Island Fever: Life Adventures in Search of Island Paradise

By Charles Pflueger

Island Fever chronicles a lifetime of adventure from a casual South Florida of the early 1930s to a Bahamian Island retirement almost eighty years later, with exciting and amusing stops along the way. Charlie Pfluger describes his life journey, including his stint in the US Air Force in the Far East and North Africa during the Korean War. After his tour of duty, he assumed station manager duties for Pan American Airways in the Caribbean and South America, moved on to hotel management in the Bahamian Out Islands, and had other assorted misadventures, professional and otherwise.

His has been an incredible life. Sometimes it was fun; sometimes it was disappointingbut all in all, it was an amazing ride!

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Apr 19, 2011
• ISBN: 9781450287937

Charles Pflueger

Charles Philip Pflueger was born in Miami, Florida, in 1931 and graduated with a BBA from the University of Miami in 1958.

Book preview

Island Fever

Life Adventures in Search of Island Paradise

CHARLES PFLUEGER

iUniverse, Inc.

Bloomington

Island Fever

Life Adventures in Search of Island Paradise

Copyright © 2011 Charles Pflueger

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-4502-8792-0 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-4502-8794-4 (cloth)

ISBN: 978-1-4502-8793-7 (ebk)

iUniverse rev. date: 2/23/2012

CONTENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

DEDICATION

Preface

The Magic City

The 1930s

The Fabulous Forties

Off to War

Radio School

Across the Pacific

Homeward Bound

Strategic Air Command

Back to School

The Graduate – Jamaica Bound

Going South

Moving On

Back to the Future

Jamaica Farewell

The Egg and I

A Little Traveling Music

Business Beckons

The Store Dick

Africa Calling!

The Old Island Itch

A Union in the Woodpile

Tribunal Retribution

What the Hell Did He Ever Do?

I’ve got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts!

It’s a Crime!

Travel Show Heaven

Dance…Gypsy!

Lord Love the Bartenders!

Across the Yellow Banks to Great Exuma

From Club to ‘Crows Nest"

Peace and Plenty Beach Inn

It’s a Spaghetti World

The Land Baron

It’s an Ill Wind!

The Shark Lady

Celebrities Visit Exuma

The Bonefish Lodge

Bush Medicine

Calling Doctor Kildare!

It’s Regatta Time in Exuma….Mon!

Fancy Meeting You Here!

The Twilight Zone

Adventures in Central America

It’s a Tie!

Club Peace and Plenty Turns 50

I Thought I Saw a Pussycat!

Tropical Gardens

Retirement Looms

Epilogue

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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Charles Philip Pflueger (Charlie) was born in Miami, Florida on May 23, 1931 and attended Miami Senior High School, the University of Florida and graduated with a B.B.A. from the University of Miami in 1958.

He was proud to serve in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War, after a stint in the Florida National Guard. Charlie was married twice and in his autobiography, ‘Island Fever,’ he takes us on life’s journey through many exotic locations, for almost 80 years.

He has been heavily committed to Bahamian tourism for many years, having held positions of President of the Bahamas Out Island Promotion Board, Vice-President of the Bahamas Hotel Association, a Director of the Caribbean Hotel Association and Bahamas Hotelier of the Year 1991. In addition, he has been General Manager of one of the oldest out island hotels, Club Peace and Plenty on Great Exuma Island, for decades.

Charlie hopes ‘Island Fever’ is amusing and informative, although he advises it contains some mildly salacious adventures that might not be suitable for minors and the overly sensitive.

Mr. Pflueger spends his time between his seaside home on Great Exuma Island and Plantation, Florida.

Interested readers may contact the author at his email address: cpp42@hotmail. com

DEDICATION

The early part of this autobiography is dedicated to my Mother, who provided a happy childhood and shared my life well into her 90’s.

The later part is dedicated to my dear friend Stan Benjamin, who made many wonderful adventures possible.

