Category: Miami Stories

I was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on August 15, 1963. I grew up there, but came to the United States at the age of 12. I lived in New York City until I came to Miami in 1994 on vacation with my dad and sister. I ended up staying.

I’m a realist artist. I’ve been painting my entire life. I do a lot of murals now, but I started painting with canvases in New York. It was too cold to do murals there.

When I first came to Miami, I was already a sign painter and portrait artist. But when I saw Little Haiti, I really noticed something was missing. All I saw were letters. I thought it would be cool to see a restaurant with a nice big piece of chicken painted on it, or a painting of a table with someone eating. That way, the people who didn’t understand English would know what’s in the restaurant. And vice versa for the places that had signs in Creole.

I first started by working here through my uncle’s fabric store. There was a restaurant called Chez Le Bebe across the street from the fabric store. One day I walked across the street to the restaurant and looked at my uncle’s place. Everything again was letters. It’d say, “We sell this,” “we’ve got that.” I went back to my uncle and asked him if I could paint a beautiful woman out there with some nice fabrics, so that people would know what’s being sold in there.

He said, “If you’re not going to charge me, go ahead and get it done.” So he took me to Ace Hardware and bought me some paint.

As I was sketching, I noticed cars started slowing down. They kept looking and saying, “Good job!” Less than an hour into the picture of the woman I started putting colors on it. This lady pulled over and said, “Sir, this is beautiful. I have a fabric store three blocks down. Would you do the same thing for me?” I said yes, even though I knew I wouldn’t have time because I was going back to New York.

My uncle ended up giving me $200 for the mural, since it got so many compliments from customers. That’s when I knew I had to stay with my cousin in Miami to be an artist. It had always been my dream.

I had to trick my dad and sister in order to stay because Haitian people, we stick together. We don’t leave our family. You go three blocks down—we’re all related.

So, five minutes before the Greyhound to New York left, I told the driver I was going to use the bathroom. He opened the door and let me out. My dad was like, “You’ve got five minutes to come back.” I left with nothing in my hand.

There was a car parked by the gas station. Instead of going to the bathroom, I dodged behind the car and waited for the bus driver to leave. I could see my dad and my sister getting real mad, looking for me. And sure enough the bus driver closed the door and said, “Okay, I’m leaving him.”

The bus left and I found a payphone. At the time it was two quarters to call. I called my cousin, and said, “Cuz, I’m somewhere called Biscayne Boulevard on 7th Street,” and he came to pick me up.

I ended up making a lot of money fast, doing exactly what I wanted to do. But my father stopped talking to me. When I came to Miami, I saw a future for me. I saw my dream. But I couldn’t get that into my father’s head.

A year later, Haiti was in the headlines because Jean-Bertrand Aristide was coming back to take power in Haiti. On 54th Street in Little Haiti, there was a place called Veye-Yo. Whenever something political happened in Haiti, we always gathered there. At the time, Father Gérard Jean-Juste owned Veye-Yo. He was a big leader of the Haitian community.

So when Aristide was coming back, all of the news outlets were there. As an artist, I wanted to put my two cents in. I put a big canvas in front of Veye-Yo, and drew Aristide coming back with American Flags and Haitian flags united. Before you know it, CNN was interviewing me. The next morning, I got a call from my sister.

She’d told my dad that I was on TV. He assumed I’d killed someone or robbed a store. But once he saw that I was giving interviews and looking good, he finally called me to congratulate me. It was the happiest time of my life.

Since then the biggest challenge I face with my work is the sun. It’s too hot here sometimes. Sometimes there’s walls that you want to be working on, and walls you don’t want to be on, because the sun stays there 24 hours a day. Sadly I can’t keep an umbrella on top of my head while I hold the picture and the brush. That’s the only thing that’s hard in my business. But every other part of my job is a joy.

I love huge works with huge exposures. Things that kids will look up to. Things that, when you pass by, could inspire kids to be an artist. That’s why you see me in the street all of the time.

I love painting all over Miami, but I have to do my homework on the area. I can’t go to Little Havana and paint a picture of Aristide. I have to walk around, look around, and feel the environment before I put anything in someone’s environment.

If I go to Liberty City, I know that’s an American environment. I would know automatically, if I put a big Tupac or Biggie Smalls there, they would like that. Because that’s their vibe. So if I’m in Little Haiti I could paint Father Jean-Juste.

I hope my artwork will stay forever in Little Haiti and represent Haiti to the fullest. I am more Americanized now, but at the same time I like to keep my culture. Just like the Cuban brothers keep their culture.

