Category: Miami Stories

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.”

I was born in Nicaragua. I lived there until I moved to Miami in 1979 when I was 19 years old. I moved with my daughter; she was almost 2 at the time.

From the moment I moved to Miami I felt at home. My sisters were living here. The first time I came to Miami from Nicaragua, I was 5 years old and I loved it; my memories from it when I was a child were beautiful. And I came often with my parents from Nicaragua. When I moved here, I was acquainted with the city. My sisters living here also helped a lot.

When I was 12 years old, something terrible happened: I lost my father, Julio C. Martinez. He died here in Miami while I was living in Nicaragua. It was a sudden death and it was really difficult. I was very close to him, so it was hard on me. I’ve always been a happy and cheerful person, but in my heart I had that sense of void, that sense of missing my dad, that grief. It is because of that great loss that I do what I do, and that’s why I share this with you.

My daughter went to school here at Carrollton School of the Sacred Heart, which she loved. When she was in high school, I decided to go back to school myself. I started at the south campus of Miami Dade College, and now I teach a class there on world religions.

At Miami Dade, I chose psychology to be my major, and then I applied to different schools and was accepted at the University of Miami. I went there and took a class in world religions, which I loved, so I took on another major, religious studies.

There I took a class that really attracted me, called “Death and Dying.” I realized I needed it for my own sense of loss. It was very healing.

When I was in Nicaragua, I didn’t have counseling or support groups, or books to help me cope with my grief. I had my family and my Catholic religion customs at the time to wear black and white. There was no music, no TV and no going out because I was mourning. But at my young age, I did not understand what was happening.

When I finished at UM with a double major in psychology and religious studies, I started the graduate program on gerontology at Florida International University and then went to St. Thomas University for a certificate on loss and healing.

Now I help people cope with grief, including immigrants who suffer from a loss of homeland, traditions and language.

Since I moved here, 30-something years ago, Miami has grown so much. A place that I like to go to is Brickell Avenue near downtown Miami. It’s beautiful, and I love to see how downtown Miami has grown. Mary Brickell Village, and now the Design District — it’s so cosmopolitan.

I’m proud to have accomplished my purpose in this amazing city. Miami is such a warm city. And being Hispanic, with so many Hispanics here, I feel at home.

Our first family visit to the Miami Public Library (as it was called then) was back in 1958. I was 5 years old, my sister Victoria was 8, and my brother Matthew was 10. We visited a crowded shopping destination, “Little River.”

After going to Woolworth’s, Arno Shoes, Beauty Fair and Larry’s Restaurant, my mother Mildred “Fritzie” Stahl spotted the Little River Library and exclaimed, “I’ve been meaning to get a library card. Let’s go there!” My sister Vickie picked out Lad: A Dog, I got Blueberries for Sal and my father Edmund checked out a large, illustrated Don Quixote and Sancho Panza and read it to us that same night, which my brother especially enjoyed.

Fritzie loved the library so much she quit working at Burdines in 1959 to work at Little River Library full-time. Although her official position was “Clerk Typist I,” with her educational background at American University, and with my father’sbackground as a member of the Art Students League, they embarked on professional endeavors there.

My mother participated in the children’s summer reading club, which my sister and I eagerly joined. Here’s how it worked: during the summer of 1963, a bulletin board was placed at each library branch entrance. For each child, a colorful fishing pole was placed on the board, identifying the reader. Whenever a child finished a book, a fish was added, showing which book the child had “caught” (read).

My sister’s fishing pole was heavily sagging with such “catches,” including Herman Wouk, Ernest Hemingway and Margaret Mitchell. My pole was heavily laden with Beverly Cleary and Mark Twain selections. At the end of the summer, 15 children from the Little River library boarded a Coast Cities Coaches bus downtown to receive a certificate of achievement. A total of 725 children, each of whom had read a minimum of eight books, attended from libraries throughout the county.

My parents also presented many puppet shows at the library. One memorable show was Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson. My father designed cloth puppets and painted scenery, and my mother wrote a script based on the book. After the show was over, my mother was delighted because several children asked, “Where can I get a copy of Treasure Island?” A “classic,” which might otherwise be just sitting on the shelf was being noticed!

I remember one librarian who worked with my mother in Little River, Miss Grace Rayfuse. Fritzie knew the library so well she would just look up a book if children asked for one, but Miss Rayfuse suggested, “Always say, ‘let’s look in our card catalogue,’ if it is a child asking for a book.” That became a catch-phrase in the library.

