Category: Miami Stories

In 1924, Jo and Frank “Spud” Murphy came to Miami from Port St. Joe in the Florida Panhandle. Originally, they were both from Alabama.

My grandfather is nicknamed Spud, after Irish potatoes. He got an offer for a better job as a bookkeeper to move to Miami. They bought a house in Allapattah and my grandfather took a job with Mill’s Rock Company. In those days, rock pits were blasted using dynamite. In a freak accident, there was a premature explosion and the owner, Robert Mills, and several workers were killed. After this happened, Ed Mills, one of the Mills brothers, took my grandfather in as partner. This became a longtime, well-known, road-building business known as “Murphy and Mills.”

In 1923, Rilla and Tom Murrell decided to move to Miami from Alabama to escape the cold and come down to the wonderful weather and easy-going lifestyle. They bought a house in Miami Springs and opened a beauty salon and barber shop together on the circle. My grandfather, Tom, also became the first postmaster of Miami Springs. My grandparents lived in that house until they passed away. My grandmother always grew a wonderful vegetable garden. Men and women would come from all over to have their hair done by my grandmother.

My grandparents all weathered the 1926 hurricane. Back then, they did not have the knowledge of hurricanes like we do today. My grandfather Murphy was stuck out in the storm at a gas station.

My mother, Ann Murphy Murrell, was born in 1931 at Jackson Memorial Hospital in the Alamo Building, which is still there as a historical site. When she was born, that was the only building at Jackson. She went to Miami Jackson High School and was a majorette in the marching band. After high school, my mom attended the University of Miami.

My father, Lee Murrell, was born in 1930 at his family home. He went to Miami Edison High School where he played football and ran track. He played back in the days when they wore leather helmets and facemasks. They did not even know what a mouth piece was. Can you imagine — they traveled around Florida by plane to play other high school teams?

After high school, he also attended the University of Miami. That is where my mom and dad met; a mutual friend introduced them. They dated for a while and then were married in the First Baptist Church of Allapattah.

My mom worked as a secretary before becoming a housewife. My dad worked for Holsum bakery with his own delivery route. Then in the 1950s, they bought property in North Miami at 131st Street and West Dixie Highway. They bought a Carvel ice cream franchise and built a Carvel shop. This was the beginning of their first business. My parents were living in Allapattah at the time, so to be closer to the Carvel, they bought a piece of property in North Miami and built their first home.

In the 1960s, they sold the Carvel store then went across the street and opened an ice cream and hamburger place called Lee’s. This became the new hangout for the North Miami kids. After owning Lee’s for a few years, the long hours were just too much while raising four kids. My father sold Lee’s and started M&M; Landscaping.

In the meantime, he went to the Lowe Art Museum to take a metal sculpting class as a hobby and also went to Coconut Grove in the 1960s to take a class to learn to make jewelry. Well, a hobby became a business. He was making jewelry and metal sculptures and selling them at arts and crafts shows. He stopped making the jewelry, but he still has his metal sculpture business, Copper Creations by Lee. Now, 45 years later, he is still doing art shows and selling online at Etsy. When anybody asks my dad where he is from, he still says, “My-am-uh,” like a native.

My mother and father had four children. The two oldest were born at Mercy Hospital, and the two youngest at North Shore. We were raised in North Miami when it was just a small town where everyone knew each other. We would ride our bikes everywhere and loved hanging out at Haulover Beach and Greynolds Park. We loved going to eat at Pumpernick’s, and then we would go to the First Baptist Church of North Miami. All four of us graduated from North Miami Senior High; we were true “Pioneers”!

Some of us still live here, and some have moved on. My parents have seven grandchildren, who were all born in Miami. My father has one great-granddaughter. We are University of Miami Hurricanes and Miami Dolphin’ fans. When the Marlins came to Miami, we became big fans of them, as well. My mother was one of their biggest fans, going to almost every game. After the games, we would go to Rascal House to enjoy dinner. She had a room in her home dedicated to all three sports teams. My parents always loved Miami, and my mother believed going to the beach could cure anything.

I have written this story in memory of my mother, who always wanted to write this story. Sadly, she passed away July 29, 2013, so I used her notes to write this piece.

I’ve visited Miami often over the past 20 years, sleeping on friends’ couches, perusing thrift stores, gorging on ceviche, watching the ever-changing crowd along Ocean Drive.

But it wasn’t until 2009, when I stepped outside all comfort zones to research my book, Fringe Florida, that I got an inside glimpse into the diverse and quirky glory that defines Miami.