That doesn’t mean I can’t paint skyscrapers, or the Statue of Liberty, or Mr. Obama. I can do all of that. But at the same time, when I’m in Little Haiti, I concentrate on what matters to Haitians.

My grandparents, Cecil and Gertrude Bremner, along with their three daughters, Cecilia (Scanlon), 10; Frances (May), 5; and Lauraine (Durrance), 3, left Aberdeen, Scotland, in 1949 to start a new life in Miami.

My grandparents both worked at Fraser Refinishers furniture store on Northwest 27th Avenue.

My mother, Cecilia, graduated from Miami Senior High and started working at Southern Bell in Miami Beach. She later married my father, Ralph Werlau.

In 1958 I was born at General Hospital in Coral Gables, and 10 months, 17 days later my brother Keith was born.

My parents bought a house in a newly developed residential area called Westwood Lakes in 1959. My father worked for The Miami Herald as a composer/typesetter and my mother became a housewife.

Keith and I went to Westwood Christian and then Royal Palm Elementary.

Our neighborhood was such a great place to grow up. There were lots of other families with kids in Westwood Lakes. My best friend was Donna Page.

My parents joined the Miami Herald bowing league on Wednesday nights at Bird Bowl. Their team sponsor was Frankie’s Pizza. Sometimes after bowling we’d get a pizza to bring home. I still love Frankie’s.

My brother and I started bowling at a young age; we each had our own bowling ball, bag & shoes.

In the mid-1960s there was a league called The Roadrunners; it was a group of 150 young bowlers. There were two divisions: Bantam (6-12 years old) and Juniors (13-19). We bowled Saturday mornings and were coached by my mom and assistant coach, Shirley Shockley.

Mom bowled in a Tuesday morning league and several women’s tournaments that included a young Paula Sperber (Carter). In 1971 mom joined a new organization called The Dade County Bowlerettes, and then, between 1972 and 1973, just before she stopped bowling, she worked in the pro shop at Western Sunset Bowl.

Mom was one of my Brownie leaders and also for Girl Scouts. We usually had meetings at our house and worked on projects to earn our badges. One of our field trips included the Tremendous Color Plant, where we each received a Kodak Brownie camera.

I loved selling Girl Scout cookies and Keith earned money by delivering newspapers from his bike.

We lived near Bird Road and 112th Avenue. Closest to us was the Concord Shopping Plaza. There were so many stores & restaurants available to us. Each place has a fond memory, like the Burger Castle where my brother and I got our first jobs.

On the weekends, Tropicaire Drive-In would become a swap meet during the day and sometimes we would sell stuff there. My favorite thing was going there at night to watch a movie from our car.

On 112th Avenue and 51st Street, there was a small but steep bridge. My dad would accelerate the car just before going up the bridge and as we came down the other side you could feel your stomach jump a little. We always laughed. The bridge has been leveled.

We went to Rivera Junior High. Next to the school was a park and pool where my brother and I learned to swim. As I finished up 10th grade at Southwest Senior High, my parents divorced. Mom, Keith and I had to rent a house in Kendall. It was very hard leaving my friends.

I’ve always regretted not keeping in touch with them when I had to move away. I found out that my friend Donna Page was shot and killed while being robbed as she was leaving the Copa Lounge on Bird Road in 1982.

Mom got a job at Southern Bell in Coral Gables on Alhambra.

During the summer I would catch a bus to the Coral Gables Bus Terminal. I would meet my great-aunt Nellie and we would go to the Coral Gables Library.

In 11th and 12th grade I attended and graduated from Miami Killian Senior High. Starting a new school was scary but I made new friends and earned a spot on the school’s bowling team and badminton team.

Then Mom remarried and they bought a house in Cutler Ridge. It was so nice and quiet.

In 1977, a new Denny’s Restaurant opened on Marlin Road and US 1. I got a job as a waitress there. My mother suggested I apply at Southern Bell and in January 1979 I was hired on as a clerk.

Southern Bell later became Bellsouth and in 1987, we moved our Yellow Pages office to a new five-story building on Kendall and 117th Avenue. AT&T acquired Bellsouth in 2006. Many lost their jobs. I was able to hold on and retired in May 2009 with 30 years.

I’m very grateful to my mother. I learned so much working at Bellsouth and have many friends for life. We keep in touch through social media or get-togethers.

These days, retirement is on hold and I’m searching for a job.

Being a Miami native, I’ve witnessed the growth and many changes that make Miami what it is today. I still love it here but there are times I find myself feeling like an outsider. I do miss the old Miami.

