In the winter of 1995 I was sitting in the back bedroom of my trailer in Kalamazoo Michigan. I had just come in from being under the trailer for the third time that week with a blowtorch to thaw my water pipes so I could take a hot shower and thaw out after a hard days work.
I didn’t have much then and I really hated being cold all the time. What I did have was my trusty computer to let me escape in my mind to all the wonderful places I could only dream about. I happened to type “tropical” in the little blinking search box, I really just wanted to dream about being anywhere that was warm, an island getaway.
What popped up really did amaze me. The Florida Keys… Huh?, Tropical? Florida Keys? the United States? Not Hawaii? You can DRIVE there? My brain did back-flips. I have traveled all over the world. I grew up traveling and I had never HEARD of the Florida Keys. How is that possible? I couldn’t recall a single geography lesson that mentioned them and I had to find out more!
Within a few days I had begun corresponding with a businessman who was actually looking for employees and I arranged a trip to the Keys. In November I was on my way to Key West. I found out a few things very quickly. Housing costs are sky high, good workers are hard to find, the food is phenomenal, they have a party for everything, and the oceans are beautiful.
Many people come to the Keys because they are enamored with its beauty while on vacation and want to live here. I did the very same thing myself, but there are three very different types of people in the Keys. The party crowd and the locals and the tourists. The party crowd usually doesn’t last long and new partiers move here live for a year, get bored, realize they can’t afford to party all the time (which makes it hard to hold a job) unless they have 4 jobs (which makes it really hard to party) and they leave, and the next rotation comes in.
Then there there are the locals, mostly self-referred to as transplants. In time, if they stay, they become “Conchs”. A Conch is a native shellfish, but also the term used to define a local. A true conch was born and raised here, the rest of us are transplants but still locals. I’m not quite sure when that designation is granted - but if you live here for more than 5 years without becoming disenchanted I think you qualify, oh and.. if you can’t wait 5 years - you can BUY your way to your title of conch. I will explain that another time…
Then there are the tourists. Tourism is our main economy, there just isn’t anything you can grow on a chain of rocks or manufacture because of the challenges of distance to bring in core materials. But we do have these.. The Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. So if you fall into the tourist category, you will have plenty to do, see, eat, and enjoy. Much of it courtesy of mother nature.
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