Category: Miami Stories

Miami and Dade County in the late 1970s and early 1980s had a different atmosphere and environment than they have today.

Truth be told, I was a vastly different person then, too. In those days I was a full-time undergraduate student (living off-campus) at Barry College (which became a university in November 1981) before it grew west of North Miami Avenue. Bob’s Subs, with the best cheese steaks and onion rings around (and, conveniently enough, cold beer), was still across the street from Barry then, at Northeast 115th Street and 2nd Avenue.

I had neither a car nor a phone and was all but penniless — a thrift-store denizen –so I worked part-time as a bartender, a cook and/or a waiter in just about every restaurant around: Lum’s, Pizza Hut, Prime Steak House, The Round Table, Red Lobster, Watsons Family Restaurant, The Jockey Club, Miami Shores Country Club. Most of those establishments have been renamed, changed, or simply closed.

Next to Lum’s (near Northeast 125th Street and West Dixie Highway) was the Pieces of Eight Lounge, my favorite local bar. It, too, has changed, appropriately enough, into a family planning clinic. Around the corner stood Grand Union, an all-night supermarket, where a broke college student, up all night doing homework, could walk at 3:00 a.m., simply for someplace to go.

Without a car but still a “carouser,” I walked everywhere at all hours: to and from work, school, or the Trailways bus station near Northeast 163rd Street and Biscayne Boulevard. I enjoyed walking. Once I walked home from Coral Gables, and thrice from Ft. Lauderdale Beach. (I still enjoy walking but now own a vehicle.)

My fondest memories of Miami and Dade County are of those times I spent walking. Most often it was late at night. The streets were deserted. The sea breeze, without the sun’s heat, would have died down, and stillness prevailed. The trees, many draped with Spanish moss, were like statues.

As powerful and pervasive as the city seemed during the day — people bustling about, noise from traffic — when the late-night hours came and I’d walk through North Miami and north Dade neighborhoods, I’d get an overwhelming sense of the Everglades, the swamp, residing patiently beneath the brassy urban development’s then deceptively thin veneer. The swamp was perceptible. It seemed like a living organism, an abundantly powerful life force, nonplussed by the concrete and the humanity covering it, casually waiting to reclaim its own.

It’s clear that I never really bonded with the city itself, but rather with the land on which the city stood, and the natural environment that surrounded and permeated the land. It was all so abundantly alive and present, regardless of the city that had been built on it.

It seemed that nothing that humanity could do — no roadways, no stone buildings, no canals slashed through the land — could suppress the swamp that, if not constantly held back, would quickly and inexorably break through and devour all that humanity had built, in a lot less time than humanity had taken to build it.

Yet it was so peaceful. For all of its latent power and authority, the swamp didn’t seem threatening — not like the ocean which, with its hypnotically immense majesty, seemed liable to snatch the city from existence with one convulsion. No, the swamp seemed to have a patient, harmonic personality. It was massive, yet finely balanced: an unfathomably complex mathematical equation, trillions of factors in a constant state of flux and yet perpetually attuned with the organic whole.

The more time I spent walking through southeast Florida, the more I marveled at the swamp’s immeasurable capacity, its abundance, complexity, harmony. It was like a song no human being could write, a portrait no human being could render, or an idea no human being could conceive, simultaneously and symmetrically consuming, producing, and providing.

That is all gone, of course. This land is no longer “mine,” and I’m no longer this land’s. The city, with its tall mountains and expansive plateaus of concrete, steel and glass, seems to have dug into the swamp’s heart with quests for commerce and a continually burgeoning population, all of which seem to have erased the swamp’s former beauty. Given the city of Miami’s prominence as the Caribbean basin’s commercial capital, the city will likely only grow.

But to this day–nigh on 35 years later–I’m still spellbound, not by the city of Miami, but by my memories of the land on which it’s built. Since I first moved to this town in 1979–more accurately, since I first moved to southeastern Florida in 1970–a lot has changed, both about the town and about me. I’ve traveled across the seas and around the globe, and I’ve lived all over the country. I’m older–more emphatically, no longer young–and tired, and not so innocent anymore. Similarly, the city of Miami and Dade County have grown huge and become much more crowded: pervasive, overpowering, dominating the land.

But when I see the pink and white cumulonimbus clouds billowing skyward in the east in the morning, and the seemingly endless saw grass plain stretched out to the horizon, and the scrawny Florida pines silhouetted against the red sky at sunset; when I walk the old, North Miami neighborhoods, feel the stillness–quiet, finally, in the wee hours–and recall, rather than still hear, the swamp quietly whispering behind it; when I smell that damp smell that once seemed to hold and to affirm everything, my fondest memories come rushing back, and I bask in the imagery of 35 years ago, when the land beneath the city and the atmosphere surrounding the city still sweetly breathed the promise held ever true in my heart.

Spanglish.

I do not know when I first heard that word, but it pretty much summarizes how I feel about growing up in Miami during the 1970s and ‘80s.

