SNOWBIRDS RETURN

Snowbirds are back. You can see them, feel them, hear them. All good things.

Snowbirds are those who own Key West homes who do not spend the full year here. They return to Key West when the cold hits up north. Snowbirds also include those who do not own, but return and rent each year during the winter months.

Snowbirds mostly in their 50s and up.

They blend right in. Hook up with old friends. Locals and other snowbirds.

I sensed the time was here for the snowbird influx earlier this week while at the Chart Room. The bar was packed. All senior citizens. I knew then the snowbirds were back. Observed it at the Cuban Coffee Queen yesterday. I stopped for lunch. Did not stay. A waiting line. The benches and stools taken.

I was at Hogfish last night for dinner. The same thing. Standing room. Waiting for tables. I luckily found a seat immediately at the outside bar. The inside bar consisted of fishermen and their ladies. Otherwise, Hogfish was packed with returning snowbirds.

I have gotten into grouper recently. The grouper last night was outstanding!

Key West and the Battleship Maine are intertwined. The Maine left Key West for Cuba. It was blown up while in Havana Harbor. Triggering the Spanish-American War.

Many were killed when the Maine went down. A significant number were returned to Key West for burial. On this date in 1898, a Battleship Maine Cemetery Plot was dedicated in Key West. Ten thousand watched the procession and dedication.

My yesterday began with the anti-gravity treadmill. If it does not kill me, it has to help big time. Body Owners has become like a morning club for me and others being worked on. The staff part of the club. Makes hard work easier.

Then a haircut with Lori. Always enjoy visiting with Lori. She has been cutting my hair for 15 years.

Stopped at Cuban Coffee Queen for lunch. No room.

Went home for lunch. Anna there. Anna has been cleaning my house and doing my laundry for 10 years. A Polish immigrant who worked hard and is achieving the American dream.

Is it only immigrants who achieve the American dream today? Why not American born? Is it because the American born have lost something along the way? What?

A three hour nap. I was tired for some reason. Laid down and fell asleep immediately.

“The nights still belong to Hitler.” One of the quotes/observations  in this week’s KONK Life column Helen Sperling…..Holocaust Survival.

I saw the printed column yesterday in KONK Life. Somewhere between me and the printer, the column got screwed up. Sperling’s name was misspelled in the title. Quotes near the end of the column took a beating. One completely left out. Others bunched together. My listed order ignored.

Nothing can bed done. The publisher offered to rerun the column next week. I said, no. Next week should be and will be a new story.

I apologize for the errors/sloppiness. Not of my doing, however.

Staying with the Helen Sperling story, it appears in two additional places today. KONK E-Blast carries it. No errors. The column was also linked to my Key West Lou website. No errors.

I will be interviewed on KONK News at 12:45 today. 104.9 radio. The subject matter will be the Helen Sperling column.

There have been many police/black shootings. More blacks killed than police officers. Most officers not indicted. I read somewhere yesterday that cops have become uncharged murderer’s. I will receive a number of contrary comments tomorrow. However, I agree with the uncharged murderer’s label.

June Hudson…..Don’t break a leg! You will never make it back to the Keys!

Enjoy your day!

 

5 comments on “SNOWBIRDS RETURN

  1. “There have been many police/black shootings. More blacks killed than police officers. Most officers not indicted. I read somewhere yesterday that cops have become uncharged murderer’s. I will receive a number of contrary comments tomorrow. However, I agree with the uncharged murderer’s label.”

    That is a VERY broad brush to paint all police officers with Lou, as murderers. The Officer Down Memorial has 50 officers murdered so far this year. Not much in the news about it as their deaths don’t matter, not sensational, no ad sales, no kids proetsting and no great publicity for Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton and who cares, it’s their job to die. That’s why their paid those big bucks. As for the husbands and wives and children they left behind? Who cares again right? Not sensational.

    We have an extremely stretched thin blue line between your retirement in KW Lou and a mob killing you and stealing everything you own. The problem is not just in the forefront, it is a deeper rot of a decaying moral cesspool of a culture with wealth owned by 200 families. Poverty breeds crime and all the “sainted” young men recently gunned down were hardly saints. But when poor and with no chances of any decent life, failed schools, usually no Father around and drugs and guns everywhere, what do we expect?

    Do I believe there are bad cops? Absolutely. Shooting a guy in the back 16 times? Murder in my book. But, as we will see in Baltimore as facts come to light rather than incendiary hate-filled rhetoric, our “victims” are more often than not their own perpetrators. Judging a police officer by a few snippets of video is like taking a video of the back of a float at Fantasy Fest and saying the parade sucked this year.

    Society is fragmenting with terrorism (where are the cops?) to way too many people, usually marginally insane and crazy people running around with guns (Cops better not shoot them as that would be murder).

    And every police officer is judged, Monday morning quarterbacked and second guessed on everything they do ad nauseaum. They also know their employers and departments will gladly throw them under a bus in a heart beat to save their own asses and pensions. Lawyers are great at that but I’d like to see a “suit” handle a crack crazed man armed with a butcher knife acting erratically all by himself. Not on TV, no bailiff to help. He’d pee his pants and try to call 911 while being slashed up. One day the cops may say “screw it” deal with him yourself and please don’t murder him, he is a decent human after all, despite the drug-infused craziness, weaponry designed to kill or maim you and non-compliance with any verbal orders. Treat him like the “saint” he is.

    • Marty…..

      Well done. Your position stated clearly and understood. We are diametrically opposed, however. I do not know the solution, the coming together, etc.

      The police shooting of blacks did not take place back in the early 1960s when I started practicing law. The police beat rather than shot blacks. Often, terribly. No one seemed to care. I tried criminal cases early on. I would have pictures evidencing my client’s injuries. Proof that his confession had been beaten out of him. No one cared. Judge nor jury. It was accepted that blacks be beaten.

      We have progressed. At least some care today that blacks are being shot. Primarily, other blacks. It is proper for them to yell from the roof tops the injustice. I do not subscribe to burn baby burn. Sometimmes it is the only way however to draw attention to an injustice.

      Confrontation can be good. It opens the door to addressing addressing an issue.The best confrontation is the type which involves you and I at the moment. Not the street kind.

      I respect Cara’s thoughts also. She speaks up for what she believes in.

      • No I agree Lou. We do have a systemic problem. I just wanted to express my thoughts as a retired law enforcement officer who never shot or injured anyone despite others not being so kind to me. Unfortunately, police are but the tip of the spear of much deeper long-simmering issues.

        You and I can respectfully have differing positions but at least we do so with courtesy and honesty. If only our Congress would get that memo.

  2. http://www.ijreview.com/2015/12/491139-chicago-black-lives-matter-leader-has-an-anti-cop-message-that-has-everyone-confused/?author=jp&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=owned&utm_campaign=police&utm_term=ijamerica

    Its not just Black Lives Matter, its now Black Futures that matter and must be funded. And here I was thinking they were already being funded.
    Since gun free zones don’t work, maybe we should start cop free zones and see what happens.

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