Category: Miami Stories

My story begins in the fall of 1925 when both of my grandparents and their families came to Miami. My mother’s parents, Frank and Laura Wingert, came from Springfield, Ohio, and my father’s parents Ellsworth (Buddy) and Emma Worthington, from Villa Park, Ill.

Both families came because of the weather and hoped they could find steady work.

My paternal grandfather was a painter/wallpaper hanger who worked most of his years in the Coral Gables and Coconut Grove area. My maternal grandfather sold cars on Northwest Seventh Avenue and Seventh Street.

When my mother’s parents and family arrived, they temporarily lived in what was known as “Tent City,” due to the housing shortage. My grandmother opened a small bakery in the neighborhood known as “Lemon City,” which is now known as the Edison area.

My maternal grandparents were able to rent a house. When my mom’s family moved from Tent City six months later they settled in Allapattah. Allapattah Baptist Church was the hubbub of youth activity, as there weren’t many venues for young people. The Sunday evening youth program was where my parents met.

My mother graduated from Edison Senior High, and my father from Miami Jackson. I attended Jackson 28 years later and we had the same math teacher, Mr. Worley. My father was a student in Mr. Worley’s early days; I, in the last year before he retired.

My parents began a courtship, Miami was booming and work was plentiful. My maternal grandmother, however, was terrified when the 1926 hurricane devastated the city.

The family was frightened, as they did not know what a hurricane could really do. They did not board up their house and when a window blew in, my grandfather nailed the ironing board over it. My grandmother and the children would not come out from their hiding place for some time.

They never found their chickens or their pet rabbit. From then on, my grandmother was extremely nervous when any storm approached up until her death in 1962.

My parents tell of going to the beach every weekend and there was nothing there. They have fond memories of the Venetian Pool, church-sponsored events and the wonderful Olympia Theater with live stage shows and the latest movies. There were parties at the homes of friends and their first cars – all of this on very little money.

Eventually my parents drove up to Fort Lauderdale and were married at the courthouse with a few friends and family members present. My father and his two brothers worked at The Miami Herald, my father stayed in the newspaper business until he retired from the Sun Sentinel.

World War II changed everyone’s lives. My father began to build patrol torpedo boats at Paul Prigg Boat Works on the Miami River.

My father went back to The Miami Herald after the war and built three small frame homes for his sister and her family, his sister-in-law with her four small children and himself.

That is where my memories begin – the house on Northwest Seventh Street and 44th Avenue, and my cousins just a block or two west on 46th Avenue and Seventh Street. The pavement ended at about 42nd Avenue (LeJeune Road) and Seventh Street. The city bus ended the route at LeJeune and Seventh.

It was a long hot walk home, but what a treat it was to go downtown. If we were lucky, we would have lunch upstairs at Kress’s Cafeteria. Like most families we were a one-car family. Living out in the country we had chickens, turkeys, a pony and our pet cat and dog.

I began school at Kinloch Park Elementary. We were, and are, very family-oriented and have wonderful memories of the holidays, especially of Matheson Hammock on the Fourth of July. We were the family who always had one of the two pavilions because someone went there at 6 a.m. to secure them!

My grandfather, father and now my boys were, and are, all fishermen. We spent hours in the Keys, bass fishing at Fish Eating Creek and Lake Okeechobee, picnicking at Haulover, Matheson and most every park. We have made an effort to visit almost every state park in Florida, either camping or renting cabins.

I married my high school sweetheart, Morgan Pearcy in 1958; he graduated from Lindsey Hopkins Technical High School, where he excelled in the electrical program. He completed his dream to start his own business, which we owned for over 20 years. Morgan is still working full time in the electrical field at Fisk Electric.

We began a family of four boys: Mark, Phillip, Danny and Paul. They all graduated from South Miami Senior High, and played Pop Warner football, little league baseball.

As a family we were active in the First United Methodist Church of South Miami.

They all graduated from college and still reside in the South Miami area. We have been, and continue to be, active in the community. We very much enjoy South Florida and all it has to offer.

My father, Hiram L. Hernandez, had an older brother and cousins in Miami so in 1948 he left Havana and emigrated to the United States in search of work and a new life.

He began working at the Ambassador Cafeteria in Miami Beach and later worked at the Governor Cafeteria, now the sight of one of South Beach’s well-known clubs. He told of having met people like Jimmy Durante, famous prize fighters and other entertainers who frequented Miami Beach during the post World War II years. The owners of the Governor Cafeteria had been in Nazi concentration camps, and years later I remember my father explaining the significance of the numbers on their forearms.

My mother, Nora Cuervo, soon left Cuba to join my father, and they were married at the Dade County Courthouse in downtown Miami. My father often joked that the president of the United States had come to town for their wedding, since President Truman’s motorcade was indeed passing the courthouse at the precise moment that my newly married parents were descending the courthouse steps. What a thrill for a couple of young immigrants!

