Grifter
Once a month, we would clamber into the family car and drive into Dade to visit our grandmother. She lived in a condo on Miami Beach, nestled close to what would eventually become (nowadays) ground zero for celebrities and wannabe celebrities in South Florida- South Beach. But in 1980, it was as far from trendy as you could imagine. A place of dilapidated art deco apartment buildings filled with the elderly and those new to the States, slowly dying antique shops, bodegas, and the occasional tourist trap filled with everything you could stick a shell to. It was the opposite of the 80s suburban landscape of one story single family homes my parents had bought into in Broward. It was an adventure. These trips were relegated to once a month, on a weekend , because we lived in Broward and my dad was a very busy man™ . Each visit would follow a pattern. Drive down in the morning when the highway was less crowded and parking was guaranteed. Climb the stairs to her apartment, and