Stingaree Days

By: Bill Bennett Class of 1953

I went to Miami High in the early 50s. Huh?? Even a hack knows that the first sentence or “hook” is the most important sentence in a manuscript, designed to grab the readers, forcing them to clutch the document so tight that their hands pale and drives them to read furiously until the very last word is indelibly imprinted on their retina. “I went to Miami High in the early 50s.” That’s the best you can do??? My only answer is... you would just have to have been there to understand. It was something special. There is no greater hook.

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In 1950 there were just five public high schools in Greater Miami: Miami High, Edison, Jackson, Miami Beach and Tech High (Gables was just starting with a 10th grade class). Ninety-five percent of the kids unable to attend MHS wanted to go there (Stings are allowed some embellishment in their stories, as they will always be very close to the truth). It was the school to go to. If you had an ounce of athletic ability, you dreamed of donning the navy blue and old gold and juking under the lights at the Orange Bowl (in my sophomore year, I lived in Miami Beach and took three buses to Miami High to play B-squad football). Miami High had NEVER lost a football game in the city.

The high school’s present building, completed in 1928, was constructed in the Spanish Mediterranean style with Moorish and Byzantine details. The entire block (Columbia Park) in front of the school featured well-manicured lush-green grass and palm trees. MHS is on the National Register and architecturally no other school compared with it (Gables looked like a glorified chicken coop, Tech a big white condemned apartment building and the rest weren’t much better).

No tenth graders dressed for varsity football and the first game was with the Miami Beach Typhoons. I went with Ramona Martin (my first date in high school). The game ended in a 7-7 tie. Unfortunately, this was a precursor of things to come. Our class (1953) gained notoriety losing as juniors to Miami Jackson for the first loss ever in the city and then as seniors to Thanksgiving-night rival Miami Edison.

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Football games were followed by dances in Miami High’s East Patio. We were in the Easy Listening era crunched in between Big Band and Rock and Roll with a little jitterbug grafted in from the Big Bands.

The afternoon hangout was, of course, “Shirley’s,” a soda shop around the corner from the school, featuring hamburgers, fries, shakes and a lot of Sting fellowship and memories. Though an eatery, I was often broke and most of the time just…. hung out.

South Beach and Crandon Park were our beach haunts. Lonely? Try outside Burdines at 10 a.m. on Saturdays and you’ll probably bump into some Stings.

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During the 10th grade, I pledged Gremlins, an illegal high-school fraternity. The legendary Miss Chloe Mersen busted me when selling raffle tickets in study hall (the rumors were true; she really did have eyes in the back of her head). Then followed a trip to the principal’s office and a private téte-a-téte with larger than life, W. R. Thomas, soon to be Dade County Superintendent of Schools. Nobody bought into my story that I was an undercover cop. Truth be told, the one-two punch of Mersen and Thomas was a little foreboding and I was one scared young Sting. I don’t remember a word I said.

Pledges, called Widgets, were at the beckon call of the Gremlin brothers whose personalities ran the gamut from nice guys to sadistic. The last week of pledging was H--– Week capped off by the Bare Mile. After midnight, we climbed the fence outside the University of Miami track and proceeded to run a mile on the cinder track with the brothers whacking us with belts and sticks as we passed by them. The vignettes are G rated and one must rely upon imagination and knowledge of the title of the mile to figure out what we were wearing.

In the 10th grade, one is immature and will go to great lengths to “belong,” including enduring the varied mental and physical abuses of the Gremlin brothers. Knowing what I know now, of course, I would…. I would… (sigh)… probably do it again.

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Al Wright headed the band and orchestra. He and Miami High’s Million Dollar Band were well respected and performed in many venues in and outside the Miami area. Unfortunately, we lost Mr. Wright in 1954 when he moved on to a very successful 27-year career at Purdue University.

There were clubs for any and all interests. The top two boy’s service clubs being Key and Wheel and Little Women and Honoria for the ladies. I resided with the Wheels where the majority of the jocks gravitated.

Two students started their own pretty good bands and with the number of clubs and special events, dances were frequent enough to own, rather than rent, a white dinner jacket. The highlight of my senior year was the Junior-Senior Prom at the storied Roney Plaza Hotel on Miami Beach.

The Stingaree Jamboree was the annual variety show. I’m sure Stings have their individual favorites but the Taylor twins and their tap-dance routine have my vote.

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We might end dates at the Big Wheel or, if in the money, at Sorrento’s.

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My first car rumbled in my senior year, a sixteen-year old black ’36 Ford coupe replete with missing driver’s window glass and a hole in the muffler generating sound waves that rattled buildings in Broward County. When it rained…I got wet.

In 1952, McArthur Causeway had a sharp S-turn (later straightened). The first day driving from the mainland to Miami Beach was an adventure. When I hit the S-turn the driver’s door flew open. Being cool I was driving with my left arm out the window. I found myself hanging on the open door and looking down at the rapidly moving pavement, and, of course, in those days without a seatbelt. It happened too fast to be scared and I managed to get myself back in the car without splashing into Government Cut.

The car’s door latch was defective and I had to wire the door shut. To get in the driver’s seat, I climbed in the window like a stock-car racer. When double dating, my “backseat” created a small problem. Instead of the standard backseat where one would sit next to his date, there were two “jump seats.” Jump seats functioned like folding chairs, the back attached to the inside of the car, one on the left, the other on the right and facing each other. Our adventurous double-daters, when seated, stared in each other’s face the whole time in the car and, if the guy (or gal) was a tad oversized, their knees knocked together.

After paying the 90 bucks for the car, I had no money left to facilitate any of the needed repairs. I’m surprised it didn’t fall apart flying over Thrill Hill in Coconut Grove. The Ford did last most of my senor year, ending life later with distinction as a stock car at Hialeah Speedway. In spite of all the perceived “deficiencies,” it was my first car. I loved it and it is still my all-time favorite.

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It is with profound and unbounded humility I tell you that I was the uncontested costar of Dear Ruth, the senior class play; no small feat since I had the smallest role and had all my dialogue cut out of the final production. The part called for me to kiss Bunny Lundy. The smooch was to be short ending with somebody’s line. That same “somebody” dropped their line, so Bunny and I just kept on kissing and kissing and kissing some more followed by loud whistles and hootin’ and hollering from the audience. Borrowing a Broadway cliché, during our curtain call, Bunny and I brought down the house. I don’t know how long the kiss lasted but drama teacher, Beverly Poe, I suspect not very lovingly, wrote in my yearbook, “I’ll never forget those five minutes.”

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The class of ’53 was the first class to graduate at the newly constructed Dade County Auditorium.

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For the most part, we were a naive and God-fearing generation and for that I am grateful. A big make-out evening was kissing your girlfriend good night three times. If we bicycled to her house during the week, it was usually to pull up the throw rugs, put on a 78 and dance our hearts away. Drugs? With very few exceptions, the only Stings on Santa’s naughty list were the few that crossed the street to Columbia Park to smoke a cigarette. Morning devotions were well attended and we had no problem pledging allegiance to the flag and recognizing our nation as under God.

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I entered Miami High with a little trepidation and a great deal of expectation. I never juked on the Orange Bowl turf but the school was everything I imagined and much more. Even now there are MHS alumni luncheons across the country. Sixty plus years later, if I meet a Sting alumnus, there is an immediate camaraderie. And more than 60 years later, there is still something electric with the simple statement..

“I went to Miami High in the early 50s.”