Tag: Written

In 1953, my father realized his dream of many years when we moved from Allentown, Pa., to South Florida.

I can remember stepping off the train at the old Florida East Coast Railway station in downtown Miami in the middle of August. When the blast of heat hit me, all I could think about was how I missed my hometown, my friends and my dog that I had to leave behind. When I entered Ada Merritt Junior High School, it looked like a cardboard school compared to the sturdy brick school I attended back home. It was a difficult adjustment, but before long I made new friends and became acclimated to the heat and mosquitoes.

We lived on Southwest Sixth Avenue and my brother Jim and I would take frequent walks to explore our new environment. We often walked by the two-story frame homes from the late 1800s that lined Brickell Avenue. Close by was Miss Harris’ School, a private school for girls. My only regret is that I never took photos of these historic homes.

One day, my brother and I bicycled across the Rickenbacker Causeway to the end of Key Biscayne to explore the old Crandon estate. There was very little left, but it was exciting to view the remains of this home, as well as Key Biscayne. We could hardly walk for a few days after that long bike trip. Another time we tried to “enter” Vizcaya via the bay side, but didn’t get far past the thickets.

Our family moved to Coconut Grove a few years after coming to Miami. Our home was on a street that ended at the bay. There was a large empty lot that extended from behind our home to the bay. This land has since been developed. Back in the ‘50s, we had large land crabs crawling all over our back yard and we could get a clear view of the bay from our house. I used to enjoy sitting on the seawall at the end of our street watching the boats go by. From the seawall, I could see Fair Isle (now Grove Isle) before it was developed.

When we were teenagers, we used to speed down “thrill hill,” as Darwin Street in Coconut Grove was then nicknamed due to its elevation. It wasn’t much of an elevation but compared to the rest of Miami, it was a hill. Being a short hill, we had to quickly brake at South Bayshore Drive. Just a few feet down the street was Jensen’s Restaurant, which later became Monty Trainer’s.

Coconut Grove was a sleepy, artsy town in the ‘50s. A highlight of my teen years was going to see Elvis Presley at the Olympia (now Gusman) Theater in downtown Miami. The theater was filled with screaming teens and, I am embarrassed to admit, I was one of them.

After graduating from Miami High, I entered the University of Miami. The campus was different from the way it looks today. Everyone congregated at the “Slop Shop,” along the patio by the lake. Girls were forbidden to wear Bermuda shorts to class and many wore them under their trench coats. There was always a party going on at one of the frat houses that lined the campus, and the lion in front of PKA frat house was constantly getting attacked with paint. On Friday afternoons, the place to go was the Campus Canteen, which is now Taco Rico on U.S. 1. One afternoon, Coral Gables police officers pulled up to the Canteen with a bus to haul away all the students who were caught drinking under the age of 21.

Miracle Mile and Lincoln Road were THE places to shop before Dadeland was built, with many wonderful stores to choose from, like Judy Leslie’s and Stow on the Wold. Popular restaurants included Chippy’s and Jahn’s Ice Cream Parlor. Also, Tyler’s Restaurant on Ponce de Leon Boulevard, where the chicken with honey was always a hit. A few blocks down on Coral Way was Dean’s Waffle Shop where we would go for a late-night snack after a movie. At Dean’s you always saw someone you knew. The Holsum Bakery coffee shop was another popular spot to stop for coffee and glorious French doughnuts.

In the ‘70s, the favorite sport among teens, including our oldest daughter (unknown to me), was to sneak into the abandoned VA hospital – now the Biltmore – and climb up to the tower. This was a challenging and scary prospect as there were no lights in the building and the abandoned operating tables and gurneys added to the eerie atmosphere. I learned of these exploits years later when my daughter knew she would be free from punishment.

My husband and I have been residents of Coral Gables for 45 years. We remain ever grateful for the privilege of living and raising our children in this beautiful city. Our daughters now live in New York but loved growing up here and spent much of their youth playing tennis and swimming at the Coral Gables Country Club. They have fond memories of J. Paul Riddle, an aviation pioneer and founder of Embry Riddle Aereonautical University, who was a mentor and tennis coach to my older daughter and so many of the youngsters who frequented the tennis courts.

As a docent at Merrick House, I have learned much about our city’s history and the debt we owe to its founder and creator, George Merrick. It is always a good feeling to drive through the arches and come home to this beautiful tree city. There is nowhere in South Florida I would rather live.

