Family Vacation on the beach

I remember, when I was a kid, probably about four or five, our family went on vacation to Miami Beach. This was back in the early '60, so of course, Miami Beach wasn't nearly as developed as it is today. Back then there were sand dunes and coconut palm trees as far as the eye could see; well, as far as my eye could see, anyway.

As soon as my family's car pulled into the parking lot, of Miami Beach, and came to a stop, I jumped out and ran towards the ocean. And mom yelled at me not to go in the water, I said OK I would not go in the water. Oh, it was such a gorgeous day, not a cloud in the sky. The sand was hot on my bare feet; Oh, it felt wonderful to get to the cool sand of the shoreline. I stood there in awe of the beautiful sight before me.

There were a few boats on the horizon. A few of them were sailboats, oh I loved sailboats. The sails were filled with the wind, and the sailboats were moving quickly through the water. And I pretended they were pirates chasing some rich people to rob and murder them. I also saw some dolphins playing.

Then, Daddy Ran over, to me and asked me if I could see the boat on the beach, in the distance. ( while mom and my brother pulled the tent and tent stakes out of the bag) I said, "no but that maybe because I was only one story tall; and you have a lot more stories than I do." ( I was kidding, at the time but I didn't realize how full of stories he was, some, well most of them, were fiction.) So I asked him if he could give me an elevator ride to the top floor, so I could see the boat too. He said he could. So up I went to his shoulders. And I saw it. It looked like a sailboat, but I couldn't be sure at this distance.

I remember we had a good fish lunch ( my brother and I caught the fish, mom cleaned the fish and dad cooked them), later, after lunch, Mom, Dad, my brother and I were sitting around the campfire talking about the mysterious boat. I said the only thing that made any sense; I said it was probably pirates burying their treasure. My brother said, it probably was Nazis looking for the artworks they stole from the Louver museum in France and, buried. Mom said they are probably refugees from Cuba; but dad said it was more likely that they were people, like us, visiting the beach. Maybe they are going to camp on the beach overnight like we're going to do.

After lunch, my brother and I asked dad if we could go and talk to the people on the boat, maybe they have kids our age. Mom said no because the whole idea of this vacation was to have some family time together. But dad thought it was a great idea. So mom said that my brother and I should go play on the beach while she and dad discussed it further. Mom said we must stay where they could see us; we said agreed. But we lied. When mom and dad became involved in their conversation, my brother and I ran down the beach towards the boat.

As we came within several yards of the boat, we could see clearly that two men were sitting on the deck having a conversation. One appeared to be short and fat, and the other one looked to be skinny and tall. The short fat man saw us and began waving and yelling something. But we were too far away and could not hear what he was saying. So, both men jumped from the boat, onto the beach and began running toward us.

The fat short one grabbed me pulled down my bathing suit and kissed me on the lips. And the tall skinny one grabbed my brother pulled his bathing suit down and kissed him on the lips. I punched the fat short one as hard as I could in the chest, and he quickly dropped me ( I think that it was from the shock of being punched by a five-year-old as opposed to being hurt.)

On my way to the ground, I pulled down, the bathing suit of the fat guy bellow his knees and, I ran up the beach toward our camp yelling for dad. When the fat guy tried to run, he tripped over his bathing suit. I noticed a coconut laying a few feet away from his head. I picked up the coconut and pounded his head as hard as I could, with the coconut, over and over. By this time he was yelling for help. By the time mom and dad got there, the coconut was split in half-blood was splattered, on the beach and on me and the fat man was dead.

Then we heard my brother yelling for help. Mom went running back to call the police, ( on a payphone, there weren't any cell phones yet.) I found another coconut and started running for the boat dad yelled to me to stay on the ground, I ignored him and jumped on board the boat with the coconut in hand. Breaking down the door, I headed straight for the tall guy that had my brother pinned against the wall. I jumped on the tall guys back and started beating the back of his head with the coconut. Blood flew in every direction.

Amazingly, by the time the police arrived the tall guy was still alive but bleeding very heavy from the head; two officers responded to mom's call, it took dad and one of the police officers to pry me off the guy and the other police officer to restrain the tall guy. Then the ambulance came and took him to the hospital.