My research trip was a whirlwind of interactions with everyone from python owners to nightclub promoters. I kicked it off with a day at a swinger’s convention at a hotel downtown, where waiters in guayaberas served drinks to randy nude couples. Fringe Florida is a book about the state’s unusual and sometimes illicit subcultures. In Miami you didn’t have to dig too deep to find Middle Earth.

But as with any major project, many valuable experiences fall to the floor in shaping the final piece. At the time, I was still exploring the notion of juxtaposing Miami’s 1980s cocaine glory days against its modern party drug scene. My impressions of the earlier period were colored by documentaries such “Cocaine Cowboys” and of course, the Hollywood fictions of “Miami Vice” and “Scarface.” All cast the era as violent, but glamorized by easy money and the hedonistic excesses that go along with it.

In search of remnants, I checked into the Mutiny in Coconut Grove. The Mutiny once served as a party palace for drug lords and home to many who sniffed a daily diet of the white powder that fueled the local economy. Nearly 30 years later the Mutiny had transformed into a sleepy sleek condo-hotel. All that remained of the wilder days were second-hand stories. Tips in blow, coked-up residents lighting $5 bills and then climbing balcony to balcony to escape the smoldering fire.

On a walking tour of pastel Deco South Beach, a fellow tour-goer confided he lived at the Mutiny in the day. A tan fit man in his 60s wearing designer jeans, he spoke of all-night parties and nude women running down his hallway. “It was like living in an upscale brothel,” he said. More important, his former Coconut Grove home was a set for – what else, a handful of “Miami Vice” episodes.

I later cruised by the modern three-story house shrouded by lush palms and live oaks. No Don Johnson loafing around in white linen suits and sockless loafers, just a flock of bright blue peacocks wandering the streets, interlopers from a distant land not unlike me.

I tarried through a long list of drug lore sites, real and Hollywood.
In Bal Harbour I strolled the jetty beside the Harbour House condo tower where cocaine smugglers Jon Roberts and Mickey Munday once put up women who acted as lookouts for law enforcement patrols.

On this bright October day, the white sandy beach was nearly empty and the refurbished condo tower appeared lifeless. A vintage runabout cut through the teal waters of Haulover Cut. I imagined someone behind the condo’s glass eyes watching it through binoculars. The illusion faded when a New York condo owner fishing for snook said he knew nothing of the tower’s infamous history.

Too many of the sites were drive-bys with no opportunity for interaction. The banks of Biscayne Boulevard which once laundered millions; gritty Jones Boat Yard where corrupt police raided a boat loaded with 400 kilos of coke as the crewmen jumped overboard and drowned; luxurious mansions of former kingpins in gated communities beyond reach.

By definition, the site of the “Dadeland Mall Massacre” would be available. Many consider what happened on a sunny afternoon in 1979 the start of Miami’s cocaine turf wars. Two men armed with machine guns jumped out of a panel van and sprayed Crown Liquors with bullets, killing a rival drug kingpin and his bodyguard and injuring the store clerk. After a white-knuckle drive in rush hour traffic, I arrived at Dadeland Mall to discover the liquor store had been swallowed by Saks 5th Avenue during a mall renovation.

Miami’s bad-boy glamour was an illusion cast by Hollywood and revisionist history. The world of Miami’s cocaine titans may have been an oyster, but there was no pearl, only a prickly shell that in short order began to smell foul.
As for the modern club drug scene, in the time I spent inside the velvet-roped hot spots, I found trending drugs that spanned the letters of the alphabet: Special K, X, and G. Not so different than you’d find in a nightclub in any major city. At the time, the most distinctive drug culture revolved around pill mills. I visited one. They sent me to a walk-in MRI clinic down the street.
In hindsight, I’m not sure what I expected to find. The cocaine era was a dark time and one that continues to haunt. My Miami friends say tourists still ask where to score an 8-ball.

It wasn’t until I joined the lunchtime crowd at Mac’s Club Deuce that my disillusionment gave way to an appreciation of what Miami had become. Except for the neon gracing its wall, courtesy of the “Miami Vice” crew, it looks like a set from a Damon Runyan novel. Dark and smoky with the original red laminate serpentine bar, Club Deuce has had few alterations since it opened in 1926. The bar’s real treasure is the spell of friendship it casts. Before I finished a screwdriver, I met everyone.

The longhaired fashion photographer wearing more silver bangles than I thought humanly possible who worked on his laptop to be able to write off his drinks. The young businessman in a starched shirt unbuttoned enough to show a white undershirt. A blustery former cop who ranted about Obama. An Ecuadorian pottery wholesaler who for years in the 1980s wouldn’t leave his home at night much less venture to South Beach — three men with a gun and a machete had mugged him outside a club. “It was extremely dangerous on South Beach,” he said. Now he lived there and wouldn’t dream of moving.

