The Rescue Of The Door

Steven: Yep, you are there. You just need to move up to the water’s edge more. If you follow a line along other stretches of Avenida 1 A, our hotel was on the north side of it all the way to the shore line. We were so close to the beach that when the Norths (el Norte) would blow or when storms during the hurricane season were nearby, the water would swallow up all the beach and push up against the side of the restaurant. Sometimes you would have almost three feet of water up against the restaurant wall. You could fish right from the restaurant floor. Fresh red snapper anyone. Sometimes I could carefully dive into the water from the restaurant. (Again- children don’t try this at home. Remember I was a professional). You recall seeing pictures of your grandfather next to a bulldozer along calle 484. Before that, the water and sand would push up 484 and cars coming to the hotel would get stuck in the sand. That was an on going thing every weekend with people pushing cars trying to get them unstuck, sometimes making it worse. Your grandfather along with the other merchants got the local politicians to pave 484 along with Avenida 1 A. The hotels along the beach formed a natural barrier to the water but the streets leading up to them were vulnerable so walls were built accross the span of the street along the portion of the beach and that took care of the problem. When a severe hurricane blew past the town, or bets were off. Down came the sea wall as well as the restaurant floor. My worse memory of this was when hurricane Donna wrecked the shore line in 1960. Grandma Linde and I were evacuated in the middle of the night in a Marina de Guerra Jeep (Cuban Navy) to the house of a neighbor on higher ground by the foot of the mountain for fear of a tidal wave. Your father and grandfather stayed behind to protect the bar and restaurant from any possible looters. a portion of the restaurant floor caved in from the pounding of the waves. The roar of the hurricane and wind was pretty scary. Calle 484 was a river. I could see the water rushing past my bedroom. We were carried to the Jeep. You may recall our family talking about your father’s “heroics” when he threw himself into the water to retrieve of all things a big door that the wind had ripped from the restaurant. I think we had insurance for acts of God, but who knew. ” THE DOOR MUST BE RESCUED” he was well known in the town for his olympic quality swim strokes ( he was actually very good), regardless, the door rescue became part of his legacy. Ask people there when you go if they still remember the ” Rescue Of The Door” (upper case intentional…Anyway, this is my long winded way of describing our ocean front property. Love, Uncle José. PS. Your father already gave me a piece of the Berlin Wall from his trip there years ago, but I’ll take sand, water, rocks or Hotel debris from the hotel’s footprint though.