My brother lives less than four miles from where we grew up. Mom and I still live in Cutler Bay which has experienced a large population growth.

If I’m in the area, I will drive through the old neighborhood. Many of the homes have been updated, but amazingly, there are a few that still have the original 1956 design.

We all have wonderful memories of living in Miami, from my family that moved here, to the generations since.

I was born in 1968 in Coral Gables. I have a twin brother and we were the biggest twins born in Doctor’s Hospital ever. We moved to Kendall and I still live in the 10-block radius where I grew up.

I had been a banker for 20 years but in 2008 the industry plummeted, so I had to decide what else to do. My kids were pulling for an ice cream shop, and I wanted something that would help pay for college, so for me it was about having a job and putting my kids through school.

We’re a big ice cream family; my grandma made ice cream in Cuba and parts of Central and Latin America while she traveled with my grandfather who was a sugar mill engineer. She picked the fruits from all of these different countries to make ice cream. She didn’t make it when she came to Miami, but we had it all of the time. For us, it was about being together as a family. Ice cream makes everyone smile; it’s a fun business, so I decided to open Azucar.

Penn State has an ice cream school, so I went there and then to St. Louis, the Frozen Institute. I came back and I decided that Little Havana would be the only place to have a Cuban ice cream store.

The day I opened there was a Viernes Culturales event, which is a festival on Calle Ocho on the last Friday of every month. The entire street closes down and all of the art galleries open and lots of food vendors come out. It’s like a street party.

That’s the day I opened, and I almost ran out of ice cream that day; I had to come back at 5:00 the next morning to make more ice cream, and it’s been like that ever since.

For me, I had to make it as Cuban as possible, and the tiles are the biggest labor of love I ever did. We have replicas of tiles like you would have seen in Cuba 50 years ago. They’re also a little broken, which is how you would see them in Cuba today. I stole guayaberas from my family members’ closets to decorate the walls and I added plastic to the furniture because everyone had plastic back then on the furniture.

The Celia Cruz painting, which is the most photographed thing in the store, came by accident. This was from George Viera, and I was next door building my shop when I met his brother. He mentioned this painting that George did, and he showed it to me and I bought it right there.

Most of the store is filled with local art, which I’ve commissioned. We have a 29-foot ice cream cone on the outside of the building, which is a work of art until a hurricane comes. Then we have to touch it up a lot. Birds live up there too, an entire family.

In the morning I get tourists, and at night it’s all locals. It’s a lot of fun, and I like it better at night to tell the truth.

We are the #1 place named by New Times to take out-of-towners. We educate them on exactly what Cuban ice cream is and our experience. A lot of people come here on their way to Cuba, and some people come back after Cuba, and we like to hear what they have to say.

There are some people who live around the pier. There’s one gentleman who comes and eats chocolate every day. He just sits, happy to watch what’s going on in the street, and he’ll stay for two hours. We also have lots of dog owners who come in and share a cone with their dog.

Our clients from the area, from Domino Park, are an older audience and many are diabetic, and they would come in and ask for sugar-free. I used to tell them that we are called “Azucar” (sugar), not “sin azucar” (without sugar). But I had to make it, because the demand got so high. Now, we make all of the flavors for them, too.

I’d like to grow the business little by little and be all over the nation, like the Cuban Haagen-Dazs. But I’m just one person and I don’t want a huge team yet that I don’t know personally. Our next spot may be next to FIU, and then I want to go to Plano, Texas, because my mom, my brother and my little sister live there.

I started out doing it for economic reasons. I was going to have this little store, and my kids would work there and we would make ends meet, but it’s become way bigger than anything I would have ever dreamed of. We were picked by Goldman-Sachs, Miami-Dade College, and Babson College as one of the 10,000 small businesses in the United States to move forward. So they’ve given me education, and I now have an entrepreneurial degree from Babson College.

Now, it’s about what’s happening in the area, whom we can we help out, and what we can do to get better every day. I became a board member with Viernes Culturales, of Miami-Dade College on the advisory board, and of the Merchants Alliance. My day isn’t just standing at an ice cream machine anymore; it’s going to meetings with the commissioner, the mayor and trying to get these streets cleaned up.

I’ve never lived outside of Miami; I have five siblings, and they all left except me. Miami is home, it’s where I grew up, and it’s everything that I know. I have traveled extensively, but this is home. This is where there’s ocean, where I can breathe, and this is where I feel the best.

I think of all the cultures that are here – even at Azucar. We’re a mix of peoples and cultures but we all still get ice cream.

