A Late In Life Burst Of Creativity Part III

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By Seth H. Bramson

Unfortunately, the Miami historic community is rife with jealousy and several nasty and vicious for no reason people who will not be honored by having their names appear in this column are at the top of the hall of shame list. In any case, and as reported in the previous column, the “you’re gonna’ hear from my lawyer because you are using two words that I have in my title” nonsense popped up again, just a couple of months ago. Different person, same ignorant foolishness. Now we’re getting ahead of the story regarding the books that followed the Plant System book but we’ll definitely get back to that.

At any rate, I put out, on several lists including Growing Up On Miami Beach Facebook Forum and others that one of the books that I was working on was going to be titled “Training the Troops in Sun and Sand: Greater Miami During World War II” following which I received an email from a woman who told me that two of those words were in her title, that her title was copyrighted and that I had better change my title. I wrote back quite cordially to tell her that for a PhD she really didn’t know very much and that one cannot copyright a title. (Your work is copyrighted, but you can’t copyright a song, music, play or book title, for the reasons noted last time) At any rate, she emailed back, falsely accusing me of being nasty and telling me that I was going to hear from her attorney. (If you read the last column you know that is a frequent refrain of people who know less than nothing about copyright law, haven’t taken the time to investigate it and what it includes and who think and believe that simply threatening somebody with an attorney will frighten him or her into making whatever changes the bully wants made.)

I emailed the foolish lady back, as follows: “As I told you, you cannot copyright a song, music or book title, so please be aware that invoking your attorney’s name does not intimidate me in the least, especially since my beloved stepson, my grandson and my daughter are all members of the Florida Bar, as is our former Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice, whose biography—the first ever biography of a Florida judge or Supreme Court Justice—I am the author of.” And guess what?!! Haven’t heard a word from her since. (As the great line from “Casablanca” goes, “shocked! I’m shocked!” ) Guess said attorney straightened her out, yuh think?!!

Now, back to the topic at hand. As I wrote, I received a call from Arcadia Publishing and in short order produced four books for them, all of which were happily excellent sellers. I then spoke to the acquisitions editor (who is no longer with them!) and told him that I was ready to propose another four or more and was told that since authors seem to lose interest in promoting their books after several have come out, they wanted me to “take a hiatus.” My rejoinder was, “are you kidding me?!! I get more fervent about pushing them with every book, and look at how well the four are doing.” “Even so,” he told me, “we are giving you a time out.” I was steaming, especially since I met with the late Richard C. Schulman, administrative aide to the Sunny Isles Beach Mayor and commission and the Mayor himself, a wonderful man by the name of Norman Edelcup shortly thereafter and at that meeting was told that they wanted me to write the city’s twentieth anniversary history.

I accepted, although, for the moment, without a publisher and then, less than a week later, another phone call, that from The History Press, asking me if I would like to write for them, and, incredibly, that would begin a lengthy and very rewarding for both parties partnership. The Sunny Isles Beach history is now one of my six and one-half histories of Miami Beach and the northern suburbs, those books including the three Miami books, “33154: The Story of Bal Harbour, Bay Harbor Islands, Indian Creek Village and Surfside” as well as the separate “Surfside” book in Arcadia’s “Images of America” series. The “half” book is “L’Chaim! The History of the Jewish Community of Greater Miami,” the first-ever history of the Jewish people in Dade County, that book being approximately half Miami Beach.

Following “From Sandbar to Sophistication” we (The History Press and I) moved on to “Sunshine, Stone Crabs and Cheesecake: The Story of Miami Beach;” “Boulevard of Dreams: A Pictorial History of El Portal, Biscayne Park, Miami Shores and North Miami” and “The Curtiss—Bright Cities: Hialeah, Miami Springs and Opa Locka.” It was sometime during that period that Turner Publishing, of Nashville, contacted me to write “Historic Photographs of Greater Miami” and “Historic Photographs of Palm Beach County,” the latter book now available and on sale in every room in the famous Breakers Hotel on Palm Beach. Each of those two books, incidentally, has three different versions and they are also available in various outlets, including amazon.com.

At about that same time, the Centennial of the F E C Railway’s Key West Extension was coming quickly and the Key West Art and Historical Society determined that not only did they want to publish a book featuring the single greatest railroad engineering and construction project in U. S.—and, possibly, world—history but that Seth Bramson, the F E C’s Company Historian, should author it. I did, and we’ll keep you in suspense regarding that book until next time. As always, all, be—and stay—well and we’ll be back with you shortness.

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