El Pao – Page 8 – The Pull Of The Land

Mining Camp Memories (continued): Part 3

May 3, 2021May 3, 2021 Richard Barnes

With great pleasure and gratitude I continue to post from the Mining Camp Memories by Michael John Ashe II (Mike). These arise from his and family’s sojourn in El Pao from 1953 to 1961.

I think General Lew Wallace had an understanding of the pull that childhood has on the rest of one’s life:

… some there will be to divine [such] feelings without prompting. They are such as had happy homes in their youth, no matter how far that may have been back in time — homes which are now the starting points of all recollection; paradises from which they went forth in tears, and which they would now return to, if they could, as little children; places of laughter and singing, and associations dearer than any of all the triumphs of after-life.” Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, Book Sixth, Chapter 6, by General Lew Wallace (1827-1905)

Thank you again, Mike!

Mike Ashe:

Organized Entertainment:

Below is a picture of the Castillo de San Francisco de Asis on the Orinoco which is located about 15 or 17 miles downstream from where Dick and I would fish. The company would organize a day trip for the whole camp (once a year) we would all travel by rail to Palua board the YaYa Tug Boat travel down river to the Castillo and have fun exploring the fort. The company would arrange lunch for us. Built by the Spaniards in 1685 to tax travelers on the river by raising a chain until tolls were paid. Children and Adults would have a great time.

Looking at these pictures the Castillo was built on top and around a large boulder. These boulders were everywhere in the Orinoco and the river banks for miles which only adds to the river’s beauty.

A picture of the river near Ciudad Bolivar-note the amount of river current. The mighty river was wide in the rainy Season it swells to a breath of 14 Miles. Average depth of 165 feet in the rainy season to 50 feet in the dry season

Another camp outing would be to travel down to the Caroni River during the dry season, when the water level was low exposing a sandy beach from the tree line to the water’s edge in some places 100 feet. The Caiman would leave their tracks in the sand from the tree line to the water’s edge, which was kind of neat. The families would go swimming in the river and I would go fishing downstream from them. Never told the swimmers that piranhas (AKA Caribes) were all that I was catching, and a lot of them.

The communal restaurant at the Club served good food (big night was Sunday for families) and the swimming pool was also very nice and all of us kids would spend a great deal of time there, mostly swimming. We would also get our haircuts there. The barber had a nude woman tattooed on his forearm and Dad would get a kick out of how I would be eyeballing the barber’s forearm-he never said anything to me about it.

We had movies twice a week. Everyone would bring lawn chairs and watch/wait until the projector malfunctioned!

My favorite person in Venezuela was “Juan the Bartender” Juan like many folks in the camp and in Venezuela, were there to escape the economic collapse in Europe after the War. Actually, I was godfather to his son one of the highlights of my life in the little Church in the labor camp. I did speak with Richard Barnes about Juan who had left before the mine closed. While working in El Pao he had made enough money to buy a bar in Soledad (across the Orinoco from Ciudad Bolivar) which he later sold for a nice profit that enabled him to return to Portugal with his family. Juan’s importance to the community was never recognized and in that he was special.

Encounter with wild beasts and diversity of wildlife:

On one occasion I ran into a rather large Tapir while on a fishing trip on the Caroni River bank circa 1957-58 during the dry season. On the way back from my position on the river bank to the pickup (the rest of the fishing party was waiting to head home) I entered the tree line and I froze, the Tapir was about 15-20 feet away from me. I wasn’t afraid of it but knew that it was a big wild animal and I really didn’t know how dangerous it was. If I had known, I would have started running. When we made eye contact, it turned and moved away, I remained calm but as soon as it was out of sight, I picked up the pace and got out of there. I told everyone what I saw but didn’t get much of a response. No big deal. This actually was a very big deal and I was blessed to be able to experience a contact with an endangered animal. A Tapir (shown below) typically spends a great deal of time around rivers. I would also expect them to be around more in the dry season (calmer waters provided easier access). Their primary predators in addition to man would be the Jaguar.

I ran into this guy “a Tarsiers” (above) while looking into a burrow and it scared me to death.

The diversity of wildlife was amazing. We had pet parakeets, toucans and a remarkable parrot called Big Parrot. I am convinced that a lot of the birds in Venezuela have not yet been cataloged. Big Parrot was an amazing bird; had long feathers surrounding the back of its neck and when excited the feathers would raise up creating a crown around its head.

