To My Boys: September 10, 2020
Good morning!
Have you ever used Google Earth? It has to be one of the greatest inventions in the history of inventions. Just type in any address on the planet and, voila, in seconds (depending on your internet connection) you are transported digitally to the very spot. It’s also scary because if the technology is that good and getting better, who’s not to say that in a few years, voila, that’s you in the shower or in the bedroom or in the kitchen at 2 a.m. eating a late-night snack when you are supposed to be on a diet. Maybe Weight Watchers in the future will watch more than just your weight.
I invite you and your parents to use the Google Earth function in your brains. The address I want to type in the search bar is the intersection of Coral Way and 87th Avenue. Now, close your eyes and press enter. Are you there yet? How slow is your brain connection? Can you picture it already with the hustle and bustle of that crowded spot? As you wait for the light to turn green, a man approaches your window selling mamoncillos. If you have a dollar handy, I strongly recommend you buy some. As soon as he leaves your window, you are approached by the guy selling water. I don’t know about this one, how do I know they are not just old bottles taken from the trash and filled with regular tap water?
This last weekend, I was driving home from visiting my grandfather and stopped at a red light in this very intersection. All of a sudden, I was hit with the most overwhelming sense of nostalgia. This was my grandparents’ neighborhood since they moved to Miami in the 1960s. They were the king and queen of Westchester. Now, only the king remains and the castle is still the same.
On the northwest corner was the Zayre Department Store. If I had a quarter for every time my mother took me there to buy clothes, I would have enough money to buy clothes somewhere else. I think about that now and realize back then I really didn’t care where my clothes came from. It wasn’t strange or embarrassing to buy clothes there. Didn’t everybody? Walking into the store with the big neon Z to buy jeans or sneakers or t-shirts was as common as walking into the Grand Union for milk. The Zayre is not there anymore.
On the northeast corner was Lionel Play World. This was the Mecca for toys. Just walking in was an experience. I knew that most of the time I went in, I was probably leaving empty-handed, but it didn’t matter because I just wanted to be surrounded by the G.I. Joes and the Hot Wheels. Before there was Geoffrey the Giraffe, there was the Lionel kangaroo that helped you turn your frown upside-down. The Lionel Play World is not there anymore.
On the southeast corner was good old reliable K-Mart (along with J Byrons and a little pet shop where I used to buy goldfis). Here you could never go wrong. The best thing about this place was that whenever my parents went there to get whatever, they would always stop to get me an ICEE. Rain or shine, snow or sleet, whether they actually bought something or not, my parents knew that the visit to K-Mart necessarily included a large cup of flavored ice with the polar bear on it. What really gets the reminiscing going is that just before you got to the door there was a photo booth. You would slip in a couple of quarters, step in, spin the stool seat to get it to the right height and pull the curtain. One of the best moments of my childhood took place there when my dad, my brother Manny, and I took a series of photos that had us making faces at the camera. I couldn’t have been more than six years old, but the memory is still very much alive. I still have the photos today. That K-Mart is not there anymore.
On the southwest corner was El Gallo de Oro. Man does this bring back memories! This was the little Cuban bodega where my grandfather would buy his Cuban bread and a six-pack of Malta Hatuey. I think he knew the owners from back in Cuba and they would spend hours shooting the breeze after every purchase about things of the old country. I don’t know if the Health Department existed back then, but if it did, I assure you they never went to El Gallo de Oro. You could tell the 97-year-old bagboy was a master of his trade. He was always able to get all your items into one paper bag (single, not double-lined) with the eggs at the bottom and the ash from his cigarette on top, and everything made it home unscathed. El Gallo de Oro is not there anymore.
If there is one thing that I have learned throughout these many months of the pandemic, it’s that technology is great, but it can never substitute the greatness of the human experience. The power of the internet cannot substitute the power of the human mind and, especially, the human heart. For as much as I try to Google Earth the Coral Way and 87th Avenue of my childhood, it is only the memory of my experiences that can take me there.
Auspice Maria
BELEN JESUIT PREPARATORY SCHOOL
500 SW 127th Avenue, Miami, FL 33184
phone: 305.223.8600 | fax: 305.227.2565 | email: webmaster@belenjesuit.org
500 SW 127th Avenue, Miami, FL 33184
phone: 305.223.8600 | fax: 305.227.2565 | email: webmaster@belenjesuit.org
Belen Jesuit Preparatory School was founded in 1854 in Havana, Cuba by Queen Isabel II of Spain. The task of educating students was assigned to the priests and brothers of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits), whose teaching tradition is synonymous with academic excellence and spiritual discipline. In 1961, the new political regime of Cuba confiscated the School property and expelled the Jesuit faculty. The School was re-established in Miami the same year, and over the next decade, continued to grow. Today, Belen Jesuit sits on a 30-acre site in western Dade County, only minutes away from downtown Miami.