Buzzard Beginnings

I was born during a hurricane in Miami, Florida. Seems like my life was a hurricane for the first 14 years or so.  I can't understand how I survived but I did.

My grandparents came to America in the early 1900s through Ellis Island, New York.  GrandDad was from Syria and Grandma was from Lebanon. They almost immediately left New York and moved to, of all places, South Carolina.  There they opened a restaurant, "The BlueBird Diner" and tried to make a living but the KKK had other plans.

Because my grandparents were dark skinned and spoke very broken English, the clan decided to make life miserable.  They even burned a cross in front of the diner!   GrandDad decided to leave town and headed South...... as far as he could go.  U.S.1 turned to dirt in North Florida but he kept going. Got to Daytona Beach and settled there long enuff for my Dad to be born and graduate high school.

They heard about how things were booming in Miami so they sold everything and hit the dirt road again which took them a couple days and finally pulled into what later became known as Miami Beach.  They loved it and that's where they stayed.

My Dad got married and I came screaming into the world.  When I was 5 my folks broke up and my Mom left.  Didn't see her again for over 40 years.  And then I only had her for a short time before she passed away.
I remember her walking away the day she left.  I cried as you would expect a little boy would who was watching his mom leave him. I actually never did get to talk that whole thing though with her.  Wish I had.

When I was 14 my friend Wally from down the street approached me about going with him to a thing called Christian Youth Ranch.  I wasn't interested but he kept asking week after week until I decided to go just to get him to leave me alone.

There I found two or three hundred teenagers having a blast.  There was a meeting and a guy opened a bible and explained how I could know I had eternal life by trusting in Jesus Christ as the one who died to pay for my sins.  That night changed my life.

The Buzzard