Tag: Charles M. Barnes

My Father At 108

Richard Barnes

My father was born on November 4, 1917, 108 years ago today.

Although interventionist breezes blew strongly before that pivotal year — witness the Spanish-American War, for example — such did not compare to the hurricane force winds of 1917 which saw American troops shipped to France to engage in war on that continent for the first time in our history.

According to John Barry’s The Great Influenza, the cataclysmic “Spanish Flu” was propelled by troop shipments initiated in that year, although the catastrophic evidence of that pandemic would not be widely seen until the following year. Barry documents how government officials, as mendacious back then as they are today, were quick to call the flu “Spanish” even though all the evidence was that it originated either on the American continent or perhaps in Asia — it is debated to this day.

These officials also strove mightily to obscure the exact nature of the epidemic in order to not bring the war effort into question.

Regardless, that flu cost an estimated 100 Million lives. There are reports of men getting symptoms in the morning and being dead by nightfall. The age group most affected were children 5 and under. The exact opposite of a more recent infectious event. In sum, the flu killed far more people than all the soldiers and civilians killed in the war.

A few days after my father’s birth, the Russian Civil War broke out between the “Whites” and “Reds”, eventuating in the ultimate installation of the Leninist and Stalinist tyranny which ruled most of Eurasia for the next 70-plus years and still rules in China, albeit not as overtly as during Mao’s despotic rule. The Leninist – Stalinist rule is encapsulated well in their treatment of the royal family. If the reader would like to know more about this, Robert K. Massie’s Nicholas and Alexandra is an excellent source.

The family and a small entourage was arrested earlier in 1917. After several relocations, they were eventually situated in the outskirts of Siberia and, anticipating a “Whites” victory in 1918, were massacred: The czar and his wife along with their five children, Olga, Tatiana, María, Anastasia, and Alexis. Also their entourage — the doctor, Eugene Botkin, who cared for Alexis, who suffered from hemophilia; lady-in-waiting Anna Demidova; footman Alexei Trupp; and cook Ivan Kharitonov.

Their guards were changed, not only from location to location, but also in the same location up to a day or two prior to the murders. This was done because Lenin, a man completely unacquainted with pity, insisted that no opportunity be given for guards to come to feel compassion for the family.

The bodies were taken to the Koptyaki forest, stripped, mutilated with grenades and acid to prevent identification and buried. The “Whites” did take over the city and investigated the room where the massacre had so obviously occurred. The Soviets only admitted to the atrocity in the mid-1920s.

Demonstrating yet again, that there is nothing new under the sun, despite official denials and stonewalling and obstructions, the burial site was finally discovered, by an amateur detective in 1979, but another 10 years had to slip by before DNA forensics could confirm the identities as being from the royal family. The remains were reinterred in 1998, exactly 80 years after their terrible murders. Incredibly, the remains of Alexis and a sister were discovered in another, smaller grave by — surprise! — amateur archaeologists. These were also reinterred.

My father was one year old when the Armistice was accepted by Germany on November 11, 1918, and not yet two years old when the Versailles Treaty was signed in June, 1919. 

As a toddler, he knew about as much as the great minds of Europe on that day as to the eventual failure not only of that treaty but of the godless Socialist theories which eventuated in more blood shed and lives lost in that century than in all other centuries combined. 

My father was not yet two. He can be excused. But what is the excuse of grown men ostensibly educated by the greatest colleges and universities, all with Christian heritages, which should have told them that anything built on lies not only cannot endure but must end in catastrophe.

Like most men in 20th Century America, my father voted for Franklin D Roosevelt; but unlike most, he came to regret his vote and felt honored in voting for Ronald R Reagan in 1980, the last general election he would witness. Not because President Reagan was God — he most certainly was not. But rather because he at least tipped his hat to eternal verities and sought to govern thusly, although he was not successful in many respects.

My father did not speak much about his work in the Army special unit. But every once in a while he would express his dismay at the shenanigans of the United States State Department and other departments and their seeming obliviousness to Socialist ideology and their nonchalant attitude towards the intellectual growth of such in our society and culture. He was incredulous at our media and our government as they expressed obliviousness towards Fidel Castro in Cuba — we now know they were not so oblivious after all.

