Tagged: community contributor

Our family came from Havana, a beautiful city that some have called a tropical paradise.

My brothers and I came to Miami on a Pan American flight and were taken to a campground that the Pedro Pan organizers had set up in Kendall, near where Town & Country Mall now stands. We were there for about two weeks before being sent to Albuquerque, N.M., where we were taken in by the family of Dr. Eugene Purtell.
 

The Miami Theater Center is growing. IFrom the annual contemporary performance SandBox Series to being the new home for Mad Cat Theater Company, MTC has redefined itself as a vibrant center of culture in sleepy Miami Shores.

  I was born Martha Anne Peters in Victoria Hospital on Dec. 20, 1937, a second generation native-born Miamian.

David Menasche is a light packer. Four days of clothes, basic toiletries, a voice recorder, a laptop and a cell phone are all he needs. Oh, and his red-tipped cane, to help him navigate now that he is almost completely blind.

His quest is heavy on purpose and light on itinerary. His goal: to see the Pacific Ocean before his vision is completely lost, and to visit as many of his former students as possible along the way.

I will never forget that awful December day. My daughter left to school and I turned on the TV. I stumbled upon something that read “School Shooting.” All I could think was that my little princess was at her school and that this could happen anywhere. As it was getting time to pick her up, I rushed a little more and could not wait to hear her voice and see her smile. As soon as I saw her, I felt an immense sense of relief and peace. Tears kept on coming down my face.

I was born in Nashville and spent the first four years of my life in Tuskegee, Ala.

My father, Dr. John O. Brown Sr., moved to Miami in 1955 to begin his practice in ophthalmology. To this day, I'm glad he did.

We had neighbors who were white and black. Our next-door neighbor was an older white lady who inspired my mother's love for growing orchids and my brother's passion for collecting butterflies.

I attended schools -- Jackson's Toddle Inn and Floral Heights -- that were all black. I remember those as happy years.

I spent a recent night watching a performance of the New World Symphony being broadcast on a wall at the New World Center. As the symphony performed inside, the video played simultaneously on a soaring, 7,000-square-foot projection wall on the building’s façade. It was a dazzling night, with hundreds of people speaking multiple languages gathered on blankets and chairs, toting picnic baskets, children and pets.

The Daniel Lewis Miami Dance Sampler was a mixed bag of performances that introduced audiences to contemporary dance, ballet, new flamenco and traditional African dance forms. The performances, billed as six- to eight-minute samplers, highlighted the scope of dance talent that exists in Miami. Produced by Dance NOW! Miami and Miami Dance Futures, the goal of the sampler is to give local talent exposure and to expose audiences to dance forms that they wouldn’t normally seek out.

When a mentally ill person entered a Connecticut school and slaughtered children and teachers, it was the last straw for some people. In this ultra liberal, politically correct climate in which we find ourselves today, the immediate outcry was to ban this and ban that. The very thought that teachers should not have the right to defend themselves and their pupils is laughable.

Juan Ponce de León served as governor of Puerto Rico for a tumultuous five years. During that time, the native Taínos tried unsuccessfully to overpower him, but, in the end, it was the son of Christopher Columbus who unseated him during a political struggle for power in the New World. Ponce de León’s new “asiento,” or assignment, from Spain’s King Ferdinand II was to set sail and find – not the fountain of youth, as is widely thought – but the island of “Benimy.” After being at sea for nearly a month, he finally sighted land, but it wasn’t Bimini.

In the mid ‘70s, I had recently left the Army and started working as an emergency physician at a hospital in Huntsville, Alabama. It was a Wednesday, church night, and I was working the evening shift.

A woman in her thirties was brought in with a bullet wound in her leg. She told us that her boy friend had shot her during an argument. The wound didn't look serious; bleeding was minimal. It appeared to have been caused by a 32- or 38-caliber hand gun. I placed her in a room, ordered an X-ray, and sat at the physician desk to write up the chart.