On Christmas Day, 1961, I lost my innocence.

Instead of waking up to presents given by loving parents, family and friends, I received goodbyes from aunts, uncles, cousins, school friends, my dog, my town, my school, my parents and my grandmother.

In my suitcase, I packed my memories. Would I ever see my beloved Güines again? I could hear my mother and grandmother crying behind closed doors, and my father giving me advice on what to do and not to do as I left for this flight — the flight of Pedro Pan into Never-Never Land. I didn’t understand the reasons why; I only knew that my parents and all the adults, including the headmaster of the Salesian school where I had been since kindergarten, thought that this flight was for the best. Best because I would be going to the promised land of freedom, even though I had to go by myself, like Wendy and her siblings, leaving my parents behind.

I remember arriving at the airport of Rancho Boyeros and going into the “fish bowl,” sitting next to other children of all ages who like me were looking at their parents behind the glass. We put up a brave front, although inside we were all crying. We were stripped of not only our personal possessions, such as the ruby ring given to me by my grandfather, but of our happy times together with our families. Parents and children separated by glass and by a Communist government that was going to indoctrinate their children. As I ascended the stairs to the plane, I kept looking back trying to catch a glimpse of my parents; I don’t know if it was the tears, but I was unable to see them one last time.

During the 45-minute flight, a myriad of thoughts assailed me. I was afraid of how I was going to survive separated from my parents. Who was going to take care of me? Where would I sleep? Where was I going to live? How was I going to survive when I didn’t even know English? Too soon, and before I had answers to any of these questions, we arrived at our destination: Miami.

As I and approximately 150 other children arrived, we were herded like cattle, according to our age group and gender. The girls were sent to Florida City; boys 16 years old and older were sent to Matecumbe in the Keys. I, along with boys 15 and younger, was sent to Kendall. The Catholic Welfare Bureau had set up these centers to house the children of Operation Pedro Pan.

Upon arrival at the Kendall camp, we were assigned a bunk bed, shown where to put our meager possessions and have a meal. I quickly remembered my father’s words when I was presented with the first plate of food in a new land, cornmeal, which I didn’t like. “Eat son, whatever is put in front of you, because you don’t have a choice. It’s either eat or go hungry.”

How different it was. At home, if I didn’t like something, Abuelita prepared something else for me. Here, at the Kendall camp, the lessons started right away: Eat cornmeal or go hungry. As we were getting ready for bed, I looked at the sad faces of my companions, the children of Pedro Pan. I’m sure my own face also reflected the sadness that overwhelmed all of us because of the separation. Each one of us dealt with our loss differently – some cried, some nervously giggled and one boy started taking flight with a knife because he wanted to go home. When he was finally calmed down by the counselor, he started whimpering like a wounded dog; his heart, like mine, was wounded by leaving behind all that was near and dear to us.

As I lay in bed that Christmas Day night, I thought how quickly and irrevocably life changes. On Christmas Eve, I was a happy, innocent, pampered child, and on Christmas Day, I became a man. How ironic that they chose that name for this operation, Pedro Pan – Peter Pan, the child who never grew up. No, I grew up overnight; I ceased being a child the moment I became part of the Pedro Pan Operation and left Güines, Cuba, never to return again.

We are all aware that Fidel Castro passed away on Nov. 25, 2016, over the Thanksgiving weekend.

We may see photographs and videos of Fidel Castro for decades to come, but we will not see him any longer. I have seen news clips of Cuban-Americans dancing in the streets with great joy on their faces, as well they should.

My parents were from “The Greatest Generation,” as Tom Brokaw describes those who were born in the early part of the 20th century, living through the Great Depression and World War II. My parents married later in life and had children in the baby boomer era.

Long before World War II, my father’s mother died suddenly, right after the Great Depression began. This left my father with no mother and no brothers or sisters. My grandfather left dad in a boarding home to fend for himself, except for meals, by mid-1930. This was a challenging life, but my grandfather stopped in on occasion.

Dad was moved to new schools a number of times, which he described as very challenging. At times, in a new school, the bully would find him.

In general, however, Dad developed an ease in making friends wherever he went. Not only did he make friends, he generally kept them.

Dad was drafted during World War II before the Pearl Harbor attack on Dec. 7, 1941. He was in Louisiana, and was eventually called home to care for his very ill father, and his single aunt, then in a care facility. She passed some time later, and Dad was drafted again. This time he was sent to MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa.

He was in the Army Air Corps, and worked as a mechanic on planes going east. Dad had plenty of stories to tell from his war days.