It has now been more than a half-century since our family’s first visit to the Little River library. My brother, mother and father died many years ago. My sister and I still live about three miles away from the library (we are currently zoned to use the North Miami library). We still love books. Our living room resembles a library itself with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled to capacity.

I decided to take a sentimental trip back to the Little River library recently. The exterior looks much the same with its slanted pillars and double-glass doors. Inside, it was much different. Children had replaced pencil and notebook paper with laptop computers. Instead of “[our] card catalogue,” children now expertly skim a computer mouse to search for books.

Sadly, there doesn’t seem to be nearly as many books available as when I visited the library in the 1950s and 1960s. The entire shelf near the checkout desk was gone. In its place was a display of videos, compact discs and DVDs. Everything seems so different. And yet the library director informed me the county still offers the summer reading club. Despite all the new technology, there are still thousands of books available for checkout. I checked and yes, Treasure Island is still available.

I was born in 1946 in Greenwich, Conn. Every winter we would take the train to Miami and stay at the Gulfstream Hotel in Miami Beach.

One could look down the beach and not see another hotel nearby. There were a lot of “snowbirds” (although that term had not been coined yet) who stayed there, among them some of the rich and famous, as well as the infamous.

I had my picture taken with J. Edgar Hoover when I was 4. Sorry to say I lost the newspaper clipping of that photo in my many moves. I had no idea who this pudgy man was or why the photographer was making a fuss over us. There were other children around my age. There was Sherman Billingsley, whose father owned the famous Stork Club in New York. There were the Kresge children, Cary and Kitty. Their family owned Kresge’s 5 & 10 cent stores. The name may not sound familiar now but the K in Kmart stands for Kresge.

My family eventually bought a home in Miami Beach and we moved there full time when I was 6. Growing up in Miami Beach in the 1950s and ’60s was wonderful. I don’t think we realized then what a paradise we lived in. There was the dog track at the end of South Beach. The Art Deco hotels were filled with vacationers from New York and New Jersey. There were the Orthodox Jewish diamond dealers who would come in the long heavy black coats, even in the heat. There were the retired people in their orthopedic shoes schlepping their lounge chairs. Frank Sinatra was singing in the Poodle Room of the Fontainebleau, and once I passed Sammy Davis Jr. on Arthur Godfrey Road. He was this tiny man with two enormous bodyguards.

I went to St. Patrick’s School and then to Carrollton in Coconut Grove. Many of our classmates had fled from Cuba. They taught us the meaning of freedom and added spice to our city. I remember driving to school during the Cuban Missile Crisis, never realizing that we were in such danger. We were just excited to see all the cute sailors and soldiers all over Miami.

I have returned to Miami Beach a few times over the past years. It is not the place I grew up. The small motels vibrate with the beat of Latin music and “the beautiful people” come from all over to lie on the beach. If it weren’t for Joe’s Stone Crabs, I would think I was in the wrong place. I am glad this amazing city has been revitalized. In the 1970s, the hotels showed their age. The shops on Lincoln Road were all closing and parts of it looked like a ghost town.

The people who walk the beach and sidewalks now don’t know what the Stork Club was or that there were such things as 5 & 10 cent stores way before the dollar stores came into vogue. The young ones won’t know who Hoover was, nor will they have heard of Sinatra or Sammy Davis Jr., except through old black-and-white photos or a song they hear in an elevator. I don’t know if 41st Street is still called Arthur Godfrey Road or if people remember that Jackie Gleason did his TV variety show from the Miami Beach Convention Hall.

I do know that I was blessed to have grown up in paradise. I hope those who reside there know how lucky they are and make wonderful memories that will come back to them when they are old and living in New Jersey.

My father, David R. Balogh, is a Miami Beach legend. Most Beach people knew him and many, many shopped at his Balogh jewelry store.

Today, wherever I go, whether Miami, New York City or even Sun Valley, Idaho, I meet people who proudly show off their long-ago-purchased Balogh treasure.

My dad’s story is in many ways typical of the tales of those designated by Tom Brokaw as “the greatest generation,” those men and women who helped us defeat Nazism in World War II and then returned home to create the most prosperous and free nation, not even fathomed by our founding fathers.