My brother, Hiram and I were born at Jackson Memorial Hospital and the family lived in an apartment building owned by my father’s cousins, the Monte Carlo Apartments on Pennsylvania Avenue in Miami Beach. The Miami Beach City Hall is now located there.

In those early days of no air conditioning we would sleep with the front and back doors open to catch the ocean breezes as they drifted through the efficiency apartment that was home. Every day we walked to the beach at 12th Street and Ocean Drive. We attended Central Beach Elementary School (now Feinberg/Fisher). More than 35 years later my daughter would begin her teaching career at this same school.

For one year we moved to a federal government housing project located on the very southern-most point of Miami Beach. Few people are aware that so close to the opulence of the big Miami Beach hotels, and right across the street from the big-time entertainers who were dining at Joe’s Stone Crab restaurant, there was a federal housing project.

We would spend Sunday afternoons in Hialeah with my father’s brother and his family. Hialeah was pretty “country” in the 1950s and 1960s; horses, small farms and both horse and race car tracks were common. Other times we would travel to downtown Miami to buy fresh fish and hot peanuts at Pier 5 and go to Burdines, especially at Christmas. This was before our yearly visits to Cuba to visit the rest of the extended family. Occasionally we would fish off the rocks along the side of the MacArthur Causeway (which was only two lanes at the time). My father and brother had fishing rods and reels; mom and I did the best we could with a spool of fishing line and a hook.

My parents became United States citizens as soon as they were eligible, and instilled in us a civic pride and love and loyalty to this country that has characterized us throughout our lives. Daddy campaigned to help elect the late Sen. Jack Gordon when he first ran for the Dade County School Board. Later, I too, would become engaged in the political process.

A huge milestone was when my parents were able to purchase a small house in Carol City in 1959 – mostly cow pastures back then, and for the first time we had a yard and a dog. Tired of the long drive to Miami Beach for work, and wanting a better life for his family, Daddy studied hard to earn his real estate salesman’s license and became one of the first Spanish-speaking real estate agents in Miami.

Our house became a temporary refuge for family members, who in the early 1960s fled Cuba’s communism. For quite some time I slept on an old army cot in my parents’ bedroom so that my bedroom could be used by recently arrived relatives. In sixth grade my elementary school teachers assigned me to serve as English tutor and translator for many newly arrived Cuban refugee children. Little did I realize at the time what a huge and important responsibility I was given at such a young age.

I remember during the Cuban Missile Crisis when the military built a base with missiles not far from our home. The school system distributed military-style “dog tags” that would identify children and provide our blood type and religious affiliation in the event of being bombed, and we held periodic air raid drills during school.

These rather somber memories are balanced by other more light-hearted moments of childhood, including long bike rides; visits to Monkey Jungle, Parrot Jungle, Miami Seaquarium, Crandon Park Zoo and the Miami Serpentarium; Skipper Chuck, Ralph Renick, Weaver the Weatherman and Rick Shaw; bus rides from Modernage Furniture in North Dade to the Orange Bowl to watch the Miami Dolphins; movies at the drive-in; parties at Haulover Beach; marching in the Carol City High School band at the Orange Bowl parade; hanging out at Lum’s and dancing at The Place.

My brother and I finished elementary school, junior high and senior high in Carol City and attended the University of Florida – he in 1968 and I in 1969. My parents couldn’t have been prouder. After a stint in the Army my brother returned to Miami and has spent his career working at the place we were born, Jackson Memorial Hospital.

I returned to Miami in 1976, raised my three children here, and have enjoyed a fulfilling career in higher education. The sky is bluer and the emotions more intense in Miami. I have never wanted to live anywhere else.

The year was 1944. My stepdad, Charles Beatty, and my mom, Margaret, and sister Blanche and I lived in an upstairs duplex on 11th Street and Jefferson Avenue in Miami Beach across from Flamingo Park, where the U.S. Army Air Forces trained our boys to serve. My name was Jeanette Seligman at that time.

I used to go to Joe’s Broadway Delicatessen at Washington Avenue near Española Way with my friends to eat quite often. While we were in a line on the sidewalk waiting for a table, we met two young men in uniform. They started a conversation, and we were called in. My girlfriend and I ate a lovely meal.

We went to see a movie on Lincoln Road, and when we left the movie theater, we saw the two nice soldiers we had encountered earlier. This good-looking soldier approached me and asked if he could walk me home. He was so handsome in his immaculately starched uniform that I could not refuse his offer.

His name was Nathan Siegel from Boston, Mass. He told me he was a staff sergeant working in the Army Records Office at the Versailles Hotel.

From then on, we went to dances at the Versailles on Saturday nights to dance under the stars. Tony Martin was in Nathan’s barracks, so I fixed Tony up with one of my friends and we all went together to Saturday night dances.

