“Eileen is doing well,” her husband replied, “Just sad.”
A friend in Venezuela had not heard the news and when informed, replied, “¡Qué año tan fuerte ha sido este!”
In the summer I wrote about two childhood friends who had passed away earlier in the year (Lizbeth and Cyril). Their passing had saddened me.
And now the passing of my cousin, Max (“Papaito”) Albert Barnes has added bleakness to the melancholy occasioned by my friends’ preceding departures. Maybe the old adage, “Blood is thicker than water”, helps explain why this hit me a bit harder.
But I think it is more than blood.
Perhaps it is that all three marked my childhood.
Ultimately, none of us chose where we were to be born or who our parents were going to be. Darwinists credit the doctrine of selection; Christians credit the doctrine of election.
But neither Darwinist nor Christian can seriously claim that he had anything to do with where or with whom he came into this world.
Papaito had a wonderful sense of humor but you would have been unwise to have sold him short when it came to serious matters. For instance, in early 1969, a few months after our uncle’s murder, he and I were talking about our uncle as we arranged moving boxes in the garage. He stopped to take a break, taking a seat on a bike, “Is our family all that special?” he asked.
“Huh?” I replied, rather dumbly.
“I mean, we talk about our family as if it were something special. But is it really? Don’t all families believe they are special?”
I responded, unthinkingly and immaturely, “Of course we are special! How many families have a grandfather who descended from the Pilgrims and was the first to leave Massachussets and go to Cuba to the war? And then marry a Spaniard and then his children go to Venezuela, etc. etc. etc.?”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he concluded, but not with too much conviction.
In retrospect, I now can see that he was onto something true and that my reply had completely missed his point. What he was inchoately reaching for (and what I was too immature to catch) was not so much that we are more special than others, but, rather, that we are to be grateful for what went before. What came before us helped make us what we are and we are to improve on that and forward that heritage plus our improvements to the following generations, just like our parents and grandparents had done for us.
We do not worship our fathers and mothers or the long line of folks that preceded us; we do honor them, however. We tell our children stories about that past and their duty to honor likewise and build and live up to a good name so as to progress in the true sense of the word.
To worship the past is to stagnate; to honor the past is to progress.
In that sense every family is special.
Papaito was way ahead of me there, whether he realized it or not.
In the case of my cousin, my two friends and other children, we all “met” in El Pao thanks not to any overarching plan of ours, but to the will of a sovereign God. Some arrived a bit sooner while some left later. But that’s where we met and that’s where we and our families formed bonds that, for some, prevail to this day.
And those bonds extend to our families and friends outside of El Pao. For example, in my case, although they visited once or twice, my cousins in Miami did not live in El Pao. And yet, the cords that were knit in that camp extended to them and from them to me. The same goes for my cousins and friends who lived in Venezuela but outside El Pao.
At the end of the day, what will survive — even into eternity — is not the car you drove or the house you built or the lands you visited, but rather the bonds you forged. The family, loved ones, brethren, people whose paths you crossed in life.
Including during childhood.
What did you want to be when you were a child?
We tend to smile — I know I do — when hearing that, or a variation thereof.
I always found it difficult to answer that question when posed to me in childhood. (In later childhood the difficulty was in admitting what I really wanted to be.)
I’ve heard it said — by professionals and laymen alike — that what you were inclined towards in childhood in regards to making a living or making a life, most likely, generally speaking, is what you were meant to pursue.
That, in capsule form, illustrates the lasting power or impact of a boyhood and girlhood which included a blessed home, a caring family, a faithful church, decent brethren, friends, and more.
This is not to dismiss those who came after who also had a major influence on your life (see Unvisited Tombs, for example). Nevertheless, oftentimes, when folks are asked to name important mentors or sources, one seldom hears about people or events in their nonage.
No, I am not a Freudian. My allusions to the springtime of life have nothing to do with that.