I do believe, however, that my dad has some very distinguishing qualities, especially his unusual embodiment of both an ambitious drive coupled with romantic warmth and charm. He was the Navy vet who sent home every paycheck to his loyal wife Sallie. And when he returned from the war, they drove their old station wagon from New York City to subtropical, undeveloped Miami Beach to begin their family life with infant daughter Joan. What drove him to Miami, in addition to his run-down jalopy, was his conviction that Miami Beach was nirvana with its consistently sunny weather, the ocean and the palm trees. This was the venue to start a business and a life.

My parents rented a very small store on Arthur Godfrey Road, as they certainly could not afford Lincoln Road. They began a “mom and pop” antique business. My dad’s optimism led to his conviction that his customers would invest in and celebrate a new, good life with lovely items both to wear and to adorn their homes. He believed both in Miami Beach and in America. He was spot on about his customers, Miami Beach and America.

In addition to his foresight and optimism, he had skills. He had an uncanny business savvy, sensing where and how to buy, and he had a charismatic ability to sell. He loved beauty and believed in investing in real, tangible items. This mom and pop business grew just as he had envisioned; it was enlightening to witness the business morph from a two-person, seven-day-a-week operation into an internationally renowned jewelry store. He opened stores in Coral Gables, Hallandale, the Diplomat Hotel and much later on Madison Avenue in New York City. But the basis of his business and his heart remained in Miami Beach.

As my father’s business grew, so did Arthur Godfrey Road. It was symbiosis; David Balogh and Arthur Godfrey Road fed off each other and grew together. He purchased real estate on the street and involved himself in leadership roles, such as establishing the parking facilities to help all the small businesses and restaurants in the area. He was active in the Miami Beach Chamber of Commerce and many local and national philanthropies, such as Mount Sinai Hospital, juvenile diabetes and the University of Miami. He became imbedded in the fabric of Miami Beach life. My dad retired at age 92, but he still puts on his suit and tie every day and enjoys riding around looking at his properties.

My dad’s dedication and focus went considerably beyond his jewelry and real estate businesses. He was an accomplished musician — a pianist and flutist. He actually met my mom in Astoria, New York, through his music; he was her piano teacher. He played first flute in the Miami Beach Symphony and I remember feeling special to be called up on stage to conduct when the symphony came to my North Beach elementary school. He was so proud that he was able to play under the maestro Arturo Toscanini. My dad’s special motto, still displayed in his closet shelf, is “you never fail until you stop trying,” and this definitely permeated the inner structure of his businesses and his family. Fortunately, I was able to incorporate some of my parents’ strong work ethic and very ambitious, yet measured, approach to life.

I grew up in a very close family and was indoctrinated with family-first values. As with his business life, my dad also fulfilled his familial goals. My younger brother, Bobby, a “chip off the old block,” has built his life in the Miami area. After Yale undergraduate school and then law school, Bobby has taken our father’s real estate interests beyond even David’s expectations. He and his wife, Cara, have molded two talented children, Andrew and Alex, both Yale undergraduates.

I am a practicing psychoanalyst in New York. My husband, Marty, guided by my father, opened his own jewelry business in New York almost four decades ago. We have two wonderful and accomplished daughters. Cara is a Ph.D. and professor of American literature, while her sister, Anna, another “chip off the old block,” is in the real estate business. Clearly, all this was the result of the example he set, the drive he had and the quality and quantity of time he and my mom spent with us.

The Greek hero Achilles was given the choice by his goddess mother Thetis to live either the adventurous, but short life or the long, undistinguished one. My dad, now 94, my hero, never had to make this choice. He has lived both.

Our family moved to Miami Beach from Brooklyn, N.Y., for my grandmother’s health. It was 1943 and Dad was with the Navy in the Pacific, so it was Mom, Aunt Rose, sister Bonnie, Grandma and me.

We settled in a one-bedroom, one-bath apartment on Third Street and Jefferson. Our apartment was close to the dog track, so we could hear the announcer call the races. Bonnie and I would wager on each race while in bed, and we could hear the announcer proclaim the winners. My best friend, Sonja Lovseth, and I played with our dolls, danced in our house, and rode our bikes everywhere.

South Beach Elementary School was three blocks away, and provided the best education one could ask for. We had an assembly program every week and my sister, Bonnie, was assembly leader. I was captain of the safety patrol.

