Month: May 2017

Remember my blog on civil discourse. Obviously, nobody read it except my dear correspondents. This is so sad, and dangerous.  Since my last blog civil discourse has gotten worse, not better.

So where do we go from here. First, just try listening next time you find yourself with someone who is pontificating. Too many people are in transmit mode, not in listening mode. Transmitting is fun. Listening is hard. What does pontificating mean anyway. Sometimes I find myself using a word I don’t exactly know the meaning of, but it sounds right. I looked it up.  It means expressing one’s opinions in a way considered annoyingly pompous and dogmatic. Not to put too fine a point on it, but it’s not good. Pontificating, not good.

So, what else can I say about this subject. Actually, I can say this. Most people don’t know how to stay on the subject. Now, in casual friendly gatherings, getting off the subject is OK, particularly if you have been drinking, but at least one should try to connect what dazzling thing you’re about to say with the conversation happening in front of you. See what I mean I’m off the subject already. It’s so easy to do. So back to the subject which is civil discourse.

One of the best things to know in civil discourse is when to keep your mouth shut. This is hard to do, especially when something is coming out of your mouth that you have not thought through. At these times, it is good to have someone with you that signals you to shut up, by placing two fingers across his mouth.

This brings us to the subject of lies. Think about how many kinds of lies there are. There is the little white lie, not really a lie, just sort of a mini good natured fib. Then there is “no lie” at the end of a “good story” that means “you can take that to the bank.” Then there is a damn lie which is serous indeed and probably vaguely threatening. There is the tall tale which is probably not true but can be entertaining none the less. A whopper is a lie so ludicrous that it is probably true. And last, an untruth occurs frequently when someone is trying to alter or exaggerate the facts to fit his narrative. It is usually not malicious, just someone trying to over make a point.

Now back to civil discourse.  It is in tatters. I like to know what’s going on in the world but my brain is being drained by the inane chattering of professional pundits. My TV viewing has been reduced to watching the weather report and Turner Classic Movies, and my newspaper reading to the funnies. This regimen preserves my equanimity. I am blissfully unaware of what is happening in the world, but I do know when the sun sets and what phase the moon is in and if it will rain tomorrow or will I be able to go to the beach, important stuff like that. All is peaceful and bright.

I think that the news today is about entertainment and ratings.  A century or so ago, we hardly knew what happened in our own neighborhoods.  Today we hear about all the things that are happening in the world.  I remember being in London in the 1980’s and on TV there was a man talking about the weather in China. I said to Peter, I didn’t know they had weather in China. Sounds silly, but I really had to adjust my thinking to the realities of a larger world.

Back to civil discourse. See how hard it is to stay focused when you have the floor. Seriously, in conversation we really do need to listen to each other and I mean really listen, not be thinking about what your next bright or amusing utterance will be. Comment on what is said so the conversant knows that he wasn’t just taking to the wall, a positive comment if possible or an “I hear you but have you thought about?” whatever you’ve just thought about to add to the conversation. So when all is said, you both come away from the conversation with a good feeling of having had your say, but also possibly of learning something. So, there is my Pollyannaish admonishment of the day.

Speaking of conversation, I’m thinking of starting a  salon made up of a few special friends, meeting monthly. I wish you all lived near.  Alas.

Previously, I wrote extensive blogs about my Uncle Fred and Aunt Sarah. After meeting and marrying, they lived in Key West for a while in the twenties. You might remember that Uncle Fred was a young merchant marine man when he met my Aunt Sarah in Key West. He later became a Harbor Pilot on Tampa Bay in Florida. But when he was in Key West after marrying Aunt Sarah in the 1920’s, he became friendly with Captain Smith. So, what has all this all to do with the Audubon House? Be patient and I will tell you.

Uncle Fred in later years whisked my Aunt Sarah away from Key West. The family was not happy as they had recently bought them a house for back taxes. You could do that back then. So, Sarah and Fred left Key West and went to live in Tampa. Uncle Fred and Aunt Sarah often visited us; and as a child, I remember oftentimes during the visit Uncle Fred would stand up and say, I’m going to see Captain Smith.”  He said that Captain Smith lived in a small room at the top of a big house on Whitehead Street. This was in the early fifties long before the Audubon House was bought and restored. All these years I have thought that Captain Smith was a caretaker. Today I found out he was a great grandson of Captain John Geiger who built the “Audubon House” in the 1850’s.

In the Key West Citizen ”Today in Key West” section I read something that brought some of the pieces of my past together. It said, “1885:  John Geiger died in Key West. He was born in St. Augustine in 1807 and came to Key West as a pilot for Commodore David Porter in 1823. He was the first licensed harbor pilot In the State of Florida. Geiger, was a master wrecker and built what is now known as the Audubon House.”

I looked up John Geiger on the internet and came up with some sketchy information.  On Ancestry.com one entry said that when visiting the Audubon House the curator told her that when John Geiger Sr. passed on, there were two sons who drank themselves into a stupor and would never enter through the front door. Instead they had a ladder which they used to enter through a window on the second floor. There’s a story there, but I don’t know it.  Anyway, the last resident of the “Audubon House” was William Bradford Smith, the grandson of Urania Geiger, one of John Geiger’s eight daughters. Captain Smith was also a sometime Harbor Pilot which is probably how Captain Enno, my uncle, got to know him in the 1920’s. He became very reclusive in later years, but it is said that he was very sociable with people he considered friends. It’s just that he didn’t have many of them. I think Captain Enno, was his friend and visited him every time he came to Key West.

Willie Smith was the last Geiger to live in the “Audubon House” and he was an interesting figure. He didn’t go out much and lived on the second floor of the house without electricity or running water. When he needed food he lowered a basket on a rope for someone to fill, Who? When it was dark he pulled it up. During WWII, when Willie was a  harbor pilot, German submarines patrolled the Straits of Florida between Cuba and Key West. It  was reported that there were ships on fire out there most nights. There were thousands of ships in and out of Key West in those days.

When Willie Smith died in 1956, the once grand house was derelict and on the verge of falling down. It was about to be demolished in 1958 and a gas station opened on the property. A Key West native and Miami businessman, Mitchell Wolfson, bought it and restored it. It was  opened as a historic attraction in 1960.

Most of the people in Key West during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were involved in wrecking or salvaging of shipwrecked craft, either legitimately or as scavengers or pirates. The pirate angle has been played down in recent years, as history often bends to the conceits of the historian; but this doesn’t stop Peter from telling anyone who will listen that I’m descended from a long line of swash-buckling ocean-going smartly-dressed pirates. Faint praise indeed. Many of the old houses in Key West still have lookouts above their top floors where people would watch with spy glasses for ships foundering on shoals. The first rescue boat that arrived got to claim the salvage and take their booty to the powers that be to be sold at auction, the wrecker getting 25 to 50 per cent, depending on the difficulty of the rescue effort. Most of the wreckers became quite wealthy.

So why is the Audubon House not called the Geiger House. Well I guess Mr. Audubon visited there sometime in the 1830s and made some beautiful drawings (lithographs) of birds in the Florida Keys. Actually, I read somewhere that he never visited the house. During the two weeks, he was in Key West drawing birds, he lived on a boat because of the Yellow Fever epidemic raging at the time. A number of Audubon originals can be seen there and furnishings of that era in Key West. The gardens out back are spectacular. You can take a tour.