Seems like it was yesterday. Time flies.

The video says 9/75

I was there with my ex and my son in June’76. Rained every morning but it sure was beautiful!

Yum, Key lime pie and some lines...

Bum was a family friend and quite a character. He would often volunteer to drive the hearse for us at our Funeral Home. Red suits and patent leather white shoes and belts were his trademark. No one really knows what happened to him but it was rumored that he went to Costa Rica.

"His name was Bum Farto."

And it’s a name that will live in infamy."

"Born Joseph Farto—yep, that’s his real last name—in Key West on July 3, 1919, Bum earned his nickname from the employees at the fire station across the street from his house where he would try to ‘bum” things from the firefighters. “He used to hang around the old No. 1 Fire Department on Greene Street all the time and the firemen started calling him ‘the little bum,’” an unidentified friend told "The Miami Herald in 1976. “He was always bumming things—asking for favors, like little kids do.”

"Despite this childish annoyance, Bum was allowed to hang around the station, was given the occasional odd job, and tolerated by the men that worked there. Away from the fire station, Bum eventually took work as a driver for a funeral home and even got married to a woman named Esther in 1955. But Bum’s true love was the fire station. He loved it there and hung around there long enough that he eventually got a job operating fire hoses. Bum did well and rose up the ranks to become fire chief in 1964."


fieldethos.com/the-legend-of-bum-farto/

The Keys were a very different place back in the 60's - 70's. Lots of "characters" (we called them ends of the earth people). Big fun socially.