To me Spanglish is not just a mixing of English and Spanish; it is the mixing of two diverse cultures. It is a culture unto itself.

In the 1970s, I lived on 13th Street, five blocks away from Calle Ocho. It was a working class neighborhood — mostly lower-income families living in two-bedroom duplexes. Every morning, I walked to Auburndale Elementary, past Woodlawn Cemetery, La Lechonera, and Velvet Cream Doughnuts. In other parts of the country, I would have played with kids named Mary or John, but in Miami, my playmates had names like Maria and Juan.

At the end of the day, when we were called in for dinner, I would eat beef stew, while my friends had carne con papas. “Ay Mami” and “Oh Mom” translated to the same desire to stay outside ” cinco minutos mas,” or five minutes more.

My mom picked up eggs and milk from Farm Stores; my friend’s mom called it La Vaquita. Because it was a working class neighborhood, both parents worked in many homes. Those of us who came home to empty houses were welcomed into homes with an abuela present, who made sure you got an afternoon snack, did your homework and stayed off the roof.

I took cultural differences for granted. Spanglish was how we understood one another. It blurred the lines between languages and gave us common ground so we could get on with the business of being kids.

Summers are long when you are a child, but in Miami summer lasts most of the year. I spent my weekends with the neighbor’s grandchildren exploring Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park, also known as El Farito because of the historic lighthouse. We searched for hermit crabs and sea slugs. We were sunscreen-free with sand baked on to our bodies. We climbed onto picnic tables, ate sandwiches wrapped in foil, and drank water out of a thermos before heading back home to play a few more hours outside.

Other times, I spent weekends with a dear friend who had moved on from our neighborhood. Those Saturdays consisted of all day in the pool and backyard barbecues. We did this all year, never thinking that in September and October kids elsewhere were wearing sweaters. For kids growing up in Miami, shorts and T-shirts were a way of life.

If my brother had extra pocket money he hoisted me on the back of his bicycle, and took me to the Machine Shop to play pinball, or sometimes to the Coliseum, a gorgeous old bowling alley off 37th Avenue. The bowling alley changed over the years, and eventually was torn down and a Publix now occupies the site.

We sneaked into the Gables movie theater on more than one occasion. If we were lucky and my mom had time off, she would take us to the Venetian Pool in Coral Gables. I eventually was married there in my 20s.

In the 1980s, Central and South Americans and Haitians became part of the Miami landscape, bringing a new dimension of diversity to a city that already had many identities. The city and its people became media targets.

Miami was the poster child for violence and racial tension. I remember watching Channel 10 news and the broadcasters talked about the violence that was taking place in the streets. I didn’t understand what was going on back then.

Talk of cocaine cowboys and images from the television show “Miami Vice” began to show up everywhere. I did not know this version of Miami. My version of growing up was more like the PBS show “¿ Qué Pasa, U.S.A?” I did not grow up surrounded by violence, I was not afraid to play outside. The only time I ever heard gunshots was when some of the men in the neighborhood shot off their rifles to ring in the New Year.

We moved for a year to Birmingham, AL. It was the first time I experienced the change of seasons; We had a bigger house, I lived in a better neighborhood, and I went to a good school. But I felt like I was missing something. It felt strange to be surrounded by Marys and Johns. It felt strange not to smell café Cubano and sazon criollo wafting from the neighbor’s house in the morning and evening. It felt weird not to communicate in Spanglish.

We moved back after only a year, and the missing pieces fell back into place. I caught up with my old friends and life resumed its normal Spanglish rhythm.

To this day, even though I understand Spanish completely, I speak Spanglish. I have been lucky to travel as an adult. I love the hospitality of the Deep South, the romance of Paris and the hustle and bustle of New York. However, Miami is my heart and its Spanglish culture will always be my home.

The year was 1973, the beginning of October, and for our Indian-origin family of five, the beginning of our new life.
I had just turned 6 and my first memory of our new hometown was actually one of fear. Everything here looked so big and spread out. The city’s bright lights especially scared me. Before moving to Miami Beach, we had lived all over England.

I’ll never forget the drive from Miami International Airport to our two-story apartment building on Normandy Drive. The neighbors living beneath us, Ralph and Betty, spoke Spanish, a language we had never heard before.

My father Virendra Bhuta, a 40-year-old physician, had only come to the United States a few months prior. My uncle had been telling my dad for years to move from the UK to the United States. He also advised him that there were only two possible places where he should choose to live: California or Florida.

After applying to a ton of medical residency programs throughout the country, Miami ultimately came calling Dr. Bhuta. What did my parents know about Miami before coming here? They knew only three things – sunny beaches, beauty pageants, and lots of millionaires!

My father, who had practiced reconstructive plastic surgery before coming to the U.S., unfortunately had to give up his love of being a surgeon. He did a medical residency at St. Francis Hospital in Miami Beach. In 1973, he was only earning an annual salary of $10,000, not much to support a family of five. After only a year of training, my dad eventually turned to emergency medicine. Baptist Hospital in Kendall had the privilege of his expertise in their ER for more than 30 years.

