Category: Miami Stories

Little did we know when Ben and I got married in Havana in 1958 and came to Miami for our honeymoon that this city would be our home for the rest of our lives.

We spent two wonderful weeks in Miami Beach in a hotel named “Sands,” and visited all the tourist attractions, such as Vizcaya, the Seaquarium, Coral Castle, the Boom Boom Room at the Fontainebleau Hotel, Eden Roc, Castaways and so on. Miami was a sleepy town where all restaurants closed before 10 o’clock. However, there was night life on Miami Beach.

We came back to our peaceful lives in Cuba, but on December 31, 1958, the communist government took over.

Every day we were waiting for something to happen that would end that horrible nightmare. We could not comprehend how the American government would allow a communist regime with Russian missiles, 90 miles away.

In 1963, the American Red Cross put together a fleet of several cargo ships to transport the Bay of Pigs prisoners and their families to the United States. At this point, we decided to leave our country. We had to abandon all possessions and leave everything behind. It was heartbreaking. We came in the berths of a ship named American Surveyor, and because we both were fluent in English, we were selected to be the ship’s translators.

We were given one cot for every two people, but I was bringing a 9-month-old baby girl to her parents in Miami, so she got our cot. My parents, Mariano Cordova and Dulce Maria Tascon, and my brother-in-law, Daniel, also came with us in this ship. We brought our dog, Canela, as well. We encountered extremely rough weather and as a result, the trip, which normally would have taken 12 hours, lasted 20. Parents with babies were bringing them in shoe boxes (for lack of cribs). It was really horrific.

We finally arrived at Port Everglades on April 29, 1963, all disheveled and dirty from the ship furnaces. We were transported on buses to the old Opa-locka airport where our relatives and friends were waiting for us. I gave the baby to her parents and never heard from them again. She must be 51 years old by now. I have always wondered what became of her — did she marry, and does she have any children? Has she ever been told how she came from Cuba and who brought her?

Because Ben’s relatives were living in Miami Beach, we started our life there and rented a one-bedroom apartment on Ocean Drive in the “Ocean Front Apartments.” It belonged to two older brothers and a sister who were marvelous with us refugees. They learned to speak Spanish and played dominoes with us. It was like a big family.

I remember the two movie theaters, the Cameo and the Cinema, which showed movies for 25 cents before 6 o’clock, and after that it would go up to 50 cents. We ran like crazy to get to the movies before 6 p.m. We were so far behind in the movie business that any film was brand new to us.

I landed a secretarial job at the Mercantile National Bank at 420 Lincoln Road. My husband was offered a position as a teacher’s aide at Southside Elementary in downtown Miami, where all of the newly arrived Cuban children were studying. He served as an interpreter, teacher’s aide, worked at the school office, and did whatever the principal would ask him to do, such as bringing her coffee and doughnuts from the Royal Castle nearby. This school has been designated a historical landmark in downtown Miami.

We were able then to rent a two-bedroom apartment on Euclid Avenue. My brother-in-law slept on the couch and got a job at a Hialeah factory making plastic hangers. He did not own a car and had to take two buses from Miami Beach to Hialeah to get to his job on time. Later on, he bought himself a 1952 Chevrolet for $250. It felt like a Rolls Royce to him.

Our family outings were to Crandon Park for picnics or to Rickenbacker Causeway to fish. They were simple times, but very happy. We remember the small zoo at Crandon Park with lots of parrots and an old lion.

We became proud American citizens on July 4, 1970 in a swearing ceremony held at the Dade County Auditorium.

One Mother’s Day we all went to Shorty’s in Kendall to celebrate, but my mother fell ill and we took her to Mercy Hospital, where she was diagnosed with stomach cancer. She passed away two weeks later at the ripe age of 54.

We decided to leave Miami Beach and were able to buy our first home in the Coral Gate neighborhood in 1966, where a two-bedroom, one-bath would go for $15,000, with $450 down and $110 per month.

I remember that Ben only had a $10 bill in his pocket and that was what the realtor, Fred G. Smith, accepted as our initial down payment. That night, he came to our home, we gave him a check for the full down payment, signed the contract and he returned the $10 to us. I understand this area was developed in the 1950s for World War II veterans under the G.I.Bill.

