Letters to the editor with pictures since 2002.
Published on Big Pine Key’s garbage days, Tuesdays and Fridays.
The Un-social Media with 60,000 Followers
 [“Key Limes”] In the mid-1970s I’d go to Florence Wilson’s barbeque shack on Petronia Street, in what then was called Colored Town. I’d go there after the bars closed. She only opened at 11 or 12, I forgot which. You knew she was open when the bare lightbulb over the door of the shack was on. No signs, just the bulb. She was a big woman whose economy wig always needed adjusting. She used a cotton dish mop to coat the chicken, bbq, and porkchop sandwiches with her sauce. A chicken sandwich was two pieces of white bread with a leg or breast in the middle—skin, bones and all. If she liked you, you’d get a breast. The porkchop and rib sandwiches were the same. Bones and fat. She slathered everything with homemade bbq sauce with her mop. Her collards were the best and blackeyed peas were smoky good. I seldom had room for the sweet potato pie. Her husband would be just outside the back door leaning over a 55-gallon barrel with the top removed and wood burning inside. He had a scrap of expanded metal mesh on top of the barrel to hold the meat. That was his barbecue grill. He cooked the ribs while he nipped at a half pint of booze. Often in the corner table late at night a 10-year-old kid would be cutting Key limes in half from the neighborhood trees. She’d pay the local kids to collect and slice them. The shack was one room about the size of a bedroom. Half was Mrs. Wilson’s 6-burner commercial stove and counter. She bought the stove from Captain Conch who restored it from a Navy sale they used to have once a month. She had a counter separating the room. On the other side were four tables and a closet in the back corner. The closet had a toilet if you really had to go. Otherwise, it was best to hold it in until you got home. Next to the closet was the back door that was always open and where you could see Mr Wilson cooking and nipping. The yard was all dirt; not a blade of grass. Scattered around the yard was some extra equipment — waiting. Mrs Wilson always protected her drunk White customers. I’ve seen her go into action when one of us was hassled walking down Petronia Street. Man, she could create a storm. If humans had tails, you would have seen them tucked in tight as her targets scattered, not to be seen again. |
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[Key Lime Pies] I just read in Readers Digest where key lime pies are green and made from limes grown in lime groves in the Florida Keys. They showed a pie with whipped cream pipes around the edge not the baked meringue as is the real thing. |
| [Windows 11] We’re expecting to get a first look at Microsoft’s latest operating system this week. In the meantime, here are all the rumors on what new features the big update could include. Video |
 [Darn Electric Scooters] Zooming at least 30 mph, darting in and out of traffic. You get in an accident with one (making a full stop at a right on red, turning — kaboom). Scooter person makes no effort to stop, or even look around to see if it’s safe. Great, your vehicle is tied up at an auto body for at least 3 weeks. The scooter driver has no insurance, no nothing. Lives under a bridge, clothes on his back. Now your insurance is paying to just get your vehicle back in service. Can the laws grow some teeth in which the car owner is not screwed because of some knucklehead? |
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| [Must Have Landed in Liberty City by Mistake] We just flew in and looked at these Keys and they look like the islands of some 3rd world shithole. Million dollar homes in a ghetto. |
[Opinion on Trans Gender] If you want to cut your balls off do it, but don’t ask my family to pay for it. Got that? |
| [Spam] The thing is, if you go to any website and give your email address, you will receive junk mail from that site every day for the rest of your life. It’s best to have a “throw-away” web address for this purpose. Some sites will send 3 or 4 in one day, every day! |
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[“Key Limes”] I had a chance years ago to buy Nellie’s & Joe’s Key Lime Juice business for $3000. That was a good price at the time but when I read the ingredients I backed away. The ingredient list looked like a pharmacy and the juice was made with foreign limes and very high doses of salt and preservatives. It tasted like artificial lime juice and nothing like Key limes. |
| The most dangerous animal in the world is a silent smiling woman. |
 Freedom of the press or freedom of the media is the principle that communication and expression through various media, including printed and electronic media, especially published materials, should be considered a right to be exercised freely. Such freedom implies the absence of interference from an overreaching state; its preservation may be sought through constitution or other legal protection and security. |
| [Benzine] In the past people would wash their clothes in benzine because the dyes used at that time would wash out in soap and water. |
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| [Oops Department] Deer Ed, May 18? It’s June! |
 [Loops On Grocery Carts] Yes, you can fit a lot of stuff in your grocery cart, but most people don’t realize that there are loops that help to frame the fold-out section of carts to help protect the items in your cart. With these loops, you can hang plastic bags that are carrying vulnerable items like eggs and bread that you don’t want to get squished by heavier items. Clearly, whoever designed grocery carts was well ahead of their time. In fact, even check out people who bag your groceries and put them in your cart may not even be aware of this neat function. |
| [Harsh Rebuttal] “Whooville” Sounds like you’re the one doing all the “Whining” Where did you originally move to the Keys from – Jerksville, USA? Good riddance. I pity those who you now live among. |
[Prostate] Michael Douglas told Alan Arkin, “I pee in Morse code.” |
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| [Scam Of The Day] Greetings, We are pleased to inform you that an amount of £3,600,000.00 million Pound sterling (GBP) has been donated and given, gifted to you and your family by Frances & Patrick Connolly Family from County Down in Northern Ireland, who won the Euro Millions jackpot, lottery of £115m Euro Millions, part of this donation, it is for you and your family. This donation is to help fight against Corona Virus COVID -19 pandemic in the world, and help the poor people off the streets, also to contribute to poverty reduction, public donations, public charity, orphanages, less privileged and help poor individuals in your community please contact her to claim the money via email for more details. |
I go through a bottle of Lea and Perrins Worcestershire Sauce every few months. I guess you don’t drink a Bloody Mary every morning or make Shepherds pie or beef stews as often as me. |
| I see people my age out there climbing mountains and zip lining and here I am feeling good about myself because I got my leg through my underwear without losing my balance. |
It used to be that Hollywood would use American actors when they needed a Chinese man. (They used to do the same for American Indians. I recall seeing Italian Indians with hairy chests). I remember Charles Bronson, Marlon Brando, Boris Karloff and Sidney Toler (Charlie Chan) playing Chinamen. |
| Children’s name used to all be biblical until the 1970s when Blacks started making up names like Latisha and Whites would rename themselves after flowers and spell their given name differently. |
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