My father met and married my mother in 1929 and I arrived in 1930. Her mother came to Miami from Cleveland, OH, in 1923 to begin a new life. She opened a tropical fruit stand on the front porch of her coral rock house at Northeast 26th Street and Second Avenue.

The fruit was purchased early in the morning at the farmer’s market on Northwest 12th Avenue and 20th Street, and the market is still there. She then became a real estate broker and, after many years of buying and selling real estate, she purchased a small hotel on Miami Beach. She became a civic leader and was presented with a gold key to the city by the mayor.

When I was seven years old, I watched the store as I ate my nickel ice cream cone and observed the trolley cars go by on Second Avenue. On the weekends, my family and I took the trolley car that ran down the middle of the MacArthur Causeway to Miami Beach. We went swimming in the ocean and built sand castles. Though the trolley is long gone, now there is talk of bringing it back to run once again. As the saying goes, “Everything old is new again.”

I attended Beach High, where many of the students were from families that were either very rich or very poor. However, at school, everyone played and worked together and we had a great time. Latin music was the rage and many of the boys had Cubavera jackets and suede shoes.

The Lindy Hop was a popular dance, and Beach High’s big patio was the place where we had wonderful dance parties. Sports were a big part of high school life. I played tennis and won the Beach High tennis trophy. I was initiated into the B club and joined a fraternity with Irwin Saywitz, who became an owner of Joe’s Stone Crab restaurant.

After graduating, I attended the University of Florida, studying architecture with Kenny Treister, who later built the Mayfair Center in Coconut Grove. We were members of the ZBT fraternity and one day made a bold decision to write to Frank Lloyd Wright and ask him to design a fraternity house for us. He did — it was brilliant.

Unfortunately, the fraternity could not afford to build it. Wright came to Gainesville for two exciting days to present the plans and to meet and lecture with all the young aspiring architects and the faculty. That was the highlight event of the school year.

After graduating, I entered the Navy Officer’s Candidate School. This was the time of the Korean conflict and all boys over 18 had to serve. After serving three and a half years, I was honorably discharged as an LTJR (junior lieutenant). During this period I was on an aircraft carrier stationed in the Mediterranean. My next tour of duty was as an aid to the commander-in-chief of the fifth fleet in Norfolk, VA, where I greeted all of his visitors.

After my discharge, I returned to my home in Miami, where I began my career as an architect with Bob Bleemer, a high school friend. We opened a very small office on 40th Street in the Design District and were successful. It was a time of construction and growth in Miami and we were a part of it.

We borrowed money and built an office building in the neighborhood and eventually employed 35 designers and architects. We became well known and designed more than 40 condominium interiors in Miami, plus many projects around the country and in South America. Miami grew and we grew with it.

After 20 years, I partnered with Pepe Calderin and we became Levine Calderin & Associates. We won numerous awards.

I received a lifetime achievement award from the American Institute of Architects, and then finally retired to spend time as president of the American Foundation for the Arts, which I founded. In the 1980s, we created an exhibition space in the Design District on 40th Street and Second Avenue. This was a period when Miami only had a few galleries and a small museum of art, and The American Foundation of the Arts played a major role in Miami’s developing cultural life.

We helped bring numerous artists to Miami for exhibitions and lectures, among them Christo who draped the islands of Biscayne Bay in pink and pop artist Alex Katz. We also gave many local artists their first show and produced beautiful catalogs for each exhibition.

During the creation of the museum, I learned about the artist Purvis Young, who lived in Overtown. The Miami Herald ran a big story with a color picture of “Goodbread Alley” where Purvis lived. The article said that many of the wooden homes and fences in the neighborhood were to be demolished, including paintings that were nailed to the houses.

The next day, I went to “Goodbread Alley,” met Purvis and purchased 80 of his paintings. Purvis’ work is now in many museums and private collections throughout America.

The city has grown and today has many outstanding cultural institutions. It is a vibrant, cultured, and fabulous place to live. It was wonderful to be a part of the growth of the Magic City.

I was born during a knee-high snowstorm on Feb. 20, 1921 in Pittsburgh. The Bureau of Vital Statistics misread the doctor’s crossed t as two t’s, so I became Ritta instead of Rita. I was second oldest of six children – Eva, Ritta, Josephine, Mary, Frank and Dolores.

