CHAPTER 1
If you really want to know, I was never very interested in studying in school, and as hard as I tried, I could only think about hot chicks, the beach, and surfing.
The year was 1964 and where we grew up in Miami Beach everybody was into surfing, fast cars, boats, and of course, hot babes. As a matter of fact I used to go to Miami Beach Sr. High each morning with my friend, Dudley Krantz in his sleek, powder-blue $100,000 Donzi speedboat with a powerful 327 cubic inch Corvette, V-8 engine.
Usually it was at the front entrance of the school where all those nice, rich, Jewish girls would meet us regularly each morning at the quay flapping their luring long eyelashes.
I was a junior in tenth grade then, and oh man, those older senior girls were real sexy with their teased up beehive hair-dos. Some of their hair you could probably hide a rat’s nest in. Those girls also had on buckets of eye make-up, and most wore starched, wide-flared hooped dresses. Actually, to my wary eyes, they looked more like sexed up, blood-sucking vampires than teenage schoolgirls!
Yeah, we were a bit spoiled all right, at least Dudley was because his father was CEO at Chris-Craft Miami and they had a house to kill for. The place was located in the exclusive, palm-paved drives of Biscayne Point. Dudley’s dad did everything to please him, even bought him a completely restored vintage, black 1957 Thunderbird hard-top that we all cruised the beach in for kicks. The engine purred because the 1957 Ford Thunderbird wasn’t just any car, it was a single-model, two-seater convertible “Baby Bird” with a removable hardtop. It was the final first-generation model, featuring a larger grille, bigger tailfins, and a longer rear deck to accommodate the spare tire. It was also famous for its powerful V8 engine options, including the rare 300 horse power supercharged “F-Bird”.
Yeah, Dudley was rich, but for other kids these were hard, lean, mean times for most of us in Miami. This was of course, well before the time when South Beach became cool and Versace and all the big money moved in.
Back in the 1960s, there were still lots of small older, rundown decaying motels nestled in, incredibly dwarfed between the stellar sky-rise hotels like the Fontainebleau, Singapore and the Deauville.
CHAPTER 2
The Fontainebleau Hotel on Collins Avenue was Frank Sinatra’s favorite haunt, and we always tried to sneak in to get a peek of him when he came to town. He was the essence of cool and confidence. You could also always count on seeing him screaming and bullying people, pushing them round with his huge goon-platoon of bodyguards backing him up. No, you didn’t mess with good ole Frank!
I swore to Dudley that one day I’d get in close enough to meet him personally, faccia a faccia, and maybe even get his autograph.
Miami in the 60s was cloud nine to us kids, but it had sort of become one big elephant’s burial ground, mostly from all the old Jews coming down from New York and New Jersey intent on spending their last dying days enjoying a little Canasta, Bridge, shuffleboard and sunshine.
The old folks were pleasant and kept to themselves for the most part, doling out advice to anyone who’d listen. They didn’t really bother anybody, and when you drove along Collins Avenue you could see them everywhere hanging out, sitting on the street benches or on small motel patios with their aged, freckled skin hanging down their faces, and bodies drooping and decaying like melting cheese blintzes!
The music in those days was great for the young, with the old sounds of Buddy Holly and Elvis were finally giving way to the “British Invasion” taking place. Now they were starting to play new stuff on the radio by scruffy English bands like The Beatles, The Kinks, and the Rolling Stones.
I think a couple of my favorites songs were “Satisfaction” by the Stones and “Yesterday” by Paul McCartney. Then of course there was The Beach Boys- “Let’s Go Surfing,” which was the rallying cry for most of the surfer crowd we hung out with.
My Mom was in her 40s managing a nice little 60 unit motel with my dumb dorky stepfather, Jake Gödel. And yes, he was as Jewish as you can get. They were running the small Rodney Apartments right on Collins Avenue, next to the stylish, 400 room Singapore Hotel.
That year, my mother had bought a brand new fire-engine red 1964 Mustang convertible with white top and 289 cubic inch V-8 engine. Since I had a driving license at 16, she would let me use it now and then to do errands around town, and when I was driving up and down Collins with the sun and wind blowing through my bleached blonde hair, I felt like the King of Miami Beach. With the white vinyl top down, glancing up at the rows of towering hotels and palm trees that lined the long sea view avenue, I felt on top of the world.
Yes, and I was only sixteen, but unfortunately, good old Jake didn’t feel the same about me driving my mom’s car cruising around, and many nasty battles ensued over it. It even came to outright fisticuffs and wrestling at times.
One time he actually chased me down the middle of the street with a brick and threw it at me after I busted him good one time right in the nose and blood went spattering over his repulsive face!
CHAPTER 3
Now, I wasn’t just any sort of young over-tanned ninety-eight pound weakling hanging out on the beach, I was Gary Van Hollywood, a fine Christian-raised Jew, with a Jewish father and Christian mother. It was said by many who knew me that I was a smart kid with considerable awareness and notable charm.
I guess that’s because some years earlier, my mom had sent me to Miami Beach Military Academy at the tender age of 10 years old, to supposedly learn a little about soldiering and discipline. Why the heck I needed to know about being a soldier was beyond me, but believe me, “discipline” was the key word there, and it turned out to be a total nightmare in that horrible gray military institution. All I remember is, it was like straight out of the William Golding’s book “The Lord of the Flies” in that place, where the kids and teachers were mean to each other all the time and brutal as hell.
For example: They used to wake us young cadets up at 5:30 AM sharp, every morning to the jarring sounds of reveille bugle call, TAT, TA, TAT, TA, TAH! – and then all of a sudden a bunch of older cadet officers would charge into our barracks like a typhoon and start tearing the sheets off our beds, dragging us up by our arms or feet to get us standing to attention for roll call. Then they would literally kick our asses out of the barracks and onto the marching field for sunrise assembly.
As I recall, all we did in that damn military school was march, march, march, go to chow hall, and march again and again. I mean it was insane in that awful place; go to sleep and march over and over day and night. And if any of us didn’t want to do it or broke the rules or regulations of the academy in any way, the older cadets would come out of the woodwork and start slapping us around. These bastards would begin kicking us then whipping us with wire coat hangars. I kid you not!
Then there were the adult military teachers and instructors; most were rejects from civilian life that obviously couldn’t get a real job anymore. Some were washouts from the military forces and drummed out, so they had an enormous ax to grind. If you stepped out of line with these guys it was a big mistake because the first thing they did was take a belt or paddle to your ass. I think they call it “child abuse” today, but back in the late 50s and 60s kids didn’t have any personal rights. Don’t ask me how they got away with it, but try a wire hanger on your back or a paddle on your butt sometime and see how nice it feels!
One morning in my barracks, I simply refused to get out of bed after reveille and they ended up dragging me out by my ankles. I was screaming and yelling so loud the whole base could hear me. Then my older brother, Guy, suddenly appeared towering over me. He looked down at me extremely annoyed, “God damn it, Gary!” he shouted, “you’re embarrassing me again. Get your fucking wussy ass up and get in formation!” He made a fist and I knew he wasn’t kidding. With that as a threat hanging over me, I quickly got to my feet, and joined my squadron without further incident.
