The Coconut Doctor Story

                                            The Coconut Doctor Story

                                                            2002

                                          Written 2010, Re-written 07/2016

                                                      A true story

                                                    Howard Yasgar

     In 1963 when I first started coming down to the Florida Keys, I noticed that a lot of the people there looked kind of strange, they looked like they were hiding from  somewhere.

     No matter where I went, in the Keys, so many of the  people looked the same.

     I heard other people talking about it, they  referred to it as the “Keys Look.”

     It was almost as if there was a dress code for the work force in the keys.

    Many of the guys had  dark tans, and an emaciated look.

     They had lots of tattoo’s, a dark tan, many had a pony tails, even if they didn’t have hair on the top of their head.

     They mostly wore tee shirts and raggedy “Cut off shorts”.

     Wearing  flip flops was the norm.

     This was a basic description of the Keys workforce.

     I hated to say it but a lot of them  actually looked like they escaped from a jail somewhere.

  You could always be assured of finding them in front of you, when shopping at the local  supermarket as they were always checking out a six pack of beer.

     It was easy to spot as they all looked similar.

    It was perhaps because of the laid back atmosphere in the Keys, but you had to wonder if they were there hiding in the Keys from something, or some one, as

everyone knew that lots of these guys were living in the woods for free.  

     Whenever any kind of service business opened up in the Keys, this was their labor pool.

   Now, as write this story forty years later, the hippy living days in the Keys are beginning to disappear, all these free spirits have had to get jobs, move, or open up small service companies.

     Yes, some of these guys have actually opened up their own businesses, and if you owned property in the Keys and needed something done, these guys were now who you had to deal with.

    It was common knowledge among homeowners, that if you hired any of these people it was a miracle if they showed up, or a miracle if they completed whatever it was that they were hired to do.

     It was called “The Keys disease”

  Now having a so many of these fellows in the local workforce has led to some interesting situations.

    In September of 2001, my wife Katherine and I had entered into a new adventure, by attempting the renovation of a really interesting piece of property in the Keys.

    How we had found the property was also an interesting story.

    We were living  in an area called “Plantation Key Colony” and whenever we would go fishing, we would take our boat onto the “Snake Creek” waterway to get us from the Gulf side of the Keys and under the Snake Creek bridge to the Atlantic Ocean.

  So, as we motored up Snake Creek with our boat, we had the opportunity to look at all the waterfront properties along the way.

   As we passed through an area called Venetian Shores, we were always attracted by a run down piece of property with a strange looking house on it.

   The house, actually had a boat slip built in under it, and the property had a lot of coconut palm trees on it.

   One day, while having coffee, my wife Katherine noticed that the property was for sale, so we went over to see it.

    Our intention was just to see this  place close up, that’s all, but the next thing I knew we owned it.

    We moved on to the property in September of 2001.

    As we started renovating the house,  we also started working on the landscaping.

    We counted 14 coconut palm trees on the property and they all needed trimming.

    Some palms were over forty feet tall.

    We knew that coconuts on palms trees are nice to look at, but during storms they  become cannon balls, so the prudent thing to do, is trim the coconuts off, especially before hurricane season arrives.

    However, on our new property there were so many tall trees that my wife knew that she would need assistance in the trimming and removing of all the coconuts off the trees.

   Most of the palm trees were so tall, it would be impossible for her to reach the tops, without renting a “Cherry picker”.       

    Our neighbors, told us  they used a local fellow to help them trim their trees and they were very happy with him.

   We were well aware that looking for a tree trimmer on our own, could lead to problems due to Keys disease.

   We knew that many of the tradesmen in the Keys were the remnants of the characters we had described earlier, and they were all known to be unreliable.

    Besides from this, there was also always the risk of hiring people you didn’t know to come onto your property.

  They said that they had the perfect guy called the “Coconut Doctor”, who did all their tree trimming.

    They said he always showed up on time and did a really good job, so what more could you ask for, I jotted down the Coconut Doctors  telephone number.

    That evening we drove about twenty miles North to shop at the Publix super market in Key Largo.

    The supermarket  was busy but, it was impossible for us to miss a fellow who was also going up and down the isles shopping.

    You couldn’t miss him because  he looked like a throwback to the hippie days of the 1960’s.

    We couldn’t help but watch him, and it appeared that everyone else in the store was also watching him as well.

    He was perhaps 50-60 years old, and he had graying hair in a ponytail.

    He was wearing a black tie dyed shirt.

    He was obviously a holdover from the old days, a real Keys character.

   As the fellow was leaving the store I saw that on the back of his shirt was the name “Coconut Doctor”.

  A week later, despite our reservations, my wife Katherine called the Coconut Doctor  for an appointment.

    She told him that she would like an estimate for trimming all of our coconut palms.

    We were surprised when the “Coconut Doctor” actually showed up.

    He carefully looked the trimming situation over, then he quoted my wife his price to do the job.

    It was then that I came over to meet him myself.   

  The Coconut Doctor said, “You should be very careful in the Keys, as most of the tradesmen working here are alcoholics or drug users, I know because I was one of them. but I have been drug free for over 8 years.”

   A couple of weeks later, it was time to call the Coconut Doctor to come over and do the trimming.

   So, on a Friday evening I called him up.

   After reminding him several times who we were, he said that he remembered talking to us.

 However, he said, at the moment he was having a party at his house and he was very busy entertaining his friends.

 I asked him would be possible for him to call me back the next day so we could confirm everything. he said, “yes”.

  So, just to verify, I asked him, do you have our phone number? “Yes.” he said, but .

  He sounded a little unsure so I gave him the phone number again.

   I repeated our name, our address and our telephone number.

   That call I made to the Coconut Doctor was in early 2002 and I am still waiting for his return call.