All the men my father worked with or for are now gone. I can share a seemingly insignificant event which illustrates how far my father’s distrust grew over the course of the century. After a decade or so of non-activity, he received a communication summoning him to a meeting somewhere — I’ll voluntarily redact the location except to say it was not on the mainland but accessible. 

Years later, my father told me about it. He decided not to attend. 

Why? I asked.

I cannot trust them.

My throat tightens as I write this. My father was not a coward. But he was realistic and he did see that not only had times changed, but the people he knew and respected were no longer in the drivers’ seats. It was another team and their fruit was not good.

As serious as all this is, I must insert here that my father had a wonderful sense of humor and laughed with ease, as eager to tell a joke as to hear one. Being a sportsman, he was able to take wins with enthusiasm and losses with a determination to do better next time.

Not being enthusiasts for foreign interventions, we can nevertheless see God’s Providence working in all things — good and bad. As I read about the Spanish-American War, I am not a fan. Nevertheless it was that war that brought my grandfather from Massachusetts to Cuba where he remained after the war and married my grandmother and it was where my father was born. 

And many years after that war, I worked for a public accounting firm in Puerto Rico, another fruit of that war, where I eventually met my own wife whom my father also met shortly before his own departure.

So, paradoxically, I am thankful for that war.

My father was murdered in October, 1982 in the Atlanta, Georgia area. 

He continues to exert a powerful, beneficial influence on me and on my siblings.

And I am grateful.

Room where the Romanovs were murdered, the night of July 16-17, 1918

My grandfather, Max A Barnes (1874-1950)

My grandmother, Eustaquia R. Barnes (1893-1951)

My father and I, visiting family in Stockbridge, Massachussets, circa 1962

My father, Charles M. Barnes (1917-1982), circa 1948

Father and Baseball

Richard Barnes

In memory of my father, this post is an overview of him and his love of baseball.

He was not tall, maybe 5 feet 8 inches or perhaps 9. But he was naturally, effortlessly muscular and always stood straight, like an athlete in his prime. In fact, he was an athlete: first string in his high school basketball and baseball teams in Massachusetts.

He was high scorer in a championship basketball game and hit a winning home run in a championship baseball game: both events were featured in the respective next day’s newspapers – I was always astonished by newspaper clippings about my father, hidden in a dresser drawer: my mother had shown me the clippings and had, helpfully, shown me where they were hidden and given me permission to seek them out whenever I wished to.

This I did frequently. My father’s pictures in those old newspapers demonstrated that, apart from thinning hair, he still retained much of that youthful, virile look, down to his straight nose and firm chin.

He was fast in his movements when he needed to be, surprising many younger men. And he was quick to learn new sports. For instance, the camp had built a two-lane bowling alley; boys were paid to set up the pins. Despite never having played before coming to Venezuela, he bought and practically memorized Andy Varipapa’s book on bowling and quickly excelled at the game, not only in El Pao, but also in Puerto Ordaz.

But, when it came to sports, baseball was his true love. He had been recruited by the New York Yankees in their heyday and played in their farm league. However, he decided to accept the Bethlehem Steel offer and went to Venezuela. I remember, as a child, telling him, “But why didn’t you stay with the Yankees!?”

He laughed, “Well, if I had, then you’d never have been born.”

“That’s OK! You’d have played with the Yankees!”

He laughed and hugged me.

He would drive to the labor camp and join the men who’d gather every afternoon, after the 4 o’clock whistle. He immediately earned their respect and admiration by playing ball competitively and with scrappy excellence. The days came and went and within months, my father had organized those men, and others who had joined up, into teams, assigning several “naturals” to the positions most suited for them.

He was a player-manager who also pitched and the days he did not pitch, he played left field. The company purchased pin-striped uniforms for the team’s home games and gray for the road. Bold lettering in front read: Iron Mines, short for the Bethlehem Steel subsidiary, Iron Mines Company of Venezuela.

The company also graded the field and built stands and El Pao found itself with a regulation sized baseball field and stadium ready to host the arduous daily practices as well as, eventually, home games for the team.

And they indeed did begin a celebrated career, achieving Double A status and earning two national championships in the 1950s.

My father was a strict manager, which paid off richly. And he was fearless.

