If you lived in Coconut Grove forty years ago you knew a lot of nutso people. They were the legendary characters drawn to our beloved, bohemian, seaside community.
Rents were cheap and anything went. If you wore dress in public that matched your red beard it wasn't a problem. If you wanted to start a wacky parade? Easy, you just asked everyone on the sidewalk to march in the street (that's basically how we started the King Mango Strut back in '82).
My Palmetto Avenue neighbor, Bryn Ingram, was reminiscing about her parent's colorful friends on Facebook this week. Most of them had nicknames. In her post she mentioned several, like "Surfer John", "Joe Bike", and "Bikini Mary".
Bryn asked her Facebook friends if they recalled others. Then the avalanche began. Two days later there were over 400 responses recalling the long-gone characters that made the Grove so special.
It helps to be a little (or a lotta) crazy to get a nickname. Surfer John told me he got his as he was the only Marine stationed on the California coast who kept a surfboard next to his rifle. We could spend hours just telling "Surfer stories". John Snizek was a chainsaw wizard, a pit bull in the flesh, and the first to march as Fidel in the 2000 King Mango Strut. Surfer charmed the crowd that afternoon with a cigar in one hand and Elian in the other.
Liz, QUEEN OF HEARTS, a true Grove Character and a painted rock artist
Joe Bike owned the Grove's bicycle shop in the 70's and organized the legendary Grove bike races. Like many today, he wanted all of us on two wheels.
Shena Gina (married for years to Magic Mike at the top), always a Strut favorite.
"Jellyfish" (Allan Aunapu) got his moniker as he said "I have no spine and I go with the flow" (his life ended tragically last January when his electric trike went against the flow of traffic. His recent obituary is the second article folowing).
Jelly once crawled the entire route of the King Mango parade pretending to be a dog. Along the way he peed on hundreds of people. Who do you know who might do such a thing? We had them in the Grove!
"Softball", Terry Ferrer got this shiner when he caught a ball with his right eye.
"Drano" (Dwayne Sawatsky) never told me how he got his name. He was the above mentioned parade's mango queen for many years. He would wear crooked lipstick and an old prom dress. I'm guessing his reputation for being normal went down the drain long before that. He was a good friend, always smiling with a beer in his hand.
Nicknames often described these Grove-ites but they also helped us tell them apart. There were, for instance, three Victors..."Chinese Victor", "Bicycle Victor" (he had a mobile bike service) and, of course, Victor the Rat Man. Victor Beckman was fast. He was proud that he could catch rodents bare-handed. Rat Man also trudged the dark waters of the Everglades naked -probing the mud below with his toes- in search of fossilized bones and artifacts. Before I landed in the Grove, I never heard stories like his.
I knew three Bills, their names preceded by "Sky", "Sailor", and "Strawberry". Same with the Johns which, in my address book, started with "Shrimper John".
Sky Bill at my toga party, 1977
Most of the nicknamed were guys because they are crazier than women. There's a good reason why 90% of the people in prison are men.
If you hung out at the Taurus Bar you knew most of these people. "Beamer" (Butch Warren) was the head bartender, "Nausau" shined shoes and if you looked around you might see Angel, Rocky Raccoon, Jungle Jeff, Space Voodoo, Bikini Mary, Mr. Halloween, Billy Bird, Donna Do You Wanna, Low Beam, Mildew, Cave Dog, Peter Rabbit, Martinburger, or Colonel Badpenny.
I met Sunhawk there. The quiet, unassuming man lived in a tree and sold carved driftwood for beer money. Now you can only live in a Coconut Grove tree if you're a peacock.
Many of the Grove's wild men had no nicknames. Bob Ingram (Bryn's father) could have been "Crazy Bobby", Wayne Brehm "Wayne Insane", or Bobby Deresz, "Out-of-Control" (OOC is one of the few still kickin'. He is outspoken as ever but sadly, does not "borrow" police horses anymore). 
Above, the two Bobbys
We could have referred to Dick Fetterman as "Outer Limits". When I picked him up hitch-hiking in the mid-70's, he was dressed like a Viet Cong wearing black pajamas and a coolie hat. He lived on a sailboat that he accessed by swimming a half-mile out to it. His goal, he told me, was giving up food and water so he could subsist on air and sunshine alone.
How wonderful that the Grove community welcomed these colorful characters. The Old Grove is gone. If there is a place for the nicknamed now I'm not aware of it.
Thanks, Bryn, for "lettin' the dogs out". What a pleasure it is to have your dad's stories, Surfer's laugh, and visions of Sunhawk dancing in my head once again.
Yours truly,
Glenn "The Grove Guy" Terry
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PS: I never had a Grove nickname, "Grove Guy" was the title of my Miami Herald column, 2005-20010
Bryn and her lovely mother, Gay
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