My father was living with us, and he shared a bedroom with our son, George. We lived one block off Miracle Mile and our outings were confined to McCrory’s and F.W. Woolworth, and Sundays to the ponies and Burger King. I remember the park on Northwest 22nd Avenue, which belonged to the Police Benevolent Association, where all the neighborhood children went and had a fantastic time. We used to pick green peppers, tomatoes and strawberries at 117th Avenue, where Kendall is now a bustling neighborhood, and brought home bags full of freshly picked vegetables and fruits.

We decided to move to a younger neighborhood full of children and excellent nearby schools, Coral Park Estates, where we have lived for the last 40 years. George attended Coral Park Elementary, then Rockway Middle School, Miami Coral Senior High, Miami-Dade Community College and finally, FIU.

When he married Janet, they decided to buy a home in the same neighborhood so that their children would attend these schools. My granddaughter, Gia, attends Coral Park Elementary and is now in fifth grade. The cycle repeats itself!

My husband passed away three years ago and I still live in the same neighborhood. I have been in Miami for 50 years already, longer than in my own country, and have always considered this our only homeland. Over the years, we have witnessed the transformation from a sleepy town to a beautiful and vibrant city — an experience that I wouldn’t change for all the money in the world.

Being raised in St. Louis, Miami was always that exotic place I read about. I never really thought I’d be living here.

On a trip back from Central America in 1975, my partner Jim Hewitt and I landed in Miami in February. We didn’t want to face winter up north, so we found a cheap apartment on Miami Avenue and 20th Street. A noisy place that is still there, it is wedged between a busy street, a jet flight-path and a railroad track.

In 1978 Jim and I parted in New Orleans, and by 1980 I met Brenda Williams. We fell in love and were soon living together. In 1982, we moved to Miami Beach, living at the Chesterfield Hotel on South Beach.

At that time the city still required Civilian Registration cards to work on Miami Beach, a leftover from the 1930s for monitoring seasonal workers that the State Legislature overturned in 1986. So, we got ours but never had to use them. Within a month we had moved across the bay to Miami, living in the Edgewater neighborhood off Biscayne Blvd. at 23rd Street. It was an old neighborhood with a few new multi-storied apartment buildings, but mostly old residences subdivided into apartments like the one in which we lived.

Brenda’s 15-year-old daughter Rosalyn moved down here with us and went one year to Robert E. Lee Jr. High School at 3100 NW 5th Avenue. We then enrolled Rosalyn in Miami Beach High. Normally, from where we lived she would have gone to Jackson High School on 36th Street in Allapattah, but we were leery of an inner city school in that neighborhood, so because of desegregation policy and her being black, we were able to enroll her in Beach High.

Beach High is where she met a local boy, Keith Lankford, whom she eventually married and with whom she had our two grandsons, Keith Jr. and Kevin.

Our neighborhood in those days was a pleasant place to live. One of our family traditions was to walk down the Boulevard to the Omni Mall. At the time, it was a thriving mall with Burdines and Penney’s anchors and full of eating and shopping places and even a movie theater. Our Friday destination was for pizza at Cozzoli’s, then just hang out walking the mall or take in a movie.

In 1983, Brenda and I got married at Unity on The Bay in Miami, a couple blocks from our home. Having lived together for three years it was a small wedding celebrating our life together with just the Church Notary officiating, Rosalyn and two friends as witnesses.

Brenda and I were living on Miami Beach in 1996 when we got divorced. It was amicable and we remained friends. Brenda later became ill and was diagnosed with ALS. She stayed with Rosalyn’s family in West Park until she died in August 2000 and where I visited her often. I am still a part of Rosalyn’s family and did extensive travels with my youngest grandson Kevin when he was a teenager.

I am still here, living on Miami Beach and working for the past decade at MACtown a residential facility for developmentally disabled adults in Little Haiti (Little River) Miami.

Robert Conner died on March 3, 2012 before he was able to finish compiling his Miami Story. His wife Linda Conner submitted the article for publication on the one-year anniversary of her husband’s death:

I was born at Jackson Memorial Hospital, but my life really began when I was fortunate enough to be adopted by Wilton and Enid Conner.