He laid down strict rules about drinking, smoking, carousing, and all-around honesty – somewhat like an American high school coach in that era might lay down to his charges.

In season, he worked every day, after the 4 O’clock whistle, with the team and he expected each member to give his all. And it was hard work, as several had not even seen a baseball until my father recruited them to the team. In brief, in less than 5 years, he had transformed them into a championship team.

One star pitcher became something of a prima donna. One day he arrived at the 4:15 PM practice quite drunk. It was not the first time.

My father kicked him off the team: “My team is on the field right now. And they are sober!” He told him. “Go! And bring me your uniform tomorrow without fail.”

The uniform did not appear.

After a few days, my father drove late one night from El Pao to a two-story apartment complex in the outer purlieus of San Félix on the Orinoco, knocked on the door, and, upon the fired pitcher’s opening the door and freezing upon seeing him, demanded the company’s uniform back forthwith.

He returned to El Pao with the uniform.

I heard this story from others; my father didn’t tell me.

When asked by his superiors why on earth he’d risk his life for a lousy baseball uniform, he shrugged, “I didn’t risk my life. That uniform is company property. If we allow a cry-baby to stomp off with company property with no consequences, we open the door to all sorts of malfeasance. I know the folks in San Félix and they know me, and they know the company. There was no danger.”

It was incidents like these that generated my father’s reputation for honesty, persistence, and a desire to make things right.

He was not universally liked; however, many younger men, mostly from the labor camp loved him. He taught them not only baseball, but also discipline and sportsmanship.

I remember once overhearing him tell my mother about a Pittsburg Pirates scout who had seen the team play in Ciudad Bolivar and had approached him after the game to recruit him for the Pirates. My father laughed heartily as he remembered telling his age to the scout and seeing the scout drop his jaw.

I also recall one game in El Pao when the opposing team’s power hitter had batted the ball over the left field fence. Or so it seemed. My father ran like a gazelle, hit the fence, then climbed the fence, jumped up, caught the ball, and fell to the ground, while holding the ball in his glove. I felt like the stands were going to fall, so loud were the cheers and yells and so strong the stomping and slapping. I’ve not often seen joy like that since.

In one game I did not see, as it took place before my birth, my father ran to catch a line drive but the ball was going too fast and he would have missed it if he attempted to catch it with his glove. So he launched himself horizontally and caught the ball with his bare hand.

When he left Venezuela, word spread and the old timers came from around the country and surprised him with a farewell game. He pitched three innings.

My father and the men he trained are mostly all gone now. But I am very grateful for the memories and example he left behind. He always missed the USA. But he made his years in Venezuela count to the utmost.

As a postscript, in 1978 when I visited Venezuela on what is perhaps my most memorable trip, while in Puerto Ordaz one evening, I had inadvertently taken a left turn at an intersection where such a turn was prohibited. A police car immediately pulled me over and the officer rattled off my infraction and hauled me off.

At the precinct I tried to explain that I did not see a “No Left Turn” sign but was willing to pay any fine. But they insisted on putting me in jail and see a magistrate whenever one became available.

After about an hour going back and forth, and seeing the police were not budging, in subdued exasperation I said, “I am very saddened that after leaving El Pao and returning to visit the land of my birth, my compatriots are about to jail me.”

I said this, remembering that my father often advised me that, when in trouble, to remind folks that I am “one of them”. That might move them to see me in a different light.

“You are Venezuelan?” asked my chief interrogator.

“Of course, I am! I was born about an hour from here in El Pao.”

“Barnes …. Barnes…. What was your father’s name?”

“Charles. Charles M Barnes.”

At this, the officer broke into a big, open smile and almost yelled, “When I was a little boy I used to beg my father to take me to see your father play! I saw him as often as I could! He was the best ball player I have ever seen. Is he well?”

“Yes. He is well.”

After another 15 or so minutes of reminiscences about my father, they released me with their best wishes.

Thank you, dear Dad.

Happy Father’s Day.

Iron Mines team, circa 1956. My father on front row, far left.

On an exciting trip down the Orinoco River to Puerto de Hierro, Venezuela — Circa 1963

Newspaper account of the farewell game in honor of my father — 1976. Note: he was also known as “The Cubano” because he was born in Cuba where my grandfather, Max A. Barnes stayed after the Spanish American War.