They have everything to do with gratitude to the Lord for the parents and grandparents He gave me; for the home and extended family He lent me; for Miami — not the city so much as the family and loved ones that awaited me there year after year; for El Pao; for my church and brethren in the labor camp; for cousins, such as Max (Papaito); for childhood friends such as Cyril and Lizbeth and more, some who have passed away, a few with whom I stay in touch, and others of whom I’ve long lost track.
They all had an immeasurable and lifelong impact on me. And I am a debtor to them.
Yes, like my cousin Eileen (Max’s sister), I too am sad. Not in the sense of those who have no hope, but rather in the sense of saying farewell. Not as an “adios”, but as an “hasta luego”.
As this year 2021 ends, I extend my sincere and heartfelt condolences to Papaito’s surviving wife, Isabel, and sister and brother (my cousins Eileen and Michael) as well as children and grandchildren and loved ones and more.
I wish for them and for you a wonderful and prosperous 2022.
My simple yet genuine thank-you to Papaito for fond childhood memories and learning experiences.
“… or ever the silver cord be loosed …. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God Who gave it (Ecc. 12:6a-7).”
May you rest in peace, Max (1952 – 2021).
Cousins, left to right: Janis, Sarita (d. 2014), Vivian, Max (Papaito), Louis (Papito) circa 1961. Edwin (d. 1982), Max (Papaito), José — circa 1965 Louis (Papito) and Max (Papaito), 1969 From left to right: Pete and Janis (Colón), Eileen (Barnes) Morillas, Michael Barnes, Isabel and Max (Papaito) Barnes, Ronny Barnes, circa 2013 Photo courtesy Jim Shingler. El Pao end-of-bowling-season banquet, 1964. Many are gone; practically all had a major impact on many of us.
Friends and readers of this blog have known that I’ve not been keen on the elite’s response to the virus that has characterized those in power and their sycophantic media for twenty-two (22) months, and counting. For example, see here.
My unease has only grown since. In fact, it is now more than unease; it is alarm.
I am a Protestant. However, consistent with Reformers of old, my faith does not throw out the baby with the bath water. What I mean is, for instance, just because Roman Catholics believe something, does not automatically — knee-jerkingly — cause me to toss it aside.
For example, Roman Catholics affirm the Trinity. They also affirm that 2 plus 2 equals 4. I agree. And my Roman Catholic friends understand.
And I have agreed with retired Archbishop, Carlo Maria Viganò, who has been sounding the alarm since 2020.
His 2021 Christmas letter is below and I urge you to read it calmly and with the seriousness it deserves. No, I do not credit Plato as much as he does; however, that weakness towards pagan wisdom should not obscure his very serious and cogent warnings. As for his references to The Great Reset, as much as that sounds like science fiction, you can duckduck it and see for yourself.
However, I remain optimistic. The Incarnation took place, despite the elite’s efforts to kill the babe in the manger. The Cross accomplished the redemption of God’s people, the Resurrection assured the Victory, and the Ascension has Him seated on the throne, the True Sovereign over all Creation. And He will return as King of kings and Lord of lords, to climax the whole of history.
I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a most prosperous New Year.
MESSAGE TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE
Dear American People, Dear Friends, for two years now, a global coup has been carried out all over the world, planned for some time by an elite group of conspirators enslaved to the interests of international high finance. This coup was made possible by an emergency pandemic that is based on the premise of a virus that has a mortality rate almost analogous to that of any other seasonal flu virus, on the delegitimization and prohibition of effective treatments, and on the distribution of an experimental gene serum which is obviously ineffective, and which also clearly carries with it the danger of serious and even lethal side effects. We all know how much the mainstream media has contributed to supporting the insane pandemic narrative, the interests that are at stake, and the goals of these groups of power: reducing the world population, making those who survive chronically ill, and imposing forms of control that violate the fundamental rights and natural liberties of citizens. And yet, two years after this grotesque farce started, which has claimed more victims than a war and destroyed the social fabric, national economies, and the very foundations of the rule of law, nothing has changed in the policies of Nations and their response to the so-called pandemic.