When he left the service, he had to hitchhike his way home. When I heard that as an adult, I will admit that I was not happy with Uncle Sam leaving Dad sort of stranded. Couldn’t they afford a train ticket? Thankfully, he got home safely.

Dad was trained as an electrician with the help of the GI Bill. (Okay, thank you, Uncle Sam.) He didn’t date my mother until late 1949 or very early 1950, as they had to save from scratch before they married.

My parents were living in their second house by 1957. My father felt a great urgency in 1962, based on the nightly news, to build a bomb shelter in our basement. Recently, I heard from a prior neighbor who was 8 years old when I was approaching 4. She heard about our bomb shelter, and asked her father, a World War II vet with higher ranking, why they weren’t building one.

Word got out in our Chicago neighborhood. This project, unlike others my father took up, became known as “Jim’s White Elephant.” He continued building it until he was satisfied that this one room had enough space for us, and just enough concrete to give fall-out protection.

Despite the neighbors’ label of this project, a new trend developed in the fall of 1962. On Sept. 4, 1962, President John F. Kennedy issued a public warning against weapons in Cuba. By October, the tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union were heating up. Reconnaissance showed bombs stored in Cuba.

As the neighbors started talking more and more about the bombs being so close to home, and the frightening disposition of a young Fidel Castro as seen on the news, their tune was changing.

Neighbors started to “stop by” our home, one family at a time. People summarized their unexpected visit by asking if their family, please, could benefit from our bomb shelter as well. As I have heard it told, Dad didn’t turn anyone down.

Our house was sold almost 20 years ago. I have no doubt that the well-known bomb shelter bit the concrete dust.

Dad, here’s to dancing with our Cuban-American neighbors, whether in Chicago, in Miami, or anywhere they can be found.

I remember the summer night that challenged me to find peace within myself and serenity in my neighborhood.

It was the summer of 2015, 2:00 a.m., Kendrick Lamar’s album “To Pimp a Butterfly” was playing, and I was just getting off from working the night shift at the Worldwide Marriott call center in Doral. After sitting in traffic for almost two hours on the southbound turnpike due to the endless construction road closures every night, I finally arrived in Goulds with a sigh of relief, only to find that the streets were hot and the air was filled with smoke. I came to the intersection that leads me home, but not before I was approached at the stop sign by a prostitute who in his very deep voice and yellow mini dress said, “Hello there.” I drove off to continue home, pulled into my driveway, and knocked on my parents’ bedroom door to assure them that I made it home safely. 

I sat on the couch with the echoing sounds of gun shots from a couple blocks over, and I told myself there has to be more to Goulds than poverty, violence, drugs, and prostitution.

The next day I recall talking to my younger sister, Quiana, and telling her that I wanted to begin a photo series that will acknowledge the positives of our community. So the journey began and we drove around the entire neighborhood, stumbling across dilapidated buildings that once housed community entrepreneurs. We sat by peaceful parks that had crystal blue waters, and for once I remember feeling calm as if we were on a secret oasis. I thought this was the end of my journey, but I remember feeling that I had to do more – I had to speak with my community members and help them understand the beautiful culture that our neighborhood holds. But how?

Driving home from working the night shift again, I traveled past an empty lot that had a cloud of smoke surrounding it. It’s a BBQ vendor. I turned the corner and recognize another empty lot that has one bright light peeking through a similar cloud of smoke. It is a BBQ vendor. I made it home to repeat my nightly ritual of knocking on the door to tell my parents I’m home and then sitting on the couch, but this time was different. This time I had an epiphany. Every night as I drive home from work I see these BBQ vendors, religiously set up to work the night shift on their undeclared vacant lots.

I’d found the answer to my question.

We will showcase the beautiful culture in Goulds by documenting a photo series of these inspiring BBQ entrepreneurs and displaying their impact on our neighborhood at a community BBQ extravaganza and photo gallery.

Quiana and I set out to talk to the BBQ vendors in hopes that they would want to participate in this photo series. To our surprise we were greeted with open arms, warm conversation, sweet iced tea, and mouth-watering rib sandwiches. 

Being able to capture images on the first night of meeting these BBQ vendors allowed for raw and authentic artistry and conversation.

The first conversation was with Mama Dukes over sweet iced tea. It was very humbling as she explained to us that she began barbecuing as a way to raise funds to help pay for her daughter’s wedding and eventually fell in love with serving the community by selling her food. Our relationship with the BBQ vendors grew rapidly and the camera soon became invisible as if it were only an extension of my eye. 