Premise

When you near your 80th birthday and you have any-

thing to say … you had better get it said! So……..

‘The time has come, the Walrus said, to talk of many things:

Of ships and shoes and sealing wax and cabbages and kings –

And why the sea is boiling hot, and whether pigs have wings’

Lewis Carroll

Alice in Wonderland

1865

Preface

Some people think their lives have been interesting and worthy of recording… others drudge in boredom and obscurity and never seem to really live. As I mentally flipped through the decades of jobs, travel, projects and life in general, I also came to the conclusion that it would be amusing and hopefully interesting to relive my many years managing an out island hotel in the Bahamas. That being decided, my thoughts ran amuck like stampeding mustangs and enveloped the premise of putting to paper events of my life from day one and life’s lessons learned along the way. So be it and let the chips fall where they may!

I was blessed with a caring Mother that enjoyed growing up with me through my early years. In later life I had the good fortune, through no special thought or planning, to have three talented sons… Tom an Architect from Auburn University, now residing in Birmingham, Alabama; Paul the Orthopedic Surgeon from Tulane University, now residing in Prescott, Arizona; and Chris the Real Estate Manager from the University of Florida, with a masters from South Florida and now residing near Denver, Colorado. They are all educated… married with wonderful wives…. and two lovely children each. Obviously, I am proud of them, their accomplishments and their life style. Good fortune also smiled with three wonderful step-daughters and their familes who I cherish as my own.

As you will note in the book, I have enjoyed the company of various ladies over the years but only married twice to Joan Fraser of Montego Bay and later Jean Steder of Miami. I respect both and still enjoy a friendly relationship with fond memories of life’s challenges, children, family, shared travels and adventures.

With a restless soul, the book follows my adventures from childhood to its near conclusion in the Bahamas Out Islands….

well past the Biblical allotment of ‘Three Score and Ten’. Stops along the way include a U.S. Air Force hitch during the Korean War, a Station Manager stint with Pan American World Airways in the Caribbean and Latin American, a crack at the retail business with Sears, Roebuck and Company, real estate land development in Central Florida, adventures in Costa Rica, around the world travel and of course, hotel resort management in the Southern Bahamas.

Has my life been interesting? I think so… but it’s for the readers to make up their own minds. Give it a try!

Charlie Pflueger

George Town, Exuma

Bahama Islands

The Magic City

Weather reporting in the 20’s was a little sketchy at best … no satellites to pinpoint tropical disturbances and communications primitive, particularly from the islands, so little notice was given to the approaching black thunder clouds and sprinkling rain. As the wind increased, my Grandmother, with a mother’s concern, took the children across the street to a neighbor’s house, itself little more than a wooden shack set on concrete blocks, but offering more security than a canvas tent that had provided temporary shelter to the family since their arrival from Montana. Grandfather had rejected the idea of ‘a little wind and rain’ causing any problems and refused to join the family at the neighbor’s across the street.

As the story unfolded, the infamous 1926 hurricane* roared over nearby Biscayne Bay hitting the Miami-Coconut Grove area like a battering ram with extremely high winds and blinding torrents of slashing rain. As the onslaught continued to gain strength, Grandmother crawled back across the street and dragged her husband, in his underwear, to the relative safety of the cottage, where the children were laying on the floor of a wildly shaking building. When the wind and rain finally subsided, the family loaded into the tile truck and drove to nearby Dinner Key on Biscayne Bay, eager to see the resulting storm damage to the bay front area. They were stunned by the massive devastation of buildings and score after score of sail and power boats scattered like toys all over the highway and hundreds of yards inland. Many of these battered hulks coming to rest against multi-million dollar mansions, reposing far back from the highway on higher land, as a testimony to the power of the storm’s surge.