Last year, when many still had not yet understood the gravity of the looming threat, I was among the first to denounce this coup, and I was promptly singled out as a conspiracy theorist. Today more and more people are opening their eyes and beginning to understand that the emergency pandemic and the “ecological emergency” are part of a criminal plan hatched by the World Economic Forum, the UN, the WHO, and a galaxy of organizations and foundations that are ideologically characterized as clearly anti-human and – this needs to be said clearly – anti-Christian.
One of the elements that unequivocally confirms the criminal nature of the Great Reset is the perfect synchrony with which all the different Nations are acting, demonstrating the existence of a single script under a single direction. And it is disconcerting to see how the lack of treatment, the deliberately wrong treatments that have been given in order to cause more deaths, the decision to impose lockdowns and masks, the conspiratorial silence about the adverse effects of the so-called “vaccines” that are in fact gene serums, and the continuous repetition of culpable errors have all been possible thanks to the complicity of those who govern and the institutions. Political and religious leaders, representatives of the people, scientists and doctors, journalists and those who work in the media have literally betrayed their people, their laws, their Constitutions, and the most basic ethical principles.
The electoral fraud of the 2020 presidential election against President Trump has shown itself to be organic to this global operation, because in order to impose illegitimate restrictions in violation of the principles of law it was necessary to be able to make use of an American President who would support the psycho-pandemic and support its narrative. The Democratic Party, part of the deep state, is carrying out its task as an accomplice of the system, just as the deep churchfinds in Bergoglio its own propagandist. The recent rulings of the Supreme Court and the autonomous action of some American states – where the vaccination obligation has been declared unconstitutional – give us hope that this criminal plan can collapse and that those responsible will be identified and tried: both in America as well as in the whole world.
How was it possible to arrive at such a betrayal? How have we come to be considered enemies by those who govern us, not in support of the common good, but rather to feed a hellish machine of death and slavery?
The answer is now clear: throughout the world, in the name of a perverted concept of freedom, we have progressively erased God from society and laws. We have denied that there is an eternal and transcendent principle, valid for all men of all times, to which the laws of States must conform. We have replaced this absolute principle with the arbitrariness of individuals, with the principle that everyone is his own legislator. In the name of this insane freedom – which is license and libertinage – we have allowed the Law of God and the law of nature to be violated, legitimizing the killing of children in the womb, even up to the very moment of birth; the killing of the sick and the elderly in hospital wards; the destruction of the natural family and of Marriage; we have recognized rights to vice and sin, putting the deviations of individuals before the good of society. In short, we have subverted the entire moral order that constitutes the indispensable basis of the laws and social life of a people. Already in the fourth century B.C., Plato wrote these things in his last work the Lawsand identified the cause of the Athenian political crisis precisely in the breaking of the divine order – the cosmos – between these eternal principles and human laws.
These natural moral principles of the Greco-Roman world found their fulfillment in Christianity, which built Western civilization by giving them a supernatural impetus. Christianity is the strongest defense against injustice, the strongest garrison against the oppression of the powerful over the weak, the violent over the peaceful, and the wicked over the good, because Christian morality makes each of us accountable to God and our neighbor for our actions, both as citizens and as rulers. The Son of God, whose Birth we will celebrate in a few days, became Incarnate in time and in history in order to heal an ancient wound, and to restore by Grace the order broken by disobedience. His social Kingship was the generating principle of the ordoChristianus that for two centuries now has been fiercely fought against by Freemasonry: because the Revolution it promotes is chaos; it is disorder; it is infernal rebellion against the divine order so as to impose Satan’s tyranny.
Now, as we see what is happening around us, we understand how mendacious were the promises of progress and freedom made by those who destroyed Christian society, and how deceptive was the prospect of a new Tower of Babel, built not only without regard for God but even in direct opposition to Him. The infernal challenge of the Enemy is repeated over the centuries unchanged, but it is doomed to inexorable failure. Behind this millennial conspiracy, the adversary is always the same, and the only thing that changes are the particular individuals who cooperate with him.