Mac Klein, Club Deuce owner, was 95 when I met him and looked as if he could take a man 20 years younger. He was wearing an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt; his glasses were thick and black. He didn’t talk much, but kept reemerging from the back with memorabilia. The bar’s original menu. A flier for the “Miami Vice” wrap party. A thank-you note from the cast. A dog magazine featuring his champion Doberman pinschers. Sensing my love of dogs, he insisted that I keep the magazine, which I now treasure.

My drug scene exploration may not have turned up the type of fringe I sought for my book, but I have no regrets aside for the credit card debt I racked up. And on any trip, I make a point to duck into Club Deuce and say hello to my friends, whoever they may be that day.

I moved to Miami after returning from my Fulbright Scholar Program in 2002. The same muggy air, car horns, heat that I left in the Philippines greeted me as I walked out the doors of Miami International Airport.

The cab driver spoke to me in Spanish and I understood everything he said, but I was slow to respond. I had spent the last year speaking Tagalog, a language full of Spanish words after 300 years of colonization. When I instinctively replied to him in Tagalog, he just kept on, unfazed, in Spanish.

My job at the University of Miami started right away. For the first year, I lived in Kendall, or “Kendalia” as I liked to refer to it. It took more than an hour in rush-hour traffic to get to and from the Coral Gables campus. In Manila, traveling five miles from Quezon City to Makati had taken an average of two hours each way. Now, instead of getting anxious, I could let go of the frustration and instead spend time listening to the Latin stations, dancing in my car and practicing Spanish.

In 2009, I moved to a neighborhood along Coral Way, a historic urban boulevard that runs through Miami from Brickell Avenue to 37th Avenue. My house had been built in 1939 along with other bungalows and mission revival-style homes. Everyone on my street spoke Spanish almost exclusively.

My casita stood between two houses of the sadme style, and within these houses lived viejas. On the right, there were three widowed sisters — Marta, Olga and Paula. On the left was Elsa, also a soltera. The women were best friends, and I’d see them on the sidewalk in front of my house, sometimes laughing together, sometimes shouting in anger. Right away, they befriended me, a single woman much younger than they were and never married. They called me China even though I told them, “Yo soy Evelina, la Filipina. No soy China.” They laughed at me, calling me China anyway.

Elsa was a small and quiet widow. From afar, I never knew how she was feeling, but face to face, I could see it in her eyes and in the path of her delicate wrinkles. Every day I would notice her standing by the chain-linked fence in her front yard, watching the street, waiting for the mail, and talking to passersby.

One afternoon I brought her a mango from my tree.

I can hold a polite conversation in Spanish, but when it gets malalim — deep — I mix my languages. Sometimes Tagalog comes out when I mean to speak Spanish, or vice versa.

Elsa recounted the story of her life to me at her kitchen table. She had suffered bouts of depression since she came to this country. Never in Cuba, only in this country. She wouldn’t even say it — the United States of America. Solomente en este pais, pero nunca en Cuba. These days she felt nervous constantly. Everyone she loved had died — su mama y papa, su esposo y hermana. Seven years ago, her husband and sister had died months apart. Though she had the abuela sisters, who took her everywhere, and a daughter in Boston, she couldn’t calm her nerves. The noise of her memories crowded her head, kept her up at night.

We sat for a long time. She picked up the mango, smelled it, and handed it to me. “Que rico,” she said.

I told her she needed a novio. She laughed.

When I married last year, Elsa quickly took to my husband, who spoke absolutely no Spanish. They exchanged words each day. She sneaked up behind me one day to tell me my husband was a good man. “Y guapo tambien,” I told her jokingly. Yes, yes, he’s handsome, so be careful, she said, women will try to take him away from you. She gave me a look. I told her I’d be careful. No mujer would come between us. We laughed and then she told me she liked my dress. A moment passed, and she said, “Tu esposo es una buena persona.”

Last month, when my husband and I came home from a trip, nobody was standing at Elsa’s gate. On the fence and the trees nearby, someone had posted “No Parking” signs.

“Something’s wrong,” I told my husband.

“It could be anything,” he said.

For days, the neighborhood was quiet. The abuela sisters were nowhere to be seen.

One day soon after, my husband came home and told me he had found out what happened to Elsa.

“Who told you?” I asked him.

“Olga.”

“What did she say?”

“I don’t know. It was in Spanish. But she was talking, talking, talking and she went like this.” He put his hands together and leaned his head on them with his eyes closed. “And then I said, ‘She died?’ And she said, ‘Sí, sí, sí.’”

