Category: Miami Stories

As a youngster, I was excited to be driving out 36th Street to see my uncle, Dave Click, arrive in an airplane. He was secretary to Florida state Sen. Trammell.

The airstrip was just a small landing area in a big grassy field with a chain-link fence around it. (In later years, I spent much time at the fine new terminal at Miami International Airport, because my husband, the father of my three children, flew for Eastern Air Lines.

We sang Moon Over Miami and loved it. “Stay Through May” was a Chamber of Commerce plea. Flamingoes at Hialeah Race Track were fun to watch. Kids were allowed on one special night to watch dog races at the Kennel Club, and Daddy took us there.

Watching the Orange Bowl parade was an annual event never to be missed. My husband and I had two good stepladders and stretched a board between them for us and our three children.

There was a huge rivalry then between Miami High and Edison. In the 1940s, a friend and I from Miami High attended Edison classes one day and were never noticed. That proved to us that Edison just did not have the disciplined organization of Miami High. Strangers there would have been sent to the office for identification right away. Once, Edison students splashed red paint across the front of our building when they finally beat us in football after 28 years. It made the news.

I received a scholarship to the University of Miami in 1943, but I did not own a car. I waited on Coral Way for a bus on class mornings. When I gladly accepted a ride from a gentleman who had stopped, the man was quite brusque in stating that a young lady should not accept rides from strange men.

I quickly settled in the front seat and said, “But everyone in Miami knows you, Police Chief Quigg.” He seemed pleased with my response and took me all the way to the university.

Coral Gables established its Miracle Mile of shops on Coral Way. The city put plants and flowers in beds in the sidewalks in the business district. Lincoln Mall in Miami Beach had also done this years before. Since I grew up to have a profession in landscape architecture, these places had a lasting influence on me.

My life was very much affected by strikes at the airlines, and they were so bad for our family and the city. I believe it was said that Eastern Air Lines employed 7,000 people in Miami at that time.

The airline closed for good in 1991.

It was the depths of the Depression, 1937, when my parents Manny and Grace LaCalle pulled into Miami with their two girls in the back seat of the car.

After many jobs and homes in five other states, my father had an offer from Schenley Distillers. They shipped all their belongings and drove to Miami from New York.

He began as a window trimmer, decorating the windows of liquor stores. His hard work was rewarded by promotion to salesman and eventually he was offered the position of sales manager for the state of Florida. It would mean relocating to Jacksonville.

After thinking about it and talking it over with my mother, he realized that people save all their lives so they can retire to Miami. He was here now, why would he leave? He refused the promotion and was never offered another.

Summers in pre-air-conditioned Miami were so hot – especially if you were used to New York weather – that our mom would take us to NYC on the Silver Meteor as soon as school let out for the summer.

By 1940, the LaCalles had saved enough to buy a home. Sts. Peter and Paul Church was new and proposed to build a school, but my parents had experienced similar proposals in New York where the schools were not started for 20 years, so they built their home across the street from Coral Way Elementary School. The following year, Sts. Peter and Paul School opened and my sister and I had to walk more than a quarter of a mile each way to school.

The following year, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. The family heard the news on the car radio on a sunny Florida Sunday as we were driving around the Air Base in Opa-locka.

Since my father fell into a very small demographic, too young for World War I and too old for World War II, he and my mother volunteered in Civil Defense, him as an air-raid warden and her as a switchboard operator, as she had experience from working for Bell Telephone.

1941 was also the year that a song my grandfather, Joseph LaCalle, composed rose to number one on the Hit Parade. This song, “Amapola” (Spanish for poppy), had been used by the New York school system for teaching purposes and was included in “The Three Tenors Concert,” the best-selling classical recording of all time. The Three Tenors liked it so much they recorded it in their second concert. Andrea Bocelli also sang it as the first number on his recording “Amore.”

