Richard Barnes

1964: Anne, The Beatles, and Beethoven; Bob Gibson and Whitey Ford — Part II: The 1964 World Series

October 20, 2020October 20, 2020 Richard Barnes

In my earlier post “Fernando, Sears, The Yankees, and The Beatles” (here) I told of Fernando’s being a Yankees’ fan as a kid and how he and his childhood friends would run to Sears in Coral Gables to see the prior night’s baseball scores and stats. He was also a Beatles fan and would run to Sears to see where the group’s songs were on the Hit Parade.

Thinking about Fernando, led me to my childhood friend, Anne. In my prior post (here), I told of her enthusiasm for The Beatles in 1964. At the club one day that summer, she had rushed me to the shortwave radio to listen to them.

In stream of consciousness fashion, thinking about Fernando and Anne, reminded me about the shortwave radio which reminded me of my father, who would tell us about his own childhood in Cuba where he and his friends would spend hours in the mining camp club during the baseball season to see the scoreboard of the Yankees’ games. The bartender would receive information by telegraph at the end of each inning and would walk to the board and chalk in the runs for the inning. The kids would whoop and holler whenever he’d chalk in a Yankees’ run, and groan with loud disappointment and exasperation when he’d chalk in a run for the opposing team.

With no radio, and certainly no TV, that is how they “watched” baseball in his childhood in Cuba.

By the time of my childhood, mining clubs had shortwave radios which broadcast the ball games. And, in 1964, the Big One was that year’s World Series.

The radio and also the television play by play was shared between Joe Garagiola and Phil Rizzuto in New York and Curt Gowdy and Harry Caray in St. Louis. However, in El Pao, we heard the play by play in Spanish and, unfortunately, I do not know who did so nor have I been able find it out. If a reader knows, I would very much appreciate hearing from you.

I do remember it was very colorful. One of the most memorable lines was in Game 7, when Tom Tresh came up to bat and for some reason decided to swing at a very high pitch. The Spanish broadcaster yelled out, “Estaba tumbando piñata!” [He was striking a piñata!]. The image that expression evoked is still fresh in my mind today, over 50 years later.

There were many great names of the baseball pantheon in that series: Yogi Berra, Curt Floyd, Roger Maris, Lou Brock, Mickey Mantle and more. Lesser names, but nonetheless memorable, included MVP brothers on opposing teams: Ken and Clete Boyer, for the Cardinals and Yankees, respectively.

In the case of Mickey Mantle, this turned out to be his last World Series. By the end of it, he had played in 12, of which the Yankees had won 7.

In that year, Mantle capped his World Series career with a performance for the record books, including a Game Three, bottom of the ninth, game-winning walk-off home run. The fifth in World Series history at the time and the only one in Mantle’s storied career. It was a Mickey Mantle home run: a low pitch, met by the “Mantle turn”, driven deep, towering and majestic, into right field, well into the third deck of Yankee Stadium. The game was won with one swing of his bat. He ended the series with a .333 average, three home runs, and eight RBIs.

Mantle is still in the record books with the second most at bats — 230 (second only to his teammate, Yogi Berra, with 259), the most base on balls — 43 (Babe Ruth is second, with 33), most extra base hits — 26 (no one comes close), second most hits — 59 (second to his teammate, Yogi Berra with 71), second most World Series games — 65 (second to his teammate, Yogi Berra, with 75), and most home runs in World Series history — 18 (followed by Babe Ruth, with 15). He is highest or second highest in runs scored, RBI’s, and total bases. The only switch hitter to have won the Triple Crown, Mantle’s is a truly great record.

But by the 1964 series, Mickey Mantle was injury-plagued. The St. Louis Cardinals knew it and they strategically decided to run against him, stretching singles into doubles and doubles into triples or home runs.

Another performance for the ages was Lou Brock’s. In what turned out to have been the best trade in Cardinals history, and the worst in Cubs history, Brock was traded by the Cubs to the Cardinals in 1964. That awakened the then fading Cardinals and spurred them on to overtake the Phillies and win the National League pennant. He was one of the best hitters and base stealers in baseball history. And, much to my chagrin, he displayed his hitting prowess with painful effectiveness in the 1964 World Series. Painful to me, that is!

