Local Color

Marathon, FL
No LL

We prefer Marathon over Key West as a place friendly to boats and boaters. However, Key West is incomparable when it comes to local color.

• In yesterday's Key West newspaper, The Citizen, we read a letter to the editor. They letter noted that pirates in Somalia had collected $120 million in tax free income so far this year. What's more, they seemed to suffer no bad consequences and that all the world's navies couldn't hinder them. "Why can't the citizens of Key West follow this example?" said the letter
  
  
• It seems that all the homeless, nonconformists, and outcasts of society just head on down the highway to get away from it all. When they reach Key West, the highway dead ends and there they settle. You see lots of them walking the streets.
  
  Three times yesterday, we saw a relatively young but heavily bearded homeless man wandering the streets. He was wearing heavy jungle camouflage clothes, combat boots, and he had a guitar and a bed roll slung over his back. The last time however, I got a chance to see him up close.
  
  Those clothes, the boots, and the bed roll were crisp and new. They looked as if they were bought in Abercrombie and Fitch this morning. Even the beard looked fake close up. I bet that the truth is this young man just finished reading Jack Kerouac's On The Road and decided to play the role. Where else would he go, but Key West?