It's hard to imagine today what a mess Key West was in 1970's. The recent closing of the Naval Base, the island's largest employer, had devastated the local economy. The city was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy and had applied to the state for financial help to provide basic services like fire and police. The fire chief had just been busted for cocaine. Water pressure was low to non-existent due to an ancient pipeline from the mainland, and raw sewage was being dumped into the ocean just offshore. On top of that, young hippies were arriving in droves, drawn by the island's tropical weather and manaña-land attitude. But the local Conchs did not want them around. So the police regularly rounded up the long-hairs on vagrancy charges and, after a few days in jail, tossed them out at the county line. Bill Huckel, a hippie himself, thought it was a good time to start a community newspaper for hippies, blacks, gays, and other marginalized island citizens. This is the story of the first decade of that newspaper and the writers and artists that contributed to it.
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