Pravina, my mom, also did more than her fair share. Being 11 years younger than my father, it wasn’t easy for her to take care of my two brothers, ages 4 and 8, and me. She put my older brother, Amar, and me in Treasure Island Elementary. Incidentally, the school’s principal was Christina M. Eve, who would eventually have an elementary school named after her. .

Soon my mom also became an Avon lady and receptionist at nearby Mount Sinai Hospital. Her best customers were the employees at the hospital. Her monthly Avon meetings were around the corner at Howard Johnson’s.

My parents really took full advantage of achieving the “American Dream.” In October 1973, we were living in a two-bedroom/one-bath apartment in Miami Beach. By January 1976, they had already purchased their first home. It was in Kendall, a four-bedroom/three-bath home with its very own swimming pool. My brothers and I attended Blue Lakes Elementary. In fact, we were there the year it “snowed” in Miami. I still remember the snowball fights.

We also went to Glades Junior High and Southwest Miami Senior High. Our higher education came from Miami-Dade Community College, Florida International University, and the University of Miami (where we were national football champs for my senior year). My older brother, Amar, eventually went to Ohio State University medical school to become a doctor.

We have enjoyed many things growing up here in Miami. My dad and brothers would enjoy going to Dolphins games at the Orange Bowl. Of course, we didn’t move here until the year after their perfect season. We also remember attending the spectacular Orange Bowl Parade for New Year’s. I recall the aroma of roasted peanuts and delicious chocolate in the air, along with all the decorating of Winnie-the-Pooh teddy bears.

My teen year weekends always included visiting Burdines and Jordan Marsh in Dadeland Mall. The Falls being built seemed so luxurious, now that we had a Bloomingdales. Eating at LUMS was always a treat, as was being a spectator at the annual Bed Races in Coconut Grove. The Seaquarium and Parrot Jungle were always places to take our out-of-town guests. We also enjoyed showing them the colorful sails gliding on the water at Key Biscayne every weekend. Crandon Park beach was also always a fun time.

My mom even got to chaperone a few beauty pageants in the 1980s. They were all broadcast from the Knight Center in downtown Miami. She did Miss Universe, Miss Teen USA, and Miss USA (the one where Halle Berry was Miss Ohio).

I feel very fortunate to have lived here for most of my life. While I am now 45 and have traveled extensively, I can’t imagine living anywhere other than Miami. Yes, I’ve seen many changes here over the years, but for the most part, they’ve been beneficial for our community.

My parents still live in Kendall, in a different home, near Norman Brothers. My husband, Rajesh, is an interventional cardiologist, practicing mainly at Baptist Hospital and Kendall Hospital. I help with the bookkeeping for his solo practice. I have three daughters.

Seeing my own children and husband live where I grew up is such a great feeling for me.

It’s as if everything has come full circle. For me and my family, Miami will always be our wonderful “Home Sweet Home.”

Yes, I am a Miami native, born in 1951 at St. Francis Hospital on Miami Beach. My dad was in dental school at St. Louis University and my parents came home so I would be born in Miami.

My dad Jerry Denker a native of Brooklyn, N.Y., attended Miami Beach High and played football there in the early 1940s. My grandparents, Julia and Harry Mahler, had a dry cleaning store, DuBarry’s, on Fifth Street.

After the war, my dad met my mom (Gloria, from Woodbridge, N.J.) while she was vacationing on Miami Beach near the store.

After my dad finished dental school, we moved back to Miami and lived in a small duplex on Southwest Seventh Street in what is now known as Little Havana.

I attended the Miami Jewish Community Center (YMHA-YWHA), also located in the neighborhood, for kindergarten.

In 1955, we moved to a new housing development called Westchester. Everyone wondered why we were moving to “nowhere” in the Everglades.

Actually, it was in the area of Coral Way between Southwest 78th and 87th Avenues. There were no expressways and the neighborhood at first was barren, with no trees or landscaping. My father set up his dental practice on Bird Road and I attended Everglades Elementary School.

In 1957, when I was 7, my sister, Marti, was born at Jackson Memorial Hospital. Little did I know that as an adult, I would work at Jackson as a nurse for more than 38 years.

Westchester was a great neighborhood for growing up — playing ball games and riding bikes on the quiet streets, knowing most everyone in the community.

My dad, a proud Gator from the University of Florida, influenced my sister and me in many ways.

Dad was an all-time sports lover and we spent much time in the Orange Bowl, cheering on the University of Miami Hurricanes, claiming season tickets when the Dolphins arrived in Miami, attending the Golden Gloves boxing in Dinner Key, and any other sporting event that came to town.

I have many remembrances of the “sleepy” town of Miami where we did not lock our homes or cars. We picked strawberries and tomatoes blocks from our home.

