Orange Bowl Mob
As some of you may recall, I was bound and determined to go watch my beloved Tar Heels play in the Orange Bowl against Texas A&M on this past Saturday January 2nd.
And I sure did. It was a quick trip but we filled it up but good!
Thanks to the fine organizational skills of my very adept oldest child, the amazing C.C., when it was announced that the Heels were ‘in’, at my urging (actually begging), flight reservations, hotel and game tickets plus restaurant reservations were quickly lined up. As we were flying on January 1, no New Year’s Eve revelry for us. I used to be able to pull off heavy duty all-nighters but those days disappeared a long time ago. I once was a ‘professional’ but am now an admitted and avowed ‘amateur’ and damn glad for it!
This past Friday at 5 am, I picked C.C. and her hubby Elliott up and we rolled to the Charleston airport for a 7 a.m. flight. The airport was surprisingly busy, had the feel of early morning holiday ‘bustle' to it. It makes me think that in spite of awful Covid, the country is waking up from its confinement in a lot of ways. Everyone wore their masks and socially distanced properly and their was good humor all around. Airports of course are wonderful places to ‘people watch’ and we did a lot of that over the brief weekend. I always like to play a game that I learned a long time ago that goes like this: Who is that person, Why are they here, Where are they going, What do they do, Why are they wearing that…and so forth. By the way, It’s an excellent exercise in ‘Character Development’ for writers. You can create characters out of thin air and it’s fun.
Flight was an hour and a half, direct, no stopovers and smoothed into Miami at 8:30. Interesting that there were very few taxi cabs around all weekend. I theorize that showing up early on New Year’s Day and finding a dearth of official yellow cabs was the direct result of the cabbies sleeping in after spending much of the night shuttling the partiers and stragglers and staggerers hither and yon. We were lucky and got a nice gypsy cab and funny driver who zipped us to our hotel, The Marseille, on Collins Avenue right on the beach. And for almost all of our time, Uber was our good and prompt friend.
Check-in was 3 p.m. and we arrived at 9:15 a.m.but we were Boy Scout prepared. Bathing suits and T-shirts in our carry-ons and we were poolside by 9:45. Weather was gloriously fine. The beach’s glistening white sand and crystal blue water was a fine draw for a good stroll along the promenade. And we had a few drinks and then wandered down the street a few blocks to the Ritz for lunch. Almost all the people we encountered were nice and fun and polite but like weeds in a beautiful garden, there were a few instances of ridiculous impatient and rude behavior and a few where too much alcohol was clearly throwing gasoline in the fire. These are fascinating to watch and decipher.
When we got back to the hotel, we got checked in easily and efficiently but it was obvious that housekeeping was running behind on some floors. There was this one fellow who had pacing ants in his pants and started grumping and then demanding and then yelling at the desk clerk (who remained implacable and poker faced), exclaiming that they had been there since 9:30 and they wanted their rooms now and you can just imagine what all, to invoke a little Andy Griffith. His two teenage children looked at him with disgust and disdain and his very pretty wife took his arm and told him sharply, “I cannot believe what an ass you are. Go sit down and be quiet!” He mumbled something obscenely unintelligible and skulked over to lobby chair in the corner. His wife and children went out the door and over their shoulders noted they’d be back in an hour. Ouch! Family fun-Not!
(Later that afternoon when the lobby was empty and quiet, I wandered over to the nice desk clerk on my way to the elevators and asked with a wink, “What room is that big ugly in, the fellow who was so impatiently rude to you?”
“Oh sir, Mr. Glenn is it? That I cannot tell you. I’m sure you understand.”
“I understand but may I ask one question?”
"Of course but I may not be able to answer it."
“Well, is he on my floor?”
He studied his computer screen for a moment, looked up and smiled at me.
“No Mr. Glenn he is not."
We went that night for delicious steaks at a place I’d been in a number of times over the years, Prime 112. (Saw the producer of Star Wars, George Lucas and his family in there next to us many years ago. He and his wife seemed very nice. His two teenage children were straight out of central casting for the role of spoiled rotten entitled ill-mannered jerks. Are y’all seeing a pattern here?)