The Herons lived next to us; a sloth meandered into camp one day and ended up in one of their trees- stayed there a couple of weeks and died.

There was also a large Burro that wandered into camp when I was 10. I took care of it and would ride around camp. One day the Burro disappeared (did not know how or why) but I was devastated. Somehow the Burro reappeared only to die in the Wrights (Dad’s Boss) front yard.

Silke Gerbrecht had a pet Ocelot in camp a beautiful animal but not too friendly. I never did see a Jaguar but hunters would sell their skins in the worker’s camp so they were not too far from camp.

Each year the camps were invaded by a relative of a cane toad, that littered the roads as road kill. I understand if they are kept in captivity, they will live for 35 years.

We made several trips to Cerro Bolivar (US Steel mine) to visit Art Ruff and his family. Art was a snake expert he had horses so we would go out in the bush looking for snakes. When he spotted one he’d jump off the horse and capture it with his bare hands. Dad and Art went off on one trip and caught a 10-foot red tailed boa. Art skinned it and sent it over to Dad. I don’t know what ever happened to the skin but someone could have made a lot of boots with it!

We ran into a lot of anteaters and porcupines. Our dogs would invariably have run ins with porcupines and come home with white spines all over their noses. Both are dangerous; the Giant Anteater has large front claws and are hunted in Venezuela primarily for the claws.

Birds by the Thousands:

William Phelps a North American from New York City, and Harvard Educated was an ornithological explorer and businessman who arrived in Venezuela Circa 1900, in the states of Sucre and Monagas. He became like myself, fascinated by the country and its birds. In San Antonio de Maturin he met British settlers, the Tuckers and fell in love with one of their daughters Alicia Elvira. He continued his studies at Harvard and returned to Maturin to sell coffee and pursue ornithology. His son William Jr founded the Phelps ornithological Collection considered the largest in Latin America. There are over 80,000 birds in feathers and thousands preserved in alcohol and over 1000 skeletons. William also founded Radio Caracas Radio (RCR) which was only shut down when the communist dictator Hugo Chavez came to power. The collection I believe is still in Caracas and continues to grow.

We ate a lot of bananas in Venezuela. Dad would buy a whole stock of bananas and hang it outside on the porch. The birds would feast on the top of the stock and we would eat the rest as it ripened.

The bird population in Venezuela is simply spectacular in terms of diversity, quantity and habitats. One of my favorites is the Crested Oropendolas that weave sock like nests that hang high up in the jungle canopy. There would be thousands flying into and out of their nests as we drove down the dirt road to Palua.

This is a Hawk Headed Parrot, our pet Parrot in Venezuela-simply called Big Parrot. When he got angry or disturbed the head feathers would go up on his head. He was a great friend and companion. We had several dogs in Venezuela, but Big Parrot was always my favorite.

Insects by the Millions:

Ants were my favorite insects. Army ants are actually scavengers that can swarm and consume a dead carcass in minutes. They provide a great service in keeping the jungle floor clean. When they are in the march they number in the millions and leave a bare trail about 8 inches wide for miles.

The leaf cutter ant is an amazingly strong creature able to carry leaves to the nest in great numbers. They all can and do bite which is always painful.

Beetles came in all types and sizes, we would play with them for hours, we’d get two large Hercules and/or Rhinoceros beetles and arrange gladiator fights just like in the Roman Colosseum. Blood thirsty jerks that we were!

Termites were everywhere, they would magically appear overnight on the walls of our company cinder block home. They would scale the walls inside a mud tube from the floor to the ceiling; don’t know what they were in search of maybe roof rafters (maybe wooden). Anyway, it would always freak out my mother.

Butterflies:

There were over a 1000 species of butterflies in Venezuela. The ones in the rainforest where we lived were amazingly colorful and evolved to blend in, some with wings that looked like eyes.

(I’ll briefly interject here to note that Andrew Neild from England published The Butterflies of Venezuela some years ago. Many of his specimens were from the area surrounding El Pao. If the reader is interested in this, he or she can search for Andrew and find him — RMB)

To be continued….

Mining Camp Memories: Chapter 2 (continued)

April 26, 2021April 26, 2021 Richard Barnes

…Mom would always say that the best time of her life was in El Pao with all her children about her….