Lou Brock played in three World Series and his adjusted OPS (“On Base Slugging” score) for the World Series was fourth best of all time, just behind Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Reggie Jackson (“Mr. October”). In other words, although Brock was a Hall of Famer for his overall performance, he really turned on the juice in the World Series. For comparison, Mickey Mantle is not in the OPS stats for World Series play, but is in 7th place in all-time adjusted OPS career leaders, whereas Brock is not in the top twenty.

But what a World Series performer! A World Series batting average of .391, with multi hits in 12 of his 21 World Series games, including two hits in Game 7 of the 1964 Series. He is tied, with Mickey Mantle and Eddie Collins, for 11th most all-time series multi hits games. Incredibly, Brock is tied with Eddie Collins for most stolen bases in World Series history: 14. But he did not attempt to steal a base in the 1964 Series! He stole 7 bases in 1967 and 7 more in 1968. No one else has stolen 7 bases in a World Series. As for 1964, Brock let Tim McCarver and Mike Shannon do the stealing. That was enough to defeat my team.

Nevertheless, to me, the most memorable players (besides Mickey Mantle, Lou Brock, and Tresh’s Piñata swing, that is) were Whitey Ford and Bob Gibson.

In the case of Whitey Ford, I couldn’t figure out or understand why he only played in Game One, and lost. It was many years later that I realized that he had been playing that whole season in great pain. But I did not know that nor did I think of asking my father about it. Whitey Ford was considered the archetypical Yankee: clean cut, decent, fair. Deceptively fair, that is. Meaning that just because he was fair, that did not mean he’d let you hit his pitches.

His baseball career spanned 16 years, all with the New York Yankees. He is tied for first place for starting pitchers with the most World Series titles (6), is the all-time leader in World Series starts (22), innings pitched (146), strikeouts (94) and wins (10). In 1960 he threw 283 innings without allowing a single stolen base. Still a record.

In 1961, he won both the Cy Young and the MVP awards. The Cy Young award was introduced in 1956; many baseball connoisseurs believe he would have won easily in earlier seasons, making him a multiple Cy Young winner. But to us kids, he just seemed like an all-around, likable, nice guy. A nice guy who did not finish last. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1974 with a career ERA of 2.745, in the top 100 of all time. He is the 4th winningest pitcher of all time, with a winning percentage of .6901. Ford demonstrates that a pitcher can be very successful even without a powerful fastball. The 1964 World Series was to have been his last.

And he remained unseen after Game One. As a kid, that bothered and saddened me to no end. I rooted for him until injuries finally had their way, forcing his retirement three years later, in 1967.

And then there was Bob Gibson. He pitched three games in that series: 8 innings in Game 2, which he lost against Mel Stottlemyer, 10 innings in Game 5 where he remained on the mound till the very end, picking up the win, and all 9 innings of Game 7, when I kept wishing he’d be too tired to pitch that day.

This man was a machine and even over the radio, he provoked fear. Which helps explain his being in thirteenth place with the most shutouts in baseball history. He had a 17-year career, all with the St. Louis Cardinals. A two-time World Series champion and two-time Cy Young Award winner, Bob Gibson was a fierce competitor on that mound, yet a kind, approachable individual when off the field. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1981, his first year of eligibility.

I remember watching him pitch against the Boston Red Sox in 1967. I wanted the Sox to win because they were in the American League, which was the closest I could get to the then perpetually slumping Yankees. But I could not help but admire that powerful pitcher with the opposite side “kick” to his pitch. And there he was again, on the mound, in the last inning of the last game, picking up yet another seventh game win. He was something to behold.

Between them, they won 17 World Series games. Ford won a record-setting 10 games, but lost 8; Gibson won 7, and lost 2. Ford’s World Series ERA was 2.71 to Gibson’s 1.89. Ford’s ERA was 1.98 before his injury-plagued 1964 performance. His 10 games won record still stands. Gibson’s is in second place, tied with two other pitchers.

That year, 1964, marked the end of the Yankee dynasty. They would not play in another series till 1976, and that team was a shadow of their days of glory, in my opinion. They’ve not been the same since.