I started grade school at age 5, skipped the third grade and graduated at age 12. I was a voracious reader, especially on the weekends. The travel advertisements in the Sun-Telegraph and Pittsburgh Press about Florida were so enticing to look at on zero degree days. Every step along my route to school reinforced my thoughts about Florida.

After graduating from high school at age 16, I attended business school and then was employed by Carnegie-Illinois Corp. as secretary to the expeditor for a shipbuilding company, which built destroyers, etc. for the war effort.

We were a very patriotic family, and since the only male was 12 years old (he later served in the Korean War), I enlisted in the Navy in the organization “Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service” (WAVES). I was sent to combined boot/yeoman training in January 1943 at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater.

As our training was coming to a close, we were asked to indicate if we had a preference of Miami, Washington or California for a place of deployment. Naturally, I chose the place of my dreams – MIAMI, and was fortunate to be deployed to the U.S. Naval Air Station at Opa-locka.

I was assigned to the Flight Training Division in Hangar No. 1. At that time, only pre-operations training was given, since the runways were too short for the larger, heavier planes required for operational training. Later, when the runways were completed, the base became Operational Unit –VSB-5 OTU-5. The plane used was the famous SBD-5 dive-bomber known for its “Swiss cheese” wings. Newly commissioned Navy and Marine officers were trained there, in addition to a few British, New Zealand and Australian pilots.

Opa-locka had its own bus line to Miami, which was heavily used by both civilianworkers and military when on “liberty.” Miami and Miami Beach warmly embracedall servicemen. I still have my “Serviceman’s Guide,” which listed the places that welcomed us:

The MacFadden-Deauville Hotel for a very small fee provided use of their Olympic-sized pool and lockers, etc. Richards department store had a lending library for two cents a day – no deposit required.

At Shangri La Restaurant, lunches started at 40 cents. At Club Bali, deluxe dinners cost $1.50. The daily rate at Hotel Patricia was $3 and weekly rates were $18 for one person and $25 for two people.

I was discharged in late November 1945, returned to Pittsburgh and took a few months off.

My military service was a most gratifying experience – doing what I felt was my duty and enjoying the camaraderie with my WAVE friends and the officers and enlisted men stationed in Miami. Some have remained friends for life.

In 1946, I was re-employed by Carnegie-Illinois in Pittsburgh and attended Duquesne University at night. After a couple of unendurable winters, I came to my senses and applied for admission to the University of Miami. I enrolled in 1948.

The main campus consisted of the administration building, a wooden science building, apartment housing, and an unfinished Merrick building (the “Skeleton”). The bottom floor was the bookstore and the second was a library. The top floor, when added, became home to the law school, many wooden portables, and the student union building, which was called the “Slop Shop.”

I was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1951 and enrolled in the law school. I graduated in 1953 and became a member of the Florida Bar, which I maintained for 50 years, retiring in 2003.

In November 1953, I married a fellow law-school graduate, Clifford S. Hogan. He served in the Army Air Force in the European theater as a fighter pilot, flying the classic P-51 Mustang.

In the early 1960s, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, he was recalled to serve at the Homestead Air Force Base and we temporarily moved to the base.

The army had set up a tent city for the troops. The year before his assassination, President John F. Kennedy visited the base. All of the residents lined up to greet him. He rode in an open-air car. Everyone was quiet and I shouted “Hi” and he looked directly at our camera and we were able to get him on film waving at us.

After the end of the Cold War, we returned to our home in South Miami. My husband remained in the reserves for many years and later retired as a colonel.

We were blessed with three children: Clifford, Robert, and Valerie. They received their primary educations at Epiphany, Lourdes, and South Miami High School. Two obtained degrees at the University of Florida and one at Florida State…so, we had all three schools covered football wise. We have been parishioners at Epiphany Catholic Church all of our time in South Florida.

Miami has more than exceeded my hopes and dreams…which began at age 12 in frigid Pittsburgh.

I played for the Miami Heat for their first three seasons. Yet not one Heat fan knows my name, although they may recognize my face.

It was spring of 1988, and I was the music director on Norwegian Cruise Line’s MS Southward.

I have been a newspaper junkie since my days as a paperboy in my hometown of Knoxville, Tenn., and Sundays were our “Miami Day” – time to load up with a new crop of passengers, and my chance to grab a Sunday Miami Herald. I read with great interest the article outlining the NBA’s approval of a new team for the Miami market.