We walked to the shopping center in Westchester and bought 45 RPM records at Zayre’s. I spent summers hanging out with friends and club members at the Westbrook Country Club (Southwest Eighth Street), later to become the “Y” where my Coral Park swim team practiced. My family liked to go out to eat and some of our favorites were the Red Diamond on Lejeune, the Pub, and Glorified Deli on Coral Way.

My grandparents lived on Miami Beach, and it was always a treat to sleep over and go to Flamingo Park and the beach.

I remember the long ride to the beach weaving in and out of streets through downtown, before the expressways. My girlfriends and I would sometimes take the bus to South Beach and hang out by the old dog track.

If it wasn’t the beach, we would ride the bus to Miracle Mile, shop at Young Sophisticates, eat lunch at Jahn’s Ice Cream Parlor and see a movie at the Miracle Theatre.

As a result of the sports culture in our lives, I became a competitive swimmer and swam with the Coral Gables Swimming Association at the Venetian pool from 1959 until I joined the Coral Park High School swimming team in 1966. My sister became a competitive tennis player and often played at Salvador Park in Coral Gables.

My mom, very dedicated, would drive us back and forth to swimming or tennis practice, sometimes more than twice a day. We would spend weekends at swimming meets anywhere from West Palm Beach to Miami.

To this day, I continue to swim and work out with groups at José Martí Park. I have great friends from my age-group swimmers and the Masters swimming community of South Florida.

Needless to say, I attended the University of Florida and also became a loyal Gator and a nurse practitioner. I spent a great 38 years at Jackson Memorial Hospital in many roles, caring for the people of Miami-Dade County.

I continue to reside in Miami in a building with a great view of the beautiful bay and downtown skyline, not far from the little duplex that still stands on Southwest Seventh Street.

My family came to Miami from Holland after World War II. My father had first visited the United States during his youth while working for the Holland America Cruise line.

He knew the United States was the land of milk and honey. So after the war, in April 1947, my parents, my brother (6 years old) and I (1 year old) came to the U.S. aboard the SS Noordam II and were processed through Ellis Island and then directly to Miami, Florida.

We lived with Mrs. Miller, who was the mother-in-law of my father’s uncle. She resided in South Miami near the Cocoplum Women’s Club on Sunset Drive for a short time. We then moved to a home on Red Road and SW 46 Street. My parents became proud citizens in 1953 and my brother and I were naturalized through our parents.

I attended kindergarten at the Cocoplum Women’s Club on Sunset Drive; I was in the Red Bird class. From there I went to David Fairchild Elementary.

I remember being so excited after getting out of school and my mother would walk with me to Allen’s Drug store on the corner of Red Road and Bird Road to get a nickel (yes, that is correct, 5 cents) ice-cream cone. Walking to the supermarket and drug store was common for us.

It was about 6 blocks which seemed very far for my little legs but it was well worth the trip to get ice cream or candy. There was very little traffic on Red Road at that time, and I can remember sitting on a coral rock fence that surrounded our property waiting for a car to come by so I could wave at them.

We frequently went to Matheson Hammock; I learned to swim there. The Eskimo Pie ice cream was an added treat from the concession stand in the coral rock building. We also went to Tahiti Beach years later so we could go on the slide, which was moored in the lagoon. That public beach has since gone to make way for the elegant houses there now.

My father worked as a Master Mechanic for Pan American Airlines for 25 years. This would enable us to fly to Holland on a few occasions. I was 9 years old on my first flight to Holland and remember it being a propeller aircraft. It flew from Miami to New York, Greenland, Iceland, London and finally to Amsterdam, Holland.

I was airsick most of the trip; flying has greatly improved since then. My father took me to visit the Pan Am building on 36 Street when I was about 10 years old. I remember being so impressed with how BIG the aircraft and hangers were. It was a sad day when Pan Am stopped flying. My Dad was very proud to have been a part of Pan Am.

My mother would take me to Dadeland Mall, which looks nothing like it does today – it was an open air mall. Before Dadeland opened we would take two buses to downtown and take time out to feed the pigeons at Bayfront Park. At Christmas we would go downtown to enjoy the carnival rides that were on the roof of Burdines. What a special time it was!

After attending Southwest Senior High I went to work at Sears in Coral Gables in the credit department. Several years later I started my own office products company, which was located near The Falls. After 20 years of ownership I sold my company to invest with my stepson into a financial services company which was located in Palmetto Bay.

I have since sold my shares and enjoy all the free time I have to appreciate how beautiful our area is. Having lived in Palmetto Bay for over 30 years, I have many memories, such as dining at Black Caesar’s Forge on the corner of 152 Street and 67 Avenue, famous for their potatoes baked in a tree resin.

We also had land crabs the size of a small dinner plate running through our yard. It was impossible to drive 152 Street without running over them. I never see any large ones anymore once in a while a few small ones appear.

It has been a blessing to see Miami grow from a small town to the multi-cultural beauty that it is today.