We learned Spanish beginning in third grade, and I can remember singing the Cuban national anthem in the classroom. Señora Ransom always carried a lace hankie and smelled of Old Spice cologne. The teachers were all wonderful – Mrs. Bleich in sixth grade sex education told the girls to be proud of our bodies, Mr. Little and his violin produced operettas, and Mr. Sanders was our handsome and very dignified principal. Mr. Vasey, the custodian, lived in a cottage next to the school, and he was always Santa Claus for the holidays.

Our apartment on Third and Jefferson was downstairs from Ben Cohen, an attorney for the notorious Miami Beach gambling syndicate, which attracted outside gangsters such as Meyer Lansky. He and his beautiful wife, Joan, had a baby girl and I went upstairs to see the baby.

In the bedroom were about a dozen telephones. I remember asking my mother why anyone needed so many phones. There is a window in the Jewish museum with Ben Cohen’s name and Meyer Lansky’s.

Grandma, as an observant Jew, needed to be near the synagogue, which was on Washington Avenue, and today is the home of the Jewish Museum. My sister and I attended the Hebrew School there. On Fridays when I got home from school, I had to help Grandma prepare for the Sabbath. I usually chopped vegetables or turned the grinder for the chopped liver.

When we were done in the kitchen, I would help her in the bath, wash her hair, and scrub her back, which was crooked from osteoarthritis. After her bath I combed her white hair, set the waves, and she rested for a while in her bed. Grandma had very bad asthma. There was always an oxygen tank next to her bed.

Sometimes I polished her nails. When the sun set, she would light the candles and bring in the Sabbath. Bonnie and I would not write, cut, or, later, watch TV for 24 hours.

During WWII, soldiers were stationed on Miami Beach. They marched by our house, singing army songs, which we quickly learned. Mom and Aunt Rose went to dances at hotels used as a USO (a United Service Organization with a mission to support troops).

Dad returned from the war, lived with us a short time, and then my parents divorced when I was 9. Bonnie and I continued to see our father, who worked in the window at Wolfie’s, Pumpernik’s and the Rascal House as a salad and sandwich chef. Sometimes he would take us for lunch at Burdines in Miami.

Walking on Lincoln Road in the 1940s and ‘50s was like walking on the Champs-Élysées, with luxury shops like Lillie Rubin, Saks Fifth Avenue, and so many others. Once my father took me into Saks and bought me red butter-leather sandals and an emerald-green, silk-taffeta cocktail dress. He introduced me to the finer things of life.

Bonnie and I had always wanted a dog, so when we moved to Miami, we got our first dog, a precious Jack Russell named Bing. Next, we got a blue tick hound named Penny.

We would take her to Crandon Park, where she ran for hours along the beach chasing shadows in the sand. We also had a pet duck named Christine. She followed Penny like a shadow and would greet me when I returned from a date in the evening. One day the duck disappeared. We found out several years later that Grandma had made a trade with the butcher.

I attended Ida M. Fisher Junior High on Miami Beach from seventh through ninth grades. One of my boyfriends was Norman Cement, who later became mayor of Miami Beach. In the 1950s, my grandmother and mother bought a duplex in what is now Little Havana.

I did not want to leave my friends, so Mom arranged for me to be picked up in Miami by Mr. Dutton, my music teacher, so that I could finish ninth grade with friends I’d had since second grade. Later, I attended Miami High.

On my own, I applied for a scholarship to the University of Miami, and did not tell my mother until I was accepted. I majored in Elementary Education.
At the end of my junior year, I flew to Nashville to attend the wedding of my friend, Marie Lefkowitz. It was at this wedding I met my future husband, Irwin Kaplan.

We moved to New Jersey in 1956, after we married. We have been married 57 years, have three children, 10 grandchildren, and four great grandchildren.

My sister Laurie and I share an unusual trait: we are in our 50s and we are both native Miamians.

We were born at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach. My mother, Suzanne Gillette Collins, and her family moved here in 1939, because my grandfather, Jules Gillette, was seeking new opportunities in Miami.

He opened a men’s clothing store on Lincoln Road, Jules Gillette Men’s Clothing, leading to a succession of such stores on Flagler Street, in downtown Miami, and on Northeast 125th Street in North Miami. During World War II, the store became an Army supply store since Miami Beach was a training ground for soldiers.

My mother helped out at the store and she liked to tell the story about the first time a soldier came in and asked for a jock strap. She was clueless.