I was on my fourth year of working on ships, and starting to crave a “real” life. This was my chance to make a move. And as luck would have it, my ship contract was coming to an end. I contacted the Heat front office . For weeks, I kept calling – and I finally convinced them the team would probably not be very competitive the first season, and they needed a band to keep the fans entertained.

They finally relented and set up an audition, as they said several other bands had contacted them. The window of opportunity was open, but the rest of my band was on board the Southward, in the midst of a four-month contract. I had to act fast – the audition was four days away. Luckily, I ran into several great musicians playing at Bayside Marketplace. I told them about the opportunity, ran back to my new apartment on Collins and 29th Street, and spent the next two days furiously writing arrangements.

I rented a rehearsal studio, we got four songs under our belt (“25 or 6 to 4,” “The Heat is On,” “Wipeout,” and “I Feel Good”). We arrived at the mostly-finished pink Miami Arena, and won the audition! That first Heat Band consisted of Gary Mayone (keyboards), Rey Sanchez (guitar), Jim Kessler (bass), Ed Smart (saxes), Kelly Milan (trombone), and me on trumpet. Most of those guys are still around, enjoying successful freelance careers.

It was a great introduction to Miami, and I relished every moment of the first three seasons.

If you don’t remember, those were heady times for basketball: Michael Jordan was in his prime, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson were winding down, and Charles Barkley was as entertaining then as he still is. The band had a dressing room right near the players that we shared with Burnie, the Heat’s mascot, so interaction was easy.

Twenty-three years later, my band is still active, I am back in the cruise industry, and my wife Juliet and I have raised three children – Celia, Emma, and Given in this wonderful city now called home.

The Sumans currently reside in Miami Shores, and still root for the Heat, even though I am sure I am the only trumpet player released by a major sports team!

I was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1947. My parents were also born in Brooklyn, and their parents emigrated from Russia to the United States between 1910 and 1912, arrived at Ellis Island, and settled in New York.

I have great memories of growing up in Brooklyn and remaining in Brooklyn as an adult. I taught English at Meyer Levin Junior High School from 1970 until I retired in June 2001. After retirement I moved to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and lived there for five years. It was a wonderful experience!

Upon returning to New York in 2006 I found dealing with the cold winters more and more difficult. Finally, in August of 2010 I made the move to Miami, and I am happy to say that I am now a permanent resident of “The Magic City.”

Actually, my connection to Miami goes back to 1955 when my father’s parents became “snowbirds” and began wintering in Miami.

They bought a home at 1325 SW 40th Avenue in Coral Gables, and my parents, sister, and I drove down every year during Christmas vacation as a family until 1964. I continued to come down during my college breaks until 1970. Between 1955 and 1962 we stayed with my grandparents in Coral Gables. My grandfather then sold his house and leased a hotel on Miami Beach – The Premier Hotel on Collins Avenue and 8th Street.

Of course, then it was called Miami Beach; now it’s called South Beach, and the hotel has become a Victoria’s Secret store. For our visits during 1963 and 1964, my parents opted for more comfortable accommodations.

In 1963, we stayed at The Cadillac Hotel on Collins Avenue and 40th Street, and in 1964, my last trip with my parents, we stayed at the Chateau Resort Motel in Sunny Isles. I continued coming down until my grandfather retired from the hotel business in 1970, and that was the end of my Miami connection for twenty years.

I do have some very fond memories of my childhood and adolescent visits to Miami and Miami Beach, and here they are:

– Going to the beach and zoo at Crandon Park. I remember the peacocks walking around freely and the miniature train ride around the zoo.
– Swimming in the Venetian Pool.
– Stopping at Burger King, the first Burger King I had ever been to (there were no Burger Kings in New York at the time), for a Whopper and a chocolate shake.
– Going to Tyler’s Restaurant on Ponce De Leon Boulevard. I especially remember the chocolate and banana cream pies.
– Going to the movies at the Coral Theater on Ponce De Leon Boulevard and the Miracle Theater on Miracle Mile. I remember seeing “Auntie Mame” at the Miracle.
– Going to Pizza Palace and Krispy Creme on SW 8th Street. It wasn’t called Calle Ocho then.
– Buying fruit at the fruit market on the corner of Le Jeune Road and SW 8th Street I can still smell the wonderful aroma of the oranges.
– Feeding the pigeons in Bayfront Park and going to Pier Five in downtown Miami.
– Passing Burdines and seeing the amusement park on the roof and the big neon Santa between the buildings.
– Going to the original Parrot Jungle and Monkey Jungle and taking an airboat ride in the Everglades.
– Going to FunLand Amusement Park on NW 27th Avenue and 79th Street.
– On Miami Beach, eating at Pickin’ Chicken, Picciolo’s Italian Restaurant, Wolfie’s, on 21st Street and on Lincoln Road, The Noshery at the Saxony Hotel, Famous Restaurant on Washington Avenue, and Hoffman’s Cafeteria on Collins.
– Going to the movies at The Caribe Theater on Lincoln Road. I saw “The Planet of the Apes” there in 1968.