I was born in a wood frame building on Miami Beach in 1924.

My parents were Greeks, born in Turkey. My father’s parents raised silkworms that were sold to the local factories in Bursa. A wealthy Turkish merchant in the silkworm industry who did business with my grandparents, made frequent business trips to the United States. My father would listen in awe as he related stories about a tropical paradise there called Miami.

He said it was located directly on the ocean where cool breezes prevailed all year long, people went swimming every day, it never got cold and the sun shone every day. The merchant also said no one ever went hungry because of all the fruit-bearing trees in the wild and that there are even trees for children called kumquats with oranges the size of a thumb. A glass of water was not necessary to quench a thirst because a large nut called coconut has water in it.

Picture in your mind someone never having picked a nut larger than an almond from a tree being told that in America they was a nut the size of your head with a shell inside that has the pulp of fifty almonds and holds a glass of water. Well, that was all my father had to hear. He vowed then and there we would someday live in that paradise.

After the Balkan countries declared war on Turkey in 1912, the family went to Greece, and in 1915 my grandfather left for America. Working on the railroad laying track, he settled in Cincinnati and sent for the rest of his family. My father begged him all along about going to Miami and he finally arrived here in February 1920.

It was everything he had been told, and he convinced the whole family to move here. They bought a property on West Flagler Street with a restaurant, rooming house, and a hat-blocking and shoe-shine shop. They prospered, but it wasn’t long before my grandfather noticed his two sons were running around with American girls. So he went back to Turkey and returned with two neighborhood girls. The double-wedding took place in 1923 at the Episcopal churchnear the Venetian Causeway.

That same year, my father went to work helping to build the Nautilus Hotel. Looking for a less back-breaking job, in 1924, he drove a jitney to and from downtown and in 1928, he helped with the opening of a market on Washington Avenue.

Having led a very sheltered life with only Greek and Turkish spoken in the house, I was enrolled in the first grade. When told my name was Aristotle, the teacher said, “I wouldn’t name my dog that.” She asked how it was pronounced in Greek. Because “Ari” sounded like “Harry,” that became my name through high school.

We endured the 1928 hurricane, but not the 1929 stock market crash. The Depression years were trying, but we endured. By the end of 1933, my parents had put enough aside to buy a restaurant on Ocean Drive. My father and I fished the jetties every morning, he to catch big fish and I to gather snails and big crawfish for the store. He caught mostly snook and barracuda, which was on the menu as snapper, while I caught Florida crawfish listed as Maine lobster, and snails listed as French escargot. We always sold out because my mother was a great cook.

I once crawled under the fence at the government field and picked a choice watermelon for our store. A police officer saw me walking off with it and offered me a ride. It wasn’t to my house, as I expected, but to the police station. He sat me on the curb, cut it into four pieces, told me to eat all of it, and said he didn’t want to see any red when finished. When I asked if I could use the restroom, I was told it was for police only. I got the picture and hurried home.

By 1935, my parents had put enough aside to buy the lot next to where I was born for $2,500. The following, year they built our house for $5,000. When finished with building, we busied ourselves landscaping it to be the best in the neighborhood. My job was following the horse-drawn ice wagon down the alleys, discreetly gathering horse manure to fertilize our plants. You can bet it was done discreetly.

I made money the hard way: I worked for it. I sold peanuts for an old man named Doc to bathers on the beach for five cents a bag, keeping a penny for myself. Occasionally, when given a dime, I would give it to Doc. My reward was a bag of peanuts to take home.

I would also go to the Miami Beach golf course and dive into the canal to retrieve golf balls for a nickel. I would get in free at the plaza theater by picking up chewing gum wrappers and cigarette butts from around the building. I did the same for Occasionally, I would buy shrimp from a fish market on 63rd Street to fish. When I told the owner it was my mother’s birthday and that I was going to catch a big fish for her, he gave me 10 shrimps for a nickel.

At a boat rental concession near Biscayne Bay, I was allowed to use a 10-foot sailing moth in exchange for cleaning out all of the returning fishing boats. That little moth took me all over Biscayne Bay, from the spoils banks to the ragged keys and Fisher Island.

Later, so as not to be drafted, I joined the Navy, was assigned to the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Yorktown and served the remainder of WWII in the Pacific. After being honorably discharged, I went to work for the city of Miami Beach, in the engineering department. I started as a rod man on the survey crew and retired 45 years later as assistant public works director.

The highlight of my life is my marriage to my lovely wife Artemis, who has given me 57 beautiful years and two beautiful daughters, Adrian Artemis and Andrea Aphrodite. They in turn have given us two exceptional sons-in-law, Robert Sherman and Javier Holtz, who have each given us three exceptional grandchildren: Michael, Andy and Bryan; Matthew, Nicole and Andrew.

Since I retired, the population of Miami Beach has exploded, traffic has become unbearable, and parking next to impossible. I close my eyes and reminisce about the good old days in old South Beach. As a child.

