowed head has been enormous. Evolution is a fundamental process of the Universe, not just in living organisms but everywhere, at every level. Its analysis is vital to biology, including medicine, microbiology, and agronomy. Furthermore psychology, anthropology, and even the history of religion itself make no sense without evolution as the key component followed through the passage of time. The explicit denial of evolution presented as a part of a “creation science” is an outright falsehood, the adult equivalent of plugging one’s ears, and a deficit to any society that chooses to acquiesce in this manner to a fundamentalist faith.

Arnold had never given much thought to whether or not he loved America—but now it seemed pretty obvious to him that he didn’t. Not in the way Nathan Hale had loved America. Or even in the way his late father, a Dutch-Jewish refugee, had loved America. In fact, he found the idea of sacrificing his life for his country somewhat abhorrent. Moreover, it wasn’t that he disliked abstract loyalties in general. He loved New York, for instance: Senegalese takeout at three a.m., and strolling through the Botanical Gardens on the first crisp day of autumn, and feeding the peacocks at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. If Manhattan were invaded—if New Jersey were to send an expeditionary force of militiamen across the Hudson River—he’d willingly take up arms to defend his city. He also loved Sandpiper Key in Florida, where they owned a time-share, and maybe Brown University, where he’d spent five years of graduate school. But the United States? No one could mistake his qualified praise for love.

Bell treated his friend and colleague Watson generously. Though he had no legal obligations to do so, he awarded Watson 10 percent of the company, allowing Watson to retire rich at the age of just twenty-seven. Able to do anything he wanted, Watson devoted the rest of his life to just that. He traveled the world, read widely, and took a degree in geology at MIT for the simple satisfaction of improving his brain. He then started a shipyard, which quickly grew to employ four thousand men, producing a scale of stress and obligation way beyond anything he wished for, so he sold the business, converted to Islam, and became a follower of Edward Bellamy, a radical philosopher and quasi communist who for a short period in the 1880s enjoyed phenomenal esteem and popularity. Tiring of Bellamy, Watson moved to England in early middle age and took up acting, for which he showed an unexpected talent. He proved particularly adept at Shakespearean roles and performed many times at Stratford-upon-Avon before returning to America and a life of quiet retirement. He died, contented and rich, at his winter home on Pass-Grille Key, Florida, just shy of his eighty-first birthday in 1934.

WHODUNIT BY BRUCE TIERNEY | 838 words A slippery situation in the Gulf Black Horizon (Harper, $25.99, 384 pages, ISBN 9780062109880), the 11th book in James Grippando's popular series featuring Florida attorney Jack Swyteck, opens with the two most important words of the lawyer's life: "I do." (Ha, ha—you thought I was going to say, "Not guilty.") The beach wedding in scenic Key Largo goes wildly awry when an epic storm arises in the Gulf, launching manifold repercussions for Swyteck and his new bride. One of the victims of the storm is a young Cuban oil rig worker whose wife emigrated to the U.S. ahead of him. He had planned to follow, but the deadly combination of high winds and an explosive oil spill have put paid to those plans forever. Now his wife would like Swyteck to file a wrongful death suit against the Chinese/Russian/Venezuelan/Cuban consortium that owns the oil rig. This is no easy feat, since the rig is in Cuban waters, and the only tenuous tie to the U.S. legal system is the wife's residency in Key West. The situation is volatile; the adversaries are lethal; and the backdrop is a toxic oil slick poised to slime the Florida coast. Black Horizon is timely, relentlessly paced and a thrill ride of the first

Last night, as I was sleeping, I dreamt—marvellous error!— that I had a beehive here inside my heart. And the golden bees were making white cones and sweet honey from my old failures. Antonio Machado, “Last Night” (translated by Robert Bly) I once heard someone ask for the definition of adult. I can’t remember where I was, or who the speaker was who answered the question, but I’ll never forget the answer: “Adult means choice.” As children, most of us had little or no say in most matters. My generation was taught that children should be seen and not heard. We were told to “do as I say, not as I do.” We didn’t have a “vote” in family matters because we were “just children.” Picture this scenario if you will. Five-year-old Jerry has just received his umpteenth whipping or scolding. He turns to his parents and says, “You know, Mom and Dad, I choose not to be abused anymore. I’ll be taking the car keys, withdrawing some money from our joint account, and moving to Florida to live with Grandma and Grandpa. When you both start acting like adults, give me a call, and we’ll discuss the conditions of my return. We’ll see if we can settle on a mutual arrangement where you two stay adult as much of the time as possible, and I’ll be a kid who learns how to make healthy choices by being disciplined instead of punished. We’ll negotiate how you will set healthy boundaries so I can learn to do the same. For now, I’ll be seeing you. Don’t forget to write. And don’t forget to read John Lee’s book on regression. I’m too young, but you’re not.” As children, we did not have the choice of laying down the law for our frequently regressing parents. But as adults we can certainly choose to draw our boundaries and express our needs in all of our relationships as adults—not only with our parents, but also with our spouses, friends, colleagues, and acquaintances.

During this time my father was in a labor camp, for the crime of wanting to leave the country, and my mother struggled to care for us, alone and with few provisions. One day she went out to the back patio to do the wash and saw a cute little frog sitting by the door to the kitchen. My mother has always liked frogs, and this frog by the kitchen door gave her an idea. She began to spin wonderful stories about a crazy, adventurous frog named Antonica who would overcome great odds with her daring and creativity. Antonica helped us dream of freedom and possibilities. These exciting tales were reserved for mealtime. We ate until our bowls were empty, distracted from the bland food by the flavor of Antonica’s world. Mamina knew her children were well nourished, comforted, and prepared for the challenges and adventures to come. In 2007, I was preparing to host a TV show on a local station and was struggling with self-doubt. With encouragement and coaching from a friend, I finally realized that I had been preparing for this opportunity most of my life. All I needed was confidence in myself, the kind of confidence Antonica had taught me about, way back in Cuba. Through this process of self-discovery, the idea came to me to start cooking with my mother. We all loved my Mamina’s cooking, but I had never been interested in learning to cook like her. I began to write down her recipes and take pictures of her delicious food. I also started to write down the stories I had heard from my parents, of our lives in Cuba and coming to the United States. At some point I realized I had ninety recipes. This is a significant number to Cuban exiles, as there are ninety miles between Cuba and Key West, Florida. A relatively short distance, but oh, so far! My effort to grow closer to my mother through cooking became another dream waiting to be fulfilled, through a book called 90 Miles 90 Recipes: My Journey to Understanding. My mother now seemed as significant as our journey to the United States. While learning how she orchestrated these flavors, I began to understand my mother as a woman with many gifts. Through cooking together, my appreciation for her has grown. I’ve come to realize why feeding everyone was so important to her. Nourishing the body is part of nurturing the soul. My mother is doing very poorly now. Most of my time in the last few months has been dedicated to caring for her. Though our book has not yet been published, it has already proven valuable. It has taught me about dreams from a different perspective—helping me recognize that the lives my sisters and I enjoy are the realization of my parents’ dream of freedom and opportunity for them, and especially for us.