Then Nathan was shipped to Madison, Wisc. We really missed each other, and after a while, Nate asked me to marry him and go to Madison to do so. He spoke to my mother and asked for my hand, and told her he would take care of me and she would never have to worry! He was such a gentleman.

I did go to Madison, and we were married by a rabbi. Two of his army buddies were our witnesses. Not long after, Nate was shipped overseas to Germany. I flew home to Miami Beach and lived on Michigan Avenue with my mom and stepdad, who owned the Clay Hotel on Washington Avenue and Española Way.

The Clay was a hotel, but there were apartments on Española connected to the hotel, so we moved there. Our first child, Alan, was born in Miami Beach after Nathan was discharged from the Air Force.

Nathan went into the building business and became very successful. We moved to Coral Gables, and then we built a beautiful home on Meridian Avenue and 43rd Street in the Nautilus section of Miami Beach. We lived there with our two sons.

When the boys were older, we moved to Bay Harbor Islands, where Nate had built many apartment buildings.

Eventually, he and I moved to a condo “on the ocean” in Bal Harbour. Our boys were out on their own at this point, and settled in Beverly Hills and Aspen.

We had a wonderful, full life. Nathan passed away at 75, so nothing is the same anymore. He was the problem-solver. I thank God I met such a wonderful soldier.

As for my roots in Florida, my mom, sister and I moved here from New York after my mom became a young widow at age 29. Her parents were living here, and her mother helped her take care of me and my sister. I was 8 and have lived here now all these years.

I’m practically a native, as I’m 95, and have been living here for 87 years, and still love it.

My father, Louis Pallot, arrived in Miami from Massachusetts in 1924. He was not prepared for the big 1926 hurricane that was to come. During the storm, he went to check on his little tire shop on Flagler Street and got caught in the lull, thinking the hurricane had ended. It came back with a fury.

When life in Miami settled down, he sent for my mother, Gertrude, and my toddler brother, Norton. They arrived when people thought the streets of Miami were paved in gold, but it was not long before the stock market crashed and those streets became tarnished.

The Norton Tire Store, named after my oldest brother, did well with all the new highways going south and people following the sun. Plain old hard work was also an ingredient. My family established themselves in the shadow of the Orange Bowl.

I was born six years later in October 1934 at Victoria Hospital. These were simple times, until the Sunday of Dec. 7, 1941, when my family moved across the causeway to Miami Beach and my brother Norton went off to war. Soldiers were in training on Miami Beach and marched in front of our house on 50th and Alton Road to Polo Park.

The late 1940s and 1950s, after the war, were the best of times. Miami and the beaches were thriving. My life at Miami Beach High School was special. Students bonded, there was lots of school spirit, and we danced the “lindy” in the school patio. I met my future husband, Howard Katzen, at age 16 at my best friend’s sweet 16 party. Having lived in Miami all my life, I am able to keep many of my same friends since childhood.

Howard and I both graduated from the University of Miami, as did my two brothers. Brothers Ronald and Norton each married two Glorias, and they graduated from the U. of M. In 1956, with a new baby, Lynn, in tow we moved to newly developing South Miami before there was Dadeland or the Palmetto Expressway. Howard and I went on to have two more children, Bruce and David.

Norton Tire Company thrived after the war. Norton arrived home from military service and assisted my father in developing our family business. We were one of the first businesses to rent cars to tourists out of our second outpost on 15th{+S}t{+r}{+e}{+e}t and Alton Road on Miami Beach. Business boomed as tires became available.

Ronald joined the business and then my husband Howard to round out the management group. Louis Pallot began to take life easier. Norton Tire grew, selling, servicing, and wholesaling tires. We became the largest independent tire dealer in the United States, with 16 stores in the state.

We also were involved in many civic, business, and fraternal organizations. Norton Tire Co. thrived, but there were difficulties as well. In May 1980, the McDuffie riots erupted in the neighborhood. My mother, Howard and I went to Boston for son Bruce’s college graduation that weekend. Flying home on Sunday and landing at Miami International Airport, we saw our main headquarters, warehouse, and business center burning to the ground. The smoke reached up to the sky. Norton Tire Co. recouped, not a day of operation and full customer service was lost, despite the fact that our 80,000 square foot facility – including executive offices, warehouse, accounting department, retread facilities, and retail store – were lost.

Temporary headquarters were established until a new building could be built west of the airport. This trio of my two brothers and husband showed as much capacity for hard work as Louis Pallot did in the early days. With the help of third -generation family members joining the business, trustworthy employees and loyal customers, Norton Tire Co. prospered. We opened a new facility in 1983.

After 70 years in business, we sold our company in 1986 to Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. We had 40 stores in the state.