My sister, Dolores, and I attended Gesu High School in downtown Miami because of a shortage of teachers at Sts. Peter and Paul School during the war years. Gesu High was torn down subsequently to pave a parking lot, Miami style.

I studied at Barry College after graduating from Gesu High School and Dolores attended a nursing school in West Palm Beach.

After completing 30 years with the City of Miami, during which time I was the legal administrator to the city attorney, I entered a 15-year career as a professional actress. Most recently, I was a cast member of the movie, “Bart Got a Room.”

Dolores’ family moved to the north part of the state and now live in the Mount Dora area.

My daughter presently resides in Ft. Lauderdale after raising a family in Rochester, NY. One of my sons is an electrician in Sarasota, FL. My other son is an instructor with Miami-Dade Transit; his wife, who was born in Cuba, is the operations manager of a local company.

n 1963, I made my first trip to Miami.

I had just graduated from college and was invited to visit by the man who would become my husband, Richard Rosichan. At the time, he lived in Bay Heights with his parents, Arthur and Claire Rosichan. I was young and had lived my whole life as a northerner. I could not believe my eyes when I saw my first Miami house, filled with beautiful paintings and tasteful décor — the “marble” floors, the den filled from ceiling to floor with books, the tropical patio and what I perceived with my northern eyes as exotic landscaping.

Over time, and as our relationship became more serious, I returned to Miami and was introduced to neighbors and family friends. When we got married, I was teaching school in Buffalo, New York, and Richard quickly finished his degree at the University of Buffalo. For the next eight years, and no matter where we were living, studying and working, we spent every winter vacation in Miami.

My favorite event was going to the sumptuous New Year’s day celebration at a neighbor’s home just down the street. Upon our arrival, we were always handed a glass of homemade eggnog, which in my memory is still the best I have ever had.

My in-laws had no pool, but they used to rent a cabana at the Executive House in Miami Beach. I loved going there and felt like a “fancy” lady. It is hard to believe in this day and age, but when we went swimming, Claire always reminded me to keep my face to the sun so I could go back north with a healthy tan.

Less than 10 years and two children later (Amy and Lori), Richard and I moved to Miami (no more “face in the sun”). By that time, my mother-in-law was suffering from a serious illness. We didn’t want to inflict two active toddlers on our in-laws, so while we were waiting to close on our house, we lived in various places, including an efficiency apartment and two weeks at the KOA campground in Homestead.

While waiting to establish ourselves, we started a small business — Rider-Driver Exchange — a service to connect young folks who needed a ride up north with a driver who needed assistance with driving. We were quite successful in getting people together, putting up signs on a community bulletin board in Coconut Grove, but we had a cash-flow problem. We rarely got paid!

We finally settled in the Buena Vista neighborhood, just north of the Design District. In those days, most of the stores in the Design District were closed to the public. In order to get in, you had to either go with or be sent by a decorator. Richard and I had to be content with just looking. The neighborhood was quiet and sedate, with large two-story houses, but that did not last.

Years after we moved, the neighborhood was revitalized, the Design District became fashionable and open to all, with interesting decorating stores, restaurants and boutiques. During our Buena Vista years, we established new careers, Richard working as a research consultant and I working in the business center of a prominent law firm.

In 1983, we moved to Alton Road in Miami Beach. The city was in decline, and we were lucky to buy at just the right time. In those days, the median was filled with flowers, and the golf course was beautifully landscaped with more flowers. Sometimes wedding parties would stop to have pictures taken with the golf course as a backdrop.

Frequently, passers-by would stop and ask directions to a restaurant, and we were hard pressed as to how to direct them. There was the Villa Deli, a neighborhood institution, and Kim’s Chinese (both now gone), and Bella Napoli and Masters Pizza (still going). In the other direction was a Howard Johnson’s and, of course, Wolfie’s on Collins Avenue.

Lincoln Road was a wasteland, and Ocean Drive was in serious decay. Over time, of course, there was a dramatic turnaround, and the rest is history.