While marveling at the destruction of natures fury, few of the sightseers paid any attention to the sudden increase of wind velocity until a hard, piercing rain began pelting the crowd, announcing the arrival of the second half of this catastrophic hurricane…..The storm’s eye had passed! With the sudden realization that there was more to come, there was a mad dash back to the truck, stinging rain peppering those that couldn’t fit in the cab, and a race back to the house before another onslaught.

With the wind at well over 100 MPH rotating from another quadrant, the rickety cottage blew off its block foundation and crashed to the ground. The frightened occupants narrowly escaped serious injury when the stump of a massive Australian Pine Tree under the house smashed through the flimsy wooden floor, knocking everyone off their feet, but effectively anchoring the building to the ground preventing a major catastrophy.

When the storm finally subsided, the family returned to their tent site to view what little was left of their canvas home. My Mother said they were astonished to see nothing but the main tent cross beam which had fallen and pinned my grandfather’s pants to his broken cot along with his intact wallet. Welcome to Miami, Briggle family!

It wasn’t long before the family found and purchased a suitably large house, solidly constructed of a local wood (Dade County pine) that resisted rot and termites, well located, and with a huge double garage Grandfather could use for his tile business. It was built in1912 and is still standing well into the 21st Century.

In 1931 the ‘Magic City’ of Miami, jewel of the Sunshine State, claimed only 175,000 sun-drenched, year-around citizens, spread out over a vast area of bays, canals, beaches, Indian villages along the Miami River, horse and dog tracks, luxury beach hotels, and wealthy winter visitors. Miami was rapidly becoming a beacon for snowbirds seeking to escape the harsh northern winters in relative warmth and glitz of south Florida.

Near Eight Street (later famous as ‘Little Havana’s ‘Calle Ocho’) I was born at Riverside Hospital on a bright, Saturday morning on May 23rd… only child of Philip Pflueger and Ethel (Doll) Mae Briggle Pflueger.

Philip Pflueger was one of the three sons of the Pfluegers’ that emigrated from Hamburg, Germany, landing on Ellis Island in 1895, settling in Elizabeth, New Jersey. An enterprising man, Grandfather Pflueger soon opened a saloon and eatery and settled down to raise their family of three children… the eldest John, middle son Philip and the youngest Al.

When the United States entered the First World War, John enlisted in the army to join the raging European inferno, suffering a service ending gassing by the Kaiser and after a hospital stay returned to civilian life. In 1919, when Phil turned 18 he joined the Navy and spent a few years serving on a battleship, where he was a boxing champion. Meanwhile, Al left the cold confines of New Jersey for sunny south Florida, finding a job with a local fish taxidermist. Learning the taxidermist trade, Al and bride Louise set up their own business on Miami Avenue near the old Sears Biscayne Boulevard store on U.S. 1 and the McArthur Causeway, the first road leading to the south Miami Beach area.

Figuring that Al had something good going, John moved to Miami and went to work in the Al Pflueger Taxidermist business. As soon as Philip’s navy hitch was up, he too beat a fast track to Miami and joined his brothers.

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Philip Pflueger with Barracuda

at Al Pflueger Taxidermist plant 1935

With Miami rapidly becoming the winter playground of North America (lets not forget the vast numbers of Canadians that ritually headed south in the winter) and the proximity of the fish filled Gulf Stream, it’s little wonder that Al Pflueger Taxidermist would soon become the largest marine taxidermist in the world, drawing business worldwide. In addition to becoming wealthy, Al became a respected expert, along with Dr. Rivera of the University of Miami, as final authorities on the classification of fish species. Upon his untimely death in 1962 from a stairway fall at his North Miami home, Al was honored by having a new species of Longbill Spearfish (Tetrapturus pfluegeri) he discovered, named after him.

