G’Day Mate!

June 29, 2009

Craig

Izzy

G’Day Mate!

Hide n Seek

One thing about living in Key West is that you get used to saying goodbye to friends. The transient nature of the place makes goodbye parties a fairly popular event and something that any long time resident has done many times. Goodbye parties are only slightly more common than welcome back parties as people find their way back eventually.



Tara & Carla

Hopefully someday we can welcome back the latest of our friends to celebrate a going away party, but I have a feeling that it may be some time before that happens as the Jones family is moving slightly farther away than the typical departure, all the way to Australia.

George





Craig Jones & I have known each other most of my 18 years in Key West and we have been through a lot together. For years, he took care of our dog India when we went out of town and he and his dog Sparky were a familiar site around Key West. He spent time working for Mel Fisher, diving for treasure before moving on to work at RPM Nautical where he hired me three years ago after Reef Relief ran into financial
problems.

George, Randy, Ellen & Carla

He met his lovely bride, Jodie, while working overseas and they returned to Key West to get married and start a family. Though he left RPM, we have remained in touch as his children have been attending the Key West Preschool and Jodie has been working there with Kathy.



The going away party coincided with their daughter Izzy’s 5th birthday and it was naturally held on the beach at Ft. Zack, which had become the favorite kid’s party location on the island. There were three kids parties going on while we were there. This one was fun and will hopefully create a nice final memory of Key West for the family before they embark on an exciting new chapter in their lives. Jodie is a native of Australia and it will be a happy homecoming for her and a chance for her family to not have to travel thousands of miles to see the kids.



Shrimp Night

The going away party capped a strange and crazy week for us, one that saw some emotional ups and downs with funerals and a wedding and more. We did manage to sneak in a couple of more normal activities, heading over to the Tuesday night $5 Shrimp Night at the Ocean Key House and going down to see some music at the Hog’s Breath Saloon as Matt Guitar Murphy was there for the week.



Kathy

Matt “Guitar” Murphy is still going strong at 81, most will remember him as a member of The Blues Brothers band. In the films, he played Aretha Franklin’s husband and the cook at their soul food restaurant. He still sounds pretty good and it was fun to see a true Blues legend playing here.

Matt "Guitar" Murphy