Retired life has been good. For over 50 years Howard and I have been a part of the boating community and enjoyed the coasts of Florida and the Keys and the Bahamas. When I see the skyline of Miami from the vantage point of Biscayne Bay, I am reminded of how this city has grown and changed over the years. For 35 years Howard and I have played tennis at Royal Palm Tennis Club, not too far from our home in Coral Gables.

In appreciation for all this community has given to my family, I wanted to give back. I have been a devoted volunteer at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden for over 30 years. Our three children, daughter-in- law, and four grandchildren thrive here and our future is here.

My father, for whom I was named, brought his family to Miami in 1935, the last of several moves he was forced to make as he struggled to make a living as a life insurance agent during the bleak years of the Great Depression.

He had made a fortune in Lakeland developing and selling real estate in the delirious economy of the early 1920s, had $250,000 in the local bank, and was planning to retire and enjoy life as a gentleman farmer. In 1926, the year of the bust in Florida, the bank suddenly failed; no federal deposit insurance protected its customers, and my father was ruined, his properties taken by mortgage foreclosure. I was born in that year, and my sister Judy in 1929, adding to his burdens.

In the years following our move to Miami, Dad somehow managed to support the family against all odds by selling insurance to folks who had very little money to spare. My mother, Helen, performed miracles in the kitchen, feeding us with potatoes, cornmeal, an occasional fish, and meat perhaps once a week. We almost literally lived by the cracker slogan of “Grits and Grunts and Coconut Pie.”

My sister and I enrolled in a series of public schools as we moved about the county, finally settling in 1941 near Red Road, the western boundary of Coral Gables. Bird Road was rocky and full of potholes from there, but my teenage buddies and I enjoyed bouncing to the end at Krome Avenue, where we used our BB guns and .22-caliber rifles to shoot garfish and snakes in the canals.

Miami in the 1930s had all the virtues and prejudices of Southern culture. People were friendly, doors of many homes were left unlocked, the few fancy hotels in Miami Beach closed and boarded up for the summer once the tourist season ended. Elite restaurants were very few; dining out was more often in casual and inexpensive places, such as the Mayflower Café, which boasted a huge neon sign: AS YOU TRAVEL ON THROUGH LIFE BROTHER, WHATEVER IS YOUR GOAL, KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE DOUGHNUT, AND NOT UPON THE HOLE.

However, blacks had to endure insults and constant reminders of prejudice in the white social structure: exclusions from employment or memberships, signs in public buildings setting aside separate toilet facilities for “Colored Only.”

In May 1940, I had a taste of fame as the winner of the third South Florida Spelling Bee, sponsored by The Miami Herald. The annual spelling contest, staged in the Bayfront Park band shell arena, had become a big deal with the newspaper. Henry Cavendish was named the Herald Spelling Bee Editor, and his stories appeared for weeks as the preliminary contests were held. Fortunately for me, an eighth-grader at Coconut Grove School, the principal, B.H. Hayes, was determined to have a winner from his school, so he had drilled me relentlessly in his office several times every day. The day after I won the district final, The Herald ran a front-page story and a picture of a grinning big-eared 13-year-old next to the other important story, headlined: “NAZIS 60 MILES FROM PARIS.”

My mother and I were flown to Washington for the National Spelling Bee, lodged in the historic Willard Hotel and escorted by Mr. Cavendish. He wrote daily stories and spent a decent amount of time in the hotel bar. I was close to winning, until misspelling “synchronous” sent me to the showers.

The school system had no residence boundaries for students, and I became a Miami Senior High “Stingaree,” made the invincible football team and studied under wonderful teachers like Miss Lamar Louise Curry, who, now at age 104, still attends alumni events.

After graduation in June 1944, the boys in the class were quickly drawn into World War II, either by enlistment or draft. With many other classmates, I joined the Navy V-12 officer-training program and was assigned to the University of Miami. The University was shedding its image as “Suntan U” and had attracted many excellent professors. Dr. H. Franklin Williams was a historian who spoke with the true accents of his training at “Hahvahd” and was a kind and generous mentor.

Released from the Navy and after earning a degree from the University of Miami, I was accepted by the Harvard Law School, possibly because the mandarins there wanted to see if a graduate of that raw little college in Miami could survive. I did so, returned to Miami and was hired by Dixon, DeJarnette, Bradford and Williams, then considered a large firm (7 lawyers).

There, and in my own firm, my legal work was varied, until retirement more than 50 years later. For over 20 years, my largest and most visible client was the Dade County School Board; as school board attorney, I worked with many serious and dedicated people, among them elected board members Holmes Braddock and Janet McAliley, and strong administrators including Superintendent Ed Whigham and Eldridge Williams, formerly one of the famed Tuskegee Airmen, with whom I worked on the difficult problems posed by the desegregation of schools.

I was recalled to duty by the Navy during the Korean War, and as an officer spent two enjoyable years on the island of Guam. Best of all, I met and courted Emiliana Perez, who became my wife. Our daughter Elizabeth grew up and still lives in Miami with her husband and our three grandchildren. So continues our Miami story, which began in 1935.