Elsa was not the first to pass away since I moved into this casita. There was an old man across the street during my first year. And last year, Marta, one of the abuela sisters, died of a brain tumor. Now Elsa. I like to think the spirit of these viejas are circling the bamboo, the mango and the avocado trees, whistling love songs, blessing us from afar. I like to think they are a part of a Miami that will never die.

They have taught me that you don’t need the right words, or even the same language, as long as you are willing to sit with one another and listen.

Miami will always occupy a special place in my heart. My beloved grandmother spent such a great portion of her life here that the two are now synonymous in my mind. She had impeccable taste, which means Miami is the second-greatest city in the world; of course, our native Petionville, Haiti, comes in first.

My grandmother passed away April 2, 2012. I know she is in a better place now. The nationalist in her wanted to reach eternity via Haiti. Since that was not meant to be, Miami opened its arms – as always. It is where her remains are interred.

With a smile brighter than all the lights on Ocean Drive, my grandmother was the city personified. She wrapped her head in colorful scarves, reminiscent of Miami’s golden age, pulsing with the roar of turquoise and chrome convertibles. She loved the Fontainebleau for its Old World glamor and once-upon-a-time elegance.

My grandmother’s Miami was quite similar to our native country. Many friends gathered on her porch on Sunday afternoons to enjoy lodyans – a form of storytelling drenched in humor.They reminisced and laughed about old times back home. Most of her friends spoke only Creole, even if they had lived in the States for decades.

Her front door stayed open all day – as it did in long-ago Haiti. Restaurants that sold food cooked like back home, if not better, were just around the corner from her house. The grocery stores’ shelves were stocked with the ingredients she used to buy in Haiti’s open-air markets. Miami was her second Haiti. When back home was not accessible – because of various coups d’état and other inconveniences, Miami was her sanctuary.

My grandmother’s last visit to Haiti was in late 2009. She was thrilled to see the house in which she planned to spend what remained of her life. She had spent years sending money for builders to make her house just so. She was ready to move in the fall of 2009.

When she flew home to begin the rest of her life, friends and neighbors received her as though she had never left. Just as they did in Miami, everyone gathered at her house for marathon conversations and tasty food.

But the longer my grandmother stayed in Haiti, the more she pined for “home” – meaning Miami.

Three months after arriving in Haiti, she decided she had lived so long in Miami that perhaps she could not live anywhere else, including her birth country. She flew back to Miami on Jan. 10, 2010.

Two days later, a devastating earthquake struck Haiti, killing hundreds of thousands. She sobbed for the lost lives. I sobbed with her, but took comfort in the fact that she had returned just in time; she might have been among the still-unaccounted-for victims. That would have destroyed me.

As stories poured in about the quake’s aftermath, the utter destruction, the chaotic medical situation, my grandmother wept in silence. Her South Beach smile dimmed. Not even Miami could console her.

She mourned the fact that she could no longer return to her other, sometime home. She mourned the loss of long-ago Haiti – the Haiti that pulsed with turquoise and chrome convertibles, the lush and Miami-green Haiti, the Haiti she knew as a child. She was secretly grateful that her adopted city’s arms were always ready to envelop her. Miami had become her own private Haiti.

Five months before my grandmother passed away, she was admitted to University of Miami hospital. With each passing day, she became more and more frustrated about having to be in a hospital bed. She was accustomed to living life standing up. She detested the hospital gown, and wanted instead to wear her colorful wardrobe that reminded me of the sea, sunshine and coral reefs.

She told the doctors to send her home. By “home” she meant both Miami and Haiti. The intensive care unit was drab. It lacked vibrancy. It lacked life.

My grandmother has been gone two years now. I will always owe Miami a debt of gratitude for opening its arms to welcome my grandmother for as long as she wanted to be here. Whenever I come to the city, I sense her presence in the air. Everything she loved about the city is still here: the Fontainebleau, the banyan trees, the blue-blue water that hems the coast.

And just as my grandmother did when she was alive, I go to stores where only my native language is spoken. I eat Haitian food morning, noon and night. (I’ll admit I love Cuban cuisine just as much.) I visit Libreri Mapou and chat with the friendly owner and customers who cannot get enough of Haitian literature. Each visit makes it clear to me why my grandmother loved Miami so.

Perhaps one day, the city will claim me, too.

Living in Detroit’s bustling Lebanese community in the 1940s was very predictable -unless you were Joe and Mary Thomas, two of Miami’s pioneers from our nation’s largest Lebanese population.

The top priority then was doing everything to help our war effort. Two of Mary’s brothers went overseas, and the youngest died seven months later on the Pacific island of Morotai as part of Gen. MacArthur’s island-hopping campaign toward an attack on Japan.

To this day, I carry a dog-eared article about my uncle George from the “War Page” of the Nov. 20, 1944, Detroit News as a reminder of his ultimate sacrifice for our freedoms.

