Greetings From Miami
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You’re invited to join me on vacation to Miami Beach, Florida!
A Miami before Super Models and Super Bowls,
before J-Lo and Will Smith and Pitbull,
before The Dolphins, The Marlins, The Heat,
before all-night, ecstasy-fueled raves and $20 martinis.
Welcome to Miami, 1958!
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I remember that incredible day like it was yesterday.
But it wasn’t.
Nor was it the day before.
Actually, it started out as one typical winter’s day when I was 8 years old.
My Mom and Dad came home from a hard day’s work
at their floor covering store…
and, with big smiles on their faces,
they announced to my sister Ellen and me that they had some big news.:
We would be going on a vacation!
Just hearing the word “vacation” always set my heart racing!
That meant…no school for me, no work for my parents and going somewhere fun together.
But wait! It couldn’t be our “regular” semi-annual trip to Long Beach Island in Jersey,
with the beach, fishing, miniature golf, drive in movies…
it was Winter!
Maybe we’d drive off from The Bronx to some exotic location…
like the time we toured the New England States?
Or drove upstate NY to Fort Ticonderoga?
Or visited the Amish Country in Pennsylvania?
(where for some reason that I didn’t understand…
my parents thought a town there had a real funny name???)
Uh uh…while those were really great vacations,
this one would be something more…
Something BIG! I mean…GIANT!!!
We were going to…
MIAMI, FLORIDA!!
AND…
We weren’t driving, we were…
FLYING!!
ON AN AIRPLANE!!
I couldn’t believe it!!
I had heard about Miami from some friends who had been there.
They said it was cool…actually hot ;)
Did you know that when it’s snowing in The Bronx…
you could actually play on the beach in sunny Florida???
A miracle!
As an additional surprise…
we would be going with my Grandpa Abe and Grandma Rose!
Yeahhh…that would be my Mom in the middle!?
(I loved them a lot. And while they were probably maybe 60 at that time…
I always had them pegged for about 100…people looked different back then).
For the two weeks before we left,
I don’t think I slept a wink.
Every night I’d lie in bed,
trying to imagine what flying through the air would be like.
I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face when one chilly morning,
my Mom packed up our bathing suits!?!
Finally, “Departure Day” arrived!
We all got dressed up with our “nice clothes”,
(Because that’s what you did when you were traveling by plane).
We picked up Grandma and Grandpa in Brooklyn,
and headed to Idlewild Airport to drop off our car and board
our Eastern Airline flight to Miami Beach, Florida!!
When boarding time was announced…I RAN up to the gate!
This real pretty lady welcomed me aboard
and gave me a “golden wing” pin to wear.
My Mom let me sit by the window.
And soon there was a loud, roaring noise. A little scary.
My Dad explained those were the propellers “revving” up.
And then…
Oh My God!!
We started climbing upwards to the sky.
Looking out my window, I could see tiny people and cars down below.
They looked like my toys.
After a while, the pretty lady came by and handed each of us
our own little cardboard box.
I opened up my box and…YES!! Inside was FRIED CHICKEN!!
I mean…C’mon!! What else was to come?
I’ll tell you what…
Puke.
Lots of puke.
I guess someone knew what was coming up
literally,
because, luckily we had also been handed some white paper sacks,
They called them “Air Sickness Bags”.
I filled my bag…then another…then another.
Yes sir, yes sir…three bags full.
Then…
my Mom joined in the fun,
filling up a few bags of her own.
I decided to stop looking out the window for a while.
I thanked God when we landed.
WE MADE IT!!
Miami Beach, Florida!!
The glorious, golden sun was shining.
There were trees with giant leaves and coconuts.
I could smell the ocean.
And wonder of wonders…I was actually kinda hungry!
We piled into a taxi and Dad told us we were going to pick up our car.
I was confused.
Didn’t we leave our good ol’ Ford Station Wagon back in New York??
Next thing I knew…Dad showed up driving a shiny, new, sleek…
YELLOW CONVERTIBLE!!
And somehow the car place let us drive away in what I thought was someone else’s car???
Then, magically…THE ROOF OF THE CAR OPENED UP!!!
And we drove along the road next to the ocean,
like we were sitting outside!!
It was hot…in December!?!
People were walking on the street in their bathing suits!?!
We passed by all these fancy hotels…
and then arrived at ours…
The Dunes Hotel.
It had a big gold statue of some Egyptian guy in front.
We checked in,
went to our two connected rooms,
then my Dad slid open a big glass door to our “terrace”!!
Oh Man! This was not like our metal fire escape in The Bronx!
And after I did the requisite jumping up and down on the bed…
I was ready for Miami!!
First stop was the hotel pool!
We were all in our new bathing suits…
except of course for Grandma Rose and Grandpa Abe.
They were still in their Brooklyn “winter clothes”.
I was never much of a swimmer,
but my Dad held me and we splashed around in the water.
And then… Grandpa Abe actually took off his shirt and tie!
And undershirt!!