Moving In:

I can’t be sure but I think we moved to Venezuela in 1953 (I was 6 and my sister was 2). Dad was an IMCOV employee hired as a Mine Foreman and left there in 1961. Our first on Delta DC7 going from New Orleans stopping in Havana, Kingston, Montego Bay and onto Maiquetia (I can’t be sure but I think flight time was 7 hours). From Maiquetia to Ciudad Bolivar on a bumpy DC3 (Plenty of barf bags on board) and by company vehicle to El Pao. Our first night in camp was really something. Red Howler monkeys would growl like lions and all of us were too afraid to sleep. My sister Mary Ellen and I ended up in bed with the folks for a couple of weeks! The camp weather was nice all year round including the rainy season-no HVAC.

Most of my memories were from a kid’s perspective and Venezuela was a great adventure for me but I knew it was very different for an adult. It takes a special person to spend a lifetime in a place where there is considerable isolation in language and culture not to mention the absence of family connections (my Grandmother the daughter of a New York City policeman lived in a mining camps in Chile and Mexico for almost 40 years). Outside, communication was not possible when we lived there, we had a short-wave radio and when atmospherics were right about 7-8PM we would get the news from the US, but not too often. The mail service was always touch and go. The commissary was in the labor camp. I remembered my mother would bake bread twice a week and would have to sift the flour to get the hundreds of black bugs out. We still managed to get some protein from the bread even after the sifting. Sanitary conditions were not optimum there. I remember that the women would travel to the Oil Fields to get frozen vegetables and Ice Cream about 3 times a year. Meat processing was done at labor camp the which took sanitation to a whole new level.

Bo Johnson was an exciting character, a geologist and a Pilot with a lot of flight hours in Venezuela and other parts of South and Central America. He would take off and land on the top bench of the mine until the day he crashed landed. He and Ted Heron salvaged most of the plane and stored the parts in the machine shop with the idea of rebuilding it. I left for school in the states around that time, so I don’t know if that ever happened. If anyone could fix something it would be Ted. Ted and Dad worked together in Inspiration Az-(Anaconda Copper) Ted’s expertise was in mining equipment maintenance.

In 1953-54 El Pao had a serious maintenance problem. Dad convinced management to hire Ted to solve the issue, which he did. When Dad went to Mexico in 1968 there were a similar maintenance issues with the Autlan’s Molango Mines and Ted was back in business. As I recall, Bethlehem Mines had a longwall shipped there from “I think” Mine 131 Boone Division that was giving them fits I don’t know if that problem was ever fixed.

Camp School:

The camp school was a one room structure. There were two teachers, Mrs. Dorsey and Mr. Shipe. Mrs. Dorsey’s husband had died in El Pao, but she continued teaching there. When my mother went to the States to have my brother Tim, I stayed with her, a great lady. I had one year of Mr. and Mrs. Eller. Both were very nice, however I thought Mr. Eller was a little strange wearing sandals in the jungle which was always a topic of conversation with the kids. Mrs. Ivanoksy was my piano teacher. She was a very eccentric but a wonderful French lady whose latest husband Boris Ivanosky was a huge Russian, who drove a very small sports car and always wore his French beret while driving. Both of them were getting up in age and she would sometimes speak to me in French, sometimes in Spanish and rarely in English. She would always have a snack for me after practice to soothe my invariable headaches? Needless to say, I really didn’t progress very far as a musician but loved my teacher.

Top picture is circa 1955; bottom picture is circa 1958

The Mine:

I spent a lot of time at the mine with my Dad most likely to give my mother a break (I was a handful). The crusher was a constant issue and the greatest bottleneck in the operation, so we spent a lot of time there. There were a couple of nasty crusher accidents one incident involved a third shift worker who had climbed onto the conveyor belt for a nap and didn’t wake up when the crusher started up in the morning. He was dismembered when he reached the head frame, just an awful accident. There was another accident (luckily no one hurt) when a dump truck unloading clay overburden tipped over while unloading and ended up about half way down a very steep and high dump site (a buildup of clay inside the bucket might have caused the accident or maybe operator error). Shortly thereafter one of the trucks was outfitted with a device to scrap clay buildup off the buckets, improving productivity and safety.