Although he didn’t know my mother at the time, my father, Ken Collins, trained here with the Army Air Corps during the war. He stayed at the Embassy Hotel on Collins Avenue which, like most other hotels, had been converted for wartime use. The soldiers would drill in Polo Park on Miami Beach.

My mother would watch the soldiers drill. My father went on to fly several missions before being shot down over Hungary. He was captured and became a POW in a German prison camp. Gen. George S. Patton’s Third Army liberated the prisoners and my father went home to Ohio.

He went to college and moved to New York for a career in retailing.

My mother graduated from Miami Beach High in 1945 and went to college out of state as well.

My parents met when they both worked at Macy’s in New York. They married in Miami in 1953, but remained in New York for a couple of years before moving to Miami when my grandfather offered my father a job at his store. On Lincoln Road at that time, there were about eight men’s clothing stores and several ladies’ shoe stores.

My parents found an apartment on Marseilles Drive in Miami Beach. The apartment was not air-conditioned, so they agreed to purchase one if the landlord would install it.

They then bought a house on Northeast 175th Street in North Miami Beach. It was one of two houses built on the block at the time, which ended in a dirt road until about 1962. The stately royal palms in the front of our house came from Miami Beach when they were constructing the Julia Tuttle Causeway.

My parents lived in that house until 1991 when they moved to the Highland Lakes area, where my husband and I also live.

In September 1960, Hurricane Donna threatened South Florida. It was believed that the low barometric pressure might induce labor in pregnant women in their late stages. Since my mother was eight months pregnant with me, she and numerous other pregnant women spent a night roaming the halls of Jackson Memorial Hospital until the hurricane threat had passed.

Since I was to be her second child, she was calmer than most of the women, but she told the story of the many large hysterical women who spent the night with her. It sounded worse than any sorority function you could imagine. I was born in October 1960.

In 1962, there was the Cuban Missile Crisis. We still have my mother’s can of Sterno, and the shovel my dad bought to dig a trench if we needed a latrine. I can’t picture either of them using either device, but they couldn’t say they weren’t ready.

My one grandmother would take us to Junior’s on 79th Street and Biscayne Boulevard, where they had great breads and rolls. My other grandparents used to take us to the Roney Pub for dinner. We loved that big quarter-wedge of iceberg lettuce they’d give you with a choice of dressing.

We’d also go to Corky’s for pastrami and corned beef back in the days when I ate big meaty sandwiches. Corky’s used to have a drive-up area where you could order from your car window, and they’d bring your food out to your car and hook a tray to your car window.

As I got older, I’d go to the Sportatorium for concerts with my friends way out on Hollywood Boulevard, before there was anything else built out there.

My mother worked at Temple Israel, where my family were members. My dad eventually opened his own store in Bay Harbor Islands, Ken Collins Men’s Clothing. I used to help out at both places during summers and holidays.

My sister and I went to Sabal Palm Elementary School, John F. Kennedy Junior High School, and North Miami Beach High School.

Two recollections I have that are not among Miami’s finer moments: in 1972, there was an organized boycott against busing, and parents kept their children home from Miami-Dade public schools for two days. I went to school both days; I think I was one of two or three kids in my class who showed up.

I also remember going to work downtown in the summer of 1980, following the McDuffie riots. I remember seeing the smoke rising from Liberty City – and, visible from Interstate 95, the National Guardsmen with their rifles standing on almost every corner.

I went out of state for college, but came back to the “U” for law school, where I met my husband, Peter Bronstein. I am a die-hard ‘Canes fan and bleed orange and green during football season.

We were married on Key Biscayne at the Sonesta. What a beautiful weekend it was, and our out-of-town guests got a wonderful taste of Miami.

We had a Michigan flag at our wedding, since my husband went to the other U of M for undergraduate studies.

We lost my mom several years ago, but my dad and sister still live close by. Miami is home, and other than my years at college, I’ve lived here all my life. In the winter, the weather is beautiful, and in the summer, the crowds thin out.

What more could you ask for?

My Miami story began the day my KLM flight touched down from Cuba at Miami International Airport.

I was traveling alone in 1961 at the age of 11. I was going to some unknown destination, which turned out to be an orphanage in Colorado, arranged by Operation Pedro Pan. I was reunited with my mother and two younger sisters almost two years later in Miami (we were some of the lucky ones).