Stories of families separated and reunited, of language difficulties, of nostalgia for the old country, of countless vicissitudes, but also of triumph, success, happiness: all immigrants share very similar stories, and mine is no different.

My mom, dad, sister, and I lived in Marianao, Havana, in a huge home with my uncle and aunt, who had a very successful pharmaceutical business. My dad and his brothers owned two auto-parts stores. We were happy.

On that fateful New Year’s Day 1959, when I was just 5 years old, our lives and those of countless other Cubans were forever changed. Two years later, my sister would leave Cuba for Canada – the first exodus of our small but close-knit family.

The next year, Castro officials would call up my dad in the middle of the night and offer a one-way ride to Miami on the African Pilot in exchange for the keys to his business and his car. This was the modus operandi for the Castro government. They would play your desire to leave the country against your assets.

If a person had a business or any other substantial asset, government officials would tap them to see if they were willing to make a deal. There was no halfway – you gave them everything you owned in exchange for the ticket out. You had to hand everything over at a moment’s notice; you did not have a chance to select some things you might want to keep or give to your relatives – it was all or nothing.

My dad took them up on the offer in order to pave the way for my mom and me to join him. A church group from New Jersey sponsored my dad and moved him to Orange, New Jersey, where he worked as a school janitor to earn enough money to prove to the U.S. government my mom and I would not be a public burden.

After enduring an extensive “inventory” of all our belongings by the government (where they would catalog everything you owned before you left and come back to check it again the day before your departure to make sure you didn’t give away, sell, or get rid of anything).

Mom and I left Cuba for Mexico City on a Cubana de Aviacion flight in late October 1965. After four months, in what seemed to me to be a paradise of food, clothing, entertainment – all available for the buying without the “libreta” (the notebook where the government keeps track of your food allotments), we traveled to Orange, New Jersey, in the dead of winter, to join my dad.

My mom and I had not seen him in over four years. We all had to get used to each other again. We lived on the third floor (a semi-attic) of a three-family home. There was only one room which was divided by a sheetrock partition; I slept on the couch and my parents on the bed on the other side. Still it was wonderful to be together again. But painful memories remained on our island – my aunt and uncle were still there with no hope of leaving.

I was enrolled in school midyear and had a very hard time with the language. I was forced to repeat the fifth grade again because the principal didn’t think I could make it in the sixth grade with my poor English. I recall the teacher dictating sentences in English for the class to write down. It was a terrible feeling not to understand a single word and seeing all the kids writing and my own page a complete blank!

Despite this setback, the unfamiliar-yet-beautiful snow, the cold winter, and the long walks to and from school, I learned English quickly. I passed the fifth grade in only four months and was promoted to sixth grade. But I was always teased because of my accent and the way I dressed. There were no Hispanics in my town and my classmates didn’t even know where Cuba was!

Every summer we visited Miami Beach for two weeks (no SoBe then!) and stayed at the White House Hotel. I fondly remember a little restaurant on Washington Avenue that served black beans and avocado salad (something we rarely saw in New Jersey).

We used to go for drinks to the Doral’s Starlight Roof on Collins, we went swimming off Lummus Park on Ocean Drive, and attended concerts at the Sportatorium in Hollywood (now the BankAtlantic Center).

I attended Berkeley Secretarial School in East Orange and got a job with Exxon Corporation in Florham Park. After a year, I moved down to Miami with my aunt and uncle, who had been able to leave Cuba via Spain by turning over their house and business to the government, in the same way my father and countless others had done before.

My parents moved down the next year and we all lived in an apartment in Hialeah – together as we had been so many years ago in my beautiful Havana.

Wonderful, beautiful, sunbright Miami! – the weather, the smells of Cuban food, the chatter on street corners, the royal palms dancing in the breeze. Here, so close to our homeland, life is pleasant and the dream of going back to Cuba one day that much better defined. I will go back one day.

My sister never moved back to Miami. She made her life in Montreal until she passed away in 2008. My mom and dad are also gone, as are my aunt and uncle.

I made my life here, married, and had two wonderful sons who are now 27 and 25. I offer my eternal gratitude to this great country that offered us a safe haven and that continues to open its arms to so many. There are many days when I look at the shimmering blue skies and remember the sky over my house in Cuba, the palm trees, the trips to the beach, the durofrios (little frozen juice cubes).

On those days, I drive over to Little Havana to get a colada and a pastelito and to hear some good old-fashioned “Cuban” Spanish. I take a deep breath, and for a moment, I am back home.

One sunny, mid-week afternoon, I arrived at home to family cars parked in the front yard. I did not have to dig for the house key in my bookbag. My father stood in front of the door as if shielding me from something.

As I entered the house, I heard a woman crying. Family members surrounded the crying woman whom I soon realized was my mother. It was the first time I saw her cry as a result of something I didn’t do. I did not have a broken arm or a D on my report card. On that afternoon, my mother had lost her father.