If you are a scientist or engineer, an architect or designer, a writer, artist, or musician, or if your creativity is a key factor in your work in business, education, health care, law, or some other profession, you are a member.

Clinton got out there and created a new narrative on the economy, which took some of the needles out of Obama,” says Republican strategist Mike Murphy. “It was the biggest single number-moving event in the entire campaign. It was devastatingly important to the Obama guys. And he put him back in business.” (It also helped, Murphy adds, that “the Romney campaign was totally incompetent.”) In 2000, Clinton had famously faulted Al Gore for not letting Clinton rally the base in key swing states. It was not a mistake Barack Obama was going to repeat. In addition to his convention speech, Clinton stumped for Obama in swing states like Florida and Ohio. Unlike Gore and his campaign team, “the Obama people, despite whatever hard feelings they had, were pretty dispassionate and not afraid to let him come in and steal the show, if they thought it would be helpful,” says a former Clinton official who worked in the Obama administration. Clinton even starred in a widely seen advertisement for Obama, declaring that “President Obama has a plan to rebuild America from the ground up, investing in innovation, education, and job training. It only works if there is a strong middle class. That’s what happened when I was president.”15

Kokomo Aruba, Jamaica, ooh I want to take ya Bermuda, Bahama, come on pretty mama Key Largo, Montego, baby why don't we go, Jamaica Off the Florida Keys, there's a place called Kokomo That's where you want to go to get away from it all Bodies in the sand, tropical drink melting in your hand We'll be falling in love to the rhythm of a steel drum band Down in Kokomo [Chorus] Aruba, Jamaica, ooh I want to take you to Bermuda, Bahama, come on pretty mama Key Largo, Montego, baby why don't we go Ooh I want to take you down to Kokomo, we'll get there fast and then we'll take it slow That's where we want to go, way down in Kokomo. Martinique, that Montserrat mystique We'll put out to sea and we'll perfect our chemistry And by and by we'll defy a little bit of gravity Afternoon delight, cocktails and moonlit nights That dreamy look in your eye, give me a tropical contact high Way down in Kokomo [Chorus] Port au Prince, I want to catch a glimpse Everybody knows a little place like Kokomo Now if you want to go and get away from it all Go down to Kokomo [Chorus] Aruba, Jamaica, ooh I want to take you to Bermuda, Bahama, come on pretty mama Key Largo, Montego, baby why don't we go Ooh I want to take you down to

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My name is Matt Royal. I’m a lawyer who retired early, fed up with the rat race that the once honorable profession of law had become. I moved to Longboat Key, a small island about ten miles long and perhaps a half-mile wide at its broadest point. It lies off the southwest coast of Florida, south of Tampa, about halfway down the peninsula. Sarasota Bay separates the key from the mainland. Anna Maria Island is to the north, the islands connected by the two-lane Longboat Pass Bridge. The southern end of the key is attached by a bridge to Lido and St. Armands Keys, which in turn are connected to the city of Sarasota by the soaring John Ringling Bridge. The Gulf of Mexico’s turquoise waters lap gently on our beaches and the sun almost always shines. A cold day is a rarity, even in February. I live in paradise.

But that was Key West. It searched out and exploited the hairline crack in each person’s stability and crowbarred it open.

but I ended up in the Florida Keys in August of 1971. The Keys—haven of scoundrels, smugglers, and pirates for over 300 years—a bastion for independent thinkers, benign crazies, adventurers, and visionaries.

But the ‘70s brought a new sense of freedom and imagination, and the Florida Keys became magical, like Oz—rife with characters and experiences beyond ordinary vision. Kurt Vonnegut, Joseph Heller, or even Jimmy Buffett would have struggled to match the residents of that distant time.

Sand Key lighthouse. Johnny

Damien arrived home after his usual Saturday afternoon visit to the Botolph Museum. He lay down on the living room couch before supper. Just as he was about to slip into a doze, a key rattled in the front door. He sat up, alert and eager, sleepiness gone, “What did the doctor say?” “More tests,” his wife Adita replied. “And more waiting,” Damien sighed as she stooped to embrace him. He lay back down afterwards. “We’ll get through it.” He had a few minutes before supper and went to the third floor study of the house they rented from his father when they moved to Botolph. Old Professor Higginbotham was now living in Florida, Damien ran a hand along a half-shelf of books his father wrote or edited about Prabashtan, an ancient mountainous country in Central Asia. His great-grandfather, a merchant trader, had many contacts there. Adita’s parents left the country for Canada after a war started. These family connections, along with the fact that he and Adita had spent a two week holiday there earlier in the year, inspired Damien to visit the Prabashtan galleries at Botolph’s art museum on Saturday afternoons and whenever he felt adrift. The only thing that came of his gallery-haunting so far was a hundred or so unformed notes he meant as a present for Adita that he based on items in the exhibits. He sat at his father’s old desk and wrote another: Winsome Lady Well-proportioned figure at rest. Leafy fan, lark headdress, A smile that’s fading. Green and ochre, brown. He watched, pleased, Deceived by scenes He imagined taking place In a distant court.

What finger-shaped Florida lacks in breadth it makes up for in length; Tallahassee is 480 miles from Miami (farther than New York City is from Cleveland).

