Category Archives: Humor

Entertainment Television Announces North Korean Coup

A Letter To Hemingway
Dear Ernest,

I thought of you the other day as I drove down Whitehead Street and nearly ran over a family of tourists. They had stepped out from between the parked cars to take pictures of your house. Your brick wall is still there. I always like to speculate about the wall. Was it to keep the tourists out as you worked? Now it keeps them in. It also keeps in the cats. I bet you would never have thought they would name a type of cat after you, but it wasn’t the African lion. Too bad. By the way, no one lives in your old house anymore. It is a tourist attraction. Remember when you wrote in “To Have and Have Not” that they were going to starve out the Conchs to make room for tourists? Turns out you didn’t have to worry about the Conchs. They ended up being a lot smarter than you thought.

In case you come back, you’ll need to know that Sloppy Joe’s moved a block away. You’ll see it — if you can fight your way through the cruise ship hordes on any given day. You’ll be glad to know that writers are still here. Some of them have been pretty damn good, too. Speaking of the Conchs, you’ll be glad to know they are pretty much over the cruise ships. They voted against widening the ship channel. It’s something, but I guess the door isn’t completely closed on that issue. You could still get Pilar in and out, but you would have to get over your habit of shooting sharks. You probably learned your lesson that time you shot yourself in the legs.

I am writing because I am sure that you have been very busy, what with settling into Heaven and all. I imagine it takes some time to re-connect with family, parents, children, wives, ex-wives and so on. It could take quite a while to balance it all out. It’s funny, but when I think about it, you felt the same way about Key West as the rest of us. You get caught up in the place. You feel so much at home that you become a little possessive. You are surprised by how welcome and at home you feel. Even though you believe you are choosing Key West, somehow Key West is choosing you.

So, because you have been out of touch for a while, I will bring you up to date. That way when you check back in, you won’t be too surprised. One thing to watch out for though — because it could seriously freak you out — is July. You might see a bunch of guys dressed like you running around town. It is weird, but I guess it’s the price you pay for fame, kind of like all those literary parodies. Then again, nobody writes parodies unless you have a style. I guess there is comfort in that. You had a style.

Sincerely,
M.A.

A Key West Christmas Tree Story

I am sure you have noticed them lying there, alone and forlorn at the side of the road. I don’t know about you, but I feel a twinge of guilt as I pass by and wonder if it could have worked out differently somehow. Was there something I could have done to help, some Good Samaritan-like act that would spare the carnage and shame?

There’s just something about a naked and abandoned Christmas tree lying in a ditch that makes us all a little uncomfortable. For a brief and glorious time those green firs and pines are the honored guests in our homes. We feed them and dress them and illuminate them and sit and admire them. Then, alas, their blaze of glory sputters and we give them the old heave-ho along with the crumpled wrapping paper and less-than-curly ribbons. Somehow, the treatment just doesn’t seem right….and yet all this talk is bringing back memories of Christmas trees past.

Years ago in Key West, Christmas trees were not so easy to come by. Shipments would arrive about a month or so before Christmas and then immediately sell out. There were never enough trees to go around; the people who sold them, no doubt, didn’t want to get stuck with any extras. If you didn’t claim yours early, you were out of luck.

Once, in the late 1970s, we missed out, even after searching everywhere. By December 23rd, we knew all hope was gone. I think Frank Zappa once said something about necessity and inventions. The necessity for invention, or at least improvisation, was upon us.

I am sure you know that some of the islands in the Lower Florida Keys have stands of what might be called “pine trees.” Upper Sugarloaf Key is one such island. We crossed the Cow Key Channel bridge northbound while visions of Christmas trees danced in our heads. With our trusty (and rusty) handsaw by our side, we soon crossed the shortest bridge in the Keys, the one over Harris Gap Channel. The almost-scent of the piney woods greeted us. We turned left onto Sugarloaf Boulevard and soon encountered dirt roads named after infamous pirates. This was the place. A quick pirate raid, and we would be on our way home with the cherished booty we desired.

From a distance, the vast forest really looked as if it contained real Christmas trees. But up close, they resembled Christmas trees’ undernourished, scrawny cousins. We searched and searched but alas, not a single tree sported enough greenery or foliage to even remotely pass for a Christmas tree. But then….Frank Zappa kicked in again and we knew what we would do.

We cut down two of the weakling cousins and intertwined their branches, doubling the effect to one of nearly passable un-scrawniness. (Fade to memories of my friend’s sister, who used to stare cross-eyed at the Christmas tree because, in her words, “it has twice as many lights this way!”). Soon we were back on the paved roads humming “O Tannenbaum” and imagining our skinny shrubs bedecked with oodles and oodles of tinsel and lights. We knew that the thin branches would bend and droop under the weight of even the lightest decorations. But we also knew that somehow we had saved Christmas.

The trees were not so sure.