We moved into an old wooden house near Shell’s City. I was enrolled at Edison Junior High in the seventh grade in 1963, and later I went to Beach High (Miami Beach High School). My mother was now a single mom raising three kids in a new country with a new language.

My first job was delivering The Miami News around Lemon City and Little River. Adjustments had to be made to my bicycle by installing a wooden “banana basket” to the handlebars to accommodate the heavy load from the newspapers. It felt as if I were peddling a Buick. My introduction to mobile journalism drastically ended the day my bike fell apart into several pieces and I had to walk back home in the rain carrying the wheel and frame in one arm and the chain and handlebars in the other. No more banana basket. I was 14.

Fortunately, I was told about a couple of jobs in the restaurant business. One job was as a dishwasher at Junior’s Restaurant on Biscayne Boulevard; the other as a busboy at Jumbo’s Restaurant on Northwest Seventh Avenue. Unfortunately, I was fired from both jobs the same day. Clearly, it was time to find a different line of work.

Another job came up where I was allowed to take the company car home. That was great news because my family needed a car. The pest control company was on the beach. I was hired as a “pest control specialist.” I was the only employee and was told to come back the next day so they could show me around the “company car,” a ’56 rusted four-door Packard.

The windows did not roll down and the car had no air conditioning, making the smell from pesticides and other chemicals suffocating. I sprayed the Seacoast Towers on Collins Avenue, and for the first time —as bad as it was —the family had a car. Nobody bothered to check my driver’s license. I didn’t have one. My mother must have fainted the day I got home behind the wheel of my new, smelly, beat-up company car. I was 15 years old.

We hung out at pool halls, dance halls, movie theaters and food joints in North Miami and Miami Beach. Congress pool hall and Bowlerama come to mind. I will never forget the Paramount Theater, where we skipped school to see A Hard Day’s Night. No more short hair for me after that.

Flirting with girls up and down Collins Avenue became an art form; we cruised past the Neba Roast Beef restaurant, Scotty’s Drive-In and The Castaways. I remember getting my first Beatles haircut from the master known as Evan at a cost of $5. Among our favorite eateries were Parham’s, Royal Castle on 71st Street, Tony’s Fish Market, Nathan’s, Fun Fair, the Bonfire, The Place For Steak, and Jilly’s when we were a little bit older.

We watched Wayne Cochran lift the roof off The Barn. The Hialeah Municipal and all the armories were great venues that showcased Miami’s local bands like NRBQ, the 7 of Us, The Kollection, and many others whose memories are kept alive in Jeff Lemlich’s book, Savage Lost. Man, Miami rocked!

We grooved at Coconut Grove’s first head shop owned by the now legendary Michael Lang, one of the brains behind Woodstock. He had learned from his experience organizing the Miami Pop Festival in 1968 at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale. It headlined a not-too-well-known band called the “Jimmy Hendrix Experience.”

Finally, I found a real job at a well-known auto-rental and leasing firm in Miami with a large fleet of vehicles and a high-end clientele. Driving around and picking up people at the airport was part of my new job. I took a new car home every night. I remember pulling up to the “love-ins” at Greynolds Park in a new convertible every weekend, which made me extremely popular — a rich hippie. The job lasted almost three years. I knew it was only a matter of time until the U.S. armed forces’ Selective Service System would come knocking and drafted me into the U.S. Army. I was almost 19.

I was very lucky to have been permanently stationed in one of the most beautiful places on earth, Ft. Ord on the Pacific Coast Highway in the Monterey Peninsula of California. The Santa Ynez Mountains climbed up from Big Sur. There are not enough colors in an artist’s pallet to duplicate the sunsets I was lucky enough to see along the Pacific Ocean from my ocean-view Army barracks.

San Francisco was a short hop away from Ft. Ord, and on the weekends we hung out at The Haight (not what I expected) and saw a lot of the bands you only heard on the radio. I was having a great time, but sadly the ’60s were coming to an end and so was my Army obligation.

I had choices to make. “Going Back To Miami” was playing over and over in my head, and I knew in my heart what I had to do. It was time to come home. I have no regrets.

My grandfather and other family members were Miami pioneers, having arrived in 1895 from Crescent City, Florida.

My grandfather, T. N. Gautier, was one of 500 signatures needed for Miami to incorporate as a city. He was also the first school superintendent for Miami. His grocery store, Miami Groceries, was listed in the one page 1902 telephone directory as “T.N. Gautier Groceries, dial 9.”