I got a chance to operate dozers and went to countless blasts with Sam Wright and my Dad which was really fun. The shovels would be positioned outside the blast zone and we would go inside the shovel bucket for protection. Dad or Sam would keep the pickup running, light the fuse, jump in the pickup, and race down the bench out of the blast zone (which was relatively large). The blasts were really something and everyone was different, a cloud of red dust and large sized debris (mostly 2-4” rock projectiles) flying in all directions. I was almost killed by a dump truck driver, so I was confined to the pickup after that when the mine was operating. IMCOV safety is a little less stringent than Bethlehem Steel’s!

Labor Unions were strong there. I remember one time Dad had a rather nasty disagreement with the union and he was arrested by the Guardia and put in jail. In Venezuela the police were actually not local but a Federal Military force called the Guardia Nacional. I do believe that Dad was taken into custody for his own safety but really not sure of that. I always thought the Guardia was a good organization but who knows nowadays.

Fishing Tales

_{^{Full Fine Print Disclosure}}I hate eating fish- so catch and release was the operative action.

Actually, there was considerable risk in living in a remote mining camp. Dick Guth was my Fishing Buddy and we went fishing at least a couple times a month. He would pick me up at 4:30 and drive down a dirt, sometimes gravel road to Palua (with Conucos on both sides of the road). It was right before daybreak that we would be on the Orinoco. It was beautiful calm water like glass with flocks of parakeets, parrots, and occasional guacamaya overhead. We would go downstream to our favorite fishing bend in the river and during the dry season come ashore. During the rainy season the Orinoco would overflow its banks flooding the surrounding low lands then would recede during the dry season, leaving behind lagoons full of fish (great opportunities for the Caiman and us) We’d head back (Orinoco would begin to get rough at midday) and troll upstream.

We would always get a Payara strike-AKA saber tooth barracuda great game fish average size 30-40lbs with two 2-3” long fangs in its lower jaw and go up to where the Orinoco and Caroni merged (amazing line of clean “Caroni River water and Brown Orinoco Water”) just upstream on the Caroni past Puerto Ordaz and back to Palua and head home.

I didn’t think about it at the time but it would have been a real problem if the outboard 30HP motor would have quit on us when we were downstream from Palua – since the banks of the Orinoco were impenetrable at that time. Amazing rivers full of fish, river dolphins, tarpon, sharks Crocodiles. I’m sure you know that the camp water was pumped up from the Caroni. Pumping station was slightly downstream from the amazing Falls (which was somewhat ruined by the dam). See below:

Somehow I misplaced my pictures of catches. This is a stock picture of a Payara. When landing one, you needed to watch out for their teeth!

Dick Guth, Ted Heron, Ted Jr. and I would go spear fishing off the coast. We would travel to Puerto la Cruz take two Zodiac type boats and motor out to an uninhabited island about 1- ½ mile off shore and stay there for 3-4 days. Great adventure for all of us. The water was very clear and relatively calm. We’d catch Longostinos (Spanish for little lobster) and boil them over an open fire. We were all strong swimmers and would sometimes venture out into blue water. On one occasion, I had gone out pretty far and Dick and Ted were yelling and screaming for me to get out of the water. I thought they were yelling because I was out too far. As it turned out they were yelling because there was a large shark close to me which I failed to see.

As you might have already guessed, fishing was really an important part of my life since organized sports of any kind was not an option for me. It didn’t stop when I was not in Venezuela. My Uncle Bob Broadley (a great angler) taught me a great deal about fishing during summer trips to Pensacola Florida. We would go out early mornings stop off at B&B Donut shop around 5:30 and off to the Pensacola Beach Pier on Santa Rosa Island and fish for Kings and Lings (Cobia). If the fish weren’t biting there, we would go to the pier at Fort Pickens and fish for Spanish (Spanish Maceral).

No one would believe the number of 8–12-foot hammer head sharks that used to circle the Pensacola Beach Pier. In those days the beach was packed with swimmers! Uncle Johnny McCluskey was another angler that I loved dearly. He was a great man of character, that I was fortunate to be a part of my life. He took an interest in my life and was always my buddy. He was a boxing fan and we would watch the Gillette Saturday fights together along with his son Mathew McCluskey. Just great memories. Johnny would fish for Mullet with a net since that was the only way to fish for Mullet.

Also, it’s important to understand that, although it was fun to fish, the relationships with my fellow anglers’ memories of them were and still remain the most important for me.

Many of us mining camp brats can appreciate how much our mothers sacrifice for their families. They are the true heroes of the mining camp life. Without them we would have not survived it.