Each of these neighborhoods represents a thousand family dramas, comedic and dramatic, of our family’s life — young love, family growth, teenage turmoil, empty nest and now grandchildren. I have been truly blessed.

I’ve been trying to leave Miami for a long time now.

Miami was my home after I left Haiti. Creole was in every corner, familiar faces spilled out of supermarkets and Quick Marts, and botanicas haunted every jitney bus and crowded every small church between businesses. I felt at home, lakay as we say in Haiti.

I loved the symbiosis of Haitian and Latin culture, be it Cuban or Dominican, because our food and our body language, our passion and our mannerisms, in many ways mirror each other. Miami was a pilon, a mortar and pestle, and the people under the pestle were the ingredients that brought out flavor.

Miami started to lose that flavor when I lost my job during the recession and my mortgage went under. Thirty percent of residences foreclosed in my building. My morale took a big blow and suddenly, I’d had enough. Enough of the neighbor’s 7 a.m. music displacing the art on my walls, enough of the mother and son-in-law caught in a daily soap opera of Te voy a matar next door, and enough of the sour faces that old lady made every morning down in the lobby, waiting for me to ask her how she was feeling just so she could tell me her ailments.

I was tired of the angry letters that came in the mail from our disgruntled new resident who was angry at the association for “lying about the pet policy.” The elevator hadn’t been inspected since 2007, and I was tired of having to climb seven flights of stairs. I dreaded board meetings, where one of our residents, a mustached veteran, consistently interrupted with objections and motions that always led to physical fights and, most recently, required the presence of the condo-board attorney as well as the local police.

I dreaded the woman who thought she was doing us a favor by chain-smoking in the stairwell where we carried our groceries up and down up the steps, leaving cigarette butts in her wake. When I came home, or left for work, I tried to avoid the neighbor who never spoke a word to me but sat there at the entrance, smoking by the carton and staring straight ahead even when I greeted him. He, too, was angry with the condo board, and was plotting ways to sue them by forming a coalition of residents calling themselves “the justice seekers.”

I didn’t even want to take my dogs out, for fear of having my neighbor call me from his second-floor apartment. “Hey! Pssssssst! HEY!” Every time I looked up, I saw his silhouette behind the screened patio gesturing for me to join him for a drink, and throwing his hands up in the air, exasperated, when I refused.

Drunkards were in every corner outside, downing six packs of Keystone and smashing bottles of Corona against the ground in a kind of blind rage aimed at their own condition, leaving the shards on the asphalt for dogs to cut their paws. They urinated behind trees and squatted on the embankment of the canal to relieve themselves, with no regard for mangrove crabs and iguanas, or humans for that matter.

I avoided the man who pushed his obnoxious shi-tzu around in a shopping cart because he threw eggs at other people’s cars. When my neighbor two doors down insisted on bringing my dogs chicken bones from his dinner plate, his mouth and fingers sticky with sauce, I dreaded taking them but accepted the offering with a feeble “thank you.”

When I became pregnant and gave birth to my son, I sunk even deeper into a new darkness of post-partum depression. My neighbors saw me pregnant, and when my baby spent a month in intensive care, they all wanted to know what had happened. I avoided them even more. I wouldn’t open the door for anyone.

It was when my husband and I came back home with the baby that I finally noticed a change in our neighbors. Suddenly, we were Joseph and Mary harboring baby Jesus. My neighbors were the Wise Men, come to see him bearing gifts and cards, and smiles. There were baby tubs and mobiles, even strollers and bouncy chairs at our door. Suddenly, the neighbors I felt uneasy with were friends.

No. Suddenly, my neighbors became family.