My father, T.N. Gautier, Jr., was part of the Miami “Dirty Dozen.” I have no clue what those guys did. I do know that they were a young group of successful businessmen in Miami back in the day.

I was first introduced to Miami at my birth in Victoria Hospital many years ago. Victoria was a small 30 to 40 bed hospital on Northwest Third Street and Ninth Avenue.

My first real memory of Miami was the Labor Day hurricane of 1935. It hit without warning, as there were no TV hurricane advisories back then. I was 3 years old, but not afraid of hurricanes because I was 3 years old. My dad came home from his job at Burdines during the eye of the storm. During the lull, my family walked through a vacant lot behind our house to Flagler Street where we weathered the hurricane at fire Chief Henry Chase’s two-story concrete block house. It was a fortress against the storm. The Chase’s house was next to Fire Station #3. For me, the highlight of that day was seeing the roof of the Dempsey’s house fly off and sail away. Of course, that was not the highlight for the Dempsey family.

I attended Riverside Elementary School from first to sixth grade. Shoes were optional and many of the kids didn’t wear shoes, and I, “Shoeless Joe,” was among the many. However, I did wear shoes to church and weddings.

We lived five blocks away from Ada Merritt Junior High. It was an easy bike ride for me. Our Ada Merritt boys’ teams won the Dade County Soft Ball Championship every year for our three junior-high years.

The old Miami Orange Bowl was half a mile away from our house. My dad and I would walk there to watch the Miami Seahawks. The Seahawks were a professional franchise in the All-American League. They had an All-American running back named “Bullet” Bill Daley and a lineman named Gene Ellenson who graduated from Miami High and ended up a coach at the University of Florida. Those two men were the only redeeming players on the Seahawks team. Sadly the team eventually folded due to lack of paying fans.

My mother Claire Gautier was a soprano soloist at Trinity Methodist Church in downtown Miami. I was used to her practicing on our piano at home and took her talent for granted. But because I loved football my mother became my hero when she sang at the wedding of Army’s All-American quarterback Arnold Tucker in the mid ‘40s.

The Mackle Company, later to be known as the General Development Corporation, changed the dynamics of home building in Miami as they provided affordable housing for hundreds of families. They developed Key Biscayne and built the Key Biscayne Hotel. They also built other developments, including Ascot Park and Westwood Lakes.

My job for The Mackle Company was titled “Industrial Expeditor and General Coordinator,” which technically translated into…GOFER! When I left Mackle to answer the call of the U.S. Army, the Mackle Brothers gave me a watch that they had engraved, “Joe Good Luck Mackles.” The watch is still ticking to this day. It’s like the houses that they built — still being used.

Fast-pitch softball was another thriving sport. It was an outdoor sport and Miami being hot did not stop fans from going to various city parks to watch the games. This, of course, was before TV and air conditioners. The softball games were an evening of entertainment for people of all ages.

I pitched in all of the city parks, but the one I remember most is Moore Park. There was a man there who went to every game. His name was Scotty. He was a one-man cheering section and encourager to all the players. He knew every player’s name and called it out when they were up to bat. I could always hear him with his Scottish accent yelling out when I got to home plate, “Hit a homer, Joe!” Eventually many thousands of people in Miami welcomed air-conditioning and TVs, and didn’t go out at night to watch fast-pitch softball in the heat and hard benches. It was a gain for them and a death knell for fast-pitch softball.

In 1956, I had the privilege of being one of the coaches for Miami’s Little Major League. The team represented Miami for the Florida state championship held in St. Petersburg. We won the state title. Several on that winning team went on to be baseball stars, including Steve Hertz, who went on to play for the Houston Astros and Eric Wanderon who played baseball for Miami High and received a scholarship for both football and baseball at the University of Miami. Tommy Shannon, a pitcher for our team, got a scholarship to the University of Florida as a baseball pitcher and quarterback for the Gators.

Miami is my hometown, where I grew up and met my wife Miriam. It is where my daughter and son were born and went to school. Living in Miami taught me about living through hurricanes, traffic, hot weather and mosquitoes. Miami, to me, was a great city to grow up in.

I was born at Coral Gables Hospital in 1948. My mother was from Brooklyn, my father from Morriston. He was a CPA, in the Giller Building on the Beach, at the exit off the Julia Tuttle Causeway onto Arthur Godfrey Road. He said that every day when he drove across the causeway, he marveled at the beauty around him.