My parents retired in 1977 and moved to Florida. They bought a condo at Kings Point in Delray Beach. I would come down to visit them during my Easter breaks, but this place was not my cup of tea. Then in 1990, I took a ride down from Delray to Miami Beach with my parents, and the magic hit me again.

At that time, South Beach, as it is now called, was going through a renaissance, and I was hooked. It was at that point that I started to think that this is the place where I would like to retire.

Now, here I am back in Miami, sadly, many of the places I remember from my childhood and adolescent visits no longer exist. But Miami has moved forward and is now a world-class city, and I am happy to be a permanent resident of this “Magic City.”

On Christmas Eve in 1964, in the midst of revolutionary activity in Cuba, my family and I were expelled from our rural Cuban town without any warning or money.?

Suddenly, we all were on a new trajectory of unforeseen challenges, opportunities and lessons. ?

I arrived in South Florida in the summer of 1975, after being discharged from the U.S. Army. Miami was a transient city back then. Cubans were outsiders, and many local Miamians wanted us to go back to where we came from. It was a cold and ruthless environment here, and, at the time, many of us did not have successful role models to look up to. But we had values and we would do whatever we needed to do to get ahead — from delivering milk to cleaning bedrooms and bathrooms at Miami Beach hotels.

I worked as a door-to-door salesman. It was an honorable life, one that rewarded those who embraced it and who earned as much as they could. The sky was the limit, as long as you didn’t let others define you. I was not about to give anyone that much power over me. I was not the smartest, but I would be the hardest worker, the most organized salesman, and the most productive employee in that sales group. I had no idea how difficult it was about to become.

I was 23 years old in a strange new city, with no one to network with, and no referrals from people who could help me find a prospect. The first week was a brain-crushing, ego-deflating experience. After one week, I walked up and down every apartment building in Fontainebleau Park, off Southwest 87th Avenue. I walked through every clothing manufacturing factory I could find in Hialeah.

I had nothing to show for it. I had not made one penny, and unless I generated a sale, by the end of the month I would be fired. I was ready to quit, but I did not. I came from a humbled economic background, from a family of rich personal values. I knew it was going to be a rough road, but I was determined to make it work: America was now my country, and Miami would soon enough be my home.

I poured through the Yellow Pages and made countless calls. One day, I contacted a business, and asked for the man whose name I had from an article in the Miami Herald. He was a real “somebody” who had just sold a company and was on his way to building another. I was getting used to the rejections from the gatekeepers, the assistants, and I still had not succeeded in getting an appointment to sell insurance. But by now, I was somehow immune to the rejections. I was shocked when the assistant transferred the call to “Mr. Big.”

He asked me, “How did you get my name?” I told him, “from the D&B; index cards that have the name of employers in Miami and I had read about you in the newspaper.”

Then he went on to give me a few encouraging words: “To succeed, you have to fail. When you fail, you learn. When you fall, you get up.” These were the first encouraging words I had heard from someone whose name was in the paper. Mr. Big was bigger to me than he would ever know.?

Those words of wisdom gave me the fuel to make more calls, to survive the week, and by the end of the second week, I had 12 appointments to make my pitch. Later that week, I met another Mr. Big. He, too, declined to buy my services but just like the one before, he gave me words of encouragement that filled my heart with the energy I needed to push ahead.

Those two individuals — without knowing it — helped me create a new world for myself and my family. These are the kinds of individuals who have made our city a magical place where dreams come true: I currently serve as chairman of MBF Healthcare Partners, L.P., a private equity firm located in Coral Gables, and recently published my memoir, Humbled by the Journey: Lessons for My Family and Yours.

Like me, who knows how many others have been guided, encouraged and driven to live their dreams by individuals like the two who touched my life?