My mother a Pensacola, Florida gal, met my Dad on a blind date in 1943. Dad was in flight training in the Naval Air Station there and after a six-month courtship they were married in Jacksonville, Florida.

Pensacola was always home base for us. Even today we always manage to return often to visit my brother and parents’ gravesite there.

Mom would always say that the best time of her life was in El Pao with all her children about her.

To be continued….

El Pao Society and Class Struggle

March 11, 2021March 11, 2021 Richard Barnes

“It began to dawn upon me uneasily that perhaps the right way to judge a movement was by the persons who made it up rather than by its rationalistic perfection and by the promises it held out. Perhaps, after all, the proof of social schemes was meant to be a posteriori rather than a priori. it would be a poor trade to give up a non-rational world in which you liked everybody, for a rational one in which you liked nobody.” — Richard Weaver, “Up From Liberalism” (1958)

“We must address broader issues, social boredom, wants, the mind, the heart — nothing to do with politics, or very little so.” — Russell Kirk

“The State exists simply to promote and to protect the ordinary happiness of human beings in this life. A husband and wife chatting over a fire, a couple of friends having a game of darts in a pub, a man reading a book in his own room or digging in his own garden — that is what the State is there for. And unless they are helping to increase and prolong and protect such moments, all the laws, parliaments, armies, courts, police, economics, etc., are simply a waste of time.” — C. S. Lewis

“And Judah and Israel dwelt safely, every man under his vine and under his fig tree, from Dan even to Beersheba, all the days of Solomon.” — I Kings 4:25

Earlier this year, I was asked whether social gears ground with difficulty living in El Pao, considering the differences between the Anglo and Spanish Americans not only in culture but, in some cases, also in class. The question forced me to pause and think back on my childhood in El Pao.

Upon reflection, and not meaning to be a Pollyanna about this, I must say that, in El Pao, I lived among the type of people I would ally myself with in the quest for the good life, that life of finding and pursuing your calling with all your might knowing that you will have the support, the criticism, and the encouragement you need to realize that life.

For those readers who grew up in small town America, I believe your experiences were most likely very similar to mine and to those of my childhood friends, especially early childhood.

Long before the television show, Cheers, gave us the refrain, “Where Everybody Knows Your Name”, I knew this to be the case, not in a bar, but in El Pao. We could name every person, not only in our school, but in every house. We could not get away with dialing the telephone and hanging up unless we did this only once or at most twice. Beyond that, you were very likely to be caught. Doors were left unlocked, your teachers knew not only your parents but every sibling and cousin, and upon your return from a long vacation or from an even longer absence for school, everyone knew all about where you were and how you had been doing.

No one expressed concerns when you and your buddies, rifle in hand, explored the surrounding jungles, unless you stumbled upon the secret dynamite depository, which we did on one occasion. However, once the national guard ascertained who we were, they let us go with a mild admonition, but not before they requested us to demonstrate our shooting skills (which duly impressed them, I might add).

Our friends included Venezuelans, Americans, Chileans, Cubans, English, German, Spanish, and Russian. From all “classes.” This was in addition to relatives, friends, and acquaintances outside the camp, who lived in San Félix, Puerto Ordaz, and Ciudad Bolivar, along the Orinoco, Puerto de la Cruz on the northern coast, Caracas, and more.

I do not recall hearing the social gears grind, let alone bumping into them, until well into my adolescence.

Those gears ground so smoothly for all those years because we, in a very real sense, lived in a classless society.

I do not mean there were no distinctions, for that will simply never be. We had distinctions, whether fathers, mothers, and children, or priests, pastors, and laity, or teachers and students, or bosses and subordinates, or general managers and miners, or heads of households and gardeners. Distinctions abounded all around us. We respected them; we gave honor to whom honor was due. But, paradoxically, we didn’t notice, let alone dwell upon them. And skin color did not even come into our thinking.

Recently, many years later, I’ve come into contact with childhood friends who, invariably, tell me that El Pao was a paradise to them. I can relate.

Why was all that collaborative, dare I say, loving, spirit buried under class and race warfare? Like Steve McQueen asks at the end of The Sand Pebbles, “What happened? What the [expletive] happened?”