Dad, “WW” as he was known, grew up in Washington, D.C. Mom is from Marietta, Ohio, and grew up on a farm. Dad was transferred to Miami by the U.S. Quarantine Service in 1943.

They first lived on Biscayne Boulevard, and then, in 1946, bought a home in Hialeah. The house was quite small, especially by today’s standards, at about 700 square feet and it cost less than $6,000. In those days, there was a cow pasture across the street and Hialeah was a very small town. Henry Milander was the mayor – often referred to as “King Henry” – and he got me my first job, with the trash department.

Most of my friends went to Hialeah High School, but I ended up at Miami Springs High the first year it opened. During high school, I joined the civil air patrol just so I could go flying in airplanes. We spent the most time in C119 Boxcars, flying out of Opa-Locka airport, and had bivouacs in various places, including Greynolds Park.

I looked forward to the special occasions when we ate out at Pickle Herring Charlie’s or went for ice cream at Jahn’s on Miracle Mile. We went to the Essex theater on Hialeah Drive, the Olympia Theater downtown and the Drive-in on LeJeune. On the way to the drive-in or to Jahn’s, you might get stopped by an airplane on LeJeune Road, because the hangars were on the east side of the street and they would taxi across to the runways on the west side.

The family attended the Presbyterian church and mom sang in the choir. After high school, I was going to go to Central America to work with a missionary group from the church, but plans changed and my girlfriend, Pat Walters, and I got married. We found a garage apartment in Biscayne Park and I went to work for Winn-Dixie, and a little while later we welcomed our daughter, Tamara. As too often happens when couples marry young, Pat and I parted ways and Tami now lives in Alabama with her husband, Charles Anderson, an Iraq war veteran.

I stayed on in South Florida and went to work for flood control, part of the water management agency. My route took me all over the county and out into the Everglades. Later, I became a manager at Arby’s on Coral Way, and started the most interesting part of my life.

It was the early 1970s when I became a volunteer at Switchboard of Miami, often referred to as the “hippie hotline.” The cast of characters volunteering at Switchboard was an interesting one – Vietnam vets, commune members, bored-but-committed rich kids, high school and college students looking to find their way.

Volunteers were given basic first-aid training and on-the-job training for answering the phones. Phone calls also ran the gamut from callers just looking for someone to talk with and listen to their problems, to partiers looking to identify the drug they were about to ingest, to the more serious calls from people contemplating suicide and those who had taken too much of a drug and were afraid to go the hospital.

We also directed people to various agencies for everything from food stamps, to housing, to spousal or child abuse. We ran first-aid rooms or tents at all the concerts, which was a particularly popular job with volunteers as it got us into all the concerts free.

In the summer of ’72 we had a call that there was a riot on Miami Beach and all hands were needed to go to Flamingo Park to render first aid and help with the situation. It was the Republican National Convention and many were braced for trouble.

Miami Beach was blessed to have at that time an amazing police chief in Rocky Pomerance. Chief Pomerance was smart and calm, and he created a “no bust zone” in Flamingo Park . So rather than a riot, we arrived to find “Beat Poet” Alan Ginsburg sitting in a large circle reading his poetry and smoking – and he was completely nude. It was quite a sight.

I would say that it was a wasted trip but something happened that would change my life forever. I grabbed a ride home from someone with a car and, when I got in, I met Linda Schimmel, my future wife. We got married in 1975 at the Venetian Pool in Coral Gables. Linda always says it was a much larger wedding than originally planned, as every time I ran into old friends I would invite them. It was an interesting guest list and the best party I ever went to!

At the time, I was working as a bridge tender running the Brickell Avenue Bridge, and then I transferred into bridge maintenance. Eventually, I left work with the state to pursue my talent, which was working with plants. I went to work as grounds foreman at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, and then in plant cultivation and production, and finally to work for myself doing landscaping and lawn maintenance.

Linda and I loved to eat out, but many of our favorite places no longer exist. Later in life, we were not much into concerts anymore, but were big Marlins fans and really looked forward to the new ballpark.

From Linda Conner:
Bob was diagnosed with cancer in 2004 and suffered many challenges. Back when “Miami Stories” started appearing, we began working on our own stories and, as Bob’s health declined, it fell by the wayside. He passed away March 3, 2012, never having quite finished, and never getting to sit in Marlins Park. As his wife, I have gone back and done a little “polishing” of Bob’s Miami Story, but it is a fond remembrance of his life in South Florida.

