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Last week, Miami lost Abraham “Al” Chasser, who built the oft-mentioned and little-understood “Farm” in Little Haiti (usually referenced in terms of the gigantic tree-house on the property), now owned by Chasser’s son Ray. Al was ninety-one when he passed away.
Chasser lived an exciting and supremely independent life – you can read all about it in last Saturday’s Herald article.
But one salient detail the Bike Blog could not fail to notice was that Chasser arrived in Miami by bicycle. He rode the bike – a friggin’ three-speed– all the way from New York.
There’s another, slightly more personal Bike Blog connection. The Farm, as it’s known, was briefly my home in Miami. I moved there just a few months after coming here to work for New Times, and stayed for about half a year. Al Chasser was in poor health then, and no longer staying at home, so I never met him. An ex-Navy, his Veterans Affairs ID card hung on a little peg in the kitchen. And, for what it’s worth, the Bike Blog started while I was living there.
So the Bike Blog wishes condolences to Al Chasser’s family, and a big Rest in Peace to the man himself – an independent liver, an great landscaper, and a helluva bicyclist.
