March 9 Friday Day 12

I called a brother of a schoolmate of mine Chuck Malby, he has lived down here for since June 1949. He also turned out to be a submarine sailor, or pig boat sailor. We chatted for awhile, turned out he didn’t know my Aunt whose house is on the front of the blog right now. He was busy tomorrow and we today, but as I said we had a nice chat. He graduated with Junior Traurig and did not know that my Aunt lived here. Nice to hear he goes to St. Mary’s church where we had a mass said for her. After our phone conversation we started off by going back downtown for more sightseeing.

We went along the far coast to catch the furtherest point south in the United States, by Higg’s beach. We picked up a bottle full of sand from this point for the girls to give to their teacher. At the beach we walked through the Key West Garden Club at Martello Fort. Many interesting flowers, they grow so much bigger when you have warm days, today 78 – 80, and 12 months to grow. A couple of noteworthy items, there were blue bottles of all shapes, sizes and depth of blue, that we placed upside down over the metal fence pickets. When we got closer we could hear the wind blowing across the mouth piece of the bottles and making a quiet whistle like we do when we blow over the top. This is a Cuban tradition.

We then walked down the path and there were many yellow ribbons tied to the fence as a symbol of a good wish, seeing there were no yellow cloths lying around I took a long stemmed yellow flower and tied it around the fence wire.
Further up the path was a heavy leafed bush called an autograph plant. Many leaves had names inscribed in them; we found a stick and carved our names with 3\9\07 MN in a leaf. They were also bringing in orchids for tomorrows show, many varieties.

We then went downtown to a butterfly exhibit, they were flying all around. There were many species of butterflies and birds.

We did find close-in parking spot for 2.50$ per hour or 16.50$ per day, it turned out we did the day thing. Behind where we parked we knew the restaurant “Turtle Kraals” was located. It was another place Aunt Vi had taken us for lunch and that is where we had lunch. Shirleen a 6 oz. grilled split lobster tail and I could not resist the deep fried oysters and a bowl of black beans. What can I say delicious with a Key lime margarita to wash the meal down.

Along side the restaurant was the turtle kraals museum. We found out that when we ate there in 1972 that the place quite doing the turtle butchering. And that the tower Shirleen was taken down. I seem to remember that Humphrey Bogart visited these places when doing some movie. We talked to the gal about Aunt VI’s shrimp boat “the St. Michael” named after her father. She said she did not know where a list of boats many be but that there were over 500 of them at one time. The shrimp boats no longer unloaded at the pier as they did in ’72. She said we should go to the library as a Tom Hambright, the local historian, may be able to help. Off we go with map in hand. It would be just a couple blocks away, if you could believe the directions we were given. A right not a left would have made it 6 blocks closer. When we arrived we were warmly greeted by Tom. He and his wife were in there mid 50’s. I also promised him that I would copy the picture of the St. Michael that Aunt Vi had given to us – someone remind me. He brought out the name list for obituaries and we found Lew’s. We then looked through the business books and found them listed in the Polk Co. City Directory of 1958 as owners of Poinciana Package Liquor Store. The previous book was 1952 and they were not listed in it and no books were published in between those years. The next two listing were 1961 and 1962, they were listed as shrimper for those years. From that date forward to 1973 she was listed only as a widow. In 1974 she was no longer listed, seem to remember she let John run the business for her. Ya, doing genealogy on our gypsy tour.

We were off to a guided tour of President Truman’s house. That was a grand visit and history lesson. He visited the place numerous times during and after his presidency. Along with other presidents – Taft, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Carter and Clinton. Like I said it was a history lesson. The house was used by two admirals’ but made into one house for Truman. There are five bedrooms and two are not open to the public but used by dignitaries as above. This again sounds easy but the maps were misleading and again we walked many blocks out of the way. The redeeming fact is that we walked trough The Truman Annex, a privately held rental area with beautiful homes, well out of my price range I am sure.
We went to Jim Buffet’s shirt shack, I wanted to buy one but nothing appealed. We then went past the first Sloppy Joe’s that Ernest Hemmingway frequented hanging on the ceiling were business cards, pictures of people and undergarments of various kinds. What a dive!!

All day long we saw chickens running in yards on the main street and the roosters crowing, even saw a mother with a small brood of chicks.

For a late afternoon snack at Fogarty’s, we split an order of Bruchetta Pomodoro, well seasoned tomato pieces, fresh mozzarella and ½ inch fired bread slices. Neat the way they put the 5 pieces pointing out to the rim of the plate with the mozzarella heaped in the middle. The thickness of the bread was just right and added to the eat ability. Washing this down with Shirleen’s strawberry daiquiri and my chardonnay.

Walking down the street we saw the hand printed fabric shop that Aunt Vi took us too. It turns out that they no longer print themselves, it is bought in China.

We then walked down to the other side of town, I forget if this was time 4 or 5?, to watch the sunset. This evening it was through thin clouds but striking.
Back to our lodging for the evening to plan tomorrows assault on our last day in Key West. 16,000 steps today, well over Shirleen’s 10,000 daily steps.