I recently broke my vow of no national news, and watched the news. Of course it wasn’t good. There was another mass shooting; in Miami Beach during Spring Break. I saw the disturbing video of people scrambling to avoid being shot.
Back in 1966, when I was a senior in high school, a girlfriend and I went to visit my dad at his house in Fort Lauderdale for Spring Break; the spring break during the 1960s that was immortalized in teenage movies such as “Where the Boys Are,” not cell phone videos immortalizing death and destruction.
Teenagers and college students descended on Fort Lauderdale in the 1960s like locusts, with their cars, lots of beach time and lots of bikinis.
My father got my friend Coni and me a convertible Corvair to ride around in (yes, I was a spoiled daddy’s girl). My father trusted us to not get into trouble. We didn’t. Not too much. I remember there was a sea of cops everywhere, stopping teenage drivers constantly, arresting many. Coni and I were stopped seven times in one day! Thank goodness they never checked the trunk, because that’s where the booze was. When I told a friend that story, he said, “That’s where booze should be, in the trunk.” But he forgot that Coni and I were only 17 years old, not quite drinking age.
I don’t remember drinking during that trip, just having the booze was exciting enough. I do remember lots and lots of kids on the beach, in the water, singing and dancing to music being blasted from parties that spread across the Fort Lauderdale sand.
There was the famous Elbo Room, across the street from the beach, that was glorified in the teenage flick staring George Hamilton and his tan, and Connie Francis, who both were young and pretty. Everyone flocked there; including Coni and me.
I remembered another memory from the 1960s in Florida. When I was newly married, my father told my husband to take me out have dinner on his tab. Daddy was shocked (and probably ticked off) when he received the $50 bill ($508.18 in today’s purchasing power).
He gasped, “I said, go out and have a night out, not rob the bank!” How did we spend so much? We went to the famous Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach and saw the dinner show with Nipsy Russell and Connie Francis; comic and singer/actress.
I’m pretty sure I was “guided” by my husband at the time, as I would have been just as happy going to the flashy Wolfies Delicatessen in famous Miami Beach, with their amazing key lime pie and their pastrami sandwiches that were giant-sized, that my dad took me to many times when I was a kid. There were long lines then to get in and as a kid, I was fascinated and entertained by all the men in their unbuttoned shirts that showed off gold chains and hairy chests and women showing off equal amounts of cleavage and diamond necklaces. It made standing in line worth it. But Husband No. 1 wanted the glamor of the Fontainebleau.
But back to Spring Break…
Even before cell phones, Coni and I were able to find some of our classmates who also went to Florida on Spring Break. Seven boys from our high school. Crazy.
My father set Coni and I up with two brothers from Georgetown University. I believe my dad knew their father. Coni gravitated toward the serious, more studious older brother, and I liked the younger, funny guy; of course.
Nice try, Dad.
Spring Break back in the 1960s was all about fun, and boys. We were armed with bikinis, not assault weapons.
Now, it seems easier going into a shop to buy a gun, than it is to buy a bikini.
What’s a girl to do?…make law makers ban the damn assault guns that are killing our kids! Just do it!
Lucy Llewellyn Byard is currently a columnist for the Record-Bee. To contact her, email lucywgtd@gmail.com