While the above was playing out, my mother, her two brothers and two sisters were living in Great Falls, Montana, where their father owned and ran a tile business and a boat rental on the Missouri River. During the early 1900’s Spanish Flu and other dreaded diseases ran roughshod throughout the medically deprived rural west, wiping out entire families. My Mother and her four siblings contracted a deadly diphtheria strain, which proved to be fatal to the oldest child, 16 year old Cecelia. My Mother always maintained that eating vast amounts of fresh, raw onions helped to keep the windpipes open on the remaining children and saved their lives.

Whatever the case, the death of Cecelia proved to be the last straw in a rugged life style of the early twenties in northern Montana. Devastated, the family soon sold their assets and journeyed south to a booming Miami and to support the family, start one of the first ceramic tile installation companies in the area.

Upon arriving in the Promised Land, the first obstacle for the family of six was to find accommodations in a real estate mad south Florida. This difficulty was soon solved with the purchase of a plot of land near Coral Way and southwest 27th Avenue, where they erected two huge wall tents to provide at least temporary shelter. Life for the new arrivals seemed to be settling down with Grandfather finding ample tile jobs in an expanding economy. My Mother, now in her late teens, securied employment with Burdines Department Store in downtown Miami and the three younger children attended school. All seemed to going well when a little thing like the patter of a few drops of rain on the tent roof, was the harbinger of a major hurricane, as reported in the first few pages.

In 1929 romance blossomed and my father and mother, having met at a local dance, were married and I arrived a few years later.

In Miami the motion picture industry was all the rage in the 30’s. The Great Depression was in full swing, creating a huge demand for inexpensive entertainment and Hollywood gave it to them, cranking out hundreds of movies a year to fill the seemingly insatiable market. Many, of course, were ‘A’ pictures featuring well hyped big name studio stars (MGM publicized that their studio ‘had more stars than were in the heavens’). Others were of the ‘B’ variety, cheaper and with lesser known players, such as one of my favorites, Charlie Chan the Chinese detective from Honolulu with his sidekick ‘Number One’ son (what kid could resist the shiver of dread when the villain delivered a fatal blow gun dart to the neck of his victim form behind heavy drapes). Other ‘B’ favorites were Boston Blackie and of course, the unending stream of cowboy movies starring Charles Starrett, Lash LaRue, Buck Jones (who unfortunately, died at the height of his career in the Copacabana fire in New York in 1941), Hopalong Cassidy, Gene Autry and let’s not forget the ‘King of the Cowboys,’ Roy Rogers.

Saturday nights at Gram’s house, which was happily located four blocks from the Tower Theater, meant all Saturday afternoon at the movies. From the age of seven, Gram and I would pack a lunch and head for the theater. My Mother did not send me empty handed, but with a carefully clutched quarter which Gram and I dutifully slipped into a Piggy Bank to grow until it reached the vast sum of $18.75 for the purchase of a $25 government bond. It was a great revelation to discover ‘interest’ and if you saved money someone would pay to borrow it….Wow! The concept of compound interest and dividends would come later.

Gram and I enjoyed these many golden days in the air conditioned theater where she paid for my 15 cent ticket and threw in a big 10 cent box of popcorn to boot….We always timed our arrival to catch the noon program which usually started with a cartoon, news of the world, a Three Stooge comedy short, a Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon serial and for the kids main attraction, a ‘B’ or cowboy movie. This line-up carried us through the popcorn and into the packed sandwiches, before the first of the weekend’s adult ‘A’ film screenings came on, which of course, we felt obligated to attend. After some five hours in the theater, with the sun low in the sky, we would, on wobbly legs, stroll back to Grams with a satisfied feeling that we certainly received our money’s worth.

Later, when I was a little older and Gram’s legs couldn’t make the walk, I went by myself, and many an evening I ran like the wind back home only a few steps ahead of Count Dracula… keeping an ear to the sky for the dreaded flutter of giant bat wings or the rasping breath of a howling Werewolf with flashing and snapping fangs, dripping an innocent’s blood! I didn’t worry however, about Frankenstein….I figured I could out run him! Golden days, indeed!