The “justice seeker” greets me happily and now opens the door for me when he sees me coming crushed under the weight of grocery bags. The mustached meeting interrupter who gave us the silent treatment now addresses my husband with a “hello.” The letter-writer hasn’t mailed us manifestos threatening to call “Help Me Howard” in a while. Now, at the end of a long day when I rush home to see my baby’s face and kiss him, part of that longing includes a yearning for a waft of that Cuban coffee from my neighbor’s kitchen right before he stops by to offer me bones.

Yes, my building is the manger, and it feels like everyone has morphed overnight into benevolent creatures full of good will.

Or is it me who changed?

Perhaps it is this new love that opened me up to them. To letting them tickle my son’s toes, to lending them aluminum foil, to handing them holiday cards and dialing their family overseas when their eyesight fails them. They are family.

I’m working now, and my baby is healthy, and I spend less time thinking of moving away. Now, at least for a while, Miami is lakay. Miami is home.

I started my life insurance career in Norfolk, Va., then transferred to South Florida in early January 1964 to manage my company’s Miami district office.

I had previously rented a small, new house in Coral Gables for my wife Barbara and two young daughters, Jane, 7, and Margaret, 5. What we didn’t know was that there was a minimum size requirement for houses, and to qualify, the builder put a bomb shelter underground, in the garage, covered over by a steel plate so a car could still park. It was an airless hole in the ground, and fortunately we never had to use it.

At the end of the first year we all posed for a picture against a palm tree at Tahiti Beach, now a private enclave, and placed our photo on our New Year’s card, which we sent to our Virginia friends to wish them a warm new year.

After a few years, Barbara started what became a successful interior design practice while continuing her studies of languages, and was among the first to enroll in the new Alliance Française in downtown Miami.

Early on we joined the original Coral Oaks Tennis Club, then owned by the tennis pro Leo Fullwood. I still play in the mornings with “the Dumbheads,” a name conferred upon them by Leo, a group of men who show up for round-robin tennis each morning.

I was given the opportunity to invest with a man in Key West who was diving for sunken Spanish gold. My money is still at the bottom of the ocean, but a year later, Mel Fisher discovered a vast quantity of Spanish bullion and jewels.

Some friends and I went scuba diving in the Keys, only to find upon surfacing a waiting police officer who suspected us of robbing the crab pots. After we were searched and found empty handed, we were released.

Several years after our arrival, the insurance company I worked for moved their offices into a new high-rise office building built in downtown Miami after World War II, the Ferre Building at 100 Biscayne Blvd. From my office, I had a beautiful view of the seaplane as it arrived each day from Bimini. In those days, you could literally shoot off a cannon on Biscayne Boulevard in the summer and hit no one. Parking was no problem. All that was soon to change.

I still miss the fine dining at the Pub on Coral Way, and my favorite wedge of lettuce and the three choices of dressing. Fortunately, we can still go to Whip ‘n Dip on Sunset Drive for our favorite ice-cream desserts.

Eventually, we bought a home in the Gables, conveniently located near Sunset Elementary, Ponce Junior High, Coral Gables High and the now-defunct Deerborne School.

To this day, I’m like a walking Chamber of Commerce, but from the beginning, my wife Barbara would complain about the heat and humidity. I would reply, “Off to Fargo, North Dakota!” reminiscent of Jackie Gleason’s “To the Moon!” remark to Alice in the then-popular “Honeymooners” TV show. I finally mailed my comments to the Fargo newspaper asking for their sympathy, and they not only printed my letter but also put it on the radio, prompting a flood of letters to my wife, inviting her to come to beautiful Fargo and stay with them.

The years were passing too quickly. We moved to our second home on Hammock Lake and resided there almost 30 years, where my mother-in-law swore she saw an alligator in the lake and we were hesitant to let the children go swimming. I remember going for the newspaper one morning and seeing snow that melted as it hit the ground. It was the only time in my 50 years that that had occurred. Many trees and plants were damaged, but the following spring was the most beautiful I can remember.

I loved to garden in our lakeside yard. Hurricane Andrew in 1992 did minimal damage to our house but destroyed all my plants. We started all over and it was so beautiful the next year that it made The Villager’s Garden Tour.