He was also the person who introduced my mother to my father. Joe’s tool-and-die job at the Hudson auto plant was converted to armament production. He won a glowing commendation from the Navy Department for developing a system to recycle damaged artillery from the field, which enabled him to get needed weapons back on the front much quicker.

After the war, Mary and Joe were married and began raising a family. Mary grew up on the second floor of her father’s grocery store and helped Joe open their own store. Unlike their parents, both from Lebanon, they decided they did not want their children working in the auto plants or the family store.

Upon hearing great things about Miami from their close family friend John Yunis, they headed south in 1955 and first lived in an apartment house he owned across from the Orange Bowl.

They later bought a house nearby on Northwest Third Street. Their oldest children attended Citrus Grove Elementary and Junior High, and ultimately Miami High. Mary’s father had refused to let her take a scholarship to a local college, despite being at the top of her high school class in Detroit. His old-country attitude was that education was a waste of time, especially for women, who should work in the family business.

This great disappointment shaped Mary’s No. 1 life goal: Do everything possible to give her children the maximum possible education. Joe, who briefly attended the University of Detroit but could not afford to continue, agreed.

As a result, one of their greatest accomplishments was that all five of their boys became doctors: two college professors with Ph.D.s, two orthodontists and one optometrist. The total of 16 different undergrad and graduate degrees for their five boys made up for the two college degrees they were not allowed or could not afford to pursue.

Besides raising and educating her five boys, Mary’s second life was dedicated to helping found and develop in 1973 Our Lady of Lebanon Church, which was established in the old Food Fair market on Coral Way. Joe converted the check-out counter to an altar so the first Mass could be held on Dec. 30, 1975.

When the church was struggling to generate income to pay off its mortgage, Mary suggested a weekend festival, as they had in their Detroit church. With their grocer backgrounds, Mary and Joe went to the farmers market to get fresh fruits and vegetables. She then organized a group of women who worked nonstop for a week to make homemade Lebanese food and treats. She was able to convince many local business people and others to make contributions for the fair, including live music.

The first festival in 1978 was a great success, and since then it has expanded to include arts and crafts, folkloric dances, and other fun activities. The 36th annual Lebanese Festival will be held Jan. 25-27, 2013, and it is the top moneymaker for the church. Approximately 5,000 Miamians and visitors enjoy it each year, but few know who the brainchild was behind it.

Mary was also the founder and first president of the Ladies’ Guild at the church in 1974. She continued her work at the church for decades until her health deteriorated.

Among the many accolades she received from the church and the national Maronite Church was the Silver Massabki Award in 1976. It is given to members of the parish “who have contributed extraordinarily of their time, talent and treasure” by the National Apostolate of Maronites.

In March 2011, she was able to attend a special Mass at the church honoring her and other founders.

Meanwhile, Joe became a general contractor and achieved his dream of building the family home on a two-acre mango farm in Pinecrest where Mary, now 91, lives. Joe died a happy man in 1998 on his 84th birthday in his dream house with his five boys and Mary at his side.

If you were to ask him or Mary about their greatest accomplishment, their answer would be very simple: “Five boys, five doctors!”

A vast field of lights met my gaze as I flew into Miami for the first time in the late ’90s. To the west was the blackness of the Everglades and to the east, the ocean, but below me were lights — a breathtaking array of tightly packed luminescence, tantalizing and exciting. And ironic, as my love of nature had apparently lured me to one of the more densely packed urban areas in the nation.

I was moving to Miami for graduate school, to study tropical amphibians at Florida International University. Yet as I settled into town those first few months, the jungles I yearned for felt a lifetime away. I was trapped by concrete. The yards in my neighborhood were cemented over; my commute was a maze of gray; I spent my waking hours within the thick concrete confines of the biology department’s bunker-style building.

I remember my feeling of liberation the first time I escaped the monotony and entered the lush oasis of Coral Gables, passing under archways of spreading oaks laden with Spanish moss, exploring Fairchild’s tropical gardens and, at Matheson Hammock, discovering forest unlike any I had experienced. Elation filled me the first time I crossed the Rickenbacker Causeway and discovered natural beaches with intact dunes at Bill Baggs State Park. It was a side of Miami I had somehow been ignorant of. I had spent time in the Everglades, but what I needed were everyday doses of green.

I moved to the Gables. I became a nature guide at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Biscayne Nature Center in Crandon Park. I worked part-time for the Institute for Regional Conservation, where I expanded my animal-centric interests to include native plants.

The more I learned about Miami’s natural side, the more I appreciated its subtle but stunning mix of tropical and temperate species. I had moved well beyond my concrete confines, but somehow the improvements weren’t quite enough. I finished my degree and headed for Australia.