Engaging with complete strangers who share the same culture and community as I do has sparked a light in my heart that I want the rest of Miami to be able to feel. Look at Mr. Sam, who has been grilling for over 20 years. One night while we were taking photos and interviewing him, he was completely unbothered by the active crime scene nearby, and felt compelled to tell me about his first experience of barbecuing at a family event.  That is when he knew that this is what he was supposed to be doing because he is so confidently good at it.

The audacious personalities of these vendors are what have inspired me to work even harder to find peace within myself and showcase the cultivating community that we have here in Goulds. My next challenge has been figuring out how to come up with the funds to actually make this event possible, because my weekly paycheck wouldn’t remotely cover the cost. One day at my goodbye luncheon for my internship at MDC Live Arts, my sister encouraged a conversation about what we had been working on. I was in awe that someone whom I consider to be a mentor convinced me that the story was good enough to apply for a grant. And so I did just that with only six hours before the Knights Art Challenge deadline. I poured my heart out about this photo series, not knowing that my project, entitled “The Unvoiced Community: BBQ Men & Women of Goulds,” would become a finalist and later a recipient of the grant. Because it is a matching grant I am now working tirelessly to raise the rest of the funds to make this initiative a success, not only for my community but for those who may also be searching for serenity in their neighborhoods.

Not only did I find peace through BBQ, I also found my voice in the community, and I encourage you to eat BBQ and unlock your peace.

My Miami story begins in the late 1940s with my birth at Christian Hospital in Overtown. Six years later, my identical twin brothers were born at Mount Sinai Hospital. Things do change. The twins have always called me “Doll.” They couldn’t pronounce my name. Since I had so many dolls, that name made sense.

I can remember when a milkman would deliver milk to your home. Before my time, an iceman delivered ice for the ice box (refrigerator). Recently, my 10-year-old grandson asked me, “Grandma, what is a telephone?” He knows phone, but he was clueless about a telephone!

Unlike my two daughters’ experience growing up in Miami, all four of my grandparents were alive until my maternal grandfather passed away in 1959. I even knew one great-grandparent. My maternal grandfather, Amaziah Melvin Cohen was one of the 162 black men who stood for the incorporation of the city of Miami on July 28, 1896. There were less than 500 white men in Miami, so Henry Flagler “used” his black railroad workers to fill the gap. Shortly thereafter, they were disenfranchised. Not even Julia Tuttle, who founded the city, could be an incorporator. Women did not get the right to vote until 1920.

My grandfather, A.M. Cohen, was born in Sumter County, South Carolina. Black men traveled south through Indian territory in search of the work — building a railroad. Many of them walked to get here! I call this a reverse migration, blacks traveling to the South, rather than north or to the Midwest (Chicago, Detroit, etc.) or west to California, as they did during the Great Migration (1915-70).

My fondest memory of my grandfather was riding around with him. I let him know that there was a Royal Castle hamburger joint just around the next corner. I loved Royal Castle hamburgers and he made sure I got as many as I wanted.

My maternal grandmother, Mamie Evans, arrived in Miami by horse and buggy from Americus, Georgia, at the age of 8. Her mother, Missouri Evans, sent Mamie to Miami with the family of Parker Henderson. He was Miami’s seventh mayor. However, Missouri made it very clear that Mamie was coming to be educated and not become a live-in maid.

When the railroad building ended, A.M. Cohen worked at the Henderson Lumber Company. He and Mamie were married in 1910 and had 15 children — 10 boys and five girls. Mamie never got educated but she made sure their children did. Their professions included police officer, truant officer, school principal, librarian, dentist, beautician, barber, architect, nurse, veteran, businesswoman and minister.

Before my grandfather became a minister, he ran several ventures. He operated a jitney service from Colored Town (Overtown) to Homestead employing 20 people. He also had a gospel radio show and brought gospel singers from out of town to sing at the church — including Mahalia Jackson. However, my grandfather’s life work was the ministry. He was the highly respected bishop of the Miami Temple Church of God in Christ (C.O.G.I.C.) of Eastern Florida.

Overtown’s black entrepreneurs were plentiful. There were skilled tradesmen, medical professionals, barbers, beauticians, cleaners, and even Negro Improvement Associations. Florence Gaskins, a businesswoman, came from Jacksonville. Dana Albert Dorsey, Miami’s first black millionaire, was born in Quitman, Georgia. Kelsey Leroy Pharr, a mortician and an appointed consul for the Republic of Liberia, West Africa, was born in Chester, South Carolina.