Kids like to swim and we were no exception. The closest water was one of the feeder canals leading to the Miami River near the Seminole Indian tourist exhibition encampment. The canal was reasonably clean and drew a daily crowd of local lads, splashing and horsing around. One frightful day I swallowed a large gulp of water and panicked, while swimming in the middle of the canal. I let out a horrific ‘I’m drowning’ scream which the kids on the bank found to be extremely funny and gave me a big laugh while I sputtered my last breath away. By some great chance or perhaps a guardian angel, my wildly flaying hand clutched the very end of a fallen Australian Pine Tree and was able to pull my limp, shaking body to the bank. I did not mention this episode to my mother, who almost lost her only child and who would probably not be amused. I promptly gave up swimming in the canal (good call), but later learned to swim well enough to spearfish offshore and avoid drowning.

During this time my dad worked for my Uncle Al at the taxidermist plant. In the height of the depression this proved to be a very good job paying him a reported $50 a week and the use of a pick-up truck. On Sundays, when the regular employees were enjoying a day off, Dad used to collect fish for mounting at the city’s charter boat fleet headquarters at Bayfront Park’s famous Pier Five. On many of these Sunday excursions, Dad would take me with him and while he talked with the captains, tagged the fish to be mounted, and loaded the truck, I would engage in some of South Florida’s finest bottom fishing around the docks heavy pilings.

The captains were monetarily encouraged to talk the lucky (until he got the bill) fisherman into mounting that huge trophy sailfish (or whatever) to commemorate the epic battle. Six months later, the proud fisherman hung the beautifully mounted fish on the living room wall, often to the consternation of a whining spouse who reluctantly had to remove her Aunt Sophie’s Butterfly print to make room for the new addition. With married life being what it is, it usually wasn’t long before the loving spouse swam his prize off the wall and onto a shelf in the garage to await the next garage sale or trash collection.

None the less, it was a good job for Dad and a lot of Sunday fun for a kid that could throw his line in bay waters churning with a feeding frenzy of Mangrove Snapper, dining on a multitude of bits and pieces of large, freshly cleaned fish… I caught my first Bonefish at the pier on a hand line one unforgettable afternoon… proud as any fisherman… with Dad and a few charter boat captains shouting a jumble of contradictory instructions to a deaf ear.

One evening while fooling around in the back yard, it seemed like a good idea to build a bonfire and boil some water in an old coffee can. This sound thinking carried right along to catching some grasshoppers and throwing them in the boiling water for the fun of watching them jump around. Unfortunately, a mis-step dumped the boiling water on the top of my right foot, providing third degree burns and numerous doctors’ visits. Here was a lesson well learned…

that cruelty to living things might soon bite you in the backside!

After school on most afternoons we could be found playing touch football on the street in front of my house. I usually proclaimed myself as ‘captain’ by virtue of owning the ball, scruffy as it might be from bouncing off the asphalt a zillion times. The traffic was light but added an extra element of skill to follow the odd Chevrolet over the chalked goal line, through a scattering defense. When five o’clock came, no matter the score, it was time to hang it up for the day and retire to the console radio in the living room and listen to ‘I Love a Mystery’. This daily 15 minute serial adventure told the story of Jack, Doc and Reggie, solving mysteries and battling huge vampire bats in Mayan ruins in Central America! Other afternoon favorites were ‘Hop Harrigan’, some sort of a pilot, and ‘Jack Armstrong, the All American Boy’…. all good stuff for kids.

Night time, after dinner, I did my homework, still in front of the radio tuned to my favorite station, WIOD, which stood for ‘Wonderful Isle of Dreams,’ according to their announcements, whispered over backgroung music of ‘Moon Over Miami.’ I listened to the likes of Bob (whatever base he was visiting) Hope, Fibber Magee and Molly, Eddie Cantor, George Burns and Gracie Allen, and sometimes classical music, when Dad was listening, to the Firestone Hour. Radio was (and still is) a mystery to me, not to mention television which would not enter the picture (no pun here) to further boggle my mind until many years later.