I spent three years wandering the wilds of Australia, New Zealand, Borneo, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos, teaching in China, and crewing on a sailboat in the Bahamas. Writing and photography became my new means of interacting with the natural world, but it left me baffled as to a career path. Where and how could I combine these with biology?

And as I grew weary of living out of a suitcase, my thoughts wandered toward anchoring somewhere more permanently. A home base maybe, somewhere I could plant roots. I never consciously considered Miami a contender, yet it kept re-emerging on the periphery of my thoughts.

How could this heavily concreted community with mere patches of green be calling to me? My travels had taken me to more-pristine beaches, more-luscious forests, more-impressive vistas and more-intriguing wildlife, and to cities with more environmental awareness and better green space.

But Miami was the overall package. Beaches, forests, wildlife and green space, although scattered, were here. The city held something for everyone. You could find your niche, perhaps even a green one. It was the kind of place where one person might possibly make a difference.

Warily, I moved back to Miami in early 2006. I resumed residency in my former Gables neighborhood, reconnected with friends and began working full-time for the Institute for Regional Conservation. My project was Natives for Your Neighborhood, the online native plant resource. My role was to add the animals. I realized that conservation through backyard gardening was a solution to the concrete world that had so jaded me initially.

Why was Coral Gables such an oasis? Because individual yards and communal spaces were so thoughtfully landscaped with oaks, figs, palms and pines. There were birds in the trees, butterflies on the flowers, and crocodiles in the ponds. There was space for Miami’s subtropical blend of plants and animals.

Given the tools and knowledge, residents of the rest of Miami could create just as tantalizing an oasis. Yet because South Florida’s natural environment is so special, it didn’t take long to realize that those tools did not exist.

There are piles of books on native plants, wildlife gardening and how to achieve naturalistic landscaping for temperate North America. There are even a few aimed specifically at Florida. But South Florida is subtropical. We are different. We are special, and we need our own set of unique books and resources.

I’ve spent the past five or so years creating my own backyard sanctuary on Key Biscayne — testing wildlife gardening techniques to share with others. I’ve spied on the red-bellied woodpeckers that nested in my coconut palm, applauded the successful rearing of two broods of eastern screech-owls in my nest boxes, and celebrated when a purple martin colony finally settled in my martin house after years of futilely playing their calls over loudspeakers every morning of their season to attract scouts to my yard. Now my yard is filled with live calls.

Following these yard successes, I’ve helped complete South Florida’s first bird gardening books — Attracting Birds to South Florida Gardens and Birds of Fairchild. They have allowed me to combine my biology, writing and photography interests in a meaningful way. It’s Miami; I found my niche.

I am proud to say that I am now part of this city of sparkling lights, and being here no longer seems ironic.

Hands shaking…holding back tears…acting as if it weren’t breaking me apart… I said good-bye with tears falling down my cheeks and walked through the doors, not looking back.

They were the doors that would forever separate me from my family. The doors that made it impossible for my grandparents to see me grow up and graduate with honors from high school. The doors that took me away from my three closest cousins, Javier, Joan and Yoandi.

While I was waiting for my flight with my parents and sister Leirys, my mind drifted and I began to wonder why my mother Mirian and father Erick had decided to leave everything behind to start all over in a new country. I could not comprehend why they did not stay with the rest of our family.

The more I thought about it, the less it all made any sense and the more aggravated I became with Mirian and Erick. My parents had never told me the reasons behind moving. What 9-year-old child could ever understand that there was no hope for anyone in their country? How could my parents explain to me that they were leaving because it was the best decision for everyone?

“Mami, why must we leave?”

“Leimys, please, try to understand. We are only doing this so that you and your sister can have a better future.”

“But why? I was fine here with everyone.”

“Trust your parents, Leimys. One day you will understand.”

“No, I will never understand.”

I left Cuba in November 2003 after my family won the visa lottery — the random selection of legal U.S. entry visas granted to Cubans on the island each year.

In Miami, one of our father’s cousins, Nico, waited for us at the airport. Nico welcomed my family into his humble home. He gave us shelter, food, and transportation for three months. My father was very independent and did not like taking advantage of anyone so he decided that it was time to move out after three months.

During this time, I struggled because I couldn’t adjust to all the new changes. I had lived all my life in a place where everyone was family, in the sense that they all helped each other.

My mom enrolled me in elementary school as soon as she could to help me make new friends. Unfortunately, this did the very opposite. I began with a teacher who knew not even a single word in Spanish. The teacher would ask the other students to translate for me but they were cruel and would tell the teacher horrible things about me. They would also make fun of her for not knowing the language. I isolated myself little by little in school.