The Cardinals went on to play in the 1967 and the 1968 World Series, with Gibson pitching and Brock stealing in both. They won in 1967 on the 7th game against the Boston Red Sox and lost in 1968 on the 7th game against the Detroit Tigers. Both were exciting series, which I was able to see on television in Miami, Florida. But, to me, neither came close to the exhilarating thrill of the 1964 event.

Mickey Mantle passed away on August 13, 1995. He had returned to his childhood faith, expressing genuine repentance for his years of hard drinking and hard living. He considered himself to be a “reverse role-model”: “Don’t be like me,” he said. Whitey Ford was one of his pallbearers.

Lou Brock passed away on September 6, 2020. Roughly a month later, both Bob Gibson and Whitey Ford died on October 2 and October 8, respectively.

At the time of his death, Whitey Ford (91) was the second oldest living member of Baseball’s Hall of Fame.

I guess I’ll always remember the World Series of 1964.

My father did not have pictures of the scoreboard from his Cuba mining camp club. But the above is a photo from a pool hall scoreboard from my father’s era (early 20th century). The kids would sit around, waiting and anticipating someone to come up and chalk in the results of each inning. With no radio and certainly no TV, that is how they watched baseball in his area of Cuba.

View of staff cottages in mining camp in Cuba, circa 1916, a year before my father’s birth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPWUFDoxAiE

Mickey Mantle’s is at about the 2-minute mark

Intimidating and effective. I used to not want him to show up because I just “knew” he’d win. But then I’d be mesmerized, along with millions of other baseball fans.

Deceptively smooth. But his pitches were so easy to miss.

Ford in his rookie year, being congratulated by Joe DiMaggio (left) and Gene Woodling for a six-hit shut out, vaulting the Yankees into first place.

Lou Brock, known as “Stolen Base Specialist”. He had an infectious smile and his exuberance was contagious.

Known as “The Perfect Baseball Player”, Mickey Mantle was a powerful switch hitter. His hard drinking and other shenanigans shortened his career for which he expressed genuine, heartfelt regret later in life.

Although this post does not quote nor use this book as a source, I mention it because it is well regarded. I do have my quibbles with it, however. To me, it seemed Halberstam had an axe to grind, wanting to use this series as a sort of paradigm for racial issues in America. I found that unconvincing and distracting and, by the last page, I wished he had told us more about the series itself. Nevertheless, a good, easy read for baseball fans.

1964: Anne, The Beatles, and Beethoven; Bob Gibson and Whitey Ford — Part I

October 13, 2020October 13, 2020 Richard Barnes

She had come home for the summer. Her mother had told my mother that she was all aflutter about a band that only sang, “Yeah, Yeah, and Yeah”. I remember hearing my mother’s laughter.

I had promptly forgotten about it until, a few days later, at the club.

I was in the club’s main hall doing I-don’t-know-what, when Anne came running from the pool tables area where the short wave radio sat and called out, “Ricky! Come! You’ve got to hear The Beatles!”

Now, to give some context, no one in El Pao had a television set in that era; we saw our TV when we either visited Caracas or the USA. To give an idea of our sliver of acquaintance with American pop music back then, consider the club jukebox. It was built into the south wall, poolside, and enclosed by a sheer, transparent glass door through which its many records could be plainly seen as the gentle mechanism pulled one disc to replace it with another. As I learned to appreciate later in life, our jukebox fare was most unusual in my early childhood. You could hear Debussy’s Clair de Lune and other such classical or easy listening pieces, not to mention Christmas hymns and songs during the joyous season. By the mid-1960’s or shortly thereafter, the jukebox contents had been replaced by more of a Venezuelan, interspersed with American, pop fare.

My point is that I heard American pop music only when I visited Miami or New York or when my cousins would come down to Venezuela to visit us and happened to bring “The Bristol Stomp” or “The Twist”. For example, when I was about 6 or 7, I was in a New York City restaurant with my parents. The violinist who was playing from table to table, came to ours and asked me what I would like to hear. I said, “Three Coins in A Fountain.” He was floored. Nevertheless, after he made the other patrons laugh by saying he expected me to have asked for “Pop Goes the Weasel” or some contemporary pop, he played my request beautifully. He was a very jovial character.