I’m Captain Florida, the state history pimp Gatherin’ more data than a DEA blimp West Palm, Tampa Bay, Miami-Dade Cruisin’ the coasts till Johnny Vegas gets laid Developer ho’s, and the politician bitches Smackin’ ’em down, while I’m takin’ lots of pictures Hurricanes, sinkholes, natural disaster ’Scuse me while I kick back, with my View-Master (S:) I’m Captain Florida, obscure facts are all legit (C:) I’m Coleman, the sidekick, with a big bong hit (S:) I’m Captain Florida, staying literate (C:) Coleman sees a book and says, “Fuck that shit” Ain’t never been caught, slippin’ nooses down the Keys Got more buoyancy than Elián González Knockin’ off the parasites, and takin’ all their moola Recruiting my apostles for the Church of Don Shula I’m an old-school gangster with a psycho ex-wife Molly Packin’ Glocks, a shotgun and my 7-Eleven coffee Trippin’ the theme parks, the malls, the time-shares Bustin’ my rhymes through all the red-tide scares (S:) I’m the surge in the storms, don’t believe the hype (C:) I’m his stoned number two, where’d I put my hash pipe? (S:) Florida, no appointments and a tank of gas (C:) Tequila, no employment and a bag of grass Think you’ve seen it all? I beg to differ Mosquitoes like bats and a peg-leg stripper The scammers, the schemers, the real estate liars Birthday-party clowns in a meth-lab fire But dig us, don’t diss us, pay a visit, don’t be late And statistics always lie, so ignore the murder rate Beaches, palm trees and golfing is our curse Our residents won’t bite, but a few will shoot first Everglades, orange groves, alligators, Buffett Scarface, Hemingway, an Andrew Jackson to suck it Solarcaine, Rogaine, eight balls of cocaine See the hall of fame for the criminally insane Artifacts, folklore, roadside attractions Crackers, Haitians, Cuban-exile factions The early-bird specials, drivin’ like molasses Condo-meeting fistfights in cataract glasses (S:) I’m the native tourist, with the rants that can’t be beat (C:) Serge, I think I put my shoes on the wrong feet (S:) A stack of old postcards in another dingy room (C:) A cold Bud forty and a magic mushroom Can’t stop, turnpike, keep ridin’ like the wind Gotta make a detour for a souvenir pin But if you like to litter, you’re just liable to get hurt Do ya like the MAC-10 under my tropical shirt? I just keep meeting jerks, I’m a human land-filler But it’s totally unfair, this term “serial killer” The police never rest, always breakin’ in my pad But sunshine is my bling, and I’m hangin’ like a chad (S:) Serge has got to roll and drop the mike on this rap . . . (C:) Coleman’s climbin’ in the tub, to take a little nap . . . (S:) . . . Disappearin’ in the swamp—and goin’ tangent, tangent, tangent . . . (C:) He’s goin’ tangent, tangent . . . (Fade-out) (S:) I’m goin’ tangent, tangent . . . (C:) Fuck goin’ platinum, he’s goin’ tangent, tangent . . . (S:) . . . Wikipedia all up and down your ass . . . (C:) Wikity-Wikity-Wikity . . .

My friend thinks he is so smart. He said onions are the only food that makes you cry. So I threw a coconut in his face.

I just want to go kayaking in the Florida Keys, get a black lab, grow tomatoes, have a life.

A Pathway for those who seek fellowship with the Wilderness.

In a speech invoking evangelical favorites from the Book of Ecclesiastes to The Hobbit, Bannon pronounced evangelical and conservative Catholic turnout as "the key that picked the lock in North Carolina, Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Iowa, Michigan, and Wisconsin," making the difference for Trump's win.

Cuban refugees to Key West found a relatively easy pathway to the ballot box via “declarant alien voting,” which was passed by Florida’s Reconstruction legislature in 1868 (“declarant aliens” were resident aliens who declared their intent to naturalize).62 According to Article 14 of the 1868 Florida constitution, a man who swore to defend the laws of the land and to eventually become a citizen could vote.

His father was not a man to make a habit of offering his upturned throat.

She flushed a becoming pink during the ceremony; her green eyes moistened and shimmered like the calm and prosperous ocean.

Hot April sunshine poured in through the open top of the old Caddy, shafts of it splattering into rainbows as they sliced through the facets of the spiderweb windshield.

It was not a petty fact that nearly ninety percent off all door locks, from Buenos Aires to Toronto, from Beijing to Cape Cod, all utilized the ubiquitous and infirmed pin tumbler lock, which, as it turned out, made keys, rather than a necessity, only an easy convenience which served to lull the mind into a false sense of security.

Cuban Aircraft are Seized During the early 1960’s, Erwin Harris sought to collect $429,000 in unpaid bills from the Cuban government, for an advertising campaign promoting Cuban tourism. Holding a court order from a judge in Florida and accompanied by local sheriff’s deputies, he searched the East Coast of the United States for Cuban property. In September 1960, while Fidel was at the United Nations on an official visit, Harris found the Britannia that Castro had flown in to New York. That same day the front page of The Daily News headlined, “Cuban Airliner Seized Here.” Erwin Harris continued by seizing a C-46, which was originally owned by Cuba Aeropostal and was now owned by Cubana, as well as other cargo airplanes. He seized a Cuban Naval vessel, plus 1.2 million Cuban cigars that were brought into Tampa, Florida, by ship. In Key West, Harris also confiscated railroad cars carrying 3.5 million pounds of cooking lard destined for Havana. All of these things, excepting the Britannia, were sold at auction. Nikita S. Khrushchev, the Soviet premier, replaced the airplane that had been confiscated. On September 28th, Castro boarded the Soviet aircraft at Idlewild Airport smiling, most likely because he knew that his Britannia airplane would be returned to Cuba due to diplomatic immunity.

During the “Bay of Pigs Invasion” One Douglas “B-26” airplane with counterfeit Cuban markings was fired on and crashed into the sea about 30 miles north of the island. Another of these aircraft, which was also damaged but still air worthy, continued north and landed at Boca Chica Key Naval Air Station near Key West, Florida. The following day the crew was quickly flown to exile in Nicaragua. The United States government announced that the downed aircraft belonged to the Cuban air force and was manned by Cuban dissidents. In reply to this, Castro appeared on Cuban State television and denounced these claims. He put his military on high alert and directed defensive operations from the Cuban Military Headquarters, which had just been bombed by two of the masquerading airplanes. Fidel issued orders to detain anyone who was suspected of conspiracy or treason. Lists of these people had previously been prepared and were used to round up suspected dissenters. Within days, his overzealous police force and army incarcerated about 20,000 Cuban citizens, using whatever means were available, including a sports stadium. In a speech to the people, Fidel finally admitted to the public that his Movement was Socialistic. The Cuban Foreign Minister Raúl Roa García, successfully presented evidence at the United Nations, proving that the attacks were foreign in origin. Adlai Stevenson, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, replied that the United States had not participated in any action against Cuba. Ambassador Stevenson, knowing better, insisted that the aircraft that had landed in Miami had Cuban markings and therefore must have been of Cuban origin. Stevenson’s comments sounded contrived since the aircraft had Plexiglas noses, normally used as the bombardier’s station, whereas the actual Cuban B-26’s had solid noses with armament. It was obvious to the General Assembly that the United States Ambassador had been perpetrating an outright lie or, in diplomatic double talk, an untruth! It was an embarrassing moment that left the United States’ veracity open to ridicule