Eventually, I became the South Florida agency manager for my company and retired Jan. 1, 1990. Then I volunteered for 10 years as a docent at Zoo Miami, taking people on private tours and carrying animals to schools and nursing homes. In 2014, Barbara and I will celebrate our 60th year of marriage, which we can partially attribute to limiting our games of mixed doubles in tennis, as the photo attests. I fell in love with South Florida from day one and look forward to that love affair continuing into the rest of my life.

I am sitting here in our den and weathering another tropical storm. Fortunately it is one of the smaller, less significant ones, but interestingly enough, it is on the 20th anniversary of Andrew.

I was born in Miami and so storms and hurricanes are just some of those things that we have to endure for the pleasure of living here all the rest of the year.

When I was a child, I lived in Shenandoah. My Aunt Anna had moved here when she married a man I never knew, William Mankes. They started a bottled gas company on Flagler Street, near the courthouse, which was the tallest building downtown at the time. It was also close to the train station, our major source of transportation. I remember sitting in front of the store on a curb watching the Orange Bowl Parade. We had great seats.

William Mankes passed away very shortly after they moved here and my aunt was left to run the business. She had a large family in Connecticut and she sent for my father Robert Brenner to come help her. Soon after, almost everyone moved here.

My aunt married a man named Ben Meyers, and in doing so, she became Anna Brenner Meyers. She had been a teacher and a nurse before she came here, and at some point she also became an attorney. She later met many political figures, was involved in politics and once ran for mayor. I remember handing out leaflets and stomping for her. She did not win, but she did serve on the Dade School Board for many years. She also received many, many honors (too numerous to recount). In her later years, a building in downtown Miami was named for her.

One of my best memories of my mom Rose was our Saturday girls’ outing to Burdines Tea Room. She would always order a Snow Princess for me. It was an ice cream sundae with candy pearls on it. After lunch, we would go into the bookstore and I could add to my collection of the orange-covered Bobbsey Twins set. After that, we would go to the Olympia Theater (now, Gusman). We would see a stage show and then a movie — our rendition of Radio City. Some years later, I would take my little sister, Helene, on the number 9 bus. It was so safe; I was 10 years old.

Also, when I was 9, my dad was on a radio show. I don’t remember the name, but he decided I should go into show business and he put me on the show. That did hook me into theater for quite a long time. My Dad used to put on shows at the Coral Gables Jewish Center, and other venues later on. He continued acting and directing for many years. Early in his life, he had been in vaudeville and the Federal Theater. The Federal Theater, which was created during the Depression, had many actors who later became very well known.

We had moved to Coral Gables and lived around the corner from the Coral Gables Youth Center. My sister grew up loving that place and later worked there. Also, living around the corner were our good friends, the Barrishes and the Skops. I was encouraged to send my story after reading other Miami tales.

I choose to remember the really good things about Miami, but there was a lot going on in those days. I remember “KKK” on temple buildings, signs where certain people could not be seated in restaurants, waiting for colored water to come out of the fountain, and some people purposely walking to the back of the bus to be seated. But the great thing was, there were so many other people to counteract that.

When I rode with my bus driver, Paul, after dark, he would drive me off his route on Le Jeune to deposit me safely in front of my house. I have been fortunate enough to have spent my entire life here, watching Miami grow and seeing cultural changes that have totally enhanced our jewel. These memories of my Miami will stay with me forever.

“In the Everglades there´s a way of life.

There´s a way of peace without stress or strife.

There´s a natural danger and a man to face.

Lincoln Vail of the Everglades,

The man on patrol in the Everglades.”

Before there was Flipper, before Gentle Ben, way before Miami Vice, there was Lincoln Vail of the Everglades.

Vail was one of my first childhood heroes. The television show on which he appeared was called Everglades and it was also among the earliest television programs to be filmed entirely on location in South Florida.