It wasn’t that I had any hankering for that Sammy Cahn song. It’s that I was not expecting to be asked for a song and so just thought of one of the records we would hear in El Pao.

So, at that time, to me, The Beatles was nothing more than a bunch of bugs. Misspelled.

I must not have been very much engrossed in whatever I was doing because, like a sheep led to the slaughter, I nodded and let Anne swoosh me to the radio.

The sound of whatever the song was (“I Want To Hold Your Hand”? “Can’t Buy Me Love”? “She Loves You”? I just don’t remember or don’t know) rooted me in front of that radio. Not wanting to let on that some silly rock group could grab me in any way, I said, nonchalantly, “What’s the big deal?” But she saw right through me, “You like them! Everybody does!”

If you are interested in the 20th century and have not read The Gospel According to the Beatles, by Steve Turner, look it up. In my opinion, Mr. Turner brilliantly captures the “why” of that band. Their incarnation, or personification, of the reigning existentialism of the mid-20th century West — putting Jean Paul Sartre into music and antics, if you would — goes a long way to explaining the explosive impact they had on pre-teens, teens, and young adults of that era and up to today.

The book gives context to John Lennon’s “The Beatles are more popular than Jesus” (in the same series of interviews, Paul McCartney’s comments were even more explosive but he was shielded by the press). The church, especially in the Philippines, was outraged and gave the statement more publicity than it would otherwise have garnered. However, the real question that should have been asked was this: Why? Why, in the West, is a rock group more popular than Jesus?

Because they were, at the time. And that said very much, not only about the then state of the church, but also about the grip existentialism had on our generation. And still has on many.

In the late 70s, a few years before his murder, John Lennon wrote Oral Roberts, asking him about life. He told Roberts that he had fame, girls, drugs — but was trying to make sense of it all. Towards the end of the book, the author tells of his own personal encounter with Mr. Lennon. Mr. Turner felt he was not a good witness to him about Christ. I disagree; he, a young man at the time, was willing to engage Mr. Lennon about eternal truths and about the One Who said, “I am the Truth.” He did well.

Years later, long after The Beatles had broken up, I was seated on the window seat on a flight to Chicago, reading, when I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was Anne. She became my seat mate for the flight and we immediately caught up and went on to talk about culture, economics, and Beethoven. It was Anne who piqued my interest into buying and then listening to the 9 Beethoven symphonies back to back. She was right: it’s quite an experience.

Ludwig Von Beethoven (1770-1827) is one of Western Civilization’s most famous and prolific composers. His symphonies go from the First and Second, which most consider to be hat tips to Mozart, on to the explosive Third (“Eroica”), the somewhat melancholy Fourth, and the most popular Fifth with perhaps the most memorable 8 notes in music history. But what a treat to go beyond the 8 notes, all the way to the end of the fourth movement! Going therefrom to the Sixth (“Pastoral”) is like going from rapids to a wider but still exciting river. Then the dance-like Seventh and the deceptively powerful Eighth await you.

It all culminates with the phenomenally glorious Ninth whose fourth movement, almost in exasperation, declares that musical instruments are not enough for the sentiment. The human voice must now be heard.

So voices are lifted up to sing Friedrich Schiller’s (1759-1805) “Ode to Joy”, whose last stanza reads:

Brothers, above the starry canopy 
There must dwell a loving father.
Do you fall in worship, you millions?
Seek Him in the heavens;
Above the stars must He dwell.

In 1907, Henry van Dyke composed “Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee,” set to Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” melody and this hymn is found in many church hymnals to this day.

Beethoven’s nine symphonies, which he composed with progressive loss of hearing (he was totally deaf by the time he composed the ninth), do reflect much that a life can relate to and are worth careful consideration by all.

However, to consider his first two symphonies to be acknowledgments to Mozart, sounds a bit condescending, at least to me. Mozart composed 41 symphonies and the last three — the 39th, 40th, and 41st — are as much a “transition” to the Romantic era as anything Beethoven composed. At least they are to me.

We talked non stop till we landed at O’Hare and said goodbye. That was the last time we met.