Agustín Parlá Orduña was among the early Cuban aviation aces. He was born in Key West, Florida, on October 10, 1887, and received his early education there. After Cuba was liberated from Spain, the family returned to Havana, where he continued his education. On April 20, 1912, he received his pilot’s license at the Curtiss School of Aviation in Miami. On July 5, 1913, when the Cuban Army Air Corps was formed, Agustín Parlá was commissioned as a captain in the Cuban Armed Forces. On May 17, 1913, Domingo Rosillo and Agustín Parlá attempted the first international flights to Latin America, by trying to fly their airplanes from Key West to Havana. At 5:10 a.m., Rosillo departed from Key West and flew for 2 hours, 30 minutes and 40 seconds before running out of gas. He had planned to land at the airfield at Camp Columbia in Havana, but instead managed to squeak in at the shooting range, thereby still satisfactorily completing the flight. Parlá left Key West at 5:57 in the morning. Just four minutes later, at 6:01 a.m., he had to carefully turn back to the airstrip he had just left, since the aircraft didn’t properly respond to his controls. Parlá said, “It would not let me compensate for the wind that blew.” When he returned to Key West, he discovered that two of the tension wires to the elevator were broken. On May 19, 1913, Parlá tried again and left Key West, carrying the Cuban Flag his father had received from José Martí. This time he fell short and had to land at sea off the Cuban coast near Mariel, where sailors rescued him from his seaplane.

The U.S. Treasury Department has issued at least four licenses to companies that want to establish ferry service to Cuba from Key West, Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Tampa. Baleària, a Spanish company, presently owns the Baleària Bahamas Express ferry service from Fort Lauderdale to Freeport, Grand Bahamas, and is now considering a ferry to operate between Florida and Cuba. United Caribbean and Havana Partners have expressed an interest in a service from Tampa to Havana and Mexico. Baja Ferries USA wants to open routes between the Port of Miami and Port Everglades to Cuba. Some of the ferries will offer duty-free shopping, restaurants, bars and even swimming pools. The details regarding feasibility depends on government restrictions and tariffs placed on them by the countries, as well as the ports involved. Tampa would be a straight run 331 miles due south, but some of the other ports would be closer. In the end it will come down to money, availability of cargo and logistics. As of the summer of 2016, perspective ferry operators are awaiting final approval and licensing from the Cuban government. Because of this the ferry companies are on hold and are still waiting to begin operations. Tampa and The Port of Tampa have expressed their enthusiasm to become fully involved in these new ventures. Bob Rohrlack, President of the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce, has been to Cuba several times, taking corporate delegates in preparation for improved, open relations with Cuba.

When the British attacked Havana in 1762, Admiral de Hevia failed to scuttle the ships under his command. Thus, his ships fell into the hands of the British. The Admiral was returned to Spain where he was court-martialed, stripped of his titles and sentenced to house arrest for 10 years. Fortunately, he was pardoned three years later, on September 17, 1765. Reinstated he returned to active duty as the commander of the Marine Corps in Cadiz. He died seven years later on December 2, 1772, at Isla de León, Spain. Havana being under the rule of the British governor Sir George Keppel, the 3rd Earl of Albemarle, the British opened trade with their North American and Caribbean colonies, causing a dramatic transformation in the culture of Cuba, as well as bringing an increase to the population. Thousands of additional slaves were brought to the island under British rule, ostensibly to work on the new sugar plantations. The British occupation, however, didn’t last long, since the Seven Years’ War ended less than a year after the British arrived, and with the signing of the Peace of Paris Treaty the English agreed to surrender Cuba in exchange for Florida. In Britain, many people believed they could have done better, had they included Mexico and some of the colonies in South America, as part of the deal. The Florida Keys, not being directly connected to the Florida mainland, also remained in dispute, but it was not contested as long as free trade was permitted. After the deal was made with the British, Spain retained control of Cuba until after the secessionist movements were ended with the Treaty of Paris, signed on December 10, 1898. The United States Senate ratified the treaty on February 6, 1899. In 1793, many more slaves were imported into Cuba when French slave owners fled from Haiti during the Slave Rebellion, also known as the Haitian Revolution. This brought 30,000 white refugees and their slaves into Cuba. With their knowledge of coffee and sugar processing, they founded many new plantations. This period of the English occupation and French influx, although chronologically short, was when the floodgates of slavery were opened wide. It was at this time that the largest numbers of black slaves ever, were imported into the country.

An old man's errors mattered both more and less than a young man's. More because there was less time to undo them; less because there was less time to endure their consequences. "You coulda done plenty, Joey. I never gave you a chance.

menace is quietly growing. The cloudy skies and rain that had continued throughout Tuesday had slowed the process of decomposition of the hundreds of bodies that are scattered from Plantation Key to Grassy Key and across Florida Bay. Now the bodies floating in the water, stuck in mangrove bushes, or just lying on the ground are rotting with unbelievable rapidity in the tropical heat.

There are three key attributes that make people happy in their communities and cause them to develop a solid emotional attachment to the place they live in. The first is the physical beauty and the level of maintenance of the place itself - great open spaces and parks, historic buildings, and an attention to community aesthetics. The second is the ease with which people can meet others, make friends, and plug into social networks. The third piece of the happiness puzzle is the level of diversity, open-mindedness, and acceptance: Is there some equality of opportunity for all? Can anyone - everyone - contribute to and take pleasure from the community?