Dear American brothers and sisters! Dear Patriots! this is a crucial moment for the future of the United States of America and of the whole of humanity. But the pandemic emergency, the farce of global warming and the green economy, and the economic crisis deliberately induced by the Great Reset with the complicity of the deep state, are all only the consequence of a much more serious problem, and it is essential to understand it in depth if we want to defeat it. This problem is essentially moral; indeed, it is religious. We must put God back in the first place not only in our personal lives, but also in the life of our society. We must restore to Our Lord Jesus Christ the Crown that the Revolution has torn from Him, and in order for this to happen a true and profound conversion of individuals and of society is necessary. For it is absolutely impossible to hope for the end of this global tyranny if we continue to remove from the Kingdom of Christ the nations that belong to Him and must belong to Him. For this reason, the movement to overturn Roe v. Wade also acquires a very important meaning, since respect for the sacredness of unborn life must be sanctioned by positive law if it is to be a mirror of the Eternal Law.
You are animated by a yearning for justice, and this is a legitimate and good desire. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,” says the Lord (Mt 5:6). But this Justice must be based on the awareness that this is a spiritual battle in which it is necessary to take sides without equivocation and without compromise, holding transcendent and eternal references that even the pagan philosophers glimpsed, and that have found fulfillment in the Revelation of the Son of God, the Divine Master.
My appeal for an Anti-Globalist Alliance – which I renew today – aims precisely to constitute a movement of moral and spiritual rebirth which will inspire the civil, social and political action of those who do not want to be enslaved as slaves to the New World Order. A movement that at the national and local level will be able to find a way to oppose the Great Reset and that coordinates the denunciation of the coup that is currently in progress. Because in the awareness of who our adversary is and what his aims and purposes are, we can disrupt the criminal action he intends to pursue and force him to retreat. In this, the opposition to the pandemic farce and the vaccination obligation must be determined and courageous on the part of each of you.
Yours must therefore be a work of truth, bringing to light the lies and deceptions of the New World Order and their anti-human and antichristic matrix. And in this it is mainly the laity and all people of good will – each in the professional and civil role he holds – who must coordinate and organize together to make a firm but peaceful resistance, so as not to legitimize its violent repression by those who today hold power.
Be proud of your identity as American patriots and of the Faith that must animate your life. Do not allow anyone to make you feel inferior just because you love your homeland, because you are honest at work, because you want to protect your family and raise your children with healthy values, because you respect the elderly, because you protect life from conception to its natural end. Do not be intimidated or seduced by those who propagate a dystopian world in which a faceless power imposes on you contempt for the Law of God, presents sin and vice as licit and desirable, despises righteousness and Morality, destroys the natural family and promotes the worst perversions, plans the death of defenseless and weak creatures, and exploits humanity for its own profit or to preserve power.
Be worthy heirs of the great Archbishop Fulton Sheen, and do not follow those of your Pastors who have betrayed the mandate they have received from Our Lord, who impose iniquitous orders on you or who remain silent before the evidence of an unheard of crime against God and humanity.
May this Holy Christmas illuminate your minds and inflame your hearts before the Infant King who lays in the manger. And just as the choirs of the Angels and the homage of the Magi united with the simple adoration of the Shepherds, so also today your commitment to the moral rebirth of the United States of America – one Nation under God – will have the blessing of Our Lord and will gather those who govern you around you. Amen.
May God bless you, and may God bless the United States of America.
As a child in El Pao I was sometimes teased (accused?) for being more American than Venezuelan. Looking back, I can grant the criticism in that I might have been too carelessly effusive in my praise of United States history while too reticent in my acknowledgment of Venezuela’s.
However, I must plead, not as an excuse but as a mitigating factor, that my Spanish instructors did not help me much in this, given their disdain for Spain’s actions and inactions in the Americas in general and in Venezuela in particular.