Anne passed away some years ago, but if she were here today, I would tell her that she was right on both counts: that Beatles sound had indeed stunned me, as it had captivated her. And, as we matured and returned to our mutual heritage, I too agree with her in that Beethoven’s nine symphonies are a wonder to experience.

In October, 1964, a few months after my childhood encounter with Anne, I was back in front of that radio, along with a crowd of other boys and men, listening, cheering, groaning, hollering. But it wasn’t over The Beatles. Oh, no! It was something far more important.

It was the World Series between the St. Louis Cardinals and the New York Yankees. As it turns out, this was to be the last hurrah of the famed Yankees.

This team had played in 14 of 16 World Series since 1949. Their appearance in 1964 was to be their last until 1976. By the end of the 1964 season, the Yankees would have won 29 American League championships in the 44-year span since 1921.

They’ve never been the same since.

This series highlighted the grace and power of many baseball stars, including two who have died very recently: Bob Gibson and Whitey Ford.

We’ll conclude this in the next post.

The Beatles arrive in New York, February, 1964

Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980). Very influential 20th Century French existentialist. *The Gospel According to The Beatles*, by Steve Turner, helps explain the juxtaposition between The Beatles and existentialist philosophy.

I give credit to Anne for piquing my interest. Shortly after our conversation, I bought this set and have it still.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791). To me, his last three symphonies sound like as much a transition as Beethoven’s works.

In my childhood memory the club’s shortwave radio was this type, but larger.

My childhood friend, Anne (far left), circa 1959

Anne in the early 2000s (her brother sent me this photo a few years after her passing)

The fearsome Bob Gibson (top) and the calm, but commanding Whitey Ford both pitched in the 1964 World Series. We’ll say more about them and the series in the next post.

Memory

October 11, 2020October 11, 2020 Richard Barnes

Oscar Wilde wrote, “Memory is the diary we all carry about with us.”

There is truth in that, especially when it comes to childhood memories.

I write this from our home in the Puerto Rico mountains on a very rainy day. My mind, or more accurately, my heart, has been transported to El Pao and the many afternoons during the rainy season (May through November, inclusive) when the rains would fall incessantly for hours. There was something peaceful about it all. At least for me.

I remember on occasion sitting on the floor or the ground out back, under the roof whose shelter extended beyond the porch and listening either to the pitter patter on the roof or the gentle sound of the water dropping on the innumerable leaves of the giant mango trees.

Poet I never was, nevertheless, more than once I’d think in my child’s mind that I would look back on such days and remember them fondly.

And, lo, I do remember them. With love.

Somewhere in a mining camp in Venezuela years ago.

Children in Venezuela, like children everywhere, love going out in the rain

Fernando, Sears, the Yankees, and The Beatles

October 9, 2020October 9, 2020 Richard Barnes

Fernando Rodriguez was an Arthur Andersen audit manager in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He had a delightful sense of humor which, upon remembrance, still makes me chuckle, if not laugh outright.

Once, around noon, having gotten his haircut in the barber shop in the lobby of the Royal Bank of Canada, he walked out and ran into one of the firm’s partners who gruffly rebuked him, “Hmmm. Getting a haircut during office hours!” to which Fernando, without missing a beat, replied, “My hair grows during office hours!”

Of course, the partner laughed.

During one of our trips to the mainland, we had a stop in Miami during which he called relatives there, introducing himself as “Fernandito”. After he hung up the phone, I asked him a bit about his childhood in Miami. A couple of his stories remain with me presumably because they are not too dissimilar from my own childhood experiences.

As a child, he had escaped Cuba where, like his friends and family, he was a die hard New York Yankees fan, as I had been in my childhood. They lived in the Coral Gables area of Miami and every day, he and other young Cuban refugees would run to Sears where they could see the previous night’s baseball scores. He told me of their loud delight whenever the Yankees had won and, looking back, how strange that must have seemed to the Sears employees. Who are these Spanish-speaking kids yelping as they would in the baseball stands when this is not a stadium and there is no game going on?

