Meet Miss Mingo

Her real name is Hermina Hermelinda Obregon. She calls Key West home, and it's from her bungalow off Duval Street that she answers readers' questions about the news, the universe, and everything.

Hermina Hermelinda Obregon used to have an unusual nickname: Agua. Why? Well, her initials, you know. H.H.O. Which could be expressed as H2O. Get it?

Yeah, even she got tired of that after a while.

But then her newspaper colleagues in Key West threw her a “retirement” party when she got laid off, part of staff cutbacks at her paper much like those elsewhere around the country.

Everyone showed up in pink. Some wore flamingo tee shirts. And as a going away gift, they gave her an absurd flamingo hat.

She loved it. And she started wearing it around town. And pretty soon, they stopped calling her Agua in favor of Miss Mingo. Which is what she goes by now.

This column is her idea. She pitched it to the staff of Tropic Press shortly after she met our weird news columnist, Alexander Strange, during one of his assignments in the Conch Republic. (Chronicled in Strange Currents.)

Look for her reports coming soon.

Got a question about the news? Or life? Or the universe? Or anything? Email her at: