A Penny For Your Pretzel?

It was the day of the official grand opening of The Pretzel Factory over on U.S. 1 a couple of stores north of Starbucks. Most of the time you can find Penny at the Chamber of Commerce building on West Dixie Highway on the corner of 131st Street. As far back as I can remember Penny WAS the Chamber of Commerce. When anybody in town thinks of the Chamber they think of Penny. She's sells ads for the annual directory and visits new businesses to talk them into joining, arranges for the monthly luncheon meetings, the occasional banquets, and puts on the Miss North Miami Pageant.

So I can't say that Monkette and I were all that surprised to run into Penny at the Pretzel Factory that day, although I doubt that Penny will turn into a pretzel addict and ruin her youthful figure. When I first started photographing the Miss North Miami Pageant about forty years ago Penny was quite a bit older than the contestants. Those contestants have gone on with their lives, had careers, one was a star on the Miami Vice TV series, graduated college, gotten married, made babies...hell, some of them became grandmothers, maybe even great-grandmothers, and Penny is still doing her thing while managing to stay younger looking than most of those "girls". She's not telling anybody her secret but it's always good to see you again, Penny.