Prime 112 did not disappoint. We had a great server, a real pro named David originally from Connecticut who’s been there for many years, a big guy with the ability to juggle it all and get it right. He was a good guy, impressive with his knowledge and acumen, never pushy. He was one of those people in big-time food and beverage who have that way of being invisible but yet, always present. He guided us nicely and patiently and the beef and the wine were indeed fine. Home for a nightcap at the big outdoor bar between the pool and beach, all the foliage and trees gloriously backlit. The were lots of folks from all over the world, from Central and South America, France and Eastern Europeans too but again social distancing and masks were the order of the day. An enormous and beautiful iguana, every shade of green you can imagine, sat on the fence in front of us and bade us good night.
And now it’s Saturday, Game Day! But first an early lunch at the famous Joe’s Stone Crab House. So much fun. Delicious stone crabs and a little champagne. The place has legions of nice staff. As we had our Carolina Blue gear on, they at one point serenaded us with ‘I’m a Tar Heel Born’…even the Aggie fans in attendance laughed and clapped. Then back to the pool and then down to the Clevelander and the ESPN South Beach Sports Bar to watch the Heels play basketball against Georgia Tech at 5. Social Distancing and masks were not in order there and we started to just keep moving but we were directed to a nice table out in the street (they have closed Ocean Boulevard to vehicular traffic so the bars and restaurants can try to salvage some sales with extra spacing) and a consistent breeze blowing helped the atmospheric.
Grabbed an Uber out to Hard Rock Stadium, the Orange Bowl and home of the Miami Hurricanes and Dolphins and too this year’s College Football Championship between Ohio State and Alabama. Place was amazing, handsome gorgeous, huge but very tight and comfortable, almost intimate. I had splurged (can’t y’all tell…). We had real good seats up behind the Heels sideline and all the good food and drink we could handle, included in the price of the tickets. The game was exciting and back and forth until A&M pulled away late. We almost had them but they just a tad better than us right now. (Hint: Don’t sleep on the Heels next season. More superb talent coming in. It does appear the perennial sleeping giant has awakened and is beginning to stand up…). Texas A&M fans were good folks.
Now, it gets interesting. After game outside stadium, pretty much a Club Fubar. No cabs, lots of folks who had had too much to drink vying for Ubers and rides. Lots of confusion, no order, one or two gals passed out in the bushes.
A guy and a girl, both loaded, who obviously were not together, tried to get in each side of the backseat of a random cab. A screaming match ensues-“It’s mine! No, it’s mine!" and the guy pushes the girl out the door and locks it. She doesn’t hit the ground but her language was nuclear. We couldn’t help but laugh.
All of a sudden, a big black Chevy Suburban pulls up right beside me. I laid my hands on its as though I were christening it. The passenger window was open and I said “Good evening Sir. May I please hire you to take my small group back to South Beach? I will gladly pay whatever your fare is.We will be well behaved, I promise.” He replied, “My name is Thomas. I would be happy to carry you back." I announced then in my firmest, steadiest, most forceful foghorn lawyer of a voice that it was mine. A drunk came up and yelled, “I want it. I’ve got X dollars. I replied loud enough for those nearby to hear, “Not a good idea to mess with a grumpy old guy who is in a bad mood with an attitude who used to box. I’ve got a lot more than X in my walletso so maybe you want to go find an ATM .” He, of course, cussed me good but we just grinned and hopped in. Thomas observed that he appreciated nice manners and that he would not have ever taken the yelling drunk. Thomas was impeccably dressed in a suit and tie, had come to Miami from Cuba some years ago, spoke perfect English and told us that he loved the United States and was working hard to become a U.S. citizen. We loved him. We got home at 2 a.m.
My flight back to Charleston was at 5 so another Uber to the airport at 3 p.m. C.C. and Elliott picked up a rental car and headed for Key West. Before we all slept late, ate cheeseburgers by the pool, had a touch of the hair of the dog that bit us-and it was a good sized dog- and wallowed in the cool water as we thrilled over our teams’s growth and fight and laughed abut the zoo after the game. Flight back was smooth as silk and the sunset from 35,000 feet was spectacular. Got the car out of parking, paid the ticket and rolled home quietly in the dark, humming ‘I’m a Tar Heel Born’…
A memorable weekend, a memory that will always last. And remember, good manners and good humor count. But I bet you already knew that. May 2021 be good to all and surely much better than the dumpster fire of 2020!