January 1st, 1959 was like any other in New York City, but one family was celebrating more than the arrival of the new year: aboard the Norwegian freighter M.V. Hoegh Cape were several passengers from the other side of the world. Among them were my mother, father, and me–an infant twenty-three days shy of my first birthday. Lacking the financial means to buy airplane tickets, my parents got a berth on the freighter (as many poor families did in that era) from Bombay, India, to return to the U.S., where they had met and gotten married. My mother had gone home to Madras to be with family so that I could be born with her mother and family nearby. Mom got a job as a music teacher in Dade County’s public school system. She was the only Indian teacher in Miami in 1959, and it’s possible my father was the only Swedish-American boat builder and sculptor. They rented a tiny cottage in Coconut Grove’s Ye Little Wood. By the mid-1960s, Dad’s copper sculpture became well-known around Miami, and several private collectors bought his graceful shorebirds, gulls, and various other unique works to display in their homes, from Coral Gables to Fort Myers. Dad’s astrological globe–partially rebuilt over the decades because of vandalism–still adorns the entrance to the Gables By The Sea community on Old Cutler Road. My father was deeply connected to the ocean, and we spent at least two days a week on his homemade sailboats, exploring Biscayne Bay and the Keys. We would spend overnights on long weekends, sailing down to Elliot and Sands Keys, cooking aboard, and snorkeling. During several summers, we sailed across the Florida Straits to the Bahamas, living aboard for weeks at a time in the Abacos and Berry Islands. As a 13 and 14-year old, these were the most memorable adventures of my life. We would stay until it was time to go back to school. Mom admirably ignored racism and got her Ph.D. from the University of Miami and rose to become a prominent principal and administrator with Dade County Schools. With my Swedish and Indian background, I was exposed to different cultures and foods at an early age. Still, my life as a young man in Miami was as American as any typical kid could be: I fell in love with football at age nine, but music was also a huge part of my life because of my mother’s classical influence. I played the cello at ten, taking lessons from one of the Miami Philharmonic’s premier cellists; Mom took me to countless concerts, when I wasn’t going to Miami Dolphin games with friends. I taught myself guitar at fourteen, and by fifteen was playing in rock bands around town. I attended Palmetto Junior High, then spent two years at Ransom School–then all-boys–for 8th and 9th grade before returning to public schools and graduating from Palmetto Senior in 1975.
I was a music major at Dade Community College (Now MDC) and later changed my major to Criminal Justice when the law enforcement bug hit me at nineteen years old. By twenty-one, I was in the police academy with the Opa-Locka Police Department. I later joined Metro Dade Police, and worked as a uniformed officer and homicide investigator for the next twenty-seven years, retiring in 2006. My mother had passed away from pancreatic cancer in 1996, and Dad became too old to sail after the third boat he built was wrecked by Hurricane Andrew. Dad passed away just before my retirement in 2005. I had since married and raised two sons, and in 2003, my then-wife and I adopted a baby girl from Russia. After retirement, I worked in real estate and later began teaching criminal justice at Coral Reef Senior High School. After four years of teaching, I left and worked in the security industry, returning to Ransom-Everglades for one year as their Director of Security before returning to Coral Reef to resume teaching. By that time, I had re-married to an aspiring teacher, an Indian divorcee with three children. Remarkably, she was hired by Ransom Everglades in 2005, and we moved north from Kendall to be closer to her job. Sadly, my Russian daughter died in a car accident at age 16. That was 2020, the year of COVID; the disease wasn’t much more than fleeting afterthought after the terrible loss of Linnea. We both still teach and enjoy our five children–and now, two grandchildren (who live in Boston). We are happy empty-nesters who enjoy life and we travel to India to visit my wife’s parents each summer. Miami, my upbringing, my young adventures on the water, and my law enforcement career, are all inextricably woven in a rich tapestry (to borrow from Carole King) that I have memorialized in a recently finished autobiography entitled “Badge, Tie, and Gun Life and Death Journeys of a Miami Detective.” This book is with a literary agent and we are currently pitching it to various major publishers. I continue to write, working on my second novel now. Miami is a remarkable and unique place. I have tried to capture its growth–as well as mine–in my book. The Miami I grew up in was a quiet, Southern town. It has grown into a vibrant and diverse cyclorama of Latin American culture and financial promise. I live across the street from a Metrorail station, and when I ride it, I look out the window and see my younger self at
almost every corner.