The 1930s

I can’t remember much of the early 30’s … just hanging around the house learning to walk, talk and use the potty… all useful things for later in life. Mrs. Mahoney, our landlady, gave me a miniature bible, which I just had to have and remained mostly unread, even when I learned to read. One thing I will always remember was dressing up in my Buck Roger’s suit complete with a deadly ray-gun, skulking around corners of my house hoping to get a clear shot at imagined aliens. All I got, however, was when Dad would come home from work and call out in a falsetto, Yoo Hoo… Buck Rogers! accompanied by a limp wristed wave. I laugh now … but I remember how it used to send me into a rage… Yoo Hoo…Buck Rogers your ass!

In the 20’s Henry Flagler brought the Florida East Coast Railroad to Miami and on thru to Key West. To increase the availability of hotel rooms to support the railroad, he built the much hyped ‘largest wooden hotel in the world’ at Bayfront Park and the Miami River. This hotel was quite a famous attraction until one night in 1934 when it caught fire and burned to the ground. In my child’s minds-eye, even though little more than a toddler, I can still remember my father taking me downtown to see one of the greatest bonfires in Florida history… lighting up the sky for miles around.

In 1936 we moved to a house on N.W. 6th street and around 14th avenue, just in time to watch the Roddy Burdine Stadium being built…day and night…. rivet by pounding rivet….The new steel stadium replaced the old wooden bleachers where Dad took me to watch the home games of the best football team in south Florida, the Miami High Stingarees… and the worst team, the University of Miami Hurricanes (on a side note: its mascot was the Ibis, a waterfowl, selected after the 1926 hurricane. Folklore said it was the last bird to leave an area before a hurricane and the first bird to return after it was gone).

The new stadium was soon named the ‘Orange Bowl’, and was home field to the Hurricanes until 2008 when it was demolished to make room for a new baseball stadium. The Orange Bowl was also the venue for the annual New Year’s college game, before it moved to Dolphin Stadium, along with the ‘U,’ after the City of Miami failed in efforts to raise the necessary funds to refurbish this tired old lady.

In 1938 we moved a mile or so to the west into a nice 3 bedroom stucco home my Grandfather gave to my Mother, where from our front porch, I could hear the loudspeakers at the Orange Bowl. Many a night the neighborhood kids and I would walk the four blocks to the stadium, slip through a small orange grove at the east end zone and sneak in over a fence. Other nights we could wait until the half when they left the gates unmanned and enjoy the second half in seats of our choice. A great second half was not always in the cards but ‘free’ was good. One night in the stands, I learned a valuable lesson when one of the smart-ass fans put a quarter on a piece of ice cream vendors discarded dry ice and offered it to me if I would pick it up… I wanted the money, but my keen intellect decided that burned fingers was too high a price to pay… not so for my school chum, Oliver, who also wanted the quarter, and with a smirk, quickly picked up the coin and flipped it rapidly from hand to hand until it warmed to the air, at which time it disappeared into his pocket. I guess I didn’t want it as badly (nor was as calculating) as Oliver!

As the 30’s moved along, I got a little bigger and settled into a pleasant home-school life until just before Christmas 1941 when something happened that even a 10 year old kid could understand as a world altering event. The family huddled around a huge radio console to listen to President Roosevelt proclaim a state of war with the Empire of Japan! Being a budding humanitarian, the first thing I asked was does this mean I won’t get any presents for Christmas? So much for my social sensibilities. I guess my motto was to look out for ‘Number One’!

It wasn’t long before my maternal uncle, Frank, Jr. went back into the navy (his pre-war hitch was on the Battleship Arizona sunk at Pearl Harbor). He was later seriously injured in the South Pacific from a snapped, recoiling towing cable resulting in many months in the hospital, a medical discharge and a life long disability pension. My other maternal uncle, Vernon a first class tile setter, joined the SeaBees, a construction arm of the navy, building airfields across the Pacific Islands. He made it through the war unscathed, but died of a heart attack at the V.A. Hospital in Coral Gables, when he was only 54 years old.

