Something about the Way the Sun Looked

I found myself on the highway this morning,in my convertible, and something about the way the sun shone, and the air smelled, took me back to 1975, and my family vacation on Miami Beach. Also, there have been stories in the news about the anniversary of the Eastern L1011 crash in the Everglades that December, an even that always resonated with me. My parents and I had flown an Eastern L1011 from JFK to MIA about 9 days before the fateful flight.

Starting in about 1972, my parents would come every Winter and Spring Break to South Beach. Some years my sister and her family would come, too, and we usually met some of my mother's family.

Back then, South Beach was truly God's Waiting Room -- a bunch of decrepit hotels, and third class restaurants. My grandmother wintered in a hotel on Collins and 10th Street. We found a place right on the beach at 1st and Ocean.

My father would book the same room every time -- a small efficiency that opened right onto the sand. He loved to wake me up and take me for walks in the morning, as the solstice sun was rising over the Atlantic, and the air smelled so fresh. He was so happy on these vacations --the happiest I ever saw him. I'm sure those experiences instilled in me a love of Miami that I still have over 35 years later.

And this morning the sun looked the same --something about the light. Even though the highway was 5 miles West of the ocean, I could smell the brine. It was lovely to go back in my mind.

One year, probably when I was about 15, I had an awful cough on the trip. My father took me to a doctor, somewhere on Washington Avenue, probably near the Famous Restaurant. The doctor spoke with a very heave Spanish accent. He listened to my chest with a stethoscope, looked me over, and said "Seeemply a chest cooold." He was right --I was better soon. My father and I celebrated with some corned beef sandwiches --probably at Stein's Deli on Washington.

It's the 2nd to last day of 2007. Maybe the ghosts of years past are stirring. All I know is, as I drove this morning, I was in December of 1975. In my mind I'm going to South Beach.