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<\/a>By Seth H. Bramson<\/strong><\/p>\nOn the GROWING UP ON MIAMI BEACH list recently, one of the members, below a great picture of a man diving from the high board at the Fontainebleau, wrote that she had warm memories of Inga, the ice skating instructor at the hotel. Inge (\u201ce\u201d on the end of her name, not an \u201ca\u201d) Brandt was a lovely lady from one of the Scandinavian countries who managed the rink and gave ice skating lessons. That rink, incidentally, was one of only two ice skating rinks on Miami Beach, the other, I believe, at the Deauville.<\/p>\n
The picture\u2014of the Fontainebleau pool and the mention of Inge\u2014set off a \u201cslew\u201d of memories of and about not only the Fontainebleau, but of my years there, a lady (one in particular, though one of many) who I met there and wanted to marry (she was \u201cone of many\u201d but until I met\u2014and married\u2014the beautiful and elegant Myrna, she was the only woman who I ever wanted to marry prior to Myrna) and an annotated noting of the woman who, after chasing her for the three years after I met her one week and one day after Thanksgiving of 1973, finally caught me, with us getting married on November 27th, 1976, almost three years to the day after we met. But more about that next issue.<\/p>\n
My dad (may he rest in peace\u2014smoked himself to death with the G-d Camels, several packs a day, probably having started smoking when he was about four, dying in 1961 at the age of 56) was famous for being \u201cthe sign man\u201d on Miami Beach and made a great many contacts which served him well over the years, including a friendship with the late Harold Gardner, beloved Miami Beach publicist and long-time publicity director for the Fontainebleau.<\/p>\n
For the summer of 1960, Dad took a share of a cabana at the \u2018bleau, and I spent almost every day there, enjoying every minute of it, feeling my oats, swimming endlessly and falling in like with the sexiest and most beautiful girl I had ever met, up until that time. Her name was Nanci Grodin and I really was entranced with her. She was from Forest Hills (New York, not West Palm Beach!) and we spent a lot of time together that summer, at the end of which she went back to New York and I went back for my junior year at Beach High.<\/p>\n
Although I did date a few Beach High girls I guess I should note at this point that it was sometime in my 10th grade year that one of the fellows who I was friendly with said to \u201cus\u201d (I think there were four of us who were quite close, my dear and beloved and still a great friend, Bill Sonne, was not yet part of that group) one day, \u201chey, I heard about this great place in the Gables\u2014why don\u2019t we go over there and maybe we can meet some nice girls.\u201d Frankly, dear readers, I must share with you\u2014and as I now tell a large number of people, including you at this moment\u2014that there were an awful lot (not all, not most, not even a majority) of Beach High girls who were nasty, snotty and stuck up, they, believing they were \u201cthe popular kids\u201d thought\u2014as the late, great Neil Rogers would have opined\u2014that \u201ctheir shot don\u2019t stank, and don\u2019t forget to dot the i.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anyway, it was 1959 and the Julia Tuttle Causeway would not open until the next year, so we hiked ourselves over to Coral Gables, probably using the MacArthur, and walked into that wonderful gathering spot, much more than an ice cream parlor on Miracle Mile, \u201cJahn\u2019s.\u201d And when we walked in you could almost literally hear the murmur go through the crowd of Gables and Miami High girls who were there: \u201cWow! Look at this! Fresh meat from the beach!\u201d Again, although I did date a few Beach High girls I spent\u2014for the most part\u2014my three years at Beach dating Gables and Miami High girls. Yes, and again, most of the Beach High girls were not the obnoxious, overbearing females (NO pejoratives\u2014this is a family blog!) who\u2014seriously\u2014contributed mightily to the less than savory reputation that M B H S developed over and during those several years. Sad but true. And you know the worst part of it? Some of those nasty, unkind, close to vile females still think that they are \u201cthe popular kids\u201d and that \u201ctheir shot don\u2019t stank,\u201d when, in truth and fact, it now stanks worse than it did then because the little (alternative word for feces) still think that they are who they were then and neither they nor the anal-orifice males who behaved that way are, either, most of those people today simply being nasty, obnoxious over bearing anal orifices.<\/p>\n
We (my class) graduated in \u201962 and I can\u2019t remember how it came to be that I again spent that summer at the Fontainebleau, but, happily to report, for that moment, there was Nanci Grodin again, looking better than ever and I was really enchanted with her. Again, wonderful summer memories but that time, after parting, she going to American University in D. C. and me\u2014along with another beloved still friend, Charlie (\u201cEpp\u201d) Clark\u2014went to \u00bd S U (you\u2019ve heard of \u00bd S U) in Tallahassee, we did exchange several letters. Charlie and I were both swimmers and that part was great but oh, lordy, were they hillbillies, hicks, red necks and racists there, to the point that the NOT \u201cfine Southern gentlemen\u201d (anything but, those vile crackers) of the Kappa Alpha fraternity (has anything changed with them?) threw a Molotov cocktail at and on to the front porch of the T E P house. Fortunately, it did very little damage, but it will give you a good idea of what it was like there, in 1\/2Assee, pre-Civil Rights Act of 1964 and pre-Radical Jack Lieberman.<\/p>\n
Now that I have you breathless, waiting for the next installment, I will \u201ccall it a day\u201d at this point, letting you know that in the next chapter I will regale you with my return to Miami Beach in December of \u201962, enrolling in Sun Tan U and immediately going to work at the Fontainebleau.<\/p>\n
I think you will enjoy what is on the horizon and we be \u201cbackatcha\u2019\u201d shortness.<\/p>\n
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[AdSense-A] By Seth H. Bramson On the GROWING UP ON MIAMI BEACH list recently, one of the members, below a great picture of a man diving from the high board at the Fontainebleau, wrote that she had warm memories of Inga, the ice skating instructor at the hotel. Inge (\u201ce\u201d on the end of her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17984],"tags":[20609],"class_list":["post-82240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment-news","tag-a-bit-of-personal-commentary-part-iii"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=82240"}],"version-history":[{"count":-3,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82240\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=82240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=82240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=82240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}