We Are All In The Same Boat

Local columnist and commentator Linda Grist Cunningham recently published a piece about the various kinds of “locals”. She ended by noting that “You’re local if you show up, do good and keep it between the rails.” I fully agree with that assessment, but to expand on what Linda wrote, Key West wouldn’t be Key West if we didn’t have a steady infusion of new residents and visitors. For better or worse, locals of various flavors and visitors need each other. We spend too much time drawing lines.

Laying aside the amorphous and often disputed expression “conch”, defining the term “local” can also be a lot trickier than it appears. Often, it simply isn’t a binary “yes/no” thing.

Full time locals

Certainly, those of us who live here all twelve months can properly claim the title, regardless of where we were born or previously lived.  But when I achieved that goal, I was, at first, at little dismissive of those who went somewhere else for the summer. I was overly proud of being a total full timer.  I don’t feel that way now.

After a summer or two I came to realize that a lot of “locals” (including some who can indisputably be called conchs) have get away places “up north.” I really don’t like to be off the island more than about a week at a time, but it’s not a mark of shame for others to take a break, even for months at a time, if one can do so. If you vote here, have drivers license (or ID card) with your local address, you are full time. If you choose to take an extended trip to Asheville or Cleveland, that’s not really anybody else’s business.

Seasonal regulars

Yes, most local businesses utilize a Florida driver’s license (or state ID card) with a lower Keys address to define “local” and that makes sense. But then there is another class of people who are here seasonally for months at a time (sometimes more than the statutory six months that supposed to define residency) who still cling to their “up north” license and voter registration. Over the past few years, I have come to especially appreciate them. I think of them as just a different kind of “local”.

Of the nineteen housing units in my neighborhood, only two are occupied year round. Two others have transient licenses, and the other fifteen are used seasonally or sporadically by their owners. Yet I treasure the purely seasonal residents as true neighbors and look forward to their return each fall. They clearly love the island, volunteer countless hours, and usually spend money is less destructive ways than transient tourists.

And the continuum goes on.

Next, consider the people who come back every year for a few weeks or a month. They have less time to volunteer, but they almost always also have a fierce loyalty to the island. As a Key West diaspora of sorts, they represent an untapped resource for political support in Tallahassee and Washington - and are often our ambassadors at large to the world. I’ve certainly made a number of friends from across the United States by chance encounters with this group. The fact that they’ll be back each year keeps those friendships going.

Then there are the true tourists.

What to say? Some can be clueless (and not especially interested in clues), boorish and intemperate. But that is not universal. Moreover, to the extent that the unflattering description is true, they are also a necessary nuisance.

I don’t subscribe to the line, often advanced by the Key West Chamber of Commerce and some lower Duval (as  in street numbers, not elevation) business owners, that there are no limits to the number of short term tourists that can be packed into downtown without degrading the environment, public safety, and the quality of life for everyone. But the misty eyed pseudo nostalgia for the lost time of closed storefronts and economic stagnation (think the 1970’s) is equally misplaced.

Key West is a vibrant community with theaters, an independent cinema, visits by a symphony, shows at the amphitheater, and nightlife opportunities usually unheard of in a town of less than 30,000 souls. We benefit from a cadre of highly educated retirees and (increasingly) still working talented folks who have realized that telework can often happen from anywhere – including a tropical island. When we do want to leave on a trip, we have an international airport with direct flights to major cities largely paid for by transient visitor ticket revenue.

So we need each other.

There is nothing more satisfying than the small town feeling of always recognizing friends on the street or at the grocer. One appreciates bingo at the Parrot, trivia at a local’s mid island locale, days with friends at Zach Taylor or on a sandbar, and all the other things that one gains by becoming full time.

Marvin Key

But it is the visitors that support the businesses and infrastructure that make it possible. Key West can no more go back to the neo-depression that made it so “quaint” and quirky in the 1970’s than it can keep on ignoring the real limits to growth and ecological degradation we now face.

Like a boating trip through the mangroves, charting a course for our city requires flexibility, a sharp eye for changing conditions, and attention to the bubba sticks other folks have left for us. High season is winding down and we’ll soon have the island more and more to ourselves. Most of us are ready for that. But by October we’ll also be ready to welcome cherished friends (and yes, free spending tourists) back. It’s the flow of life in a seasonal town.

Finding the course that allows businesses to flourish without destroying the environment and the quality of life we all cherish isn’t easy. But it will be easier if we always start such conversations with a recognition that we’re  all in this together and need one another.