“Mami?”

“Si, mi niña…”

“I don’t want to go back to school. No one likes me and they are always making fun of me.”

“That can’t be true, sweetheart, they like you. It’s just that they have a different way of showing it.”

The years passed by, and I was now in eighth grade. I was able to understand why my parents made the decision they did and why they sacrificed their lives for my sister and me. I saw that we both had futures in the land of opportunities, while our cousins and friends were unable to better themselves.

Back in our country, the situation had worsened. The majority of the teenagers were dropping out of school to find a job and help at home. I couldn’t help but think that would have been our case if our family had stayed. I couldn’t believe that my cousins would never have the opportunity to attend college.

Although I was very proud of my heritage, I was ashamed to talk about how Fidel Castro left families to die of hunger; how he took their belongings, ripped their freedom from their hands, and separated families forever. I was torn between the culture I once left behind and the new one she was part of. I was growing up with two cultures.

It was difficult for me to adopt the ways and beliefs of the United States because I felt I was betraying my family in Cuba. Visiting my country after nine years confused me more. It was as if I were being pulled by opposite sides.

When I was a baby, I was always with someone related to me, and now I couldn’t accept the fact that people in the United States did not see each other as often. I never considered myself American because I was not born in the United States. Whenever I was asked where I was from my answer was always the same, Cuba.

But this changed after my first visit back. I’ve come to realize I’m part of the American culture and the Cuban culture because I’ve been raised by both. Ever after, when I’m asked where I was from, I say Cuba and the United States.

After living with the separation from my family, I wanted everyone to move to the United States. I embarked on a long journey that consisted of raising funds in order to claim my close family members — my grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins.

I wanted to give them the opportunity to have the “American Dream,” as my parents had given me when I was a child. I believed my cousins had the right to receive an education and aspire to be someone in the future, something they couldn’t even think about back in Cuba.

In the late 1950s, my world consisted of my home, my neighborhood of Stillwater Drive and my school, St. Joseph’s. Life was so simple because there were no worries – at least not from the kids in our neighborhood.

We had moved from New York with my mother, Irene, and brother, Richard, after our parents’ divorce.

Mom decided on Miami Beach since she’d spent her honeymoon there and loved it. We moved into the “Pickwick Arms,” a small apartment building on Dickens and 74th Street. Living there was a pleasant experience since the owner, Mrs. G., was a grandmotherly figure and treated us like her own. Since my own grandparents, Vincenzo and Eleonora, hadn’t yet moved here, she and her husband were like surrogate grandparents.

When Nana and Nonno finally moved down from New York in 1955, they bought a waterfront property and built the house at Stillwater Drive. It is a street shaped like a peninsula, and we faced north, toward Indian Creek Island, looking toward the few mansions that were there at the time.

Since Nonno had retired early, at 59, he needed an outlet and he figured that fishing would be a good choice since we had the bay behind our home. Up early in the morning for fishing, Nonno would come home, clean up and then head to 71st Street to the stock market. Thankfully, he did quite well.

Talk about the simple life – after a year or two, when the palm trees had matured a bit, coconuts would fall from the trees and Richard and I would grab a hammer and screwdriver and work so hard to remove the husk of the coconut so that we could enjoy the juiciness of those coconuts.

Walking barefoot was the norm – almost like being on an island. Luckily, we had great neighbors to share our time.

Our neighbors, Lucky, Dottie and Mike, were avid fishermen and every Sunday we all would be gathered on our docks waiting for the big catch. The best part for us kids was watching either Lucky or Dottie clean the fish, scale it, gut it, etc. In those days, red snapper was the prize, and catfish, well, they’d throw them back.

The Laris family, a Greek-American family, had the only pool at that time and we’d be swimming, diving, racing, doing handstands, anything you could imagine people do in the pool.

I remember places like Dubrow’s Cafeteria on Lincoln Road and their delicious tuna sandwiches.

I remember lunching there with my mom and Nana and walking over to Saks – no mall in those days. Friday nights was often a trip to Fun Fair on the 79th Street Causeway (Treasure Island). Miniature golf, arcades, hot dogs with sauerkraut, ice cream – what a treat that was for Richard and me!

Roller skating at North Shore Park on Friday night was another weekly activity that I would partake in with a friend, Judy. There would be so many kids there and we’d just skate and skate to the music of that era, the late ‘50s, early ‘60s. We never got tired, and afterward, Judy’s dad would sometimes take a bunch of us girls to Parham’s for ice cream.

Our neighborhood was mostly Jewish, but everyone got along well. We’d put up Christmas lights and other neighbors would light their Menorah candles, and I would get to participate in that observance.