I now understand that the standard approach to Latin American history – at least in my day – did not exactly promote a love and appreciation for our heritage. If Spain was so evil and if it represented “500 years of atrocities”, then how am I, as a child, to value, let alone love the society or culture that they bequeathed to us?
As readers of this blog have seen, Spain’s contribution to the Americas was truly a wonder: 500 years of high culture, including the oldest cathedrals, universities, opera houses, and more in the western hemisphere, let alone the teaching and training of a language and system of law that were truly a marvel of accomplishment in their time.
We’ve written about that elsewhere (for example, see here and here) and will continue doing so.
I begin this post with the above because I do not want you to think I do not appreciate my years in Georgia, Puerto Rico, Texas, and other parts of the world where I have been blessed to have lived or otherwise spent time and met good and fine friends. I do appreciate them; very much so.
For now, however, as Christmas approaches, my thoughts inevitably wander back to our few short years in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Whenever I count my blessings, I think of my parents and grandparents and the life and heritage they bequeathed me.
I think of El Pao and childhood friends.
And I always think of Kalamazoo.
I vividly recall flying to that town for the first time in the early summer of 1984. As the plane approached and the green fields and lakes – so many lakes! – came into view, my heart was powerfully drawn to that small midwestern city that I had hardly ever heard about (except in a Glenn Miller song).
The folks I met, my interactions with clerks, executives, factory workers, children, immediately brought El Pao to my mind. The Midwest became more than a geographical touchpoint: it immediately became a part of me … because it was always a part of me, only I didn’t know it. The ready friendship and transparency of our neighbors, church brethren, professional colleagues, mechanics, you-name-it, was a throwback to my childhood in El Pao and purlieus. It was coming home to a home you did not know you had.
When it came time to leave, in late 1988, we kept coming back to visit, as one would come see parents or siblings whenever possible. Friendships made then, continue to be friendships now. Our most recent visit was in 2015; and I do hope it won’t be our last.
We used to say, “You can take the man out of Arthur Andersen but you cannot take Arthur Andersen out of the man.”
I can also say, “You can take the man out of Kalamazoo but you cannot take Kalamazoo out of the man.”
We’d play Christmas music – classical, hymns, popular – beginning late November and well into January. One little hymn has persistently remained in my memory: Lullaby (Music: J. Frederick Keel, English composer of Elizabethan songs; Lyrics: Alfred Noyes, English poet).
The first time I heard it, the sun had disappeared over the horizon, light snowflakes mysteriously reflected moonlight as they drifted silently onto the ground and forest preserve just beyond our apartment. The hymn is eerily perfect for a quiet Christmastime night.
And especially if you have a baby or young child in your home.
Although the hymn says nothing about snow, I cannot help but think of it as I listen to Lullaby whether in Georgia, Texas, or even in Puerto Rico. But what it evokes most in me are thoughts of a Babe in a manger, Christmas, Kalamazoo winter, and our young home.
One day, in the El Pao playgrounds, my childhood friends were again teasing me about America. In reactionary mode, I taunted my friend, Lizbeth, “Well, look at you! You are more German than Venezuelan!”
All became quiet, as she calmly replied, “I love Germany.”
I learned from her. That should have been my reply too, and henceforth, it was: “I love America.”
And I loved Kalamazoo, and am grateful for my years there and for our friends there.
Sleep little Baby I love Thee, I love Thee
Sleep Little King, I am bending above Thee
How shall I know what to sing?
How shall I know what to sing
Here are my arms as I swing Thee to sleep?
Hushaby Low,
Rockaby so,
Hushaby Low.
Kings may have wonderful jewels to bring
Mother has only a kiss for her King
Only a kiss for her King.
Why should my singing so make me to weep?
Only I know that I love Thee
Only I know that I love Thee
Love Thee my little one,
Love Thee my little one,
Sleep! Hushaby low,
Rockaby so, Hushaby low.
This concludes the series of posts on Václav Havel’s consequential 1978 essay.