Before television, my favorite leisure activity, after sports and listening to the radio, was reading. On Saturday mornings I would take the bus to downtown Miami and browse a few used book stores for a treasure like the Hardy Boys Detective series. There were over 30 novels in the series, full of mystery and adventure and what a thrill when I would discover an un-read title. I would savor the moment, then march up to the cashier and plunk down .50 cents like I was buying some exotic diamond. Ah! On the rare day when I found two novels (even if one of them was a Nancy Drew – Girl Detective, who, in her defense, had mind-boggling and dangerous adventures of her own) I felt like I had won the Irish Sweepstakes (no Lotto in those days). I later gave the collection to my cousin, who I hope enjoyed them as much as I did.

When I was nine, Mom sent me to summer camp in the North Carolina Mountains. I was miserably lonesome and wrote daily imploring her to come and get me. I recently found a few of the tear stained letters she kept all these years and relived the twinge of homesickness. She and my Aunt had planned to drive to Wisconsin to visit friends, picking me up on the way back, but my whining letters gave her a guilty conscience and they stopped on the way up to take me with them. By the time they arrived, I had already adjusted to camp life, making new friends and was busy fishing in the lake as they pulled up. I would have just as soon stayed another couple of weeks at camp until their return trip, but after all the moaning and groaning, I had to put on my ‘thank God, you’re here to get me’ face and headed to Wisconsin, while waving a sad farewell to my fellow campers. I learned to be careful what you wish for!

The Fabulous Forties

As 1942 got underway and we were at war, my Mother feeling her patriotic juices flow, joined the ‘McAllister Volunteers,’ a quasi-military medical support group in the Miami area. Meetings were held once a week in the park, where various simulated injuries were administered, first aid practiced and procedures polished, along with a bit of marching and passing of the colors. It was not so far fetched to prepare for an enemy attack, in light of oil smoke almost daily billowing high in the tropical sky from sinking Allied cargo ships torpedoed by the ferocious U-Boat wolfpacks that plied the nearby Gulf Stream off South Beach.

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McAllister Volunteers,

Charlie between flags, Mother far right

Attending the weekly meetings with my Mother put me in a position to volunteer as ‘cannon fodder,’ where I dripped ketchup from serious simulated head wounds and mangled limbs. I think that wearing a uniform was my main motivation, since I had little or no knowledge of first or any other kind of aid (except maybe Kool-Aid). I did, however, consider myself a first class casualty, flag bearer and un-official mascot of the troop.

This activity went well until the weather forecasters predicted a possible hurricane direct hit, trigging a call-out of the Volunteers to man various area hospital emergency rooms. Since children were not encouraged to accompany a parent trooper to the hospital, Mom took me to the Commander’s place of business, which turned out to be a funeral home. I blanched at this unhappy revelation, accompanied by the sweet scent of copious amounts of flowers (a popular ‘dearly departed’, I mused) surrounding a mahogany casket (hopefully empty), perhaps for a funeral postponed as a result of the impending storm.

When my Mother tried to seat me in a pew with a blanket and a pillow, I had had quite enough and when she turned to retreat back up the aisle, I was right behind her, wailing at the top of my lungs. As daylight broke over dark and windy skies, I was well ensconced in a comfortable bed on the hospital’s fourth floor, enjoying a delicious (ok, I know its hospital food but I was starved by that time) breakfast in bed… the darling of all the attending nurses. I decided I could handle disaster like this any time.