During the early 1940s, my dad was making uniforms for the Armed Forces, but by 1944 it was time to move on.

Dad had experience working in his father’s hotel in Hartford (The Hotel Bond) and his brother already owned a hotel in South Beach. When they learned The Betsy Hotel was available, Dad (Abe Libman) leased it with his brother (Lou Libman), and that began our life in Miami Beach.

The hotel was a great pride and joy. I handled the beach chairs and towels for our guests and made great tips. I knew Rocky Pomerance then, when he was just a rookie on the police force. He was on a six-month trial period, but Rocky was bright. He wore an arm band that read in Spanish that he could speak Spanish, but he couldn’t speak a word.

We leased the downstairs of the lobby of The Betsy to S & G (a gambling syndicate) and that’s where I would go and have my lunch with my brother. They would be on the phones, and we would have cold cuts – corned beef, salami, and every other kind of cold cuts you could think of, plus cold drinks and coffee, and they would help me with math homework.

When my dad entered into an agreement with the National Baptist Convention, The Betsy became one of the first hotels to allow a black convention to be held in Miami Beach. Our friends at the Henrosa Hotel around the corner promised us that nothing would go wrong, and they sat in the lobby keeping watch. It was a great convention.

When my friend Irwin Meltzer and I were teenagers, we thought a night club for teenagers would be great idea. We made a deal with the owner of the Wofford Hotel, next to the Roney Plaza, and we started the Rhythm Club, with ice cream, soft drinks, and jazz from Liberty City. It was a blast.

South Beach was a kid’s playground, but the graveyard for old people. At The Betsy, we had Mrs. Tisch, Larry and Bobby’s mother. Larry (Laurence Tisch) told me he was going to build a high-rise hotel in Bal Harbour, and call it the Americana. I told him he was nuts, too far from the beach. Was I wrong!

My brother and I went to different schools. I went to the Lear School, on West Avenue, and my brother, Larry (the smart one), went to Beach High. My brother went off to the University of Florida and I went to the Air Force.

I was stationed in San Francisco and took advantage of being in the Air Force by going to the University of California, taking night courses. I also taught judo and life-saving training. I moved up to sergeant very quickly and was discharged 3 1/2 years later.

When I returned, I got a job at the Robert Richter hotel as an assistant manager. Later, I went to the Versailles, and then I became the assistant manager at the Floridian. I ran the card games for Mike Wassell, Meyer Lansky and others, and supplied the food and was allowed to cut the pot. Later, I became the manager of the Floridian, and then the manager of the Fleetwood, next to the Floridian.

I was introduced by mail to Bleema, a very beautiful girl in Montreal, and after three years of writing, but not seeing her or calling her, I went to the Cornell School of Hotel Administration in Ithaca, N.Y. My father said I was so close to Montreal, I had to meet her.

Three dates and now 58 years later, we are still married, with four children and seven grandchildren. What a lucky break. You should always listen to your parents. We came back to Miami Beach, and I took over the Bal Harbour Hotel as manager.

Those years were exciting. When a friend of mine, Irwin Gars, got out of law school, we started to develop commercial real estate in New England, but remained living in Miami Beach.

Much has happened in Miami Beach, and it’s still the greatest place to live. The future of Miami Beach is in the leadership it will have, and I think the new convention center will make a big difference. Miami Beach will be here for the next generation. Enjoy it – it’s one of a kind.

Sheila Presser (Bronx born) and Norman Litz (a Philadelphian) both moved to Florida with their families in 1946. Sheila graduated from South Broward High School, named “The Wittiest” in her senior class. Norman graduated from Miami High, a left-handed star pitcher on the baseball team; he was also known as “Lefty Litz.”

Upon graduation, the University of Miami offered Norman a baseball scholarship; he pitched for two years as a Miami Hurricane. He had offers from the St. Louis Cardinals and the Boston Braves, but instead he made the decision to enlist in the United States Air Force, during the Korean War. It was 1951.