In the early sixties, having only recently arrived from Cuba, my brothers and I learned about life on the “River of Grass” and about good and evil from watching the show. I even started learning English with Vail. One of the first phrases I picked up in my adopted language was, “This show brought to you by…” Who says TV is not educational?

I sometimes thought that the only people who ever watched the show were my brothers and me, as nobody else seemed to remember it. Vail was a law enforcement officer in the Everglades. He patrolled his territory aboard an air boat, defending it from criminals, poachers and other evil-doers. I clearly recall the words and music of the excellent theme song, which I have always been ready to sing for unsuspecting and usually unappreciative audiences.

In later life, I sometimes asked friends, acquaintances and even perfect strangers who were about my age if they remembered the show. If they seemed at all interested, I would even burden them with my rendition of the theme song. To my surprise, it would be a long time before I found anyone who remembered the 1961 series.

In the mid-nineties while attending a nephew´s birthday party at Gator Park airboat rides out on Tamiami Trail, I asked the attendant, who was about my age, if he remembered the show. With a bored look, he told me he was from New York. I suspected that he was thinking that I should “get a life.”

In that pre-Internet age, I set out to find whatever information I could about the show. I wanted to confirm that we had not imagined the whole thing.

My initial efforts led me to the Miami Herald archives, where at least I was able to find the TV listing for the program. It was shown on Sundays at 6:30 p.m. on Channel 4. The librarian suggested that I try the Wolfson Media History Center. The technician for film and video archives at Wolfson, who was extremely helpful and understanding, had grown up in South Florida but had never heard of the show. He was, however, able to send me some information. He also referred me to the Florida Department at the Main Library. Here at last there would be a break in the case.

At the Main Library, I spoke to Steve and explained what I was trying to do. To my delight, he immediately said, “Oh, Lincoln Vail of the Everglades!” and proceeded to recite the words of the entire first verse of the theme song. (There were two verses.) He asked me if I knew the name of the lead actor and then said, “No, no, I remember… it was Ron Hayes.” I knew this already, but I was very impressed. It was exciting to finally find someone who remembered the show. He recalled the day and time when it aired and said he thought it was a great show. At that moment I thought that perhaps Steve should also get a life.

Everglades was a syndicated program distributed by ZIV-United Artists, made by Schulberg Productions and actually filmed on location in the Everglades. It premiered in October 1961. As Steve correctly remembered, Lincoln Vail was played by Ron Hayes, who was described in one review as “a distinctive young actor”. A total of 38 episodes were made.

Thanks to information provided by the library, I discovered that all of the episodes were still in existence. They were on 16mm film and stored in the archives of the Wisconsin Center for Film and Video. I called the center and asked if there was any way I could view the shows. They said yes, but that I would have to obtain permission from the owner of the programs.

The owner turned out to be MGM. I went as far as writing a letter to MGM´s Legal Affairs Department and made the request. They responded that it was “not their policy to authorize screenings for such purposes.” My purposes, while honorable, were not particularly serious.

The first episode was called “The Escape” and featured a then-unknown actor in an uncredited role. That actor was Burt Reynolds. The episode dealt with Lincoln Vail´s efforts to recapture a convict who had escaped from a road gang. It turned out that the convict had run off to be near his dying father and help his impoverished wife and child. Vail caught the “cracker” criminal, but with what was described in one of the reviews as “too much innocence.” This all sounded pretty good to me. The critics rated the show as “a notch or two above the standards of its breed.”

I have sometimes wondered why the memory of this particular show has stuck in my mind the way it has. I now think that I would have loved for my three boys to have enjoyed a show like this when they were growing up. I wonder which show or shows they will remember in a similar way when they get to be my age.

At the risk of sounding sappy, perhaps that was a more innocent time. At least the very survival of the Everglades was not in question then. It would be very sad if rather than being a quaint piece of “Floridiana,” the show would come to serve as a celluloid record of the Everglades that once were.