My paternal grandparents lived on Charles Avenue in Coconut Grove, two doors down from Mariah Brown’s historic home. Since 1925 their home has been in my family and is still owned by my family. My paternal grandmother arrived in 1911 from Governor’s Harbor, Eleuthra, Bahamas. My paternal grandfather arrived in 1916 from Orlando. My great-grandmother, Zilpha Petty, came to live with them. I remember Great-grandma Petty because she sat by the kitchen door and would reach out to grab you when you walked by her. I would scream and run from her.

Getting back to my story, my parents, Eddie Birmingham Bunyan Jr. and Florence Cohen Bunyan, were the biggest influence in my life. Both graduated from Florida A&M College (now University). My father spent his entire working career with Dade County Public Schools and my mother was a smart and zany businesswoman.

When my parents talked to their children, we listened and we followed their advice with few complaints and no rebellion. All three of us still live in South Florida. As an adult, I have lived in Atlanta, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. However, I chose to come back to Miami in 1974. I truly love this city and the incredibly diverse people. My unfulfilled wish is to see Black Miami truly be a genuine part of Miami’s economic mainstream.

I was born in New Jersey in the wonderful year of 1958. I was raised in Jersey City, and there on the Jersey shore is where my child-rearing and life-saving career began.

I was in New Jersey through my formative years in high school and going to college. During the summer, I started working as a lifeguard at a pool and then stepped up to working on the beach, which is a whole different atmosphere.

I came to Miami Beach in 1993, which gives me a little over 23 years working for the Miami Beach Fire Department’s Ocean Rescue division.

Originally, my plan out of college was to teach during the school year so I could be a lifeguard during the summer, but coming from New Jersey that was only a summer seasonal job, and the call of the ocean was so strong that I came to Florida in hopes of getting a job as a lifeguard here.

I had a teaching degree in health and physical education, recreation and dance, which I thought would make a good degree for a career as a lifeguard. New Jersey had some inclement and snowy weather though, so I wanted to find a place that was sunny 365 days of the year.

A moment that influenced me was when I worked at my first pool job and I saved someone’s life. It may sound overdramatic, but had I not been there it could have been much worse. And that was the rush. That was a draw for me to lifeguarding, being able to have an impact on a person’s life (or death), and that followed me through college where I worked during the summers as a lifeguard.

I then became interested in ocean rescue and lifeguarding on the beach, which is different from working at a pool or a water park. The confines of the pool can be limiting, but the wide range of the ocean is a challenge.

The job of any lifeguard is to ensure that anybody who enters a body of water, large or small, does not drown. At the ocean, we deal with additional factors like the weather that can change very quickly and drastically. The ocean is very different than a pool, and there are deep and shallow spots all over the ocean and also waves.

We want new lifeguards to understand how the beach is a unique environment and what he or she needs to know about their job on the beach. Miami Beach is a wonderful place; we joke about it and say that it’s “surf, sun and sex.” It’s an area with various cultures, ethnicities and different kinds of people out on the beach, which can be distracting for new lifeguards and the public. We want our lifeguards to stay focused.

There have been unfortunate medical issues and fatalities where someone died, and we want to keep this from happening as much as possible. Cardiac arrest on the beach is often fatal. It’s sometimes treatable, but out in the water it can be very dangerous. Our goal is to make sure that nobody drowns, and we are good at it. But there are situations that are beyond our control.

To this day I still am occasionally stumped. After 30 years on the beach, there are always new things that I see and need to know how to address.

Here’s a funny story: There was a group of young men who were out swimming, and as they were returning one of them was having trouble, doing what we call the “tip-toe dance” on the bottom of the ocean. He started to cramp up from bouncing up and down in the ocean, and once the group made it back to shore his friends all tried to help him treat the cramp in his calf. He started howling in pain, and his friends didn’t know that they should help him massage the cramp so it would heal. Instead they thought that they should pull all of the hair out of his leg where he was cramping.

They start pulling handfuls of hairs from his leg, and now he was screaming from that and the leg cramp. We had to explain to his friends that ripping the hair out of his leg wasn’t going to help him, and we helped him recover from his cramp. This is one of the weird things that happen on the beach.

There’s no other place comparable to Miami Beach or South Florida in the United States other than the Hawaiian Islands, where there are warmer waters.

People here are also more scantily dressed; they don’t have to worry about their winter outfits. Here in Miami it’s a very outdoors-oriented and physical experience on the beach. In beach culture in general, you see people enjoying the weather, the water, and the sun. For much of the coastal United States, it’s a different feel in those communities and cities than in the rest of the country, and I think it’s because of the beach access. It’s a beautiful thing. I have a sign on my wall at home that says, “The ocean fixes everything.” It’s a great place to live and work while other people are here to enjoy their vacation.