Norman, also known as my father, was sent to Los Alamos, N.M., for two years. During this period, Dad worked in the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, and was then sent on temporary duty to the Marshall Islands (Eniwetok Atoll and Bikini Atoll) and the Mercury Proving Grounds (outside Las Vegas) where he participated in the testing of the atomic bomb and the H-bomb. He speaks often about this experience of a lifetime, remembering every detail. He has always spoken very proudly of his service to our country.

Fast forward to 1957. Sheila, my mother, a radiology technician, worked at Mount Sinai through the early ‘60s, and continued her career managing physicians’ practices for many years thereafter. Her finest job, however, was that of being our mom, and no one ever did it better.

Mom and Dad met in 1960. They married in 1961, and embarked on their life together, living on Miami Beach. Dad’s career began with the City of Miami Beach, first as an auditor. He was soon after offered the job of assistant manager at the Miami Beach Convention Center. In 1971, Dad was promoted to director of the Convention Center (and the Jackie Gleason Theater of the Performing Arts), where he remained until his “first retirement” in 1993. Dad spent 22 years in this extraordinary position, hosting the 1968 Republican National Convention and the 1972 Democratic and Republican National Conventions, the major expansion of the MBCC in the late 80s and, if you give him an hour or two, he could come up with innumerable experiences while there.

Though Dad loved his work, it required so much of his time – many weekends and evenings, too. That left Mom with the gigantic task of raising their two children, kind of single-handedly. You know what? They made it work. Moreover, they raised two children who love life, cherish their family immensely, and enjoy their flourishing careers.

Post-Miami Beach Convention Center, Dad came out of retirement, bored to death, and finished up his long career with the Lincoln Theatre-New World Symphony as facilities director, from 1994 through 2008. Like the Lincoln Theatre, Dad, too, is truly a Miami Beach “landmark!”

Now, the children: Steve Litz, political reporter for NBC-6 with a career in television that has spanned 20 years; and me, Ronni Litz Julien, nutritionist/author/media consultant for the past 28 years.

Steve and I had what you might consider a “normal and happy” childhood. We are both Miami natives, born at Mount Sinai, and have remained loyal Miami residents most of our lives. The public schools we attended – North Beach Elementary, Nautilus Junior High, and the beloved Miami Beach Senior High – educated us well. We grew up with tons of love, a meaningful value system (and a true zest for life and a desire to be successful, joyful and well-respected adults. Our parents instilled so much good in us, which we hope we have now “paid forward” to our children, the next generation of Miami natives.

Seven years ago, Steve took a reporter position in Miami at NBC-6 after a 10-year stint working for the ABC affiliate in Charlotte, N.C. It was a very special event when Steve moved back home, which meant our nuclear family was reunited, along with Sheila and Norm’s three grandchildren (my children, Jamie and Jordan, and Steve’s son, Seth).

My own career as a nutritionist began in 1986, after completing my undergraduate college education at Florida International University, then receiving my master’s degree from Boston University. After only one winter in Boston, this Florida girl ran back to Miami.

I had the good fortune to have done so many things, and am blessed with a job I love, teaching healthful eating habits, longevity and behavior change. I have authored three nutrition-related books (national book tour included), plus a parenting manual on how to teach children better eating habits. Additionally, I have been a media consultant to most of the television stations here in Miami and have taught at the college and high school levels, but most of my years have been spent in private practice. Presently, I have expanded my practice to “concierge nutrition,” in which I go into the home and develop nutrition programs for the family, focusing on any and all nutrition and medical-related conditions. I am blessed with a wonderful life here for the past 50 years, and can only hope it continues as long as good health allows it.

Steve recently covered a special story on the possibility of the Democratic National Convention returning to Miami in 2016. He called Dad and asked him for a few “sound bites.” Once I saw the piece air that night – when Steve Litz interviewed Norman Litz – I realized that our lives here in Miami had come full circle.

It will be fifty years this November since we took the Pan American flight that would separate us from the life of the privileged in Cuba to that of political refugees.

They served us tiny ham-and-cheese sandwiches with the iconic blue PanAm logo that tasted to us of the future – America.

We moved in with my aunt and uncle and their children into a three-bedroom house on the corner of 82 Avenue and 17 Street, a neighborhood known as Westchester. The community was predominantly Jewish with a handful of Cuban professionals, actors and writers. Walking distance was Everglades Elementary, a lovely school, but not if you didn’t speak the language.

