Doin' The Shuffle

It's strange how recreational pursuits change over the years. Gone are drive-in theaters, and for the most part bowling alleys are a thing of the past also along with office bowling leagues. Remember rolling skating rinks? And briefly a few years ago some brave soul built an ice skating rink about a dozen blocks away. My daughter was thrilled! For a few years everytime she came to Miami to visit me brought her ice skates. She must have been their only customer. It soon sat empty. It was partially torn down and reconstructed as The Arena Shoppes.

Every one story motel (weren't they ALL one story?) had a swimming pool and a shuffleboard court. North Miami had a shuffleboard club that met in an old wooden house by the Biscayne Canal across the street from Griffing Park. Now the house has long since been replaced by a modern concrete block community center but the shuffleboard courts are still there. They're now largely unused because the generation that once played on them has largely died off. Nobody came along to take their place.

This shot was taken in the early 1970's, probably for a brochure for the North Miami Parks and Recreation Department. The director back then, Mike Rozos, was big on publicizing both the parks and the programs, everything from Little League to shuffleboard. I did all the city's photography. The elderly gentleman in the photo was Gus De Beauvernet.