Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
‘Ice! Cold! Beer!’
Raise one final toast to Duke Johnson, a vendor of good cheer for decades
Even near the end, as he struggled in the hospital, one of the doctors asked if Duke Johnson remembered him.
“No, I don’t,” Duke said.
The doctor leaned closer. “Remember at that Dolphins game, you were standing in front of me shouting, “Ice! Cold! Beer!” and I said, ‘Excuse me, you’re standing in my way?’ And you kept shouting it anyway?”
That brought a laugh to the hospital room. But here’s the kicker:
“The doctor ended up buying a cold drink,” says Duke’s wife, Chaunte Horne Johnson.
So much makes up our sports ecosystem. Teams. Players. Venues. The fans around you. But somewhere in the mix, somewhere in a way that you only notice if you really attend games, are the smaller sights. The parking attendant. The game usher.
The vendor passing you a cold one. For more than three decades, Duke didn’t just pass you a cold one. He became a sideshow to the big show. He was an entertainer — a “legend in our business,” said his boss, Dennis Manieri of Professional Concessions.
You might not have seen a certain
player, or a certain team, depending on your age. But it’s fair to say you couldn’t have a full South Florida sports experience if you hadn’t bought a cold one from Duke since he started vending in the Orange Bowl in the mid-1980s.
He was called by different names. The Ice-Cold-Beer Man, considering his signature shout. The Elephant-Hat Man, due to his signature hat. Duke, if you got to know him. Darryl, his real name, if you knew him best. But he was simply known at games by his arsenal of lines delivered with that sonic-boom voice:
“No wait, no line!”
“Get ’em while they’re cold!”
“Ice. Cold. Beer.”
And, in waiting for the money, for all to hear, “Don’t forget to tip the bartender!”
“He’d go out with two cases, 48 beers, and a case of water,” Manieri said. “He’d load the whole thing down with ice. That was his secret, he said. He’d take more ice than anyone. I’d ask him, ‘You selling beer or ice?’
“I couldn’t lift the damn thing, and he’d go out screaming his lungs out. Never fail, there’d be a complaint about a guy annoying people he yelled so loud or blew a whistle.”
He chuckled. “I’d say, ‘That’s Duke.’ That’s why he was a top producer.”
Dolphins. UM and Marlins games (before the Marlins new stadium). He was a fixture. He’d go to Baltimore Orioles spring training games in Sarasota at the stadium’s request. He sold so much, Maniieri took him to national events. Chicago. Denver.
He started a local trend, too, so much so that when Manieri took a handful of
South Florida hawkers to Orlando for a NASCAR event they all had crazy hats — a Dr. Seuss hat, a beer-mug hat. Like Duke with his elephant hat.
Race officials weren’t sure they liked it. “The Disney officials loved it — they loved what Duke started,” Manieri said.
That hat came with a story. Duke followed a friend from Miami Central High, Dwight Fletcher, into the vending business. Fletcher was the godfather to Duke and Chaunte’s son, Darryl Rex. Fletcher then developed prostate cancer and died at 29 in 1995.
To honor his friend, Duke began to vend at games in the elephant hat Fletcher had worn. It became his signature look. He had a seamstress help it as the years went on. A trade secret: He put a balloon in it to keep it upright on his head.
“I’d drop him off at games, and he’d put on that hat and before he’d leave the car people would be asking him for drinks or a picture,” Chaunte said.
The Elephant Hat Man had a life, too. A real life. He was a husband to Chaunte, a father to Darryl Rex, 25, and Destiny, 17. He worked construction on the side. He suffered from asthma. That loud personality in stadium aisles reflected who he was, too.
Chaunte remembers being first struck by him at Central High as he was featured in a dance group. His cousin, Chai Footman, remembers him delivering such a stirring talk at their grandmother’s funeral that people stood and applauded.
He forever helped people, they said. A driver with a flat tire. A person in the rain. He was helping a friend repair a plumbing leak, digging up a pipe under a house, when he soon became sick from the mold and mildew last year. His asthma grew worse.
He didn’t go to the doctor. “He wasn’t the type that ever would,” Chaunte said. He became septic. He went into the hospital in December, but his respiratory problems never improved.
Duke died last Friday. He was 53. The funeral is Saturday at the Greater Love Missionary Baptist Church in Miami Gardens.
You can be sure, even in these times of social distancing, there will be a call among those attending for a communal line — one every South Florida sports fans should raise a mug and join:
“Ice! Cold! Beer!”