As he told of that era, I instantly related. Every year our family took our annual leave in Miami where we also had relatives. And every year, my mother would include a long, tedious day or two of shopping in Sears of Coral Gables. In retrospect, I have to admire my parents’ planning. They guesstimated their children’s growth for the following year and bought them clothing on that basis. I can remember only once or twice having to buy clothes in Venezuela, for funerals. It was very expensive and that is why we, and other families in El Pao, bought in the USA once a year.

And I also recall rooting for the Yankees over the big short wave radio at the El Pao Club.

Fernando went on to tell of how he and his childhood friends were so taken by The Beatles phenomenon. They would run to Sears every week, baseball season or no, to check the standings of any Beatles songs on the hit parade. He chuckled as he pondered how crazy they must have seemed to those Sears people.

This too rang true. In another post I’ll tell about the “arrival” of that band in El Pao in 1964 and how that coincided closely with a heartbreaking Yankees loss that year. But for now, I’ll say that when their hit song of the moment came on that short wave radio, my childhood friend, Anne, came running to me, insisting that I come and hear them. Just like Fernando and his friends ran to see how they were doing against the competition.

Fernando went on to live and to thrive in Puerto Rico, first as an Arthur Andersen audit manager, and then as partner and president of a regional CPA firm based in the San Juan area. I last saw him when he and I along with a mutual friend and colleague, Vicente Gregorio, met to reminisce and, mostly, to laugh, in Christmastime, 2012, during one of my visits to Puerto Rico. He passed away on June 4, 2014.

Coral Gables, Florida, was founded in the 1920s and was designed to be a pedestrian city. That, it certainly was as my childhood memories can attest: walking up and down Miracle Mile and Alhambra; visiting the Miracle Mile movie theater; walking to and diving into the gigantic Venetian Pool are all vivid memories decades later.

Many Cubans settled in Venezuela and I was privileged to know them, to love them, to miss them. As I miss my friend, Fernando.

Sears in Coral Gables is one of the very few remaining Sears stores in Florida.

Douglas Entrance to Coral Gables, Florida as I and my friend, Fernando, remembered it.

Sears in Coral Gables, Florida. Miracle Mile is seen in background. Thanks to Dreamstime for photo.

Miracle Mile Theater, Coral Gables, Florida

Fernando Rodriguez, my friend and colleague. May he rest in peace.

Amazons III — Raiza Ruiz: Buried While Still Alive

September 26, 2020September 30, 2020 Richard Barnes

The first of September, 1981, began inauspiciously enough for Rómulo Ordoñez, who piloted the Cessna YV-244-C. The last passengers he would ever carry were Colombian Judge, José Manuel Herrera, Venezuelan police officer, Salvador Mirabal, and Raiza Ruiz M.D. The policeman was carrying a slaughtered deer as a favor to friends in San Carlos who would pick it up there. The flight originated in Puerto Ayacucho and landed in Atabajo from whence it had flown to Maroa in the Amazonas Territory of Venezuela (now Amazonas State). It then headed to San Carlos on the Río Negro. The plans were to drop off the judge and the policeman in San Carlos and pick up a few of Raiza’s colleagues and then fly back to Puerto Ayacucho, the Territory’s capital. To understand the flight plan’s trajectory, refer to the map below.

No one imagined the Cessna would not arrive in either San Carlos or Puerto Ayacucho.

The Amazonas Territory was, and still is, one of the most unexplored regions of the world. To illustrate, imagine lodging somewhere in San Carlos from which you plan to explore the Baré and Yanomani regions. You’d begin by canoeing east on the Casiquiare and then, with an expert guide, you’d need to find the Río Parsimani from which you’d motor, paddle, hike carrying your canoe, wade in knee deep, waist deep, and chin deep waters and swamps to the Caño Emoni. A caño is a river or stream that can be many or few feet deep and wide and flows into the deep jungles sometimes through boundless swamps, with ever changing depths and currents. Some explorers find them a bit creepy. At any rate, if you get that far, you’d be doing better than many experienced explorers.

You might then decide to turn back as the Yanomami are not always friendly.

On that September 1st, the pilot, Ordoñez, had dropped off passengers in Atabajo and had picked up the policeman, Mirabal, and the Judge, Herrera. He then flew further south to Maroa where he picked up the medical doctor, Ruiz. They were now headed to the last stop, San Carlos, from whence they would fly directly back to Puerto Ayacucho.

