Less than an hour ago I was exciting the Winn Dixie Shopping center onto North Roosevelt Boulevard in Key West at a controlled intersection. An older adult male was riding his bicycle on the opposite side of the street continued to ride across the intersection long after the light changed. Then he abruptly turned to cross the street in compliance with a directional light. He did not interfere with any of my driving. But he clearly violated the law and potentially put his safety and that of others in his hands.
We all see people do something like that every day. I drove to my office to pick up signs and balloons for my open house yesterday morning. There must have been a couple of hundred people walking on the sidewalks and either eating in or standing in front of restaurants waiting to get a table. Maybe ten percent were wearing face masks which are required in Key West. I guess the other ninety percent are invulnerable to Covid 19. This blog is not about Covid. It is about not following rules.
I knew Joey One Pants for about 20 years. He was the night clerk at one of the hotels in Old Town. He and I were both born in 1947. He went to Viet Nam. I dodged the draft along with Clinton and Trump. Joey was kind of slow. His slowness agitated me. I can't abide slow people. He was a miser. He saved and invested his money. He had no children or siblings.
About five or six years ago he was riding his bicycle at that same intersection mentioned above. He rode thru the intersection disobeying the traffic light and got hit by a car. He was airlifted to Miami. People I know who knew him said they were certain he would die. But he didn't. I don't know who paid for the helicopter ride. I think it is about $70,000. He stayed in Miami for quite awhile recovering from his injuries. He eventually returned to Key West. He had lost his job and finally retired.
He lived in an apartment somewhere. I think it was in Mid-town. Then Hurricane Irma happened. Joey One Pants stayed. He had nowhere to go or to be with. A day or two after the storm one of the guys at the hotel where he used to work went to Joey's place to make sure Joey was okay. Joey was not there. The door was unlocked but not open. The guy went back again. Nobody but the guy from where Joey used to work cared about him. The guy from work went to the Key West Police Department to report Joey One Pants was missing. As I recall the story, the police were not actually back in business at that time. Many had evacuated the city and went north. I think the guy convinced a cop to take a look. The guy gave the police Joey's description.
The guy from work called the police a couple times to see if they had heard anything about Joey. No, they hadn't.
A few weeks later the police called the guy from work. They located the unclaimed body of an old man in the morgue. The body was found by the side of a road after the storm passed. The guy went over. It was Joey One Pants.
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| Found on the internet |