One of the reviews I was able to find said that the show “suffered, when it suffered at all” from excessive talk and “from the effete theme song, which it would be better done without.”

“As they fight for rights,

and the homes they make,

simple grassroots people of the Everglades,

there´s a fellow there who protects their rights,

Lincoln Vail of the Everglades,

The man on patrol in the Everglades”

Effete indeed!

In 1986, Miami International Airport was pretty scary for a first-time traveler coming from Guyana, a small country in South America. The escalator comes readily to mind when I think of that overwhelming experience. Although I saw others stepping on it, I was deathly afraid of this incredibly long, moving staircase. I just stood there, my fear weighing me down and keeping me rooted in place. The gentleman behind me gently suggested that I step on and he would stay close. I made it down safely and have been living in Miami since that beautiful July 4th day.

I came to Miami by way of marriage. Whenever I’m in conversation with anyone who wants to know how my husband I met and I tell them that we had an arranged marriage, many of them balk and I can see the questions tumbling around in their minds. Most times, it’s a high-pitched, capitalized, one-word question that is punctuated with endless question marks, “REALLY” A smiling “yes” will always be my response.

In the course of the conversation, I would often get this one, “Do you guys fight?” Of course, we do! Which marriage is without its ups and downs? As we continue chatting, the million-dollar question comes out, “Were you forced into this arranged marriage?” It is at that point that I have to explain that not all arranged marriages are forced. In my case, my husband’s parents met with my parents and marriage was discussed. I made the final decision.

I met my husband in February of 1986 when he visited Guyana for a week. I gave him a resounding “yes” the day after I met him. He returned to Miami and we got to know each other through our letter writing. He went back to Guyana in June of that year, we got married, and he returned to Miami on his own a week later. I followed on July 4th.

My husband and I lived in West Kendall in a condo on 157 Avenue and Sunset Drive. There were only fields west of 157 Avenue. Today, that area is a vibrant, highly populated neighborhood; it is hard to believe that it was once quiet and tranquil.

My first year of marriage was the “dating” year – it was the time my husband I and got to know each other. We went on a lot of dinner and movie dates, sometimes catching a double at the movie theater. We were frequent visitors at the Don Carter bowling alley. Not knowing anything about the sport, I cheered myself on even when a single pin fell. Often, we were tourists – enjoying the sights, scenes, and recreation of Miami. Many Saturdays we got up at 5:00 in the morning to make the drive to Key Largo to fish. Sometimes the catch was abundant and other times we returned home with an empty bucket.

My first job was at Eckerds (now CVS) as a cashier. I have many fond memories of this first U.S. work experience. A few months into the job, a customer referred me to the manager at Amerifirst for a teller’s position. That job also offered a few “firsts” in my early years in Miami. I took a taxi for the first time ever to the interview. I had my first lie detector test. I wore my first skirt suit. I earned my first “big” paycheck, and I drove my first car.

Keeping with firsts, by our first wedding anniversary, I was pregnant with our first child. Over the next nine months, we took our first Lamaze class. I had my first C-section, and I held my first-born in my arms. Six months after we welcomed our baby girl into the world, we moved into our first home in the Hammocks area.

Over the next five years, we were blessed with two other children – a boy and another girl. Our children have grown up and made warm, fond, memories in this same home since 1988.

At the age of 26, I decided to go to Miami-Dade Community College to pursue an associate’s degree in elementary education. Two years later, I transferred my credits to Florida International University and graduated with a B.A. in December of 1998. In January of 1999, I was extremely lucky to start my teaching career at an elementary school close to my home.

In 2002, I was granted a full scholarship to pursue an Urban Master’s degree at FIU. I took classes in the evening and some Saturdays. At FIU, I interacted with many brilliant professors and students who continue to have an impact on me. Miami has bestowed upon me the wonderful opportunity of education.
Miami has also blessed me with beautiful gifts of friendship.

