Saturday Night Live in North Miami

The Walgreens about a mile away is open 24 hours a day, and it's a convenient place to pick up milk, bread, and such. Next door is a package store that carries the cigarette tobacco I use. That's probably what brought me out for this shot. There's also a Burger King across the parking lot and a Wendy's across the street. There used to be a Dunkin' Donuts just down the street, and I spent many an evening there drinking coffee and pigging out on donuts. Then one day the medical establishment announced that donuts had too much sugar and were dripping with fat. People stopped eating them. The 24 hour donut shops first cut back their hours and soon closed completely. I lost more weight!

Most Saturday nights in North Miami are really pretty boring. Last weekend the Greek Orthodox Church held a Greek Festival for the first time in many years, and I got to see people I hadn't seen in about forever! The City of North Miami holds evening concerts in the plaza next to city hall in front of the Museum Of Contemporary Art. I enjoy going to events like that because it brings people together from all ethnic groups and walks of life.

And here it is Saturday night again. In an hour or so I'll drive up to Hollywood/Ft. Lauderdale International Airport and pick up my son Jonathan. He's taking a break from his doctoral studies at Harvard University to come visit for a few days and hopefully get my taxes in order so I can send off my check in support of The War Effort;-(

The big excitement this Saturday, though, already happened about 4 PM when we had cops swarming all over the place. I'd called for code enforcement to check up on my neighbor who's always building without permits, and very little of it ever conforms to the building code. Nobody was around the department at that time so the City Manager himself said he was on the way. A truck was backed into the yard next door drilling a well, no permit visible. I was in the middle of the street photographing the scene when I was confronted by the contractor and the homeowner, telling me that I had no right to photograph them. I dialed the police on my cell and told them what was going on, but by then I got attacked, fists flying, lots of screaming and cussing, and a couple minutes later when the city manager arrived I was semi-conscious lying on the ground. The guy from the contractors who did the punching took off on foot before the cops arrived but they got his name from his boss. I have a few gashes on my face, nothing major, but I'll live to testify.