We lived in the Gables – first on Alhambra Circle where the UM fraternities were, and the athletic field and tennis courts. We played touch football and tennis there on weekends; no one bothered us. Then my family moved to the corner of Old Cutler Road and Santurce Avenue, into a one-story ‘50s house, now replaced by a mansion too big for the property.

There was only vacant land across the street, east of Old Cutler. I asked my father why nobody built there, and he said that it was too close to sea level; it would never be developed. Now it’s Cocoplum. Temple Beth Am was surrounded by vacant land. When they built Dadeland, my parents said that no one would live that far out.

Matheson Hammock was quiet and uncrowded—no Red Fish Grill. We swam at the Venetian Pool. On Sundays my dad would get bagels and lox at Sam and Carl’s on Red Road at Sunset. Across the street was the Holsum Bakery, with that wonderful smell. South Miami was small and sleepy, like a village. Sometimes we went to Pumpernik’s and Wolfie’s on the Beach — the best pastrami sandwiches I’ve ever tasted.

One of my father’s clients was the Melaleuca Motel on Collins Avenue, and when I was little we stayed there in the summer – two rooms and a cabana. The ocean, the beach, the pool, eating out, lots of other kids – I loved it.

I went to first and second grades at Sunset Elementary, then to West Lab at UM (my mother put me on the waiting list when I was born). I had a friend who would take me to his country club in the Gables, and defiantly introduce me as “my Jewish friend Joel.” Nobody reacted, but we all knew that there were Jewish and non-Jewish country clubs, and restricted hotels. Most were more subtle than the one with the sign that said “Great Views, No Jews.”

I road my bike to Ponce Junior High, racing up and over the bridge on Granada. In ninth grade I took drama because there weren’t any tests, and after a few silly skits in class, my teacher, Mrs. Firestone, cast me as the lead in the school play. When I tried to get out of it she said that her class wasn’t a democracy. It was my tipping point.

Everything I’ve done since has involved public speaking – debating in high school and college, moot court in law school, writing speeches in D.C., and then appellate law. Mrs. Firestone wouldn’t remember me, because she was just doing her job — being a teacher – and unfortunately, I never told her.

Gables High was all white, with the first Cuban students from the first wave of immigrants. My world was all white. I remember “White” and “Colored” water fountains, public restrooms, and beaches. Virginia Key Beach, for the “Colored People,”was beautiful, and my friends and I were welcome there.

I drove the ’56 Chevy that my father gave me when he bought his burgundy Mustang; it took all my strength to turn the wheel. My friend Larry and I would drop off our dates and go to the Royal Castle on the highway around 22nd Avenue, and eat four or five of those small hamburgers with the soft buns and the little pieces of cooked onions, and drink birch beer.

A favorite hangout was the Hot Shoppes Drive-In off U.S. 1 at Bird Road. We took our dates to the Flick Coffeehouse on Ponce near the university to hear folk music. Movies were at the Miracle, Gables and Riviera Theatres. Next to the Riviera were Spec’s Music and Swenson’s Ice Cream.

Some of my friends had ski boats, which we took out on weekends. At that time you could water ski anywhere you wanted. During the Cuban Missile Crisis there were military convoys everywhere. Our teachers taught us to crouch under our desks with our arms over our heads in order to survive a nuclear attack.

In tenth grade English they announced on the public address system that President Kennedy had been shot. My first political campaign was Miami Mayor Robert King High’s run for governor. We took a small plane to Tallahassee that was held together by bubble gum. It was terrifying.

The public schools in South Florida were among the best in the nation; some of the smartest people I’ve ever known went to Gables; fortunately for me it had a great debate team; and Gables and Miami High had two of the best football teams in the country. In 1965, the game between Gables and Miami High drew 48,000 people to the Orange Bowl. Miami High’s 14-7 win ended our 28-game winning streak. It was devastating.

When I left for college I had no intention of coming back. The place was sleepy and Southern and in many ways prejudiced. But it had changed radically when we decided to move back from D.C. 15 years later to raise our family. It was becoming a center of art, sports, commerce and finance – bilingual, international. It had acquired a buzz that still buzzes. And the lawyers here are as good as the best lawyers anywhere—in particular my colleagues for 25 years at Podhurst Orseck. I’ve never regretted coming home.