It may have been the first time I ever saw his bare skin!
After drying off, we spent our first Miami day visiting the other hotels…
The Flamingo, The Roney Plaza, The Thunderbird ,The Sahara,
(where I got to sit atop a sculptured camel!)
and the two biggies…
the elegant Eden Rock and the fabulous Fountainbleu.
I had never seen magnificent hotel palaces like these.
Even nicer than the Catskills Hotel I once went to with Grandma & Grandpa.
By the end of Day One,
we were knocked out from the flying, the hot sun, the splashing…
and the puking.
But the sun woke us up early the next morning for our Miami adventures!
First thing we did what was required of all visiting New Yorkers…
we headed to breakfast at Miami’s famous Pumperniks.
People from all over came to Pumperniks for their legendary onion rolls.
NOTE: Some may argue vehemently that “Wolfie’s” were better!
I myself, opted for my “regular breakfast”: Cheeseburger and French fries.
Well-nourished,
(and well-stocked, with Grandma Rose’s purse stuffed full with help-yourself onion rolls),
we headed to our first Florida adventure…
The Parrot Jungle!
An attraction celebrated as a “A World Where Birds Fly Free!”.
(Kinda like all the filthy pigeons back under the El trains in the Bronx)
There were thousands of rare colorful birds everywhere you looked.
A bit of Hitchcockian terror.
This is NOT my Grandpa Abe…it’s some weird British guy named “Winston”.
The “highlights” were…
A staged show with birds in costumes,
riding tiny bicycles or walking tightropes, and…
each visitor having a photo op,
with a bunch of large parrots, balancing on their arms.
I’ll always remember Grandpa Abe’s tortured look
as two birds clawed into his, now-sunburnt, bright-red shoulders,
(an unfortunate result of his rare shirtless experience).
What could possibly top the Parrot Jungle?
The Monkey Jungle!
It also had its own hyped tagline…
“Where humans are caged and monkeys run wild!
I remember listening with wide-eyed fear,
as our Guide told us how when the Jungle first opened,
the wild monkeys often attacked the visitors.
Nice way to start a fun day for an 8 year old!?
But…then they came up with the idea of designing a “caged path”,
where visitors could come face-to-face with chimps, Java monkeys, baboons, even gorillas…
without danger of being torn apart.
I loved it!
Watching the apes splash in the water, swing from the vines, wrestle with each other…
and of course, the highlight for any young kid…
the flinging of the poop!!!
And Florida had more creature features in store…
A park featuring Pink Flamingos,
(not the cult John Waters film)…
an Alligator Wrestling Show,
with some idiot putting his head inside the gator’s jaws.
I remember my grandparents buying me my own real stuffed mini-gator…
rather terrifying, except for its wardrobe of tropical shirt and straw hat.
But Miami was more than animal adventures.
The rest of the week was all kinds of fun in the sun…
Mom (in tube), Ellen & Me (quite the physique!)
…beach, pool, fishing, strolling along “the glitzy Collins Avenue”.
I also vividly recall having one of my first “fancy” (aka expensive) dinners
at an elegant “grown up” restaurant called… The Embers…
I even passed up my Burger & Fries for something called “Surf & Turf”.
And, speaking of “fancy”…
we also made a visit to the oh-so-fabulous…
Villa Vizcaya…
An estate built in “the style of the Renaissance”,
that means by a lot of old Italian guys.
It had lots of huge paintings,
of more old Italian guys,
lots of old furniture,
my Mom called “antiques”,
lots of gold and silver stuff,
and lots of exotic flowers and plants,
even better than the Botanical Gardens across from The Bronx Zoo.
This was clearly NOT The Bronx!
When sadly, the week ended and it was time for us to say good bye to our magic yellow car
and board the flight back home…
we left Miami with…
our bags of Florida Oranges,
our chocolate-covered coconut patties,
our carved Coconut Heads,
our stuffed, tropical-shirted, straw-hatted, mini-gators,
our bright red sunburns,
and our forever memories.
It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Or was it?
Years later, I headed back to The Sunshine State many times…
for Spring Break,
for South Beach,
for Super Bowls,
and…
to visit my parents, my sister, my Grandma Rose, my Aunt Estelle…
WHO ALL MOVED TO FLORIDA!!
I do have to add one more memory about my first time in Miami…
Another “nature adventure”…
An open boat tour through The Everglades.
Actually, kind of boring, except for a couple of alligators in the water.
But what I remember was that my Dad had just bought a new
Bell & Howell movie camera to capture all the magic moments of our Miami trip.
During the Everglades tour, Grandpa Abe decided to give the camera a try.
Upon returning home, as we watched our “movies”, reliving our vacation…
one of film reels was 30 straight minutes of green swamps!?!
When Mom asked Grandpa Abe why he took so much of the same thing?
He replied…
Because everything in Florida was beautiful!
I guess maybe it was.
Anyone else ever had a trip to Florida as a kid?
Would love to hear your memories.