After I kissed her and said nothing, I went to my room and watched MTV when videos were all the rage. I did not understand what had happened. Death was one of those things I heard tossed around in other people’s conversations. I identified death with Friday the 13th movies and drug dealers on the news.

My whole life I had taken pride in the fact that all of my grandparents were alive and well. I wore that on my sleeve and carried it around as if I had won a trophy. Abuelo was not sitting in a Cuban jail cell, waiting in a ration line, and eating other people’s household pets. Abuelo was in Miami, living in a condo, shopping at Publix and eating steak. Now, Abuelo was suddenly gone, from complications related to diabetes, and there was nothing doctors, my family or I could do about it. Life threw us this curve ball and we had to catch it.

It was my first funeral and the only thing I looked forward to was to practice making my own tie. When I arrived at the funeral home, everyone was already there. The place smelled of cigarette smoke and Cuban coffee. Strangers offered their condolences, hugs and spearmint gum. All I could do was smile and walk away.

As I went toward the room, my grandmother sat crying in a chair next to the casket. Beautiful flowers were scattered near her. The reds, whites, yellows, and greens clashed with her black dress. She was surrounded by more strangers with some hovering over her like more of those loser contestants. The rest of them stood in line waiting their turn to comfort her. I thought all the faces were probably the same to her. Her hands always touched their elbows and her tissue almost always fell on the floor.

I went up to my grandmother, kissed her cheek and walked away through the lobby, the glass doors, the parking lot, and into a cafeteria. As I ordered a pastelito and Materva, I saw some of the strangers from the funeral. They didn’t seem so strange anymore. Their faces and voices sounded familiar. The talk of old Cuba, the exile community, Miami, Hialeah, and my family comforted me. Those were things I had heard before and things my Abuelo used to say.

After spending the night at the funeral home, I woke to find the world still around me. Everyone was still talking and whispering comforts in the air like shooting the breeze over a game of dominos. No one slept. They probably feared they would miss out on one of my grandmother’s wails or so-and-so’s daughter or son and how they are still not married.

At that moment, the priest called everyone to pray the rosary. When the prayer was over, I walked outside with my parents, grandmother and brother to look for the limo. In the corner of the parking lot, the limo rested beneath the shade of one of those trees filled with moon-shaped green seeds. I remembered having block fights with those same seeds and that after one of the fights, I walked back home to find my grandparents waiting in the driveway with packages in their arms and smiles on their faces.

Abuelo said in broken English, “Who’s going to pick up the seeds?”

After the priest did what priests do and said what priests say, the cemetery workers rolled Abuelo’s casket to the rear of the mausoleum. My family and I were walking on a back street with a chain-link fence dividing the mausoleum and some kind of factory. The unkempt hedges sheltered some litter scattered close to the fence. The workers opened the side of the building and I caught a glimpse of where Abuelo was going to be. It looked like dusty concrete shelves. Objects were scattered like the litter next to the chain-link fence. I comforted myself by thinking it was better than being buried in just another hole in the ground with other people’s loved ones walking all over him. At least Abuelo had chosen this place for himself.

That night, I found myself sleeping next to my grandmother. It was dark and I realized that I really did not want to be next to her. I started to cry because I knew this is where I had to sleep tonight. My grandmother woke up and as she wiped the tears off my face, she told me, “No lo puedo creer. El gordo no esta aqui.”

She couldn’t believe her fat man was not there with her. I felt guilty for sleeping in his spot and for reminding her that she would not sleep with Abuelo again. As she reassured me that everything was going to be fine, I reached over and touched her face. As the wind and rain howled outside the window, I rubbed her dry face, rolled over and went to sleep.

My name is Alex Sturman, and I am sharing with you a glimpse in the life that took place in the summer of 1957 when I was a nine year old in a family of six.

We were living in Charleston, S.C., where I was born. My father was a ‘travelling salesman’ at the time. He would pack up his company station wagon with restaurant supplies and take off for a week or two, covering most of South Carolina.

I’m sure that he was ready for a change when my uncle gave him a call to join him in Miami. My father decided to pack up the family and join his two brothers in business down in Miami.

The business was owning and operating lunch stands and trucks that serviced construction sites such as the Fontainebleau Hotel along Miami Beach. My Uncle Ben started the business a few years earlier and by 1957 he saw a chance to get his two brothers, Coleman and Nathan, to come down and work with him in beautiful Miami. The business was called Hadacal’s Mobile Canteen.

It was August 28th, 1957. My father, brother Philip and I packed up our 1953 Studebaker Champion Starliner, hooked on a U-Haul trailer and headed for Miami. My mother Ruth and sister Anita would join us once we got settled. My oldest brother Joey left for Miami a few months earlier and rented a house with our cousin Dave Hill. They were both nineteen at the time. Dave would later own the Taurus restaurant in Coconut Grove during its heyday in the ‘70s and ‘80s.