Well, the man whose most famous publication, The Communist Manifesto, that strident, profane booklet, which, in my opinion, everyone should read, alongside the Bible (that way you know what both sides are thinking) is part of what happened. The Manifesto states, “The Communists … openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.” Marx made it very clear that progress can only come by means of violence. For that to happen, the home and church must be destroyed. So, it calls the home a brothel, wives and mothers, whores, religion, an opiate, and more. UNESCO registered that insufferable screed to its “Memory of the World Programme”. Why am I not surprised?

The idea of class struggle was not new or original with Marx; what was unique was his re-writing of all of human history with class warfare at the center. The concepts in the Manifesto, published in February 1848, were reinforced with the publication, in 1859, of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.

One would think that, with all the contemporary concern with racism, we would hear much more about Darwin’s contribution on “Favoured Races”. One would think so in vain.

As Engels said in his eulogy to Marx in 1883: “Just as Darwin discovered the law of evolution in organic nature, so Marx discovered the law of evolution in human history.” And each made organic nature and human history something ugly.

If you would like to see a contrast between pre and post-Darwinian/Marxist thinking, set aside some evenings to watch the BBC’s The Blue Planet. It is a strikingly beautiful production marred by its constant, almost unbearable allusions to death and sex time and time again. I watched every episode, but as each episode screened, something about it increasingly darkened the beauty that it supposedly intended to convey.

In contrast we have Gilbert White’s publication, The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne, published in 1789 and never out of print. This parish parson, Gilbert White, spent his entire life in Selborne parish serving his flock and observing and drawing the different plants and animals and natural history of his region. It is an achingly and evocatively beautiful record reflecting the harmony of creation and how everything in nature “fits” perfectly, a reflection of nature’s God.

Both the BBC and White observed the same creation, the same nature. But one saw only blood and sex in the struggle for food and species preservation; the other saw harmony and beauty, reflecting the glory of the Creator.

I would say that my early childhood in El Pao was more akin to White’s Selborne, whereas my later adolescence, for a shorter period of time, saw more of Marx’s Manifesto, although not exclusively. I believe that anyone with a sense of beauty and love and harmony would prefer the former. And, notice, there was no politics in the former. Or very little so.

“Everything was politics. Too much politics. That’s no way to live.” — Mr. Tuohy, my parents’ friend, who later became my friend also, speaking to me about Chile after Allende’s ascent.

“The trouble with Socialism is that it takes too many evenings” — Sounds like Yogi Berra, but is attributed to Oscar Wilde

The popular show, *Cheers*, where everybody knows your name. Everybody in El Pao knew your name, with or without the bar.

*The Natural History of Selborne*, Folio Society edition

Unvisited Tombs

December 31, 2020December 31, 2020 Richard Barnes

“The growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.” — George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans)

George Eliot lived and worked during the Victorian Era, hence, despite her atheism, her works were imbued with a Christian ethos. Unlike today’s fellow atheists, she did not overexert herself to hide her Christian presuppositions, given that these were considered to be discoverable by mere human reason and tradition, not needing supernatural revelation.

Since the early 20th century, vast evidence of the solitary, nasty, brutish, and short nature of atheistic life has been accumulated, including 100,000,000 extra-judicial deaths in atheistic, Communist lands (if your stomach is strong, see The Black Book of Communism for details). Given that reality and much more, contra Eliot, skeptics have been more careful to deny or obfuscate anything that might point to Christian presuppositions in their efforts to demonstrate moral virtues without Christianity. It’s not an easy task.

But this year’s end post is something of a salute to Eliot’s quote above, which is easily reconcilable to Biblical teaching.

When year’s end approaches, I often find myself thinking about Juan el bartender.

Juan the bartender?

Juan was Portuguese. He came to Venezuela to earn money which he would send to his family in Portugal. He eventually made his way to the interior of the country where he was hired by Bethlehem Steel to serve as the El Pao Club bartender. Near every year’s end, Juan would treat some of the boys by giving each a ride on his motorcycle. He would take his rider to the labor camp (otro campo) for a short spin around the area, saluting friends and other kids, and then he’d return them to the El Pao Club.

It was years later before I came to realize that what seemed a mere kick to me, required Juan to sacrifice part of his lunch hour in order to give a few boys something to remember for many years later, in my case for many decades later. That was very kind of him and tells me much about his character.

He eventually sent enough money to Portugal that he resigned and returned to Portugal, hopefully to rejoin his family and to live a productive life there. I am sure he also gave joy to children in his little corner of the earth.

