I Chased Her For Three Years Until She Caught Me & Comic Legend Alan King Remembers—Part III

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By Seth H. Bramson

As we discussed in my last column, I left New York, the Gaslight Club and all the joyousness of “the City” in February of 1978 to come back to the big orange in order to join the late, great Lloyd Apple as partners with the Thal Brothers and Catering Directors at the also late and great Epicure Market. (Founded earlier than 1945 and located on Washington Avenue it was purchased by the Thal’s that year and moved to its long-time home on Alton Road, just north of Lincoln Road and for all the years until its closing in 2017 it really was Greater Miami’s pre-eminent gourmet food shop)

At any rate, we did some spectacular events including several for the American Ballet Theater, the premiere guest being Mikhail Baryshnikov who we, as the caterers got to meet. We also met, during the event we did for the Jewish Federation at the Biltmore, Elizabeth Taylor, who was lovely and cordial and it was an honor to meet them both.

Because I was even then so associated with the FEC I had been toying, for some years, with writing the Company’s history and one event, with Myrna’s input and urging, would, indeed, to quote Captain Picard of “Star Trek: Next Generation” “make it so.”
We arrived home (we had moved to the house in Miami Shores in late December of ’81, although we didn’t close on the Cecil Street house until February 1, 1982, following which, after turning the keys over to the new owners, I stood in front of the house in which Bennett and I had grown up and cried for half an hour) one day in ’82 to find, in the mail, a fold-over piece touting an upcoming book which was titled “Rails ‘neath the Palms: A History of Florida’s Railroads.” Myrna took one look at it, handed it to me and said, “If you don’t write the history of the FEC and someone else does you will never forgive yourself.” As usual, Myrna was “right-on.”

Incredibly, within a week, I got a phone call from Jean and Jim Filby, owners of the Boston Mills Press in Erin, Ontario, who were vacationing in Hollywood and wanted to talk to me about the FEC. After Jim told me that he wanted to write a book on the FEC I told him that that was what I was planning to do and he immediately said, “that is exactly what I was hoping you would say.” We worked on the book together, my writing it, providing all of the images and writing the captions and after about eight years of thinking about it we spent two years with Jean and Jim working on it, both here and by phone to and from Erin. Finally, it was time to choose a title and at that point, being quite friendly with Jonathan Nelson (who just retired from many years of teaching and coaching tennis at Beach High), we were walking on Northeast 96th Street and talking about it when Jonathan said, you know, one of the FEC’s promotional booklets had an ad on its back cover headlined “The F E C is the double track Speedway to Sunshine….” And that was it! We had our title!

The book, with 3000 hard-cover copies, came out in December of 1984. Without an internet or a Florida East Coast Railway Society to promote it, all 3000 copies were sold out by August, 1985. The FEC’s management was delighted and the book was shortly thereafter named the Company’s official history. And then all that having to make a living stuff got in the way of what was really important (such as chasing Miami memorabilia, railroadiana and Floridiana! It was in ’84 that I began teaching at St. Thomas University as well as teaching the “Miami Nice” program, the for-hire driver training program that was county-funded and lasted for fifteen years until 2000.

Meantime, the world was changing and something called “the internet” was beginning to come into daily use. Interestingly enough, when I started teaching at St. Thomas I also started on my MBA there and simultaneously became General Manager of Miami Shores Country Club, brought in by General Les Forney, as fine a man as there has ever been, with the promise that he would leave me alone and let me run the club. More on that next time, but before we close, we must, as promised last time, tell you the second part of the Alan King story, which occurred 23 years after I left New York.

For our 25th wedding anniversary I took Myrna to dinner at the Palm in Bay Harbor. As we were enjoying dinner I heard a familiar voice. Leaning forward towards Myrna I said, “Do you hear that voice directly behind me?” And she said, “yes, so?” I said, “Myrna, that’s Alan King and I have got to pay my respects and say hello.” And then she said, “But it’s been almost twenty-five years. He won’t remember you.” “Doesn’t matter,” I replied, “I have got to at least greet him.”

I got up, turned around, and tapped him gently on the shoulder. He kind of jumped and I said, “Mr. King, you probably don’t remember me, but I’m Seth Bramson….” at which point he literally jumped out of his chair, embraced me and turned to his family, with whom he was dining and said, “this is Seth Bramson who was so good to me and Henny at the Gaslight Club in New York.” Everybody at the table smiled and then I said, “Alan, it’s our 25th anniversary and I would like you to meet my wife.” He smiled warmly, came around the table, stood between us and put his arms around us as everybody in the restaurant recognized him and clearly saw that it was none other than the fabled Alan King.

Then, in that wonderful and unmistakable voice of his, he said, “My young friends…I want to tell you the secret to a happy marriage.” At that point, everybody in the Palm knew that a great entertainer was in our midst and everybody in the restaurant was thrilled to see him, many of them wondering, of course, who the beautiful couple was (OK, OK, Myrna was beautiful!) that Alan King had his arms around. On top of that, Mr. King was about to tell us “the secret to a happy marriage” and as Neilgod is my witness everybody in earshot in the Palm that evening was leaning forward to hear what he was going to share with us about the secret to a happy marriage.

“The secret to a happy marriage,” he intoned, in that wonderful, near bass, unmistakably Alan King voice of his as people actually moved their chairs and stood up in order to edge closer to hear what Alan was going to share with all of us, “The secret to a happy marriage,” he repeated, “is still a secret!”

Not only did almost the entire restaurant—everybody within earshot—break up near hysterically, but Alan then hugged us both and thanked me for greeting him after so many years. Sadly, to report it was not too many months later that he died much too early, after years of puffing away on the cancer sticks.

When we come back, in just a few days, we will return to the years after “Speedway to Sunshine” was published, my twelve years of teaching full time at St. Thomas University, the FEC Railway/Miami Centennial, the five terrible years teaching at that horror show, that hell hole, that poster child for faculty unions, Johnson and Wales and the publishing, in 2002 of the Revised and Enlarged edition of “Speedway to Sunshine,” following which, as I like to say, “I had a late in life burst of creativity.”

Have a safe and easy fast, say a few barouchas for me and Myrna, and, as always, with warmest good wishes.

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