I knew a few words in English – the colors, numbers and so on – but not enough to survive the third grade. I was made to feel alien, which I was. I looked forward to my afternoons in the warmth of the kitchen of Mrs. Meyers’s house, down the street. She would give me a quarter after school for babysitting and she allowed me to lick the cake batter off of her beaters. She was so nice to me and I acted as if I enjoyed her batter, but I didn’t because I was suffering from anorexia nervosa and couldn’t keep anything down.

No one really knew how bad things were for me at Everglades until my mother was informed that because of my problem with the language, I was being held back in second grade. Thank God that practice has since been abolished.

I also cherish the memories of the holiday traditions that were established early by my parents in an effort to bring normalcy to our lives. We would all pack into the Ford Falcon and head to Jordan Marsh department store downtown (where the OMNI eventually would be built) to see the beautiful animated Christmas displays and head upstairs to the toy department where we would get our traditional picture with Santa.

The holiday tradition would culminate with the New Year’s Eve parade down Flagler. Sometime around noon we would set up the fold-out chairs in the parking lot across from Walgreens and, with sandwiches and hot cocoa, we would see the likes of Paul Anka, Bobby Darrin, the stars of TV shows such as “Flipper” and the terrific high school bands. Everything in the “Magic City” was bright and shiny.

Spring of 1964 would bring The Beatles to Miami Beach, the Mustang, and Coral Park High School to Westchester. “Wow, Mom, that’s where the big kids go,” I said, but all these things were in the future.

Spring also brought the celebration of Easter. Services at noon would be in Spanish at St. Brendan’s on 87th Avenue, with me in my two-piece pink outfit and straw hat from the Zayre department store, also on 87th. Lunch would follow at the Pizza drive-in on Bird and 87th followed by a jelly-bean-decorated coconut cake from Publix on Coral Way.

I did not go to Coral Park High after all. I graduated from Southwest High off of 87th Avenue and 47th Street in 1973, and by the time of my ten-year-reunion, both my parents had died of cancer at the age of 47, and I was divorcing. I had nothing to share.

The OMNI by then had replaced the magical windows of Jordan Marsh. As luck would have it, while getting certified in teaching, my internship landed me back at Everglades Elementary, in the exact second grade with the same teacher who had held me back as a seven year old because I did not understand the language.

I eventually did end up at Coral Park, but as a teacher and, amazingly, the little seven year old who had been held back was now honored by her peers and elected 1999 Teacher of the Year.

The “Magic City” will never recapture the luster of the sixties through the eyes of a seven year old. I miss the blimp on Watson Island, the train rides at McArthur Dairy on Mother’s Day, flying kites on Father’s Day at Robert King High, the colorful Christmas windows at Jordan March, and most of all neighbors like Mrs. Meyers.

I was not allowed to talk at six o’clock when the news came on. Dinner at the pull-down table in the breakfast room was a silent affair, but for the radio.

Edward R.Murrow was reporting: Hitler’s crossing this river, that river. Daddy fumed that he wanted to go “over there,” to help our country – but he was too young for WWI, too old for WWII and he and Mommy were saddled with 3 little girls and one on the way. Mommy would say, “Why am I bringing another life into this horrible, hopeless world?”

A recurring ghastly nightmare — me, 5 years old, swinging on the playground at North Beach Elementary – and suddenly Hitler was standing on a giant swing, arcing over the playground, with a uniformed German on each side in identical mustaches and on swings, each one scoo-o-o-oping up little children – me, one of them, disappearing into instant night.

During the day I would march alongside soldiers outside my house on Royal Palm Avenue and in Polo Park (where Nautilus Middle School now stands). The army was occupying Miami Beach hotels, with the streets as their training grounds. One of my first songs was, “Over there, send the word . . . that the Yanks are coming. . . .” Me wondering, who ARE the yanks, anyway?

There were blackouts every night and rationing; my parents were on Civil Air Patrol “birdwatching” from the Roney Plaza hotel tower for German subs off the coast.

In school, I remember wrapping bandages for the war effort and singing, “Off we go, into the wild blue yonder. . . .” There were daily drills and we had to duck under our desks.