It was the German powerhouse Deutsche Bank AG, not my fictitious RhineBank, that financed the construction of the extermination camp at Auschwitz and the nearby factory that manufactured Zyklon B pellets. And it was Deutsche Bank that earned millions of Nazi reichsmarks through the Aryanization of Jewish-owned businesses. Deutsche Bank also incurred massive multibillion-dollar fines for helping rogue nations such as Iran and Syria evade US economic sanctions; for manipulating the London interbank lending rate; for selling toxic mortgage-backed securities to unwitting investors; and for laundering untold billions’ worth of tainted Russian assets through its so-called Russian Laundromat. In 2007 and 2008, Deutsche Bank extended an unsecured $1 billion line of credit to VTB Bank, a Kremlin-controlled lender that financed the Russian intelligence services and granted cover jobs to Russian intelligence officers operating abroad. Which meant that Germany’s biggest lender, knowingly or unknowingly, was a silent partner in Vladimir Putin’s war against the West and liberal democracy. Increasingly, that war is being waged by Putin’s wealthy cronies and by privately owned companies like the Wagner Group and the Internet Research Agency, the St. Petersburg troll factory that allegedly meddled in the 2016 US presidential election. The IRA was one of three Russian companies named in a sprawling indictment handed down by the Justice Department in February 2018 that detailed the scope and sophistication of the Russian interference. According to special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, the Russian cyber operatives stole the identities of American citizens, posed as political and religious activists on social media, and used divisive issues such as race and immigration to inflame an already divided electorate—all in support of their preferred candidate, the reality television star and real estate developer Donald Trump. Russian operatives even traveled to the United States to gather intelligence. They focused their efforts on key battleground states and, remarkably, covertly coordinated with members of the Trump campaign in August 2016 to organize rallies in Florida. The Russian interference also included a hack of the Democratic National Committee that resulted in a politically devastating leak of thousands of emails that threw the Democratic convention in Philadelphia into turmoil. In his final report, released in redacted form in April 2019, Robert Mueller said that Moscow’s efforts were part of a “sweeping and systematic” campaign to assist Donald Trump and weaken his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton. Mueller was unable to establish a chargeable criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, though the report noted that key witnesses used encrypted communications, engaged in obstructive behavior, gave false or misleading testimony, or chose not to testify at all. Perhaps most damning was the special counsel’s conclusion that the Trump campaign “expected it would benefit electorally from the information stolen and released through Russian efforts.

An old man's errors mattered both more and less than a young man's. More because there was less time to undo them; less because there was less time to endure their consequences.

Alabama Jack’s looks more like a roadside shack than a building and is a perfect example of why you shouldn’t judge a place by its appearance.

The master stroke for this campaign was a concerted effort to rebrand the debate as one about the “death tax.” Frank Luntz, a political operative on the repeal payroll, later revealed that this rebranding “kindled voter resentment in a way that ‘inheritance tax’ and ‘estate tax’ [did] not.” To control the ownership narrative, the repeal campaign relied on personal stories that activated people’s fears. That’s why Thigpen was not alone testifying on the panel. With him were Bill McNutt, owner of Collin Street Bakery in Corsicana, Texas; Jim Turner, a rancher in Florida; and Robert Lange, a farmer from Malvern, Pennsylvania. Each expressed concern that their family businesses would need to be sold to pay estate taxes. The key for pro-repeal lobbyists was that nearly 40 percent of Americans mistakenly believed they were in the top 1 percent, or soon would be, and thus were potentially subject to the tax. Thanks to the lobbying campaign, Thigpen’s story went viral. Luntz and his hired associates transformed a tax that affected fewer than two out of every hundred Americans into a seemingly populist cause. As one commentator notes, “Thigpen’s story was repeated over and over again, and its racial undertones implied that the tax disproportionately impacts Black families. The only problem? It was a complete lie.

but she had wished for a different outcome so many times she’d almost rewritten the truth in her mind.

I want a place with stories and genuine laughter, Dollars on crossbeams, bra’s strung from the rafter No focus group menu and sanitized spaces, I’ll settle for friends in old seedy places! Nick Schlonski

I like a world in which the passing of the season (or the passing of the seasons) is a matter of some importance; and I have often wondered why newspapers did not contain wires from Italy reporting flights of storks; or from Buenos Aires reporting on the Argentine spring; and most of all I have wanted in winter daily dispatches on the front page of the Tribune describing the dazzle over the Florida Keys, and so on. However, today, General McArthur is more important than the sun.

For more than forty years the ZMC-2 languished in an abandoned hangar along the runway of a deserted naval air station near Key West, Florida. Then in 1988, the property was sold by the government to a financial conglomerate headed by a wealthy publisher, Raymond LeBaron, who intended to develop it as a resort. Shortly after arriving from his corporate headquarters in Chicago to inspect the newly purchased naval base, LeBaron stumbled onto the dusty and corroded remains of the ZMC-2 and became intrigued. Charging it off to promotion, he had the old lighter-than air craft reassembled and the engines rebuilt, calling her the Prosperteer after the business magazine that was the base of his financial empire, and emblazoning the name in huge red letters on the side of the envelope.

yacht club tastes and a rubber ducky budget.

Coastal flooding could wipe out up to 9.3 percent of the world’s annual output by 2100 (a Swedish-French-British team in 2015). It could create losses of up to $2.9 trillion in that year (a German-British-Dutch-Belgian team in 2014). It could put as many as a billion people at risk by 2050 (a Dutch team in 2012). Test cases occurred in 2017, when storms inundated Houston, Puerto Rico, and the Florida Keys.

Martí still had to consider himself lucky, since in 1871 eight medical students had been executed for the alleged desecration of a gravesite in Havana. Those executed were selected from the student body by lottery, and they may not have even been involved in the desecration. In fact, some of them were not even in Havana at the time, but it quickly became obvious to everyone that the Spanish government was not fooling around! Some years later Martí studied law at the Central University of Madrid (University of Zaragoza). As a student he started sending letters directly to the Spanish Prime Minister insisting on Cuban autonomy, and he continued to write what the Spanish government considered inflammatory newspaper editorials. In 1874, he graduated with a degree in philosophy and law. The following year Martí traveled to Madrid, Paris and Mexico City where he met the daughter of a Cuban exile, Carmen Zayas-Bazán, whom he later married. In 1877 Martí paid a short visit to Cuba, but being constantly on the move he went on to Guatemala where he found work teaching philosophy and literature. In 1878 he published his first book, Guatemala, describing the beauty of that country. The daughter of the President of Guatemala had a crush on Martí, which did not go unnoticed by him. María was known as “La Niña de Guatemala,” the child of Guatemala. She waited for Martí when he left for Cuba, but when he returned he was married to Carmen Zayas-Bazán. María died shortly thereafter on May 10, 1878, of a respiratory disease, although many say that she died of a broken heart. On November 22, 1878, Martí and Carmen had a son whom they named José Francisco. Doing the math, it becomes obvious as to what had happened…. It was after her death that he wrote the poem “La Niña de Guatemala.” The Cuban struggle for independence started with the Ten Years’ War in 1868 lasting until 1878. At that time, the Peace of Zanjón was signed, giving Cuba little more than empty promises that Spain completely ignored. An uneasy peace followed, with several minor skirmishes, until the Cuban War of Independence flared up in 1895. In December of 1878, thinking that conditions had changed and that things would return to normal, Martí returned to Cuba. However, still being cautious he returned using a pseudonym, which may have been a mistake since now his name did not match those in the official records. Using a pseudonym made it impossible for him to find employment as an attorney. Once again, after his revolutionary activities were discovered, Martí was deported to Spain. Arriving in Spain and feeling persecuted, he fled to France and continued on to New York City. Then, using New York as a hub, he traveled and wrote, gaining a reputation as an editorialist on Latin American issues. Returning to the United States from his travels, he visited with his family in New York City for the last time. Putting his work for the revolution first, he sent his family back to Havana. Then from New York he traveled to Florida, where he gave inspiring speeches to Cuban tobacco workers and cigar makers in Ybor City, Tampa. He also went to Key West to inspire Cuban nationals in exile. In 1884, while Martí was in the United States, slavery was finally abolished in Cuba. In 1891 Martí approved the formation of the Cuban Revolutionary Party.