There was no I-95 back then. We drove all the way down using US1 and A1A. My father drove and Philip sat shotgun. I sat in the back with our two myna birds, Heckle and Jeckle. When we hit Hollywood, I kept sticking my head out the window looking for John Wayne. My father laughed. I didn’t know that this was a different Hollywood. We made it to Miami and pulled into the Chelsea Court Motel, made up of small cottages located on Biscayne Boulevard.

The car stopped, and once the dust settled I could see these shirtless, shoeless kids looking into the car window. They were my cousins Max, Annie Kay, Ina Rae and Martin. They were my Uncle Nathan’s kids that I was meeting for the first time. Max and I would later attend the University of Miami and become architects.

The next day my brother Joey had to run errands and asked if I would like to join him. He had a 1947 Hudson with an in-dash radio that was the size of a present day boom box. As he ran errands, I would sit in the car, windows down with the smell of horsehair padded seats and listen to the radio on a beautiful sunny day.

I remember the songs that played as I waited. They were “Honeycomb,” by Jimmie Rodgers, “Bye Bye Love,” by the Everly Brothers, and “Diana,” by Paul Anka. I was hearing these songs for the first time ever that day. To this day, whenever I hear any one of those songs, I am a nine year old back in that old Hudson, so excited about this new life in Miami that I am about to begin . . . and what a beautiful day.

Miami seemed so new back then. Everything was clean and freshly painted. It was as hot as it is today, but I never complained. The uniform of the day was shorts, sneakers and no shirt. No one wore shirts back then. The only air-conditioned buildings were the drug store and movie theater.

No such thing as graffiti and the only thing that kept an intruder out of your house as you slept was the latch on the screen door. There was no need to protect your property, because everyone respected each other and a break-in was unheard of. And as you slept, the oscillating fan kept you cool. It felt so good when the fan made its sweep and got back to you.

Trips to Miracle Mile and Lincoln Road were always family events. We would put on shirts, eat at the local cafeteria, and Mother would shop. I always remember the sky being sunny and bright as you looked through palm trees that were everywhere.

From Pogroms to Palm Trees: Rose Weiss, “The Mother of Miami Beach”

How does it feel to be the granddaughter of a Pioneer Family In a word—unique!

It would be a colossal understatement to say being born in Miami and growing up in Miami Beach has been spectacular, but how that all happened is the real story, and it all started with my grandmother, Rose Sayetta Weiss.

“Rosie,” as she was known, immigrated with her family to Brooklyn, New York, from the small village of Mizrich, on the Russian/Polish border. Jews there lived under the oppressive rule of the Czar, and going to America was every family’s dream.

The Sayettas settled in the East Side, and eventually Rosie married Jeremiah Weiss. They had three children: the oldest my Aunt Malvina Liebman Gutschmidt, an educator and author, My father, Milton Weiss, a lawyer and banker, and my Uncle and Godfather, Eugene Weiss, a podiatrist.

Rosie suffered from allergies and asthma and was advised by her doctor to move South. Luckily for me, she chose Miami Beach. In 1919, she arrived, and it’s safe to say the City was never the same.

I remember her as being formidable in stature as well as personality. She immediately became active in politics and attended every city council meeting for 40 years. The City Fathers called her the “eighth councilman.”

While raising her children and then directing her grandchildren, she managed to organize the first Red Cross, found the PTA in Beach schools, design and sew the Flag for the City of Miami Beach and raise five million dollars in War bonds, more than any other woman in the State.

I pity the person who ever tried to say no to my grandmother, and there weren’t many who did. During the Thanksgiving and Christmas Holidays, she convinced the local merchants to donate food and clothing for poor families.

She would take my cousin Wolf (who was 10 at the time) and make the deliveries in her four door green Chevrolet. On her car was the decal of a Rose, and the Police knew when they saw that rose, not to ever ticket her no matter where she parked. If only I still had that car and decal!!!!

I’m told that when my Father announced he would marry my Mother (Ceecee Alexander), Rosie was skeptical of the blonde bombshell as a future daughter-in-law, but after two grandchildren and lots of brisket dinners they became friends.

Grandma Rose loved to babysit my sister and me. Our outings included the Parrot Jungle, The Rare Bird Farm, Crandon Park Zoo, and Pigeon Park, which is now Bayside.

At home she made up endless stories about a fantasy town called “Catsville” and played Opera and classical music all the time. As a result, I became a music lover and a Mario Lanza groupie in the first grade!

Grandma Rose had strong opinions and was very protective of her family. She made it clear that she disapproved of women wearing trousers and smoking in public. When I went to Europe after graduating from Beach High, she cautioned me to have a good time, but not to talk to any strangers; I didn’t always take her advice.

Rosie was nicknamed “The Mother of Miami Beach.” Her friend Carl Fisher once said that it was his money but her spirit that built the city. She died at 88, and whoever said that one person can make a difference certainly knew my grandmother. Miami Beach continues to be my home and I’m proud that my family tree is a Palm.