The Key West Citizen

'AS OTHERS SEE US'—AND, IN THAT TOWN

PAUL WOOTEN in the Lebanon (Tenn) Democrat

A hot, coppery sheen bounced off the Florida Straits, and even behind dark glasses you screwed your eyes into a tight squint. An expanse of molten platinum spread its seething border against the rock-strewn fringe of the right-of-way. Ragged patches of white cloud hung low under the blue sky... Key West was an hour behind, and the little land crabs scuttled across the road in front of your car.

Sure, Key West sticks in your mind—and you don't know why. Nothing there now, except the naval station... nothing but the dry rattle of palms in hot streets... the eternally echoing death rattle of a town that died long ago... when the cigar factories moved to Tampa, and a hurricane blew the railroad away.

(You're not going home and sit down and write a column about all this, before you even unpack... you're done that already, too many times before. But suppose—you thought you go home and wait until some March night stacks ridges of white along dark bare branches... stretches icicles down from the eaves and pushes the mercury back in its bulb... then write your column; not now.)

Why couldn't we stick to something like Miami, and the cop on the County Causeway who said hello. Tennessee... Miami skyline pouring its neon into every line. February is gone... the sort of night we waited for hasn't come; another generation of frogs will be throbbing down in Sinking Creek before many more weeks go by, and if we're going to get any copy out of two August weeks in Florida we'd better do it before wild onions ruin the golf greens.

You could write a book on the Boardwalk at Daytona Beach, and another on the time we got caught in a storm out on the Spruce creek tidal flats. (Any time you start out alone in a boat, you can go hang up your storm shutters... and you'd better hurry.)

And, after six months, what did stick in our minds? Key West. Certainly Key West, with its big night-blooming cereus plants in drab, palm-crowded front yards... its weather-beaten houses staring blankly at empty, sun-blasted streets. A battered old schooner lying down by the docks, with three brown, under-nourished urchins diving into the water under her counter... The hotel, with its modern, beautiful lobby, dining room and bar... An hour in the old open-air aquarium—quiet, green and cool... The excited babble of Spanish that hung over the milling, sweaty, Saturday night crowd... A corner drugstore, open to the street on two sides. The hardware store clerk who sold us a hand line, rugged it himself, and bait that bottom-fishing near Key West was "Very amazing"... The wide and evidently once-beautiful concourse leading into the city limits... Palm-studded grounds of the U. S. Naval Station and it somehow made you think of white drill uniforms, punkahs and Kipling... The bell-hop who said it probably wouldn't rain before September... Ed Thorgenson, of New York sports commentator for the newsreels, and J. E. Sharp, New Kensington, Pa., president of a large northern aluminum company, also were guests of the La Concha hotel last night. Joseph Widener, nationally known Philadelphia sportsman and his party were guests of the La Concha hotel last night. Mr. Widener is owner of the Hialeah racetrack in Miami. The visitors are leaving today by boat for Havana.

Distinguished Guests At La Concha