Some of Batista’s followers intimidated jailed and even killed political opponents. One of the pro-Batista paramilitary thugs was Rolando Arcadio Masferrer Rojas, who was born in Holguín on July 12, 1918. He had been a member of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, organized in 1936 by the Communist International during the Spanish Civil War. Returning to Cuba, Masferrer became a staunch supporter of Batista, who at that time had the backing of the Communist Party. Masferrer was by no means the average run of the mill thug and, in addition to being a lawyer, he ran for office and won a seat in the Cuban Senate. He was also a guerrilla leader, political activist, a member of the Cuban Communist Party, a newspaper publisher, and responsible for the founding of “Los Tigres de Masferrer,” a guerrilla organization he organized to support Batista militarily. He also published two newspapers, Tiempo in Havana and Libertad in Santiago de Cuba. Becoming a radical anti-communist, he was ousted from the Cuban Communist Party. Regardless, Masferrer was a dangerous man and people learned to keep their mouths shut and play it low key when he was around. As a pro-Batista political activist, he took credit for supposedly attacking Castro’s rebels in the Sierra Maestra Mountains. Actually, in most cases his group of not-so-fierce fighters stayed safely within the city limits of Santiago de Cuba, extorting money from the residents. In 1959, after Castro’s entry into Havana, Masferrer fled to the United States where he befriended American union bosses such as Jimmy Hoffa and got to know Mafia leaders such as Santo Trafficante in Tampa, Florida. Masferrer worked with Richard Bissell of the Central Intelligence Agency, planning another assassination attempt on Castro. He was seen at a ranch owned by multi-millionaire Howard Hughes, where he was training paid assassins, and he even met with President Kennedy in Washington. With money contributed by fellow Cubans living in Florida, he later planned to carry out the assassination of Fidel Castro by attacking him from a distant base in Haiti. It all ended when, on October 31, 1975, Masferrer was killed by a car bomb in Miami. Although his figures may be somewhat exaggerated, Castro claimed that Masferrer was responsible for the death of as many as 2,000 people during the Batista era.

Despite the wanton destruction during the past 200 years, some outstanding sites have been saved in Louisiana,1 Mississippi,2 Alabama,3 Tennessee,4 Illinois,5 and Ohio,6 and there are also significant sites in Florida,7 Georgia,8 Texas,9 Arkansas,10 Kentucky,11 and Indiana.

Step by Step… Can you write out your ideal business step by step Here is a business I am setting up for a client. She wants to shipping start her own shipping company… One she will need a US partner to collect and transfer packages to her in Jamaica. She will also need one in China. I have two contacts. One has a warehouse in Florida The other has two in China. Chinese connect makes goods available within 3 weeks, she has to tell her customers four. The US connect makes it within 3-5 days. She has to tell them within a week… Next she will need a website where her customers can login and track their packages. This will come with individual dashboards. She will need an interface and warehouse management software and logistics APIs. She will also need an automated email set up (journey) to send emails to her customers without her or her agents needing to do that. Without this Saas she would have to hire someone to reply to messages and emails about , someone to call and track, use usps and FedEx tracking numbers to track and reply back to customers. She also needs a beta ApI to allow her warehouse guy to update the CRM with information about her customers packages… Key nodes such as - Intransit to destinations Held at customs Clearance In transit to store Pick up available etc… These will come in as email notifications Fully automated. Everything will be connected using Webhooks… entire system. Saas she might need to use a combination of GOhighlevel, Workiz and To run this as a System as as Service. Each platform can work together using webhooks. Gohighlevel as a Saas is $500 a month Workiz is $200 dollars She can use Odoo which is open source alternative as a CRM And Clickup as Management. This is how a conversational business plan looks. You can see it. You can research it. You can confirm that it’s plausible. It doesn’t sound like pipedreams. It sounds workable to credit companies /banks and investors. It sounds doable to a BDO Client. I also sound as if I know what I am doing. Not a lot of technical language. A confused prospective business investor or banker don’t want to use a dictionary to figure out everything… They want to see the vision as clear as day. You basically need to do to them what I did to you when you joined my programme. It must sound plausible. All businesses is a game of wit. Every deal that is signed benefits both party. Whether initially or in the long term. Those are the sub-tenets of business. Every board meeting or meeting with regulatory boards, banks, credit facilities, municipalities is a game of convincing people to see your thing through… Everyone does Algorithm is simple. People want you to solve their problems with speed and efficiency. Speed is very important and automation. Progress, business and production are tied to ego… that’s why people love seh oh dem start a business or dem have dem online business and nah sell one rass thing. Cause a lot of people think being successful and looking successful are one and the same thing until they meet someone like me or people who done the work… Don’t rush it… you are young and you have time. There are infact certain little nuances Weh yuh only ago learn through experience. Experience and reflection. One of the drawbacks of wanting to run your business by yourself with you and your family members is that you guys will have to be reliant on yourself for feedback which is not alw

After dinner, I popped open a bottle of champagne and we drank from cracked flutes while watching the last of mother nature’s brilliant display. Halfway through the bottle, we made love to the sounds of our popping campfire, the distant rumbling waves, and a breeze rustling overhead palm fronds.

