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Fort Taylor Pyrate Invasion, Dec 2014 - Key West, FL
Chapter 2: Thursday, December 4th Evening - On what happened when attempting to leave the
Photo: Poppa Ratsey - You Don't Cross Scarlett Jai
fort for dinner; stopping at the condo and a bit about that; Christmas lights in Key West (which is just odd); dining at the author's favorite restaurant in the world (seriously) as well as musing on the wait staff and other things of note there; gathering round the campfire back at the fort (which is also just odd, and yet I keep doing it every year) and what happened there.
Dutch, Grace and I had agreed to leave for dinner at 6pm. However, at the appointed hour, we found the fort was on lock down, with Scarlett Jai guarding the exit. See, the park closes promptly at sunset each day to the public and we pirates are required to stay inside the fort walls while the park rangers force any of the hoi polloi who dawdle on the grounds to leave, post haste. If you aren't inside the fort, you are likely to be swept out the front gate with the rest. Which, now that I think about it, is exactly what we wanted! It would have been logical to let us just be swept out so we could return after dinner. But Scarlett Jai was at the gate, keeping us all inside and you just don't argue with Scarlett, however logical your point might be. (No. You don't.)
Photo: Mission - MY Pull Shade, Still in the Condo
After a bit of silly back-and-forth at the exit of the park with the crew on gate guarding duty, we were released and made our way back to my condo in the van. Grace admired the condo, explaining that she and her husband (who was in the Navy) had once tried to get stationed here when the condos were naval officer quarters. This surprised me because I had not realized they had been naval officer condos, although it made perfect sense given their proximity to the naval base, uniformity in design and layout.
Grace had been warned if they did get stationed there, the quarters would be small given her husband's rank. I don't known what naval officers are used to, but I could be perfectly content living in this condo, even if I had to sacrifice a few of my stored possessions. (What good are stored possessions to you really? I have several things which I have moved to three different locations without them every having left their packing boxes.) Even if the amount of space were an issue, this condo has the room darkening pull shade that I installed in 2011 and that alone makes it worth living in.
I completed my task at the condo and we headed for the restaurant on foot. Dutch and Grace
Photo: Mission - The Charlie Brown Christmas House in Key West
said that they had not had much opportunity to see Key West in their previous two trips and were looking forward to a more relaxed journey this time, with the opportunity to do things like walking through the neighborhoods of Key West outside the fort on the way to dinner.
It is quite a pleasant journey from the condos to Café Sole through the lovely jumbled conch houses. I showed them the amazing house of many Christmas lights which features in several of these journals (by way of proof: 2011, 2012, 2013). Dutch made a study of this house, admiring each animated light display – Santa catching a fish in a rowboat, Frosty rowing a boat and a variety of fish swimming from one side of the house to the other. Grace noticed a Charlie Brown decorated house on the other side of the street which had several wooden cutouts of the characters along with a broadcast of the Charlie Brown music over an unseen speaker. It had probably been there all along, but the Christmas lights house is just so overpowering...
Dutch and Grace also admired the gingerbread on the houses, including one with gingerbread men gingerbread. (Gingerbread, gingerbread, gingerbread.) For those who don't know, in addition to being a rather marginal dessert and building medium for small dwellings, gingerbread is also the name given to the trim on the outside of houses - seen under the gables, in decorative corner pieces and on porch molding. It's kind of a thing on several Key West homes which are decorated with a variety of unusual gingerbread cutouts including liquor bottles, crabs, parrots and whatnot. (Look here if this fascinates you for some odd reason.) Some of this is even mentioned on the Conch Train Tour, which I recommend if you want to be the consummate Key West tourist.
 Photo: MissionThe Amazing Christmas Lights House in Key West. (Every year there is something new!) |
 Photo: Mission Gingerbread Men Gingerbread |
Café Sole proved once again to be all that I had promised. (It is my favorite restaurant in the world, after all.) I explained how it used to have a rather different canvas roof before a storm tore it off and they replaced it with a less cozy version. The hostess overheard me and she noted that the owner had bought the new canvas at a bargain because it had Star Wars characters on one side. We looked up, but the hostess explained they were on the outside of the canvas. "But sometimes, when the sun is out, you can still see some giant monster or something peering through it." She made a face to indicate that this was something that should be replaced, but I don't think I could have heard anything that would have made the place more dear to me.
Talking with Dutch and Grace I learned that their educational wooden boat the Luna of the Colonial Seaport Foundation was well under way and someone had recently donated a quantity of fiberglass which was just what that they needed for the project. They had also managed to procure wood for the masts and the sail plans were at the sail makers. So the project is proceeding apace. Dutch said that some of his fellow project workers, "who have never
Photo: Mission's Camera -
Cafe Sole Coffee Toast (None of Us Drink)
built a boat from scratch before", had expected to have the craft to be completed in a year or two. Dutch knew better, figuring it would be more like 5-7 years... perhaps more. Since the project is all volunteer and everyone involved works, things move slowly along.
It was a delightful time and we all enjoyed each other's company, talking over this and that and everything in between. Before leaving, I must reveal what the waiter thought. Before I do that, I must explain something else, mostly because it is a curious detail that interested me.
When I first started coming to this restaurant (say in about 1995 or so – I am not sure of the precise date), the wait staff was primarily young women such as you find in fine restaurants everywhere. A change occurred at some indeterminate point and it came to be staffed primarily by young Eastern European men.
Not Our Waiter. Not Even Close
Grace explained that this had to do with some program where folks are brought over and paid rather meanly, living on tips. She guessed that it was the owner's discovery of that program that reflected the change in personnel. I am guessing that the tips in a single night at a restaurant like Café Sole almost certainly exceeded what they could make in their home country in a month. Then again, Key West is an awfully expensive place to live.
