"The Parents of a "Conch"" a Key West Travel Page by grandmaR

One of the REAL Conchs is Mario Sanchez. In his 40s he started doing pictures of Key West as it was in his childhood. He carves the pictures and then paints them. He has signed some of the pictures which are on sale at the East Martello tower. My husband loves these pictures, so I bought him this signed print, and bought each of the children an unsigned print. The original pictures of course would be beyond my pocketbook.

In January 2001, when we were living on our sailboat on a mooring, we rented a car and drove down to the lighthouse, and parked, and I took pictures of it.

When we lived in Key West in 1968, I started painting in oils. My first picture was of the Key West lighthouse (which is right in town at 938 Whitehead St.). At the time I painted this picture, I was pregnant with my third child.

[She was later born at the Naval Hospital here on the island. We tell her that that makes her a Conch although Palla has humorlessly pointed out that really you can't be a conch until your family has been here for generations.]

We found a post card of the lighthouse before it was renovated in 1985, and it was cream/tan then just like my picture (inset). Now it is white.I also tracked down the Key West conch houses in the other picture I painted (opposite the park at the east end of Truman) and took pictures of them. You can't see them as well now - the trees have grown.

We returned to Key West in December 2001 for the 2001-2002 winter, but we didn't take a mooring this time but went into a marina at Boca Chica. We left for the

Bahamas in January 2002.

In the winter of 2003-2004, we were in a marina in Marathon and made the trip 'to town' about once a month. Last winter (2005), we come down by car and stayed on the Air Station for two weeks. I even climbed the lighthouse.