I also think of Mr. Serrao. Every New Year’s Day, he would drive his and as many other camp children who could squeeze into his station wagon, around El Pao and then to the labor camp, honking his horn, and encouraging the kids to scream, blow their own little party horns, hang their torsos out the windows, and clap their hands as they yelled, “Feliz Año Nuevo!” as loudly as screeching parrots. The folks in the labor camp always expected this and would join in the festivities by clapping, laughing, and yelling back, “Felíz Año Nuevo!”

As with Juan el bartender, it was years later before I came to appreciate Mr. Serrao’s New Year’s practice. This took precious time from him, including having to awaken early on New Year’s Day, when I am sure he would have preferred sleeping in. At least a bit.

And to have a multitude of kids jam pack themselves into his vehicle was no walk in the park. But he was cheery and happy along with us and seemed to genuinely enjoy being a highlight of the year for us.

Mr. Serrao and his family lived next door to us for a number of years; his sons were very good childhood friends. He requested and obtained a transfer back to Bethlehem and that was the end of the Serrao New Year’s festivities. But they live on in my memory.

Juan Villanueva was the pastor of the small protestant church which met in the labor camp. Each year, he would celebrate a New Year’s Eve service designed to last until the chiming of the bells announcing the new year. I would lie if I told you I looked forward to this annual service. I did not. However, I would also lie if I told you I did not enjoy it, once there. I did. And, looking back, I deeply appreciate those services.

Here again, we have a man who took precious time to prepare for and celebrate a service designed to encourage us to remember that our days are in the hands of Him Who created us and all things about and around us, including the very days of our lives. It was both joyful and sobering to be so reminded, year in and year out.

Juan Villanueva left El Pao and pastored a church near the Orinoco River. I last visited with him in San Félix, in the early part of this century. It was a most happy meeting. He passed away this year. The world is a better place because of him.

One New Year’s morning, amid the hustle in our kitchen, my father laughed and told us about a report he had just heard on his short wave radio which was tuned to Voice of America. The broadcaster said something along these lines: “Many people went to sleep last night thinking of great resolutions they would embark upon today; many others went to sleep apprehensive about today; many other people lay in bed last night wondering and worrying about what the new year might bring; and a vast number of people went to bed last night as if it were just another night in their lives with nothing special about it at all.”

Thanks to people like Juán el bartender, and Mr. Serrao, and Juán Villanueva, and millions of others unknown but to God, with tombs unremarked and unvisited, “things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been….”

As we stand at the door of a new year, why not determine to be blessings to those with whom we interact, whether family, friends, and even strangers?

With Thomas Gray we can say of those who are unknown, unheralded, and unvisited:

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the poor.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Awaits alike th' inevitable hour.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

….

Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault,
If Mem'ry o'er their tomb no trophies raise,
Where thro' the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

….

Yet ev'n these bones from insult to protect,
Some frail memorial still erected nigh,
With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd,
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

Although the above stanzas seem sober (because they are), they also serve to bring joy. Our lives serve eternal purposes, regardless of whether or not they are remembered by proud men. God remembers. And that is all that really matters.

I wish you and yours a very happy 2021!

George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans; 1819 – 1880)

School Christmas plays were one of several annual year-end activities the camp looked forward to. Above photo is circa 1959.

Christmas circa 1958. My cousin, Janis visited from Miami. Our neighbors, Elizabeth and her brother, Johnny.

Children in El Pao, circa year’s end 1957.

Decembers in El Pao were marked by dinners and festivities in each other’s homes.

Christmas Memories and The Pull of the Land

December 25, 2020December 25, 2020 Richard Barnes

Each of us creates memories which, properly interpreted, become the figurative or metaphysical tissue of one’s life and home and of the communities in which one lives out his existence on earth. Our very lives run a course that is greatly fashioned by memories sown and cultivated decades and centuries before our birth.

Some children have a stronger “connection” to that generational memory than others. For example, many children almost instinctively ask their parents to tell them about “when you were a boy” or “tell me about grandmother,” etc., while others do not ask such questions. In such cases, many parents “volunteer” such stories. In doing so they play a part in perpetuating those generational memories, although they might not think about it in that context.

Memory creates history and determines relations between nations and civilizations. For example, someone wrote that the “conflicting memories of World War I left a gulf between Europe and the United States, one that has shaped their relations down to the present.” The literature engendered by that war further strengthened the outlines of the memories which persist to this day. For an analysis of that literature, I would recommend Paul Fussell’s The Great War and Modern Memory.

