A Bit of Personal Commentary—Part VIII

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By Seth H. Bramson

As we concluded our last adventure by wishing all of our friends and readers of the Jewish faith a happy and healthy Jewish New Year, so we start today’s visit by doing almost the same, hoping you had a fine one and saying (writing) “as we say in South Florida, ‘good yontiff, pontiff’!”

In the previous episode we noted several items and it appears that it might be most logical to continue with—as I referred to her—“the nice Italian girl from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.”

Working at the Fontainebleau, I had a “split shift,” going in at about 10:00 or 10:30 AM and leaving at about 3:00 or 3:30 PM, at which time I would head back to our beloved family home on Cecil Street on Biscayne Point on Miami Beach, check the mail and take my daily nap. (I started napping, if I remember correctly, about the time that I started working at the Fontainebleau, which was just a few months following my June, 1962 graduation from Beach High, a practice which continues to this day, and, of course, I have the support of knowing that the greatest single person in and of the 20th century, an incredible man by the name of Winston Churchill, also took his daily nap)

I would get up after my nap and dress for the evening’s events at the ‘bleau, always in tie and jacket. Generally I would be back at the hotel at “around” 6:00 PM, at which time I would immediately head for the coffee shop—the Chez Bon Bon—and have dinner, sitting at the counter, signing an officer’s check, which meant that said meal—as late breakfast or early lunch had been—was one of my benefits of working there.

One night, for whatever reason, I had to go in a bit earlier, and again, for whatever reason, I walked through the Fleur de Lis (the hotel’s main dining room) to greet the cooks and the chef in the kitchen. “So what made that night different for all other nights?” you ask, and I will, since you asked, tell you, for it was on that night, as I walked through the Fleur de Lis, that I passed a table with one of the sexiest, most attractive young women I had ever seen sitting there with somebody else, who I later learned was her aunt. She was holding a cigarette and as soon as I greeted my friends in the kitchen I walked back through the dining room to the lobby, she still sitting there with my telling myself that, indeed, I had to meet her.

That night she didn’t come to whatever the guest activity was for the evening, whether it was a movie, bingo, quiz show or whatever, I don’t remember, but I do remember telling myself that I would look for her on the pool deck the next day. And the next day I certainly did.

The problem was, she didn’t seem to be there. While I was somewhat disappointed, I realized that there would be other beautiful young women to meet, but, and as it turned out—at least for me at the Fontainebleau—that eventuality was not to be.

I was standing by the pool deck telephone operator’s booth, in the shade under the canopy, just in front of the stairs which came up from the beach, and, suddenly, there she was, again holding a cigarette. In my smoothest, suavest, manner I said to her “how come every time I see you, you’re smoking?” To which, to my surprise, instead of gushing about how nice it was that I had seen her, she retorted, “I didn’t know you were watching me so carefully!”

Recovering quickly—I wasn’t going to flub with this one!—I said, “actually, have only seen you twice, and even though both times with a cigarette, I still wanted to meet you.” That entrée, which brought a warm smile, then led to my telling her my name, who I was, what I did at the hotel and added that, “as you can see by my shirt.” Suffice to say, I asked her out for that night, immediately following whatever the evening’s guest event was to be.

She readily agreed, giving me her name and room number and we made plans to meet in the lobby at “about 9:00 or 9:30.” Whenever said event ended, there I was, hormones raging, anxious to take her out for a bite and then back to Casa Bramson for an evening of romantic reverie. However, she was nowhere to be seen!

I called her room several times to no avail and was really annoyed and ready to leave the hotel when, lo and behold (as the expression goes), there she was! Just as with Myrna seven years later, I will never forget that first actual meeting not only because of how beautiful and smolderingly sexy she was but because of what she was wearing: a beautiful short but not too short pink dress with three very large light green flowers on the front, one above the other. I had never seen anything like it!

We left the hotel and chatted effortlessly, my beginning to learn about the first great love of my life, and the woman of whom there would never be another, at least until that fateful night one week and one day after Thanksgiving, 1973, when, at a party if far South Dade County, I met a woman who was so stunningly beautiful (and, lo these many years later, still is) that it took my breath away (I’m happy I don’t have COPD!) Next visit, young ladies and gentlemen, I will give you the skinny on my time and times with Maryann, what happened, how and why it ended (thank you, Myrna!) and how I have come to spend 46 years (43 years married on November 27th!) with the beautiful woman to whom I am married and how I chased her for three years until she caught me. See you then!

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