Almost twice a month, a group of us would go to the movies on Saturday, which featured the “kiddie” show from about noon until the beginning of the feature film. The Surf and Normandy theatres were the hangout for all kids from age 10 to teenager. We’d be dropped off by a parent and for 50 cents we saw the kiddie show, the feature film, had popcorn and a drink. What a deal!

When we got to be pre-teenagers, we were able to take the public bus on a Saturday to Lincoln Road.

Like grownups, we’d walk over to Woolworth’s and maybe buy a lip gloss, then to Lincoln Lane for lunch, and then to a movie at the Beach or Caribe Theatre. I always loved the Caribe since it had a beautiful tropical lobby with a real parrot in it.

Taking the public bus in those days at our age was safe, and when it got crowded, we always offered our seats to older people as instructed by our parents.

I lived at Stillwater until 12 years ago. Fortunately, my children had the pleasure of growing up there and went to St. Joseph’s, as well. Though I moved from that beautiful home, I still hold such fond and vivid memories. One special memory is feeding the birds with Nonno from the dock with scraps of bread, and then many years later, feeding the birds with my own children on that dock and enjoying the beautiful sunsets.

Hopefully, Stillwater Drive will continue to exist, surviving any horrendous hurricane. Though the house in the 1400 block of Stillwater Drive may look different, the home of Eleonora and Vincenzo will always remain the same in my mind, the wonderful home that I grew up in.

The date was Jan. 17, 1961, when I left my beautiful island of Cuba and arrived in Miami. I was 10 years old. I always had a dream of going to Miami Beach, so I was very excited, but I couldn’t understand why my mom looked so upset and why my dad stayed behind. My mom kept saying we will be returning in a few months, but my father and grandparents joined us six months later, and the few months became the rest of my life.

For the first year, we all lived in a big old wooden house with my aunt, uncle and cousins in what today is known as Midtown. Eventually we all moved on our own but always within walking distance of each other. Then I finally got to live in Miami Beach, on Española Way and Meridian Avenue, what is now known as South Beach. How exciting!

Growing up in South Beach was absolutely wonderful. I attended Central Beach Elementary, now known as Fienberg-Fisher K-8. Leroy D. Fienberg was my wonderful principal; the school was named after him after he passed away. I then attended Ida M. Fisher Junior High and Miami Beach Senior High. Dr. Solomon Lichter was my incredible principal for those six years.

On weekends, my friends and I would walk to Lincoln Road or go to the Cameo Theater to see double features for 25 cents. The first summers were spent attending camp and fun activities at Flamingo Park. As I got a little older, the 14th Street beach was like a home away from home.

I am from Cuba but I am also Jewish, so that makes me known as a “Jewban.” Being a Jewban growing up in Miami Beach was a fun thing; we were a very close group and everyone knew each other, so we adopted the 14th Street beach as our own. We would then hang out at Dipper Dan, our favorite ice cream place. We also would go to Fun Fair in the north part of the beach and take buses to downtown Miami to buy records and have lunch at Woolworth.

My school years were wonderful. I learned English quickly and attended class with so many of my old friends from Cuba. In the 1960s, I would be sitting in class and when an old time friend would show up, it was so exciting that our sixth grade teacher, Mr. Bergman, would stop teaching and give us a few minutes to hug and catch up with the old days.

At Beach High, I became active with several school clubs. I enjoyed being an officer in them and most of all I enjoyed being part of the Usher Club, which allowed me to go to concerts, the circus and the Jackie Gleason show for free. Because of my grades and activities, I received a scholarship from the Lion’s Club that helped me with my education.

I definitely had the Beach High spirit, which I still do. I have worked closely with the reunion High Tides committees. To this day, there is always excitement when I meet someone from Beach High.

Because of my love of Miami, I decided to stay in town for college and graduated from the University of Miami with a degree in education. Years later I received a master’s in leadership and administration from Nova University.

While attending the University of Miami, I met my future husband who was a law school student there. Can you imagine: a Jewban from Miami meets and marries a guy from St. Paul, Minnesota, who played hockey. I was the first Cuban he ever met. I didn’t even know what hockey was and had never seen snow. I made him promise me that he would never move back. We will be celebrating our 43rd anniversary very soon.

Life has been great. I have taught and have been an administrator for several Miami-Dade County schools. We live in the north end of town and never want to leave the area. Our children attended Florida schools, University of Florida and Florida State, and you can just imagine football season at our home. Our children live in Broward and we are the proud grandparents of five. It is so wonderful to be able to live close to where I grew up and still have the children nearby.

Growing up in Miami has just been incredible. I have seen many changes to our city, but it has always been truly a “Magic City.”