Similar conclusions can be drawn, perhaps even more forcefully, about the memories created over the centuries of the Spanish and English empires and their often deleterious influence on the relations between the United States and Latin America. Philip Wayne Powell’s Tree of Hate is a scholarly yet accessible study of that phenomenon.

A nation’s memory is but a fruit or product of her people’s collective memories, sown, and harvested over many generations. And, for many of us, childhood Christmases are a great part of such collective memories.

Many have noted the sadness and depression experienced by many in America during the Christmas season. Mental health professionals offer many reasons for this, including loneliness, anger at perceived commercialization of the season, subliminal envy at seeing or perceiving a joy in others, and more.

Perhaps a major reason for sadness is the nostalgia brought forth by childhood memories, especially those of Christmas, and a longing for recreating such times now, as older adults. Of course, one cannot re-puff soufflé, and if that is one’s goal, it will be met with failure.

Nevertheless, that does not mean one would do wrong to pause, dim the lights, sit on the sofa or easy chair, contemplate the Christmas tree, and remember those childhood days of Christmas….

Standing next to the diminutive Mrs. Bebita de La Torre singing “Noche de Paz” in the club on Christmas Eve. She was very short, but I was lots shorter than she at the time. I know, because her beautiful voice drew my attention and I could not help but look up to see her singing.

Rehearsing our school Christmas plays. Learning the words of Christmas hymns, especially as we rehearsed in the home of Mrs. Shingler, who worked indefatigably to make us all feel at home and whose visage immediately comes to mind whenever I think of Christmases in El Pao.

Receiving my aunt and uncle and cousins on Christmas Day. We would repay the visit on New Year’s Day by driving to their home in San Félix.

Bing Crosby, Perry Como, and Frank Sinatra singing Christmas Hymns and The Robert Shaw Chorale doing so more magnificently. Listening to Nat King Cole sing “The Christmas Song”, and not wondering how he knew I was hoping to see reindeer.

Accompanying my mother to set up the record player in the small church in the labor camp and play Handel’s Messiah, an event which attracted many in the camp to the church building to listen to a free concert.

Waking up on Christmas Days over the years of childhood and finding a silver bike, a roller coaster (I still can’t believe my father put that together overnight in the back yard), water rockets, a Lionel Ho electric train, a German-made rifle … opening presents around the tree.

Hearing the preacher caution us to remember that many children get nothing for Christmas and to be compassionate and to share.

Receiving visitors from households in the camp; they’d come and go, offering Christmas greetings and, often, gifts.

Visits by the aguinalderos with their expert musicianship and their hilarious lyrics; rewarded by my father with generous tips.

Childhood friends and their parents, many of whom are now gone.

Reading the Christmas story from Luke as we sat before the Christmas tree, and much, much more.

Those memories are not unique. What I mean is they are memories that are replicated numberless times over generations, with variations due to location and family traditions. Multiplied by the million, they serve to create mystical bonds across time and space that provide a common “pull”, a common experience, a common or shared memory. In this case, an American and Venezuelan memory.

For me, the pull of the land is in large measure the pull of memory. Not just childhood memory, but generational memories even of those whom I have never met but whose lives and works I and my generation inherited. That pull is strong; it is even felt by short-term visitors to Venezuela.

Others may be able to develop this much further than I.

But for now, it is important to point out that memories in and of themselves are not what bring joy. Memories are not the source of joy although their origins do proceed from that Source. Material things or events do not engender joy. Joy does not even spring from a happy childhood, as magical as that can be. Joy issues from the Person for Whom Christmas is named: Jesus Christ, God in the flesh.

He is the foundation for all that is good in our lives, whether or not we recognize it.

While it is true that, as some have so eloquently noted, the Christianity of mid-century America tended to be bland or generic, it was nevertheless recognized and honored. To attack Christmas in that time would have resulted in an invitation to leave town. That has changed, of course, but the memory is still there and is still strong. That explains the frenetic attempts to erase it.

But we can strengthen that generational memory by building, not on the manifestations of the memory, but on its Foundation: Jesus the Christ and His eternal Word. And as we build, the fruits will manifest themselves not only in evidences many of us remember fondly from our childhoods, but in many more that our children and grandchildren will remember and appreciate.

His Word promises this.

And after all, He is the Word made flesh.

Merry Christmas to all!