We have seen that in a totalitarian or “post-totalitarian” system, it is relatively easy for most people to conform to what those in power require of them.
Havel uses the example of a sign that private citizens are required to post every day. Even though they may not agree with or support the sentiment proclaimed by the sign, they nevertheless post it because they do not want to make waves, or they do not want to offend others, or they need their livelihood, or simply because “I am afraid and therefore unquestioningly obedient.”
Submission to lies goes to the point where millions are controlled by an ideology which they have accepted because it provides an explanation for or a “harmony with the human order and the order of the universe.”
So, they continue to post the sign knowing that between the ideology and the reality there is “a yawning abyss”. Furthermore, they cannot tolerate anyone who questions or denies the system or the ideology that undergirds it. To question or deny will cause the entire edifice to come tumbling down.
And so, they prefer to live within a lie; a life permeated with hypocrisy and falsehoods. It is a different sort of quiet desperation than suggested by Thoreau, but it is a desperation nonetheless.
And yet there remain many who yearn to live free and to walk in the Truth. They know — at least inchoately — that Truth and Liberty are integral.
But how can they walk in Truth if the entire ideology, narrative, and means of communications are consubstantial with the power structures that possess and enforce the system?
Well, truth is their power and that is what will enable them to walk as free men and women, albeit not necessarily without a price.
Havel observes that this weapon — Truth — is unique because it is in the breast of everyone, including those in power. A quick test of this is to simply tell the truth to anyone who would rather continue to walk in lies. The thoughtful, inquisitive response is rare. The usual reaction is mockery, shunning, denunciation, anger, even violence. They react thusly because they sense, correctly, that the lie they have chosen to live under is threatened.
And, since Truth also resides in the hearts of the power structure, when you invoke it, you strike at a critical center of lies.
I would urge you to parcel out the time to read the essay completely as Havel develops these thoughts much further than the woefully incomplete summaries I am able to give it here.
We will conclude this series of posts with something of a test. I will list several statements of fact regarding that which has consumed most of the “Free World” for the past 21 months. I will not develop these statements, but I can assure you that they are documented by published research and studies and sources: official and unofficial; professional and amateur; scholarly and nonacademic.
The purpose in listing the following is to enable each of us to examine our reactions with honesty:
Deaths by age: Covid cumulative vs. car accidents in one year (2019):
Ages 1-4: 71 vs 435
Ages 5-14: 202 vs 847
Ages 15-24: 1,965 vs 6,031
Mortality rates:
Ebola: 70%, all ages
Smallpox: 30%, all ages
The Great Influenza (“Spanish flu”): 10% – 20%, all ages
Covid: .05% – .01%, depending on age
Vaccine protection duration
Tetanus and diphtheria — Booster after 10 years
Measles and rubella — Life
Hepatitis A — 20 years or more
Hepatitis B — 30 years or more
Covid — A fraction of the above, depending on source
Danish randomized control trial on masks: “… masks did not reduce infection rate…”
CDC definitions have changed:
Vaccines (changed 4 times since 2012; twice in 2021)
Covid Deaths
Gain of function
Highest vaccination rates have highest case rates:
Countries
U. S. States
Covid deaths include:
Murder suicide in Grand County, Colorado
Motorcycle fatality in Travis County, Texas
Many more such examples throughout the country
Do not take my word for the above; look them up for yourselves (but do not use Google. Duckduckgo will work). If you find a gross error, please advise (rmbarnesr@gmail.com) and I will check and happily correct if proved wrong.
However, if you find them to be true, then determine to live within the Truth. Say what you really think. “Express solidarity with those whom [your] conscience commands you to support.”
“Living within the lie can constitute the system only if it is universal. The principle must embrace and permeate everything. There are no terms whatsoever on which it can co-exist with living within the truth, and therefore everyone who steps out of line denies it in principle and threatens it in its entirety.”
Heda Margolius Kovaly’s Under a Cruel Star, is her story of life in Prague, Czechoslovakia, first under the Nazis and then under Communists. Hers is a good example of seeking to live in the Truth, at great cost including isolation from former friends and very real danger from the establishment.