Rains were now heavy as the plane took off from the Maroa airport.

About halfway to San Carlos, the plane, flying in heavy fog, hit a mountain with a high, thick canopy of trees. The trees, having “absorbed” the impact of the crash, also immediately “entered” the plane transforming the passengers’ environment from fog to green foliage which now scratched and blinded them. When they saw fire breaking out, they arose as one from their stupor, abandoned the craft, three of them jumping out the left side onto branches, trunks, and bush and catching twigs and trunks as they fell, and landed on the jungle floor. The policeman crawled out the right side, through the window he had broken in order to exit.

Within 30 minutes after takeoff three rescue planes took off from Maroa to seek the stricken craft. Another pilot who had been in communication with Ordoñez had suddenly lost contact with him and had raised the alarm. The search craft, assuming the mishap had occurred shortly after take off, focused their search area on the jungles surrounding Maroa, not knowing that Ordoñez was about halfway to San Carlos when he crashed.

The Cessna had lost its tail and almost immediately had caught fire; nevertheless, for a few minutes, it hung suspended above the canopy, mostly between two gigantic trees. The policeman had apparently not been badly injured by the impact. The pilot had broken his collarbone and three ribs. The Judge had a broken leg. Dr. Ruiz had bad scratches on her hands and legs, but all three were able to exit the plane, now enveloped in flames, on the left side.

As they fell and descended, the plane also fell, exploded, and caught the policeman on the right, covering his body in flames. He walked, robot-like, calling for help, before finally falling. Even so, he managed to smile to Dr. Ruiz and say, “Doctor, my lights are going out.” He died in terrible agony about an hour later. The survivors crossed his arms and prayed.

The others had also been burned, though not as badly and after about 3 hours, their thirst took over and they made the fateful decision of leaving the accident site in search for water. They did manage to find a small pond, but they lost their way and never returned to the plane.

At this point, I must note that other testimony and records say that Dr. Ruiz did not want to stay next to what would certainly become a rapidly putrefying corpse. This became a point of harsh criticism against her, despite her own ordeal.

Since one of the passengers was Colombian, and since the accident could have taken place in either jurisdiction, both countries, Colombia and Venezuela, initiated joint rescue efforts. After three days’ search they saw the remains of the craft. They initiated the journey via Caño Iguarapo for two hours followed by 6 hours on foot, arriving at the site late that afternoon.

The dreadful weather prevented the immediate evacuation of the remains of Mirabal, the dead policeman, whom they found with his arms crossed, although badly decomposed and exhibiting the gross results of scavenger jungle animals. The rescue team then deposited into a single bag what they had assumed were the now unrecognizable remains of the others. One of the members reported on human tracks heading out of the accident site but he was ignored because everyone knew that no one could possibly have survived this disaster and, besides, the remains were there for all to see, even though they could not be identified, other than the policeman’s. As to the crossed arms of his body, not much thought was given to that, even though, logically, someone must have done the crossing. Maybe he did so himself just before dying. They thought.

They camped there for the night and evacuated the next day having concluded their mission as accomplished. The remains were delivered to doctors in San Carlos. There were no forensic personnel there; they naturally assumed that the charred deer remains were what was left of the pilot, Ordoñez, the judge, Herrera, and the doctor, Ruiz. These were sent in three different coffins to their respective origins and were buried.

However, the three survivors had been wandering in the vast jungles, disoriented, with multiple fractures and burns about their bodies. It was a terrifying place. Dense foliage and vegetation that, they knew, would severely hamper any efforts to find them. But they were determined to find help in or through those intimidating lands. They came to a small stream and decided to follow it, thinking it would take them to the Río Negro, thinking they were near San Carlos. They were not.

After a long journey on foot, Judge Herrera, who could no longer walk on his broken leg and who was severely exhausted, sat down on a trunk. His burns, wounds, and traumas had become too heavy a burden for him. He decided to stay there, next to the stream and begged the others to stay with him there, to accompany him.

The pilot and the doctor felt they had to keep going. They promised Herrera that they’d return with help and went on, hopeful of returning for him soon. This did not happen. The judge was never seen alive again.