I have great memories of being welcomed warmly into the hearts and homes of my husband’s friends and relatives. My husband and I meet often with those same friends and some new ones for fundraising for charities, cricket games, and religious and cultural activities.

Some of our most cherished memories with our friends are of the marathons we completed to raise funds for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. My husband ran his marathon in 2001 and I walked mine in 2010. In 2011, a group of us participated in the Disney Wine & Dine half marathon to mark our 25th wedding anniversary. My husband slowed his pace so we could cross the finish line together!

Miami is my home. I love the cultural, flavorful diversity here. I love it that nobody notices our Guyanese accent! Miami and all those with whom I’ve come in contact have nurtured me into the woman I am today. I’m glad that my marriage was arranged with a wonderful man in Miami.

Today, although I am no longer afraid of escalators, I must admit that navigating Miami International Airport can still be a challenge!

Some might say that I was made to serve in public office. I don’t know, but I have lived an interesting and good life.

I learned so much doing what I did, what I still do. I looked back at an old calendar from when I was a city commissioner in Miami Beach, the first woman to serve in that position. It was full of occasions and events: meetings, breakfasts, lunches, cocktails, dinners. I loved it and I still do.

I grew up in the Bronx and my husband, Sidney, was from Brooklyn, which was like a planet in itself in those days. We moved to Miami Beach in 1960 because it was just too cold up in New York. My parents were already snowbirds, coming down each winter. It was beautiful. We never closed our doors or locked anything up.

We left a grayish city for the colors of Miami Beach and quickly saw the potential in the city. It was full of retirees in those days and we were in the prime of our 30s.

Miami Beach, and even Miami, was like a secret that just needed to be told.

In the 1970s, we realized the great potential Miami Beach had and, as residents, our vision saw what the area could become for the world.

Once my two oldest sons were in high school and the youngest was starting school, I had a lot more free time and I wanted to get involved. I ran for commissioner because I thought the best man for the job was a woman.

In those days, they were called councilmen, but that changed once they had a woman in office!

I served as commissioner for two years, 1977 to 1979. I look back to the days of campaigning as a time where I was able to get a lot done to help the city, but it was after I left office that I was really able to make an impact. My husband followed and became a three-term commissioner. We were the first couple to both serve in that position.

I served as chairman on the Miami Beach Chamber’s education committee for more than 12 years, the Miami-Dade Cultural Affairs council and so many other positions. My husband and I wanted to see Miami Beach reach its potential and be the city it has become today. I had to learn all about politics; I came from the PTA.

In office and as a private citizen, I always believed in the importance of education. I worked to keep the library in Miami Beach where it is. When they tore down South Beach Elementary, it broke my heart. They didn’t have enough children living in Miami Beach to have a school there in those days. Of course, that has all changed and now Miami Beach is full of families of all ages. It’s wonderful to see.

Today, I am still advocating for my community. I believe that everyone should do their part. I am president of Miami Jewish Health Systems Hazel Cypen Tower tenants’ council and co-president of their foundation’s women’s auxiliary. We raise money to make improvements and I make sure that the tenants’ opinions are heard in an organized manner. I was asked to run for the position after living there only six months; I guess I had made an impression. I’ve been serving for seven years now; there are no term limits here.

I’ve also seen the city of Miami change. Sidney and I had a vision and feel that it has come true. I think that the Latin influence has been a tremendous cultural addition that has enhanced the city so much. It is what makes Miami, Miami. The dream I had of seeing this city become a truly international destination brings me such joy, but there are still advancements that need to be made.

Midtown and Wynwood have changed so very much in recent years; it’s beautiful.

I hope Overtown will be next. It’s a pity that the people who live there have had to suffer so much, but there has always been a vision to fix it up and ensure that everyone has access to the same great education we worked so hard to get around the city. I hope to live to see the day that that plan is in place.