Then, on Fox Movietone News, concentration-camp skeletons were being liberated. Then came the great day! I was nine years old, and my whole childhood of memory had been nothing but war. Now that childhood was almost gone – I danced around the radio with my sister singing, “The war is over, the war is over, the war is over!!!!”

On Sundays when I was little, my dad and I would take the tandem bike and ride from our home in North Miami to the beach. Most of the time, my legs were just along for the ride and rested lightly on the rotating pedals, allowing my dad to do the hardest pedaling. With the 19-mile round trip, I preferred to save my energy for galloping through the waves. I started tap dancing when I was four, and it was always more fun to shuffle and lindy through the waves. The flapping of my feet struck the water, and resonated with even more satisfying sound than the beat of metal taps on a wooden dance floor. It was always a celebration, dancing.

While my dad and his dad were football players at my age, I was never interested in sports. There was, and still is, something magical that happens when I step out onto a stage. The feeling is a strange cross between everlastingness and fleetingness. And somewhere in between the -ness, I have always remained caught. For me – much more than the acknowledgement that dance is a language and that dance is a representation of everyday experiences – dance is much like life: some days it feels like forever, and then there comes a day when there are no more days. In this way, dance is also a measure of time. And this love for dance has helped me through many difficult times, including the loss of my mom when I was 9.

One of the best memories I have of my mom is standing on the tops of her feet as she danced around the living room. I remember the feeling of shifting from one foot to the other, the continuity of her movements and my role as her abiding partner, neither controlling nor directing the dance but a part of it nonetheless. After she passed away, I would stand in the middle of the living room, close my eyes and try to recreate our waltz. It was never the same.

My mom started me in dancing. Once a week, we’d all get in the car together and drop her off at an adult tap class in North Miami. My dad and I would then continue on to Donavan’s Bar & Grill on Northwest 7th Avenue. Donavan’s had billiards and French fries, and we’d hang out there for the hour or so of her class. Eventually, I grew curious about my mom’s tap class and began to stay and watch. This led to being enrolled in dance class myself and it was strange at first – not the same as leaping through ocean waves or whirling into dizziness at home, but I soon caught on.

I am very close with my dad, and for a few years after my mom died, he too became closer with his. Around this time, my dad signed me up for a football summer camp. I tried football, but I prayed for rain every day we had practice. Most of the other boys at Bunche Park already understood football and played it in their own backyards, much how I practiced dance in mine. I remember doing sprints – that was the one thing for which I was passable. I could run without tripping on my own two feet. Aside from one kid I befriended with a perpetually runny nose, who could also burp on command, the entire experience was pointless. I have a faint memory of my dad bringing Grandpa Lou to one of the practices (when I had been unsuccessful with my rain invocation), and as terrible as I was, my grandpa seemed far more pleased with my mediocre football than my love for dance.

A few years later, my grandpa passed away. And for another year or so after that, his ashes and wristwatch waited on the mantle. After watching the movie Around the Bend with Christopher Walken and Michael Caine, my dad and I awoke from our moratorium. We walked outside and stood on the dock behind our house to cast his ashes into the dark lake, leading into a canal of brackish water that weaves through many of the neighborhoods in Biscayne Gardens. After minutes of silence, my dad turned to me and said, “Give us a little soft shoe, son.” So there I stood holding my grandfather’s ashes in a cardboard box and tapping out “Tea for Two.” I felt highly inappropriate doing this, believing this ceremony required a more solemn reflection.

After making sure all of Grandpa Lou was out of the box and into the lake, I noticed for the first time just how cathartic dancing is for me. The tapping out of the rhythms brought me back to my best memories of my mom, and suddenly this was not so much about solemnity as it was of celebration. Celebrating life that can be over as quickly as a dance. And it is in this precious fragility I now find my place as a dance artist and choreographer.

Much like my earliest experiences with dance, I am very interested in creating dance for non-traditional and unexpected locations. We have plenty throughout Miami – secret places we drive past everyday without ever knowing of them. I was recently awarded a Knight Arts Challenge grant for a project called Grass Stains that will help commission and mentor other artists interested in creating work that highlights Miami’s hidden spaces. As I continue to change as an artist, my early memories of growing up in North Miami inform my art making and remind me of those in-between moments, of everlastingness and fleetingness, the dances that have ended and those whose music hasn’t yet begun.