They have not known until now how much they have meant to me. Mr. Armando Codina was the first Mr. Big. Thank you for what you did, for who you are. The second Mr. Big, came into my life at a time when I needed a word of support. To the family of Mr. Leonard Miller, I owe much of who I am to your dad, your husband, your grandfather, your Lenny.?

This is who Miami is. This is what we need for Miami to continue to be!

World War II was over, but not for my father, U.S. Navy Commander Charlie Houghton. There was one more job for him.

He was placed in charge of decommissioning and restoring the hotels on Miami Beach that the Navy had used. During that time, my father worked with two of the hotel owners. They liked the job he had done and hired him to work for them. They owned Westview Country Club in North Miami. They thought it was too soon after the war to reopen the Westview. Their idea was to open a trailer park on their golf course. They wanted my father to start it up and manage it.

It was exciting to live in a country club. Our living room was large enough to set up a volleyball net and play a game. The country club itself was built on a hill surrounded by beautiful green grass.

We were there for just a week when a hurricane hit. We Houghtons knew nothing about hurricanes. My father and mother gathered all eight of us kids into the main living room and we stayed there until the storm was over. The surrounding land and roads were flooded. It wasn’t unusual to see someone rowing a boat up Northwest 119th Street. When the water finally subsided, one of our neighbors drove up in his truck to show my dad the rattlesnake he killed in his yard. My six brothers gathered around the truck to see the rattler. My sister and I hung back and saw it from afar. IT WAS BIG.

My dad and older brothers, Tony and Jimmy, worked together to get the trailer park up and running. The boys learned a lot that summer about electrical, water and sewer hook ups. They built it and “the people came.”

My new friend, Bessie Crocker, lived across Northwest 119th Street. Her mom and dad owned and ran a restaurant named The Blue Yonder. The restaurant was only open for dinner. One day, Bessie’s mother made us a lunch of delicious German noodles and let us eat in the dining room. She was a wonderful cook and nice lady.

Behind the restaurant was a huge cow pasture. Bessie and I explored the pasture and jumped over a lot of cow bones. We didn’t want to touch dead stuff. One day a big brown bull chased us. It was scary. Cow pastures can be scary. We actually outran the bull. That’s how scared we were.

My brother Richard and I would walk down our street to a neighbor’s farm. I liked to go there when they dipped the cows. The cows swam in a deep narrow cement pool filled with something to kill fleas, bugs and tics. The cows swam across the killing pool and got out on the other side and walked away as if none of that trauma really happened. Oh, to be a cow!

The era of having a trailer park on the gorgeous rolling lawn of a country club was over. The owners wanted their country club back with golf players and parties and dancing. The Houghton family was on the road again. We were headed for our new house in the southwest section of Miami.

My older brothers were ardent explorers.

They set out on foot to explore our new neighborhood. Like Lewis and Clark they left with confidence. When they got home, I was told about a huge swimming pool called Venetian Pool in a place called Coral Gables. The next day, the boys and I walked to the pool. It had four cement platforms to jump or dive off. My mother gave us nine cents each to get into the pool.

I soon found out that I could earn money at Venetian. Tourist buses stopped at the pool. The tourists enjoyed throwing coins into the water and watching us dive for the money. They threw mostly pennies but sometimes a dime or nickel got tossed in. It was an underwater battle trying to be the one who got to the money first. I did well and almost always picked up enough money to buy a hot dog. Venetian Pool’s hot dogs were the best.

In the summer, we would walk to Venetian and swim all day. The pool had a natural cave with water in it. It also had an underwater hole in the wall that kids could swim through. We kids would wait in line to have a turn at diving underwater and swimming through the hole. I was always afraid that someone would grab my foot and stop me from going through the hole and then I would drown. Glad to say it never happened.

But the best-ever Miami story for me was on January 5, 1985, when I ran 26.2 miles from Baker’s Haulover in North Miami Beach to Miami, and then to Coconut Grove. I’ve never felt so proud of my hometown and the people than when I ran in the Orange Bowl Marathon. All the people along the race route helped and encouraged me to keep on running. There was the enthusiasm of two ladies on Miami Beach who clapped in time to their cheer, “Go runner, go!”

It put a smile on my face and gave me new energy to keep going. I passed an elderly couple who had set up an “aid station” and obviously spent their own money to buy paper cups and water for the runners. There was also a young girl sitting on a sidewalk who was cutting orange slices for her friend to hand out to the runners. These people and many more caused me to be so proud of Miami, my city. When I think of all their kindnesses, I get tears in my eyes.