I do not remember her first name, if I ever knew it, that is. Back then, for us youngsters, it was strictly “Mr.” and “Mrs.” and “Miss”.
But I do remember her.
She was from New Mexico. And boy did she resent Florida’s having “stolen” their state motto, “The Sunshine State”, from New Mexico! She said she could prove the theft too! Although I never asked her for evidence.
Once, after I handed in a picture project on hygiene, she called me to her desk and, remaining seated, gently began explaining why she thought I had missed the point. I had drawn a picture of a refrigerator. Through the open door, one could see the shelves labeled with the names of the items that belonged on each: eggs, milk, soft drinks, butter, and so forth.
“The fact that some of these items may be misplaced, does not affect cleanliness,” she said.
“Oh, I know. What I was showing was that if you leave the refrigerator door open, food can spoil,” I replied, silently wondering what items I had drawn so poorly that she thought they were misplaced!
She looked up at me as I stood with a genuine look of surprise that she would not have understood the intention of having drawn an open refrigerator door. Then she leaned back on her chair and laughed.
“Ah! I see. OK. Yours is a valid observation. Leaving the refrigerator door open is not good. You can go back to your desk.”
That same year, we took a field trip to the Orinoco to explore the Bethlehem Steel port facilities. That was one of my most memorable school trips, though, if you ask me why, I wouldn’t be able to tell you even if my life depended on it. I remember boarding the van, riding there, searching around the port, and riding back. Maybe I so enjoyed the camaraderie with my fellow classmates that the trip just floods my memory banks with good thoughts.
And then there was that night that some hooligans (my friends) did some mischief at the club. I don’t recall the mischief, but boy do I recall the tongue-lashing Mrs. Miller gave the class the following morning! I recall that because I had no idea what she was talking about.
It must have shown on my face because she snapped at me, “Ricky, don’t act like you don’t know! You were part of the gang!”
I was crestfallen. One of my friends noticed it and demurely raised her hand to say, “Mrs. Miller, it is true that Ricky was not a part of the ruckus. He was there at the beginning but left soon after the trouble started.”
My dejection was replaced by white hot anger! My “friend” was lying, and she knew it. I was not there at all. But she obviously was! She even smirked at me — when Mrs. Miller wasn’t looking, that is.
I am chuckling and laughing as I write this. What was so important to me at the moment, is now a childish memory. Actually, it became a good memory, for which I thank both Mrs. Miller and my friend.
A year later, I myself became a hooligan one afternoon when several of us, hunting for bats, managed to fall through the club ceiling causing quite a mess on the tables, chairs, and floor below. I’d never before (or since) seen so much guano rain down. And the company executives who just happened to be inspecting the premises that very day were also impressed with the bat droppings and the shocked kids hanging from or watching down from the now very visible attic. Our daze in trying to figure out how to clean up the mess was extremely short-lived, as we were peremptorily instructed to go. Immediately! We quickly obeyed.
So, Mrs. Miller’s rebuke was well deserved, even if it was a year too early! As the film noir puts it: “The postman always rings twice”.
My work took me to New Mexico often in recent years. It is one of those places that pull at you, like Venezuela. The West does that to many of us. I thought of her often during those trips.
I think Mrs. Miller was in El Pao only one school year. At least that’s what I remember.
But for some reason I do remember her. And I appreciate her.
Field trip to the port. My friend, Jimmy Shingler is at left. Mrs. Miller is to his left, second row. I am just in front of her in front row. My liar friend is also in the photo. But I won’t tell! (Photo courtesy of James Shingler) Another photo from that trip (Photo courtesy of James Shingler) The Orinoco River (Photo courtesy of James Shingler) Madeline and Eileen, two young ladies from El Pao, circa 1967. The club is in the background. (Photo courtesy of Caroní Contini) New Mexico sunset Bat guano in the attic. Not pretty. It’s even worse on the furniture.