What did not happen in Florida, in either the Second or Third Seminole War, was the provision of enough forces and transportation to affect the object of these wars, the final removal of all Native Americans from the peninsula. Prior to the war’s end, rewards were offered by the United States government for the capture of Seminoles. This policy failed to bring in any significant number of Native Americans; however, by early 1858, the war was winding down. White flags and other signs were hung out on known paths used by the Seminoles, and military operations were ordered stopped by Colonel Loomis. Elias Rector, the superintendent for Indian Affairs in the southern superintendency, came to Florida in January 1858 to assist in the negotiations for peace. After a conference was held 35 miles from Fort Myers with Assinwah’s band and others, the terms were offered and monetary inducements guaranteed. On May 4, 1858, Billy Bowlegs and most of his band boarded the Grey Cloud and sailed to Egmont Key, at the mouth of Tampa Bay. Here this group was joined by 41 prisoners and made ready for the trip west. By May 8, the war was declared officially over. The army believed that there were only about 100 Seminoles and Miccosukees left in Florida. This number included the aged leader Sam Jones. There is a debate on just when this ancient and respected leader died; however, it is known that he was gone before the end of Civil War. Where his remains were deposited is a secret to this day. It is from this small number of Seminoles and Miccosukees that today’s recognized tribes have descended as a continuing tribute to the tenacity of their ancestors’ will to survive. As historian Patsy West has aptly called them, they are “The Enduring Seminoles.” BIBLIOGRAPHY DOCUMENTS A number of collections of documents exist from which the above was drawn, including the Letters Received by the Secretary of War, Registered Series, 1801–1860; Letters Sent by the Secretary of War Relating to Military Affairs, 1800–1889; Letters Received by the Office of the Adjutant General (Main Series) 1822–1860; and Letters Sent, Registers of Letters Received, and Letters Received by Headquarters, Troops in Florida, and Headquarters Department of Florida, 1850–1858. The collections are all on microfilm from the National Archives. Numerous Congressional documents were also consulted

I’ve always heard that it’s better to give than to receive, but someone has to receive, and I’ve learned to do it.

What gripes me the most is all the garbage they give us Cubans. All of that ‘Oh my God, we’re being overrun by rafters!’ Hell, we’ve worked hard to help build Key West and Tampa and Miami,” said Serge. “Forget the Marielitos. What about the Ohio-litos?!

I'd never compared myself to being dead before, but it was the only thing I could think of. The only thing worse than the situation I faced.

A Sasquatch-like creature. Those were their words, not mine. I didn't even know the word Sasquatch. Had I known the problems it would cause - just the suggestion I'd seen such a thing - I would have never opened my mouth about it.

(8) Florida voter registration disk removed and new disk inserted for redistricting via "The HAMMER" computer system in Fort Washington Maryland--via Navy Intel cover... (they stole the election via re-districting in Florida? How many other states did Brennan and Clapper do this?) (9) Crypto-keys via "The Hammer" to all banking and secure information “The Whistleblower

I own an island, Constance—a private island in the Florida Keys. It’s west of No Name Key and northeast of Key West. It’s not a big island, but it’s a jewel. It is called Halcyon. I have a house there; a breezy mansion furnished with books and instruments and paintings; it offers both sunrise and sunset views; and it has been stocked with all the rare wines, champagnes, and delicacies you could ever wish for. I’ve been preparing this idyll over the years with painstaking, excessive care. It was to be a bastion; my last and final retreat from the world. But—as I was recovering in that hut in Ginostra—I realized that such a place, no matter how ideal, would be unbearably lonely without another person—the one, the perfect person—with whom to share it.” He paused. “Need I name that person?

Arthur’s ties to the powerful New York State Republican machine won him nomination as candidate for vice president. To near-universal dismay, he had entered the White House when President James A. Garfield died from an assassin’s bullet. A good storyteller and man about town, fond of whiskey, cigars, and expensive clothes, the dapper, sideburned Arthur is perhaps best remembered for saying, “I may be president of the United States, but my private life is nobody’s damned business.” On this trip to Florida, however, his private life fitted very nicely into someone else’s business. The owner of the Belair orange plantation was General Henry Shelton Sanford, the man who had helped Leopold recruit Stanley. Sanford did not bother to leave his home in Belgium to be in Florida for the president’s visit. With the self-assurance of the very rich, he played host in absentia. He made sure that the president and his party were greeted by his personal agent, and that they got the best rooms at the Sanford House hotel, which stood on a lakeshore fringed with palm trees in the town of Sanford. When the president and his guests were not out catching bass, trout, and catfish, or shooting alligators, or exploring the area by steamboat, the Sanford House was where they stayed for the better part of a week. There is no record of who paid the hotel bill, but most likely, as with the rail journey south, it was not the president. Ironically, the huge Sanford orange plantation the Washington visitors admired was proving as disastrous a venture as Sanford’s other investments. Some Swedish contract laborers found the working conditions too harsh and tried to leave as stowaways on a steamboat. A slaughterhouse Sanford invested in had a capacity fifty times larger than what the local market could consume and went bankrupt. A 540-foot wharf with a warehouse at the end of it that he ordered built was washed away by a flood. The manager of one of the hotels in Sanford absconded while owing him money. Foremen failed to put up fences, and wandering cattle nibbled at the orange trees. But if everything Sanford touched as a businessman turned to dust, as an accomplice of Leopold he was a grand success. Sanford was a long-time supporter of President Arthur’s Republican Party. For two years, he had been corresponding with Arthur and other high United States officials about Leopold’s plans for the Congo. Now, after the president’s trip to Florida, confident that Arthur would pay attention, he pressed his case with more letters. Seven months later, Leopold sent Sanford across the Atlantic to make use of his convenient connection to the White House. The man who had once been American minister to Belgium was now the Belgian king’s personal envoy to Washington. Sanford carried with him to Washington a special code for telegraphing news to Brussels: Constance meant “negotiations proceeding satisfactorily; success expected”; Achille referred to Stanley, Eugénie to France, Alice to the United States, Joseph to “sovereign rights,” and Émile to the key target, the president.