Blending a born-in-Miami beginning with only one adult job as a Miami police officer and a special piece of property that has a rich Miami history of nearly 100 years might seem like a lot to digest. However, my Miami story blends all of the above and more.

My Miami story begins before I was born. In the 1930s, my grandfather came to Miami to relax in the winter months with other family members. Coming from New Jersey, they were part of the blue-collar Jewish community in South Florida that was here in the winter and gone in the summer. They flourished in certain parts of the South Florida scene and were less than welcome in others.

Downtown Miami and some of Miami Beach were our family’s stomping grounds. Our family was far from being wealthy, so a lot of Miami and Miami Beach were off-limits. Our family members were hard-working small-business owners. In the mid-1940s, my uncle owned a small snack bar and orange juice stand in downtown Miami, near Walgreens. We think the name was “Juicy Juice.”

During the World War II years, downtown Miami was a major staging and marching area for Allied soldiers. Thousands of soldiers trained in Bayfront Park and on Biscayne Boulevard. The orange-juice stand was a big hit. Fresh Florida orange juice was a special treat for the “plow boys” from the Midwest who were experiencing it for the first time, along with the foreign Allied soldiers from Europe and the Far East.

Our family’s orange-juice stand was an important part of my life, even before I was born. My mother, Clare J. Kovach, was in the U.S. Coast Guard and worked in downtown Miami at the USCG office. Mom was a Western Pennsylvania coal miner’s daughter who joined the USCG as a 20-year-old.

It was at the orange-juice stand where my mother met my father, Harold J. Green. Dad had just gotten out of the Army and was working there. Dad said it was love at first sight. Dad started a short courtship, and when mom was transferred to New York, he followed and proposed. After a short stay there, it was back to Miami.

Miami was recovering from the war years, and changes were happening to the way folks lived. One of the biggest changes for the Green family was that the food-ration years were over and beef was back on the menu for our country. The problem was my dad and mom were taking care of a chicken farm in the Redland for the family, and no one wanted to eat much chicken. So with a cold winter blast and 10,000 chickens that no one wanted, the chicken-farm business came to an end.

In 1948, I was born at Jackson Memorial Hospital, and our first home was a wood-frame house on Southwest 22nd Avenue near West Flagler Street. In 1950, mom and dad – using their G.I. benefits – qualified for a G.I. loan to buy a new house in the Flagami area, near Southwest Third Street and 68th Avenue. The house cost $6,800, and the deal was $50 down and $50 a month.

Dad and mom had five boys, with the last birth being a set of twins. The Green boys grew up to be a Vietnam-area Army helicopter pilot who was awarded a Silver Star and unfortunately soon after was killed in a training crash; a Miami police officer honored in the ’70s as an Officer of the Year; one teacher for Dade Schools; and two electricians.

Miami in those days was much more compact than it is today. There were no large suburban areas such as Kendall, Doral and Miami Lakes. Our family enjoyed outings at Crandon and Matheson Hammock parks. We also enjoyed trips to the Venetian Pool in Coral Gables. The pool’s caves were my favorite part.

The old Pier 5 was a special treat. We frequently went to the old Pier 5 to watch the fishing boats come in, buy fresh fish and people-watch. Movies were in downtown Miami and Coral Gables.

Seeing Roy Rogers and Howdy Doody on stage at the Olympic Theater and Christmas trips to the roof of the Burdines building for the rides will always be a special memory.

Being on the Skipper Chuck Show at the old TV Channel 4 was a big time for me. I watched the Orange Bowl Parades from a curb on West Flagler Street. We had many afternoons at Dressel’s Dairy on Milam Dairy Road for soft ice cream and pony rides.

In the mid-1950s, my dad opened a restaurant in Hollywood called the “Corral Bar BQ.” Later, he built the “Tomboy Club” on Northwest 119 street and, lastly, before his death, “Chick N Sub” restaurant in Opa-locka.

In the early ’60s our family moved to the Norwood/Norland area, and I became one of the “60s Norwood Boys.” Norwood Boys from the ’60s were an interesting group of guys. We had our fair share of lawyers, businessmen, firefighters, police officers and lots of everyday honest folks … along with a side group of criminals, dope-dealers and murderers. Not everyone made it through the ’60s alive or out of prison.

High school at Norland Senior High was full of football, girls and a small amount of schoolwork. Cloverleaf Bowling Lanes, Haulover Beach and Sunny Isles were our major hangouts. We spent countless hours playing in the big field where the Dolphins’ stadium is today. We called it the “Ponderosa.” We loved to water-ski on Snake Creek Canal.

