Over the years I made many friends there. First there was Scott, the manager's son who my mom said was always getting me into trouble. Like the time we cajoled each other into jumping into the pool from the second story balcony. We were both punished: pool privileges revoked. Or the time I was tumbled by a wave and lost my shorts only to find Scott waving them like a flag from shore. There was also the Orthodox Jewish kid whose name I could never pronounce. He had the whitest skin I've ever seen, after ten minutes in the sun he'd start turning apple red. I felt sorry for him because he always had to be covered up.

Then there were the Santabella sisters, Lourdes, Silvia and Elena, tres Cubanitas from DC. Elena was the oldest of the three and while I had a crush on Silvia, Elena was the first girl I ever really kissed. She grabbed my hand one year right before they left, "Come on, there's something I want to show you," and led me to the alley between the Hilyard and the motel next door. Oh-oh. The butterflies in my stomach turned into pterodactyls. I guess she could tell I was nervous because she smiled and placed my hands on her hips and gently covered them with hers. I knew right then that she was going to kiss me. So I puckered up, expecting a peck on the lips, but the next thing I know, BAM, her tongue was in my mouth. Wow. Just like that. I wonder if she knows she opened up new worlds for me. I still see her smiling suntanned face and dancing blonde hair every time I smell Flex conditioner. I had a lot of Hilyard summer girlfriends after that.

Every summer it seemed as if my family had grown. I was always being told "Come meet so-and-so from here or there. And this is her son, so-and-so Jr.. You two are cousins." There were always new family members to greet. It got to the point where we had twelve rooms rented one year. It was hard to keep track of who was staying where and whether or not they were actually part of the family.

On the second Sunday of our three week stay that year, my aunts took advantage of having the entire family together and threw a huge party. We celebrated two wedding anniversaries, four birthdays, one graduation and one pregnancy. It felt as if the place was ours because everyone staying in the motel came, family or not. Even the Norwegians from across the pool were dancing salsa. I've never felt so overwhelmed and loved and sure of who I am and where I come from as I did that day. The second Sunday party became tradition after that.

The older I got the more I began to appreciate the quieter side of the Hilyard. Like reading the paper and drinking cafe with my grandfather, and after he died doing his crossword under the early morning sun, esperando la digestion. I sat around in the shade with my aunts and uncles listening to stories of their youth in Cuba, the simplicity of their lives. La belleza y la nostalgia. We made fun of my aunts during "the hour of pots and pans," that time of day when they carried pots and pans filled with food from room to room, back and forth, taking stuff they'd cooked and bringing back a different pot full of something else. There were the Canasta nights, partnered with my cousin Alex against my sister the Canasta Hustler and my Aunt Mary, the Bounty Woman. (Tia Mary didn't like the beach, "Too much sand and too much heat," so she always had paper towels. Paper towels around her neck; paper towels tucked in her blouse; paper towels coming out of pockets; paper towels in her hands; paper towels everywhere.)

I relived my youth through my nieces and nephew and my cousin's kids. They did pretty much the same things that I had done a decade or so earlier, following the customs I began and creating some of their own. I don't know what I enjoyed more, growing up with Hilyard summers, or watching them grow up with Hilyard summers. Maybe it's the fact that I did both. I got to fling them into the pool, one-two-three, the same way that I'd been flung years before. I showed them how to swim and did the pool's length underwater with them clung to my back. But they taught me as much as I taught them, made me realize our changing roles in life. I went from a little brat waited on hand-and-foot to ear infection doctor. From "You can't go play pinball at the Americana by yourself at night," to "Will you take the kids to play videos at the Sheraton tonight?" I went from reckless high-diver to lifeguard.

The Hilyard was demolished last summer, probably being replaced by a high-rise condominium. Progress. I wonder if the owners knew that for some the Hilyard was more than concrete block and many of coats of paint. There was more to the Hilyard than jalousie windowed kitchenettes and an over-chlorinated pool. The Hilyard was childhoods and old friends. Evening games of dominoes versus tabbacoed old men with the sea breeze tickling your back. Or leaving your inflatable raft in the pool for someone else to use. The Hilyard was tradition and family.

I went to see that old motel when it was being torn down and I wondered if the guy operating the wrecking ball had any idea of the happiness and unity and belonging once harbored in and around those walls. Or if he knew that he could have visited us on any given day and left with a tan, good memories and a full stomach. I thought it would be my first year without a summer, but it wasn?t. Even if the Hilyard Manor Motel and Apartments in Sunny Surfside Florida was gone, except for our nostalgia, it didn?t deter us, we found a new place on Hollywood Beach. So we exiled to the North and the tradition continues.