A Parrothead's Journeys

In August 2001 I made a solo (sans wife and kids) journey to Key West to emergency housesit for friends for one week at their William Street home in Olde Town Key West. Rough gig. Feed the cat twice a day, bring in the mail and add a chlorine tablet to the pool every 2nd day. The housesitting gig was something that my wife and I had done in June/July for 7 consecutive years for these friends, but this was the first time I did it solo.

I had all these great plans for that week. I was going to go skydiving at Sugarloaf Airport. I was going to rent a jet ski are circle the island. I was going to go snorkeling again. Maybe even pull a Papa Hemmingway and go marlin fishing.

Instead I probably spent 70% of my waking hours sitting on bar stools. Oh well .... the best laid plans of mice and men (or something like that).

Anyhow, on about my 5th day there I learned that there was going to be a semi-private 85th birthday party for Captain Tony Tarracino at the Conch Republic Seafood House on August 10th. You know, in nearly 18 years of visiting Key West and going to Captain Tony's Saloon, I had never had the chance to meet him. Every time I was there they would always say "You just missed him. He was here this morning/last night/two days ago".

Now after all of these years I was almost considered to be a local by several of the locals (at least by those employed or otherwise involved with the bar establishment businesses), so I was able to wrangle my way into the birthday festivities. The house I always stayed at in Olde Town was on William Street between Caroline Street and Eaton Street, and only about a 3 block walk over to the Conch Republic Seafood House (near the Schooner Wharf and Jimmy's Shrimpboat Sounds studio).

The party was a Friday afternoon shindig scheduled to begin about mid-day-ish Island Time. I showed up about 12:30pm and found a seat at the outdoor bar next to a couple of guys. One was a white haired gentleman probably about 60 years old. The other was a teenage kid, maybe about 15 years old.

"So .... do you think Captain Tony will show up today for his own birthday party?" I asked in a wise-ass kind of way to these two guys at the bar.

"Yeah ... Dad ought to be here in an hour or so" they both said. Yep. Both of these guys about 45 years apart in age were sons of Captain Tony.

As Captain Tony's own website will tell you, he is "the father of thirteen children by three wives". Well I'm guessing that I met one of the oldest and one of the youngest that afternoon.

I was able to get Tony to personally autograph one of his posters. The one with his most famous quote: "All you need in this life is a tremendous sex drive and a great ego. Brains don't mean a shit". Helluva guy that Captain Tony.