My connection to the Miami Police Benevolent Association (Miami PBA) at 2300 NW 14th St. started early in my life. The Miami PBA’s property was one of the few “party” locations in Miami during the 1950s. The Miami PBA had a small children’s amusement park with rides. Besides the large swing, wooden-horse carousel and other small rides, the Miami PBA had an operating miniature coal-fired children’s train.

The park had room for birthday parties, and each year there were special parties for underprivileged children where police officers helped out. Being lifted on a uniformed Miami police officer’s horse was a great treat. My biggest memory was my 5th birthday party held at the Miami PBA Park, 58 years ago.

Presently, I am the president of the Miami Police Benevolent Association. The Miami PBA is a special PBA that has been connected to the Miami Police Department since the mid-1930s.It is not a police labor or bargaining organization, and there is no direct connection between us and the other PBAs. We might be one of the few PBAs in the nation that is truly a benevolent association.

My parents came to Miami in November 1944 from Massachusetts. My father, Demosthenes John Mekras, had just graduated from the seminary and married my mother, Exacousti “Toula” Panagiotopoulos.

My father was ordained into the Greek Orthodox priesthood in January 1945 at the Saint Sophia Church in downtown Miami. They worked together to perpetuate Greek Orthodoxy and in 1948, the magnificent Saint Sophia Cathedral that stands today was built on Coral Way and 24th Road.

I was born in 1946 at Jackson Memorial Hospital (my brothers George and John were born there, too). We lived in the parish home next door to the cathedral until 1959 when we moved into our own home on 22nd Road. We three still live in Miami and so do all of our children! We are native Miamians.

We grew up going to Bayfront Park Pier 5, where boats would come in with fresh fish. Fishermen would clean their catch on wooden tables and we would watch the really big fish be weighed on the hook. We grew up going to Crandon Park with friends for picnics. While on Key Biscayne, we would swim late into the day, go to the zoo and have fun on the rides.

Saturday was the day for the Parkway Movie Theatre with a bagged lunch and yo-yo contests during intermission. Afternoons were spent with a hammer and screwdriver trying to crack open coconuts, playing with the water hose, gathering insects in jars, climbing trees and riding our bikes everywhere.

Christmas was Burdines downtown on the breezeway with Santa, cotton candy and the ferris wheel. New Year’s Eve was the parade down Biscayne Boulevard with beautiful girls twirling batons, artistically decorated floats, high school and college marching bands and lots of fun. New Year’s Day was the Orange Bowl football game and parking our car at Ahern-Plummer Funeral Home for free.

Easter was a photo with the bunny and picking out brightly colored chicks at the Five and Dime to take home as Easter pets. The religious aspect of Easter was Holy Friday with Coral Way closed to traffic for a procession symbolizing the funeral of Christ as observed in the Orthodox Church, and midnight services for the Resurrection. I mention these two services not only because my father was the celebrant, but because so many non-Orthodox Miamians would gather on the sidewalks to observe this beautiful tradition. Our church still celebrates these services today.

My mother owned Cynthia’s-Coray on Miracle Mile from the mid 1950s to the mid 1960s (before malls) and my Saturdays were spent trimming the display windows and going to Jahn’s and Cookies with friends. Dean’s Waffle Shop across from Sears was a favorite, too.

My brother George raised homing pigeons. He would take the bus on Coral Way to the public library at Bayfront and let the birds go, get on the bus and go home to wait for the pigeons to fly home. They always did! My brother John delivered the Miami News weekday afternoons on his bicycle.

Our schooling was at Coral Way Elementary, Shenandoah Junior High and Miami Senior High. Both of my brothers are University of Miami medical school graduates. Our mother chaired many school carnivals in the beautiful garden area of Coral Way. We learned how to swim at Shenandoah Park swimming pool. My brothers played football for Miami High. Those were the days when the Orange Bowl stadium was filled to capacity with Miami residents attending games with good sportsmanship and great half time shows.

Old Cutler Road was covered with crabs on rainy days. A wonder was to see manatees come up to the sea wall on South Bayshore Drive (now Brickell Bay Drive) and feed them veggies. The snakes at the Serpentarium were huge! It was a treat to go to the Big Wheel and Hot Shoppes drive-ins and have your food brought to your car window. It was fun going to Royal Castle and counting how many little hamburgers (now called sliders) you could eat for 15 cents each.

Gas “wars” were when gas was down to 19 cents a gallon and lines would be around the block at Brooks Gulf on 20th Road. WEDR radio station did foreign language programming and on Sunday mornings my mother hosted “Grecian Melodies,” the first and only Greek language radio program in Miami. There was no I-95 and driving to Sunset Drive from our home in the Roads was an excursion. South Miami seemed so far away! US-1 was a lazy drive.

I love Miami. My parents loved living in Miami and always said how fortunate they were to be assigned here and able to raise their family in this City Beautiful. Old Miami offered me a wonderful childhood. So many great Miami memories! After the death of my father in 2005, the City of Miami designated the street in front of Saint Sophia “Rev. Demosthenes J. Mekras Way” and my family is appreciative of this honor.

