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The last piece of land in downtown Coconut Grove is
finally being developed and will be called "Cloisters on the
Bay." It is advertised as 41 units, four level villas, three or
four bedrooms, three-to-four-and-a-half baths, living room, dining
room, kitchen with breakfast nook, study, utility room, elevator and
two-car garage; each with the modest price tag of $1.2 to $2.5
million. The most expensive, of course, being those facing the Bay.
Few of us who live here in the Grove knew we were that
close to Biscayne Bay until the big machinery came in and began
ripping out foliage. Now we have no trouble seeing the Bay. It was
there all the time. We just couldn't see it for all those pesky trees.
Now, here comes the modest proposal. I humbly suggest
that the development be called Sunhawk Acres, Sunhawk Estates, Sunhawk
Place, Sunhawk Manor, Sunhawk Villas or one of a dozen comparable
names. Any of those names have a certain ring of Groveness to them,
don't you agree?
Since Sunhawk has gone home to be with Jesus, as the
old folks used to say where I grew up, I think it's only appropriate
that we honor him in such a manner. That over-grown, pristine piece of
property, vacant and undeveloped for so many years, was his home, his
estate, his manor, and he took good care of it; basically, because
nobody else was using it. A deed, or a piece of paper stating that it
was his would have been a mere formality.
Sunhawk -- real name Bruce Proctor -- came to the
Grove from New Jersey 22 years ago. The reason he came here in the
first place is an interesting story in itself. His high school
football team played for the state championship in his senior year
(which they won). He was one of the best in his school at shooting
film; so the team gave him a video camera and asked him to video tape
the game.
"You don't have to get everything," they told him,
"just the important stuff."
So during the game he stood on the sidelines and shot
video, and a few days later the team and coaches, along with Sunhawk,
met to watch highlights of the victory. It opened, as it should have,
with footage of the packed stands, the eager faces, the proud parents,
the happy fans, and went from there. Then there were about ten minutes
of footage of the coach's wife holding hands with the science teacher
as the game was being played. There was another ten minutes of the
quarterback's girlfriend letting a guy feel her up. There was another
lengthy segment of the principal's daughter and a guy making out.
Sunhawk even lay on his back and got some marvelous footage of the
cheerleaders jumping up and down in their short skirts when the team
would score. But there was not one frame of the team on the field,
only the crowd reaction to whatever was happening.
"Hey, man, didn't you get me scoring that
touchdown?" the halfback screamed at him.
"What touchdown?" Sunhawk asked.
Needless to say, they threw him out and chased him
down the street. Shortly thereafter, when everyone in town had heard
the story -- and after the coach and science teacher had a fist fight
at the P.T.A. meeting -- Sunhawk thought he better get out of town
while the gettin' was good, so he caught the first thing smoking to
Miami.
"I guess some people just don't know what's
important and what's not," he told us, grinning.
When he first arrived here, he lived with a girl in an
apartment complex on Virginia Street. When that relationship turned
into yelling and throwing things, he lived in the bushes of City Hall.
He always had prestigious addresses. Then he moved to a city park and
lived in a tree built a platform up in the tree and had a tarp over
it to keep out the rain. But the City soon discovered this abode and
(honest to God) sent a crew out and chopped down the tree. He always
insisted that he never meant to cause the death of that tree.
Then he moved to his final address on Main Highway,
where the Cloisters units are under construction, and lived there for
nine years until his death in 1997. Everyone knew that he lived down
there. The cops knew it. The residents of the Grove knew it. Even the
city commissioners knew it.
The police would sometimes go down to talk with him
because he knew everything that went on in the Grove. He told us that
one night he was sitting in the doorway to his little snug home in the
trees smoking a joint and the cops came down to see if he had heard or
seen something or the other go down, and one of them, shining his
flashlight in Sunhawk's eyes, asked sternly, "Are you smoking
marijuana?" Sunhawk took another hit and replied through inflated
lungs, "Sure." The cops grinned at one another and left.
What did Janis say in Me and Bobby McGee?
"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose."
He attempted suicide once with a homemade pipe gun, which he heated
over a fire until the bullet fired and hit him directly between the
eyes. He was hospitalized for a period of time, but recovered and came
back to the Grove with the bullet still in his head. The doctors
thought it more dangerous to attempt to remove the slug than just
leave it where it was.
Since most of us are old curmudgeons down here in the
Grove and waste little pity on anyone, Martin Burger used to tell
Sunhawk, "If you just have to kill yourself, brother, put the gun
up to the roof of your mouth next time; that's the most effective way
to do it, the roof of the mouth. You got it now?"
Sunhawk would grin, shake his head and walk
away. Another guy, an English professor, said it another way one
day: "Sunhawk, remember what Flannery O'Connor said, 'you can't
be poorer than dead.'"
Sunhawk didn't smile, because he clearly understood
that.
A few years before his death he began his
woodcarvings. Finding weathered driftwood and discarded boards, he
began to carve figures into them horses and other animals, ships,
tropical scenes, birds, likenesses of himself anything that came
out of his mind's eye. He would sit all day at one of the sidewalk
cafes in the Grove, more often at Greenstreet's, drinking coffee and
carving out a picture on a board with a very sharp pocketknife.
About 5:30 or 6 in the afternoon he would wander down
to the Taurus with the finished product. He would always sell his
creations within a few minutes for $20 dollars. He never charged less
and he never charged more, except for larger pieces or commissions.
We told him one day, "Sunhawk, you can charge
more and get it." "No," he said, "That's all
I need."
When we had his eulogy at the Taurus, people brought in many pieces of
his work that they had bought over the years and hung them around on
the walls. It was a magnificent exhibit, to see so much of his work
displayed in one place, at one time.
Within the past year there have been two ads for his
work in Miami newspapers. 'WANTED: SUNHAWKS! TOP DOLLAR!"
It is rumored that he was cremated and his ashes
strewn on the property on Main Highway where the Cloisters is being
erected, although I can't confirm this. I only hope it's true. I know
that he would be undeniably happy there for an eternity.
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