A Scout is trustworthy, friendly, courteous, kind, etc., or so one of my young friends told me and I thought it described me to a tee! Joining the Boy Scouts of America sounded like a splendid plan (I was at the age that I would have joined the ‘Blackshirts’), so I promptly signed up. I was assigned to the Sea Gull Patrol (disappointingly not the Tigers, Lions or even Bears… but Sea Gulls?) and a finer bunch of misfits and malcontents would be hard to find. Even now it boggles my mind, but I must admit I had the time of my young life playing ‘Capture the Flag’ every Thursday night and camping in pup tents in the bush (in areas long since urbanized).

A few of the Sea Gull denizens are still close friends well into the final chapter of life. I reflect how lucky we were to grow up in South Florida before it sprawled out of control, and marvel at how wonderful a place it was for kids to spread their wings. In those days we could camp at Haulover Beach and Sunny Isles, or sneak over to exotic Key Biscayne being developed from a coconut plantation to a park (Crandon). The war delayed, unopened causeway and bridges provided access to enable us to sample some of the finest bay fishing and shrimp netting anywhere. Sometimes it was a little dicey while carefully edging out along the wooden bridge fenders, fighting a fish, as torrents of water rushed in from the ocean to the bay… and in the dark… where a slip or mis-step would spell disaster or at least a serious swim. As an adult, I marvel at what we got away with.

While scouting occupied much of my youthful free time, going to Miami Senior High in my sophomore year proved to be the end of my ‘boy’ scouting and the beginning of ‘man’ scouting. In 1946 Miami Senior High School was thought to be one of the best schools in the south: college prep in scholastics and state champions in football and basketball. In 1947 we played the champions of Atlanta, Joe Brown High, in football at our Orange Bowl home field and won 48 to 14. We also played the champions of Pennsylvania in the annual post season Kiwanis game and nailed the coalminers 34 to 14. Many college stars emerged from the Miami ‘Stingaree’ teams, such as Army’s Arnold Tucker, Navy’s Pete Williams, University of Miami’s and Chicago Bears’ tight end Jim Dooley (later head coach) among many others. Miami Senior also produced U.S. Senators, Governors and high powered men of business and the arts, and shamefully, an assortment of swindlers, con men and world class drug runners. So….the school was good, the girls pretty and the new found social life boggling for a well groomed and mannered tenth grader who had been voted ‘Best Dressed’ in junior high school. I can’t remember what I wore that made me the best dressed, but maybe it was because the other kids dressed like slobs and I was one step up… thanks to a caring Mother, rather than a keen personal sense of sartorial splendor. I stepped up the accolades and was voted ‘Best Looking’ in my graduating class from Miami High in February 1949. It was never proven the committee vote was rigged!

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Miami Senior High intramural, Charlie #40, 1947

A neighbor and school buddy of mine, Bob Woodrich, well over 6’ tall and something like 220 pounds confided in me that he was going out for the football team (he later played for Florida State), an idea that appealed to me even at 5’ 11" and 145 pounds. So with false courage, I asked one of the assistant coaches if I could come out for the first year junior varsity or ‘B’ team. Apparently the coach was happy enough to have some additional cannon fodder and assured me that I would be most welcome. This was the introduction to the life of a third string high school would be jock, who eventually got a front tooth pushed in (no sissy mouthpieces nor face guards in those halcyon days), a vertebra knocked out of place stopping a leaping linebacker’s right foot which caused my Mother to almost faint as teammates carried me home, dragging one leg…. and the final blow in practice when another linebacker gave me a helmet shot to the upper body, dislocating my right shoulder. This injury proved to be the finish of an improbable athletic career, rendering it painfully difficult to raise my right arm to match the left when delivering a block, allowing the opponent to slip off the right side. The line coach thought I was ‘dogging’ it and lined the team up for head-on blocking and kept them coming for the better part of twenty minutes until I could only get to my knees to receive the next onslaught. I really took a beating that afternoon which prompted me to advise the coach (it might have been more prudent to advise him BEFORE the drill) that I was unable to raise my right arm to hold a block. After a second’s thought his