Miami was a wonderful place to grow up and I am sad that many of our childhood highlights and traditions are no longer. It is a much different city today from the one we had in my youthful days, but it is still a great city to call home, especially since my seven precious grandchildren, Ariana, Joana, Jonathan, Natasha, Kristian, Evana and Ella, also call Miami home.

There’s a saying by Aristophanes: “A man’s homeland is wherever he prospers.”

I have felt “at home” in the many cities where I have lived and worked, but I have never known a city like Miami, with its strong culture of giving and responsibility mixed with care.

My love for Miami developed many decades ago. My family began visiting Miami Beach in the 1940s, and we fell in love with the area, eventually moving here when I was a young boy in 1954. We settled in the Pinecrest area.

Along with my three older brothers, I loved to fish and dive, and often rode my bike to our favorite spots in the area by Old Cutler Bay, known today as Matheson Hammock and Gables Estates.

Back in the day, my friends and I would sneak into Arthur Vining Davis’ estate (at the time) to get to the stretched canal on his property that led to the bay, where we could catch snapper, grouper and lobster. Davis was an industrialist and philanthropist with extensive real-estate holdings in Florida, and would often come out in his wheelchair to greet us with a warning to be safe.

I attended Pinecrest Elementary School, Palmetto Jr. High School, and graduated from Palmetto Sr. High School in 1970. This was a very special time for me because I met the love of my life – my wife, Dawn.

I can truly say that I had a very happy childhood growing up in South Florida.

I left Miami in 1971 to go to college, and after one year, following my brothers, I joined the armed forces. Three of us were in the 82nd Airborne Division of the U.S. Army. Two of us, including myself, were helicopter pilots, while my other brother was a Green Beret.

Military service was followed by a move to Atlanta, where I completed college and received an MBA at Georgia State University, both with honors and as part of the GI Bill. It was there that one of my professors secured an interview for me at Merrill Lynch.

This is where a new professional journey began.

At Merrill Lynch, I was a stock broker and later a producing sales manager, which led to a full-time managerial role. After several years, my wife and I left the South and spent the next 4 ½ years in the Windy City, Chicago, where my responsibilities included managing several Merrill Lynch offices.

After a successful run in Chicago, I was transferred for the next two years to Princeton, N.J., at Merrill Lynch’s corporate headquarters.

A few years later, I was thrilled to head home to Miami to oversee Merrill Lynch’s Miami-Dade operations. After a 30-year absence, we were back and couldn’t have been happier. We bought our beautiful home in Gables by the Sea and our first boat, which we named “Miami Twice.”

My first day back at work in Miami was Sept. 11, 2001, the day of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. It was a difficult time wherever you were in the world, but certainly here in Miami there was a peculiar vibe. Everyone was looking for an outlet to express their emotions. Our employees channeled theirs by building a house for Habitat for Humanity in Naranja in south Miami-Dade.

Week after week, we had unbelievable volunteer turnouts. There were so many volunteers that we had to buy extra hammers. The house was built in record time. Dawn and I were there with a packed crowd every Saturday, ready to take on any job, despite learning that I was not destined to be a roofer! This endeavor launched the “Culture of Community” among the Merrill Lynch family in Miami that lives on today.

After being promoted to regional manager for the South Florida area in 2006, I was asked once again to move – this time to New York City. However, in 2009, the chance to lead the Latin American division brought me to and through Miami frequently, and I returned permanently at the end of 2010.

I retired this year, ending my 31-year career with Merrill Lynch, I’m proud to have dedicated my entire professional career to one company. When reflecting on my life, I’ve always said: “One wife, one job!”

Dawn and I are thrilled to be home in Miami, for the third time in the same house with the same boat we bought in 2001. We can’t think of a better place to celebrate our 37th wedding anniversary.

While there are more chapters to write, we are looking forward to some well-deserved time off for fishing and diving in the warm, beautiful Miami waters and to continue a frequent topic of discussion: Should we rename our boat “Miami Thrice?”

My family came to this country in 1959, three months after Castro took power. We lived at Northeast Second Avenue and First Street for three months. We used to love it there as it was very close to the Post Office and Central Baptist Church, where we attended.

Afterwards we moved to where all the newly arrived Cubans were living – Southwest 14th Avenue and Second Street. I went to Ada Merritt Jr. High. At that time I didn’t know a word of English but I was eager to learn. In a few months I was getting excellent grades and by the time I graduated in June 1961, I was a member of the National Honor Society and graduated in the Top 20. I also received the American Legion Award. I was the first female and Non-American to receive it.

