Elena's New Baby Brother Jonathan

1976 was the "Bicentenial Year", the two-hundreth anniversary of the birth of our nation, the United States of America. High school students painted fire hydrants to look like little Revolutionary War soldiers. There were lots and lots of parades on the Fourth of July, Independance Day, and fire works made sleep next to impossible that night as well as the night before.

1976 was also the year my son Jonathan was born, a Bicentenial Baby as they were called. Here he's being held by his loving older sister Elena who was five at the time. Next to her is our friend Patty Ho-Chan. She was a student at Barry College and staying with us at the time. Born in Guyana and raised in Freeport in the Bahamas, her dad was East Indian and her mom was Chinese. She was raised Anglican and Barry was a Catholic shool. This being South Florida she ended up marrying a Jewish guy from Israel and had two daughters, but one passed away from leukemia.

Patty lives nearby but now calls herself Pat. Lately she's gotten interested in politics just like Elena and me. She calls me Big Brother and I call her Little Sister. Elena never calls.

Click on the photo and it'll get big enough to see.

The Checkered Past Of The Czech Club

We were heading over to the Czech Club for the annual North Miami Historical Society luncheon. Monkette told me to wear the cammo shirt. She and I have different concepts of "cammo". I'm thinking lots of blotchy olive drab, shades of brown, a bit of black perhaps, printed on a heavy twill fabric. She's thinking this 100% silk shirt with an abstract palm fronds pattern in shades of green against light sky blue. She was right, of course, always is! It blended perfectly with the oak trees and undergrowth, blue sky showing between the leaves. Perfect!

I sat her up on my shoulder as we walked through the wooded parking area while she stylishly arranged the curls on my still drying hair. We spent a few minutes walking around the grounds as I told her how supposedly back in the 1920's Al Capone's gang of rum runners smuggled whiskey from the Bahamas into Biscayne Bay and then up Arch Creek to this very building! She giggled and said "I bet that's not the only thing that's been smuggled up Arch Creek!" She's very probably right about that. About twenty-five years ago a lot of bales of pot wrapped in plastic were washing up on the beach as smugglers threw it overboard while being chased by the Coast Guard or the Marine Patrol. Meanwhile other people were getting busted for having a single bale aboard despite protesting that they had just found it floating out there.

I asked the police chief about exactly what the story was, and keep in mind that this was before cell phones. He said that if I found a bale while out fishing I should haul it aboard and immediately throw my handheld marine radio overboard, then head back into the bay and then to the launching ramp. If at any time on the way I spotted a police boat, Marine Patrol, or Coast Guard vessel, I should immediately head straight towards it yelling "Hey guys! Look what I found floating out there!" and just forget about the hundred bucks that the radio had cost me.

If I didn't spot any of those boats on the way in "Just head back to the ramp, drive home, and enjoy!" he told me. I never did find a bale. Monkette was fascinated at just how much things had changed over the years, my hair was nearly dry and now a forest of neat curls, and it was time to head inside the Czech Club. Monkette asked if there were likely to be people she hadn't met yet and I told her that yes, there was a good chance of that. She said that if anybody asked if that was a toy monkey on my shoulder I should tell them "No, that's the newest style in cell phones!"

The American Czech-Slovak Cultural Club ~ Still A Place For A Drink

The legend is that the famous gangster Al Capone used to run booze from the Bahamas smuggle it up Arch Creek to this spooky old house on the west bank of the south branch. The road out front used to be the main road to and from Miami, and the Florida East Coast R.R. tracks are right across the street, perfect for getting the contraband to market in northern states. That was the legend, anyway. There's no real proof that Capone ever set foot in the place, although it's quite likely that it was used for smuggling booze during Prohibition, that ill fated experiment on sobering up the country before World War II.

Arch Creek from U.S. 1 to Biscayne Bay has since been dredged, straightened, lined with concrete seawalls, and incorporated into a maze of man-made canals now known as Keystone Point, an upscale neighborhood in North Miami. Expensive homes line the banks and docked behind many of them are ocean going sportfishing boats and deep-V ocean racers usually referred to as go-fast boats. All Big Money.

The mouth of the canalized Arch Creek is a straight shot across Biscayne Bay to Baker's Haulover, a cut leading out to the ocean. And then it's a straight shot across the ocean to Bimini in the Bahamas, less than a hour's run in one of those go-fast boats. Chances are pretty good that this historic route is still being used for bringing contraband into Florida, but now it's pot and coke rather than booze, and gets offloaded at the docks of fancy houses instead of a spooky old wooden house in the oak grove on the banks of Arch Creek.

When I was a kid the place was already in use as the American Czech-Slovak Club. The building and the surrounding oak grove are still pretty much as they were half a century ago, and the restaraunt and bar are open to the public, with a charming interior, great food, and reasonable prices. It seemed an ideal place for the North Miami Historical Society to meet for dinner.