{"product_id":"ybor-city-chronicles-a-memoir","title":"Ybor City Chronicles: A Memoir","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"As anyone knows who tunes him in on national TV as The Fight Doctor  Ferdie Pacheco is a world-class spellbinder. But catching that verbal magic on a page is a rare gift. The proof is in the reading of this racy  vivid  evocative page-turner  as much fun to read as Ferdie had living it in this unique Cuban enclave  a world unto itself that he re-creates for us in Pachecoese  a lingua franca of the spirit.\"--Budd Schulberg \"Ferdie Pacheco takes us to a vanished time and place  full of affectionate laughter  the invincible optimism of immigrants  and the delicious aroma of good cigars. He makes all of us wish wed grown up in Ybor City.\"--Pete Hamill \"Pure pleasure. Pacheco brings an enormous talent to this task. A renaissance man  he is perhaps best known as Muhammad Alis physician  but he has also distinguished himself as a general practitioner serving Miamis inner city  a prominent boxing commentator  an accomplished artist  and a remarkable raconteur. It is the last quality that drives Ybor City Chronicles.\"--Gary R. Mormino  University of South Florida  With his gift for storytelling  Ferdie Pacheco stirs a gust of cigar smoke into the hot steam of caf con leche and creates the magic of this lighthearted memoir. His stage is Ybor City  the colorful immigrant community on the edge of Tampa  and the time is 1935-45--the decade when Pacheco grew up and the community he loves outgrew its ethnic splendor. Pachecos respect for words began the day his story starts  when ten-year-old Ferdie climbs into a truck with Sweet Sam to deliver pharmaceuticals for La Economica  the family chemist shop. Along with prescription drugs  homeopathic \"nerve\" remedies  and laxatives  Sam totes a book of poetry and a dictionary  and before the day is out he prevails upon Ferdie to look up \"procrastinate.\" \"Succulent\" and \"delectable\" follow. Pacheco writes with the sentimentality of a Latin lover and the instincts of a stand-up comic. At the heart of his story is the fabled Columbia Restaurant  where he worked as a teen-age waiter for two summers--a job with status in Ybor City equal to that of being a New York Yankee ballplayer  he says. Its glamorous doors opened fifteen hours a day to the communitys characters  and they become folk heroes under Pachecos affectionate scrutiny: Pepe Lu Babo  the idiot savant of newspaper circulation; Chef Pijuan  who asked to have a menu buried with him when he died; Pan con Chinches (\"Bread and Bedbugs\")  who had once been a lector in a cigar factory; Don Victoriano Manteiga  the resident intellectual who founded La Gaceta  the trilingual newspaper published today by his son Roland; and Dr. Jos Avellanal  who experimented with cryogenics on stray cats and practiced law  plastic surgery  gynecology  the ministry  and higher education  all from his \"office\" in the hotel El Pasaje. Though Pacheco describes years spanning the Great Depression and World War II  his days then were blissfully contained by his Spanish\/Cuban\/Italian enclave. After school he visited his abuelita  the grandmother who fixed him cups of thick hot chocolate and reminded him that science was more important than art if he wanted to become a doctor. He went to western movies in splendid air-conditioned theaters on Saturday and  in his teen years  to tea dances at ethnic social clubs on Sunday. On fine days  the yellow trolley--known as the \"jewel of Tampa Electric\" for its wicker seats and lacquered wood interior--took him to picnics at nearby Sulphur Springs. With no excuses for the past  he recalls that his father  J.B.  woke each morning to the sight of his wife standing by his bedside with his cup of Cuban coffee in her hand  ready to help him on with his shoes  and that J.B. ended every evening in the cool cellar of the Centro Asturiano club  smoking cigarettes  playing cards  drinking a last cup of espresso. Ybor City Chronicles includes vintage photographs and Pachecos own cartoons  sketches  and paintings  many never before published  and an epilogue by Ybor City historian Tony Pizzo  who describes the features that today make Ybor City a National Historic Monument.  Ferdie Pacheco  M.D.  is the author of the novel Renegade Lightning and of two books of nonfiction  Muhammad Ali: A View from the Corner and Fight Doctor  an account of his life as a physician in the fight world. He practiced medicine from 1958 to 1980 and served as Muhammad Alis personal physician from 1963 to 1977. In recent years  he has served as boxing color commentator for NBC-TV  Showtime  and Univision. In 1990 he received an Emmy for writing  producing  and narrating the NBC special \"Ali Wins the Title.\" He is also a painter and has exhibited one-person shows in London  Paris  New York  Miami (where he now lives)  and other cities throughout the United States.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44984493506613,"sku":"ByrdShop_0813012961","price":33.42,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780813012964.jpg?v=1770835134","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/ybor-city-chronicles-a-memoir","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}