My father bought his first car a year later – a 1953 Pontiac in three shades of green. Before getting the car we would walk or take the bus downtown. We especially loved going to the basement of Richard’s Department Store on Thursday nights. One of our outings was going to Bayfront Park (now Bayside) on Sundays to watch the boats coming in with the catch of the day. The library, a band shell and the Japanese garden in the park also were great places.

I remember walking to the first McDonald’s in Miami on Northwest Seventh Street and 32nd Avenue, where you could get a whole meal for under $1. And who could forget the Royal Castle deals – two small hamburgers, a birch beer and a doughnut for 99 cents.

Once a week we would go to Shell’s City, where for $20 we would fill up two carts of food. Funland Park on Northwest 27th Avenue and 79th Street and the drive-in on 27th Avenue were very popular at that time. Restaurants like Ferdinand’s on Seventh Avenue and Seventh Street (now a hardware store), Mansene’s on 37th Avenue (now a funeral parlor) and Day and Night, which was opened 24 hours (now a CVS store) were some of our favorite places to eat. Chesapeake on 36th Street and Le Jeune Road was famous for seafood.

My father worked at the Top of the Columbus Hotel, where a steak dinner cost you $5 – at that time very expensive! Diamond’s Novelty store was one of the few buildings past 42nd Avenue and Seventh Street.

In 1962 my parents managed to save $350 and put it as a down payment for a house east of the airport (Grapeland Heights). They still live in the same house. I had to take three buses to get to Miami High – I graduated in 1964.

My first job was at Coppertone Corp. on Le Jeune Road and 24th Street. I was making $1 an hour as a secretary, which was considered a good salary as others were making 75 cents an hour. My mother would take my sister and me to dances at Miami Beach hotels where there was always a small Cuban band playing. We went practically every Saturday and to the beach at Eden Roc Hotel on Sundays. We also loved to go to the Miami Beach pier on Sunday nights to dance. The entrance was 25 cents.

In June 1968 I moved to New York City and lived there for almost five years. Although I loved living in New York, I missed the Magic City and came back in 1973. I have lived here ever since, three blocks from my parents’ house, the same neighborhood I moved into when I was 17. Miami has really changed and it has become a metropolitan city but I still prefer my “old” Miami.

In 2002 a school friend contacted me and she and I went on a mission to “find” the people who graduated with us from Ada Merritt Jr. High in 1961. To date we have contacted close to 60 people, including the principal and two teachers and have had several reunions. Mr. Ruben Blumstein died three years ago but Mr. Joseph Marmar, our math/algebra teacher is 92 and I visit him often.

I Love Miami!

I was working as a waiter at the Netherlands Hotel on Ocean Drive in 1941.

I loved Miami Beach and came down every winter to work and play. War broke out, and I decided to join the Army Air Corp.

Fast-forward to 1963 in St. Louis, Mo. I met my wife, Audrey. We married in ’64 and moved to Miami Beach in ’65. Finding it hard to get a job to my liking, I decided to try my hand at the News and Book Store on Alton Road.

After a couple of tough years, I turned it into the “Joe’s Stone Crab” of the news business. Miami Beach had a reputation of being a tough place to do business. I found it just the opposite. Success is so often achieved by welcoming your customers, getting to know them by name and establishing a rapport.

Although so often many celebs crossed our threshold, my regular customers created my success. Now I’ll drop a few names: Sports figures: Roy Rubin (basketball), Eddie Dibbs (tennis, my favorite), Lou Thesz (Wrestling), Bear Bryant, Rony Seikaly, Brooks Robinson and the Rolle brothers. Politicians: Robert Rubin, Abe Ribicoff, and Alcee Hastings. TV/Movies: Larry King, all the Bee Gees and Michael Caine.

Author Ayn Rand and the artist Roy Lichtenstein, among others. The gifted author Tom Harris graciously autographed all of his books in my store one day, Silence of the Lambs, Black Sunday and Red Dragon. The cast of Miami Vice came in frequently when they were taping next door. Meyer Lansky would often call on Sunday mornings from a nearby deli offering to bring me a corned-beef sandwich and to see if the New York papers had arrived.

A memorable time in business was the 1968 Republican National Convention in Miami Beach, when I rented the loft upstairs in my building to the “Chicago 7.” Another time was the 1980 Mariel boatlift, which caused a downturn in business for a few years. When business is good, always remember to put something away for the bad times. During my time in business, I put four children through college – two of them are doctors, and the other two are successful in their own fields.

I closed the store after 30 years in ’95. I enjoyed every day. I miss my daily visits with so many, and I’ve kept close connections with a few. We moved to Quayside in ’98, and I resumed playing tennis, going to the track until foot surgery in ’08 curbed my activities. Now I’m heavily into spectator sports.

Thinking back on my life, I was born in Connecticut, served two and a half years in the China/Burma/India campaign during World War II, settled for a time in St. Louis, then decided to return to the place I always loved and wanted to call home: Miami Beach and now Miami.