I’m not going to complain about living here, but personally I have issues when my family members visit and they want to go to the beach, obviously, and I want to go elsewhere. I also notice that when I’m at the beach, I’m never off-duty. A lot of times I’ll have to turn my chair around so I’m not looking at the ocean, but I always carry the lifeguarding duty with me.

A job is job, but a job working at the beach beats anything. It’s a great place to be.

This story was transcribed from an interview between Gerry Falconer, a Miami Beach lifeguard, and the HistoryMiami South Florida Folklife Center as part of a research project exploring the question “What Makes Miami Miami?” The Florida Folklife Program, a component of the Florida Department of State’s Division of Historical Resources, directed the project.

This story was transcribed from an interview during the opening night of HistoryMiami Museum’s ‘Hurricane Andrew: 25 Years Later’ exhibit. It was recorded in the Miami Stories booth, a partnership between WLRN and the HistoryMiami Museum.

I grew up in Miami so I’ve been through a lot of hurricanes. I remember in high school just watching the storm from my screened-in back porch. It was always a mess to clean up after but it was no big deal. But Andrew was unlike any other hurricane I’ve ever experienced.

I have a lot of glass doors on either side of my living room area and during the storm I literally had to get up and nail my front door shut because it kept blowing open. My living room was full of leaves. It was just amazing to me that so much stuff could come into the house even with the doors closed. It just tells you what the force of those winds were. I was with my then-husband, who was British and had no concept of hurricanes.

I had a lanai outside my bathroom and it was built around a sea grape tree. I realized the storm was going to take the sea grape tree and the lanai with it, so I ran and grabbed the iron bird cage I had out there and brought it inside in the middle of the storm. But you do what you have to do and thank God we were safe and uninjured, although I can’t say the same for our yard.

We had huge ficus trees that were knocked over. I couldn’t even get to my garage for three days. We had to cut a hole through the trees to be able to get the car out of the garage. My whole yard was shaded before Andrew and that all changed after the storm. It was unbelievable.

Of course, we also lost power, and when we lose power we lose water in my house. Back then I was still on well water. We didn’t get power back for several weeks. We had to go out and get a generator so we could pump some water, at least occasionally.

It took us months just to get gas in our car. Nobody had electricity to pump gas and we also needed gas for the chainsaws we used to cut through trees. I had stored just enough to use for the chainsaws and to drive to North Miami to fill up my car.

Sadly, my cat was a casualty of the storm’s aftermath. The kids came home from school one day and found her right by a pile of dirt and debris. It was traumatic for them. She kind of blended in with all the dead leaves and I think she must have gotten hit by a car. All the fish in my pond also died because pine needles fell in. I guess the toxins in that just killed them. I never expected that to happen.

I really saw first-hand the effects the storm had on wildlife. One of my ficus trees must’ve had a nest of squirrels in it because all these squirrels would come up to the back door. After the storm, they would come and crawl up my leg looking for peanuts in my pockets.

One day about a month after the storm, I was in my house, which was open since we didn’t have any air conditioning. I was sitting at the table having some lunch and a squirrel came in to have lunch with me.

It actually got up on the table and kept trying to drink some of the Coke I was having with my sandwich. I thought, “Oh the poor thing is thirsty.” So I got a little ramekin, put some water in it and put it down.

I fixed it a plate of some sunflower seeds and pears and other things and it sat there right beside me at the table eating its lunch.

But it still kept trying to get my Coke. So I poured out the water and poured in a little Coke in the ramekin. The squirrel drank it right away. And then it was looking for more. It was so funny. I guess the squirrel liked sugar. Maybe they were just traumatized, too.

I was a member of the Master Chorale and I couldn’t go to my choir rehearsal because people were not allowed to be out at night. We meet in Fort Lauderdale and the members up there didn’t understand why the Miami members couldn’t come up. The storm was nothing to people just literally up the road. That was very strange. They had no idea what the devastation was.

And we were the lucky ones. It was years before a lot of places got rebuilt and some never did. About two years later, I went down to a fishing store off U.S. 1 and about [Southwest] 136th Street. I walked up to it to open the door and realized there was no roof. It was just the front of this whole shopping area. It looked perfectly normal from the street, but there was no roof on the building and nobody inside.

Hurricane Andrew impacted this city so deeply. I can’t believe it’s been 25 years and that so much has been rebuilt. I just hope we’re more prepared in the future. I know I am. I have city water now. No well.