That night, Ordoñez and Ruiz essayed to cross a swamp to then find to their horror that it seemed to never end as the waters had risen to terrifying levels because of the rains. Exhausted, they each embraced a trunk and held on through the night, hoping to somehow rest a bit. They could not rest, but held on, each to his or her trunk, till daylight. Sharp leaves, underwater sliced their legs, further aggravating their injuries and further providing cracks and slits for worms to feast.

Hungry, ceaselessly attacked by insects, legs horribly cut by leaves that were sharp as blades, even underwater, Ordoñez and Ruiz went on, Ordoñez coughing badly and in one fall breaking his ankle. Both stumbled and fell often, which was especially a danger for the pilot, Ordoñez, with broken ribs. Ruiz was “covered” with worms seeking to burrow into her open wounds and cuts and scratches. She cleaned her cuts every time they stopped for water, not knowing that in her situation the best thing to have done was to cover her open wounds with mud instead of water.

They came to what appeared to once have been a large clearing of sorts. Later, it was learned that that area had been a rubber harvesting sector over 60 years earlier, now abandoned and nightmarishly ghostlike. While they looked around, they heard the sounds of an airplane! They ran in opposite directions thinking that would give them more of an opportunity to be seen from above. They yelled and jumped.

But to no avail.

Ruiz then realized she could no longer hear Ordoñez. She made her way, stumbling, to where she had heard him yelling.

He was dead. It may be that in the excited jumping and waving and yelling, the broken ribs had punctured his lungs. Or it may be he had finally succumbed.

Ruiz was now alone. She thought she was losing her mind. Her body was bloated, her skin covered by worms which ran up and down her. It was as if death stalked her and its agents had begun their work before her passing. She also noticed that she was losing her eyesight.

Nights in the jungle are never-ending and terrifying, especially when one is alone and lost.

On the seventh day, she fell and knew she would not get up again.

Here, the accounts diverge greatly. Some say she was rescued by Baré Indians, whose children were playing nearby and saw her, thinking her to be dead. Other accounts say a local fisherman and his young son had decided to go near the crash site to scavenge for metal to use in their fishing enterprise. Her own accounts vary in this.

Regardless, she was indeed found alive. Barely. Covered with worms.

They ignored her delirious demands to be left alone, and gave her spoonfuls of water with cinnamon, little by little, until about half a glass was consumed. They made a makeshift cot and carried her to a nearby stream and from thence to Río Negro where she was eventually taken to San Carlos and tended by medical personnel who cut and peeled the little clothing she still wore and gave her antibiotics and anis to apply to the horribly infected skin. When they first saw her legs they initially thought they would have to amputate. But Ruiz had demanded that she be treated first and then any decision could be made. The demand was met and she kept both her legs.

Months later, she learned that the plane she and Ordoñez had heard that day was carrying her remains to Caracas where she was buried a day later.

It took over 15 years for the paperwork to be fixed and the courts officially corrected her status from dead to alive.

And the doctor who had declared the charred deer bones to have been Dr. Ruiz’s remains was named as minister of health by President Chavez and a “revolutionary” hospital bears his name.

The Cessna’s flight plan was to take it from San Fernando de Atabajo, south to Maroa. Then further south to San Carlos from which it would fly back north to Puerto Ayacucho.

The capital city of Puerto Ayacucho in the municipality of Atures in Amazonas State. Atures is known as “practically the only area with population” in the entire state.

A White-Throated Tucan, Amazonas, Venezuela

Air Taxi similar to the one taken by Dr. Ruiz that fateful day.

Dr. Ruiz a few days after rescue (top) and before the accident (bottom)

These are leaves we have on our property in Puerto Rico. They are as sharp as razor blades. I do not have a description of the leaves that cut Dr. Raiza in the Amazonas Territory in Venezuela, but her descriptions of the pain and the cuts are most believable based on my encounters with sharp leaves in a friendlier ambiance.

To give an idea of the difficulties in finding a lost craft in the State of Amazonas, the following photographs were taken during the search of a lost plane in 2007. In this case, the crash site was never located and all are presumed dead.