It’s the big new bridge,” said Serge. “Takes you right across Lake What-the-Fuck.” “Is that another real name?” “No,” said Serge. “That’s what I call it. It’s really named Lake Surprise. But surprise is usually something good that provides delight, like winning the lottery or reaching in the back of the fridge and finding an unexpected jar of olives. But this lake got its name because it pissed people off.” “How’d it do that?” “Another funny story. When Henry Flagler started the Overseas Railroad down the Keys, he looked for the route with the most land, because bridges over water cost more. So he sent out surveyors, and they began laying tracks south from the mainland of Florida, across some little islands and an isthmus to Key Largo. And I can’t believe they built that far before realizing that right in the middle of a big chunk of land was this giant lake, and now they have to build an extra bridge that wasn’t in the budget.

I thought about how I had come to know him a little bit over the last few months and how he was now getting out, escaping from prison, just like he always said he would. I realized I wanted to escape as well. I wanted to leave this town and this lousy job, go home, collect my family, and drive away to Washington State, Colorado, the Florida Keys, or up to northern New England and find a new job where I wasn’t exposed to the worst parts of the worst people every day.

He wrote that a government construction project in the Florida Keys was hiring, for real pay. Not as good as the bonus, it seemed, but better than picking fruit.

Florida sea captains might place a pineapple at the front door of their house to let everyone know that they had returned from a sea voyage and that the home was open to visitors. Many

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His book For Whom the Bell Tolls was an instant success in the summer of 1940, and afforded him the means to live in style at his villa outside of Havana with his new wife Mary Welsh, whom he married in 1946. It was during this period that he started getting headaches and gaining weight, frequently becoming depressed. Being able to shake off his problems, he wrote a series of books on the Land, Air and Sea, and later wrote The Old Man and the Sea for which he won the Pulitzer Prize in May 1954. Hemingway on a trip to Africa where he barely survived two successive airplane crashes. Returning to Cuba, Ernest worked reshaping the recovered work and wrote his memoir, A Moveable Feast. He also finished True at First Light and The Garden of Eden. Being security conscious, he stored his works in a safe deposit box at a bank in Havana. His home Finca Vigía had become a hub for friends and even visiting tourists. It was reliably disclosed to me that he frequently enjoyed swinger’s parties and orgies at his Cuban home. In Spain after divorcing Frank Sinatra Hemingway introduced Ava Gardner to many of the bullfighters he knew and in a free for all, she seduced many of hotter ones. After Ava Gardner’s affair with the famous Spanish bullfighter Luis Miguel Dominguín crashed, she came to Cuba and stayed at Finca Vigía, where she had what was termed to be a poignant relationship with Ernest. Ava Gardner swam nude in the pool, located down the slope from the Hemingway house, after which he told his staff that the water was not to be emptied. An intimate friendship grew between Hemingway’s forth and second wife, Mary and Pauline. Pauline often came to Finca Vigia, in the early 1950s, and likewise Mary made the crossing of the Florida Straits, back to Key West several times. The ex-wife and the current wife enjoyed gossiping about their prior husbands and lovers and had choice words regarding Ernest. In 1959, Hemingway was in Cuba during the revolution, and was delighted that Batista, who owned the nearby property, that later became the location of the dismal Pan Americana Housing Development, was overthrown. He shared the love of fishing with Fidel Castro and remained on good terms with him. Reading the tea leaves, he decided to leave Cuba after hearing that Fidel wanted to nationalize the properties owned by Americans and other foreign nationals. In the summer of 1960, while working on a manuscript for Life magazine, Hemingway developed dementia becoming disorganized and confused. His eyesight had been failing and he became despondent and depressed. On July 25, 1960, he and his wife Mary left Cuba for the last time. He never retrieved his books or the manuscripts that he left in the bank vault. Following the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Cuban government took ownership of his home and the works he left behind, including an estimated 5,000 books from his personal library. After years of neglect, his home, which was designed by the Spanish architect Miguel Pascual y Baguer in 1886, has now been largely restored as the Hemingway Museum. The museum, overlooking San Francisco de Paula, as well as the Straits of Florida in the distance, houses much of his work as well as his boat housed near his pool.

To Have and Have Not” It was during 1937 that Ernest Hemingway wrote the novel “To Have and Have Not” about Harry Morgan, a fishing boat captain who ran contraband between Havana and Key West. Things didn’t go well for Morgan as he sank ever deeper into debt. Hemingway’s book continued with Harry Morgan running his boat between Cuba and the United States, carrying revolutionaries to Cuba and smuggling Chinese immigrants and rum into Florida. The depression during the early 1930’s and the hunger experienced by the “Conchs” of Key West was Morgan’s motive for ferrying his illegal cargo between the two countries. When Ernest Hemingway moved to Cuba early in 1939, he took his boat the Pilar across the Straits of Florida to Havana, where he first checked into the Hotel Ambos Mundos. Shortly thereafter, Martha joined him in Cuba and they initially rented, and later in 1940, purchased a home for $12,500. Located 10 miles to the east of Havana, in the small town of San Francisco de Paula, they settled into what they called Finca Vigía, the Lookout Farm. After a difficult divorce from Pauline, Ernest and Martha got married on November 20, 1940. Even though Cuba had permanently become their home, they sought writing assignments overseas, including one in China that Martha got for Collier’s magazine. Returning to Cuba just prior to the outbreak of World War II, he convinced the Cuban government to outfit his boat with armaments, with which he intended to ambush German submarines. As the war progressed, Hemingway went to London as a war correspondent, where he met Mary Welsh. His infatuation prompted him to propose to her, which of course did not sit well with Martha.

I thought Beauty and the Beast were two people, not one.

The Shelly he knew had tried too hard to be sexy. This woman didn’t bother with make-up or fixing her hair. Yet she was damn near irresistible. For a second he imagined this babe chasing him around like Shelly had… and letting her catch him. He’d have that sundress off her in no time.

Hey Shelly, you’re looking at me like I’m from another planet. What’s wrong?” “Nothing’s wrong. Bubbles sold me alien abduction insurance. I haven’t got a care in the world.

She never asked for too much. She just wanted to be ordinary.

Audubon considered it a bad day if he didn’t shoot a hundred birds. “It’s amazing that his name has become synonymous with conservation.

bathing suit and a pair of pants in the cruise-wear section of one of the department stores downtown. But most of her wardrobe seemed unsuitable for tropical Florida. Maybe, like her sisters, she wouldn’t worry about it, but would simply buy all new clothes in Florida. Ordinarily, she’d be excited by such an idea, but her stomach was still in knots from her confrontation with Tony. She heard a commotion downstairs, and thinking it was Tony, hurried to greet him. At the bottom of the stairs, her mother-in-law smiled up at her. “Hi. I heard a lot of noise coming from your side and wondered if everything was