Dutch and Grace then explained how they knew this. At one of their houses (they had had five houses at one point as a result of moving around so much for work and whatnot), the INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) had showed up and occupied one of Dutch's rooms. "They walked in and out like they owned the place," Grace explained.
They were watching a house nearby where a couple of men who were enrolled in the same sort of work for tips program were living. Now I should note, for those who do not know or recall, that Dutch is a policeman. No doubt this had something to do with why the INS chose him. They had become involved in the affair when a young oriental woman ran screaming from the house where the men lived, going to a 
Also Not Our Waiter - "Now is Ze Time Vhen Ve Dance"
neighbor's house, begging to be let in. A man or two from the suspect house was hot on her trail, so the neighbor let her in and allowed her to make a call. Enter the INS. Dutch and Grace never heard the whole story, but they believed the men were involved in human trafficking in some form.
But I digress. My original point was that our waiter was a young European man. (Most likely not one who was into human trafficking or Sprockets, but I have to use what I have here.)
Now to what the waiter thought. At one point, Grace laughed and told us he had winked at her. She figured the waiter probably thought we were together, planning a ménage à trois as an digestif. (It is Key West, after all.) We laughed about that and continued dining. At the end of the meal, to simplify matters, Grace offered to pay because she owed Dutch money for something. She said I would no doubt have an opportunity to pay her back before the end of the weekend. So if the waiter only suspected we were together, he probably felt assured his suspicions were correct when the woman at a table with two men paid the bill!
We made our way back to camp, braving the gate guarding crew (which had changed from the previous gate guarding crew) when the usual ration of guff about letting us in had to be played out. Once in camp, we found Iron Jon, Steve and Captain Jim (captain of the Mercury) all gathered around a campfire.
Mission Admiring Faith's Hair
Jeremy Nichols, Dave Neville and Tim Clark had arrived and were nearby as well. (Regular readers will remember Jeremy, Dave and Tim from their profiles in the Put-in-Bay Journal this year.) Tim was on the phone with Faith Stahl, who is a member of his crew (the crew of the Medusa) talking quite animatedly about his mustache while Jeremy and Dave added wry comments from the peanut gallery.
Apparently, Tim and Faith have a competition going to see who gets more compliments - Tim for his handlebar mustache or Faith for her golden-blonde hair (which Jessica Bagley told me are "cascades of liquid gold.") Tim was boasting that he had already received 5 or 6 compliments on his 'stache since arriving and was bragging about how he was going to win and Faith was going to lose. (I have the distinct impression that Faith's interest in participating in this 'contest' is a little less vigorous than Tim's, but she's the sort that would be a good sport about the whole thing.)
Mission Examining Tim's Badly-Named Mustache
For some reason, Tim named his handlebar General Patton, which I find distinctly odd given that Patton was bald and sans lip hair. (Tim told me it was because Patton was so manly. FYI, Patton did not sound anything like George C. Scott, but was "rather high-pitched and crackly, more resembling that of business magnate H. Ross Perot" - Biography for George S. Patton, imdb.com. So... manly. Right. But I digress...) Not to wander too far away from the main point, but I decided to go to the Medusa crew's annual Christmas Celebration (2 weeks after the Fort Taylor event) to examine the two entrants in this contest. This was all purely ceremonial, however. An appealing blonde girl's hair will always beat any man's facial hair in this surgeon's book.)
While I was listening to Tim boast to Faith on the phone, Michael Bagley appeared with his wife Jessica. I had no idea Jessica was coming! She hugged me (twice in fact), something she insists upon doing ever since I made it clear I was not a hugger. I left the rest of them to their teasing of poor Faith.
Photo: Poppa Ratsey
Lucky/Jhode/Jodi-Lynn at the Fort
Because we had a fire in the Mercury camp, people appeared and disappeared throughout the night. Lucky Ulfbert (the artist formerly known as Jhode, even more formerly known as Jodi-Lynn, whom I profiled in the 2013 Eastport Surgeon's Journal), stopped by to talk up her upcoming event at Fort Rodman Pyrate Invasion in New Bedford, MA on July 10-12th of next year.
She explained that Fort Rodman is a two and a half story fort about ¾ the size of Fort Taylor. Jhode hopes to make it into a mid-year Fort Taylor-like event and is working industriously to make that happen. Many Fort Taylor
Photo: Poppa Ratsey
Something-Something Strega Something
regulars are already signed up to go next year. Apparently the town of New Bedford is focused on whaling and Jhode wants to use this event to bring out the town's privateering past into focus. It does sound like a lot of fun.
I was disappointed to learn that Ken Horton was not able to make the trip with Jhode. Several other people here had told her the same thing. Her voice wavered a bit dangerously as she talked about missing him so I decided to drop the subject.
She also introduced us to a rather boisterous woman who called herself by some impossibly long name which included Strega. I noted that this was Latin for 'witch' and she assured me it was actually Italian. (Actually, the Latin word is striga which is the origin for the Italian word.) She made a point of asking all our names and then repeated them at regular intervals like a clock striking the quarter hour to help her remember them. (Very subtle, that.) A most animated and excitable woman.
Since I wasn't drinking and had been out in the sun all day, I left for the condo before midnight. Truly a full day, given that the event hadn't even formally begun.
 Photo: Poppa Ratsey Jeremy, Dave, Tim and Michael Search the Ocean for a Sail |
 Photo: Mission The Mercury Campfire |