El Pao – Page 8 – The Pull Of The Land

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!

Memorable Christmastime in Puerto Ordaz in 1978. Speaking with the late Mr. Beran about the Venezuelan situation at the time.

The quintessential Venezuelan Christmas dish is the *hallacas*, a sort of “meat pie” encrusted in cornmeal and wrapped in banana or plantain leaves and boiled for several hours. The taste is sweet and spicy, but not “hot”, savor. The meat includes raisins, olives, pickled vegetables and more. It takes much work and time and is only served at Christmastime.

Young patient in a pediatric ward receives a surprise Christmas gift, circa 1955.

Provocative analysis of literature produced by men of that generation: traces the shift from romanticism and purpose to nihilism and futility.

Powerful analysis of centuries of superficial readings or discussions of the Spanish Empire and the deleterious impact of such superficial understanding (memory) on relations with Spain and Latin America.

Rosa

December 7, 2020December 7, 2020 Richard Barnes

Recently, someone asked me about life in El Pao and in the course of the conversation, she asked a question that made me think about Rosa. I am glad she asked me. It had been too long since I thought about that lady who deserves to be remembered. She is one of billions who lie in their graves, forgotten but to God. And to those who remember.

José was her brother. I remember him too. He showed up once a week or so to work on our garden. He’d amble up on this burro, laden with what looked to me like large canvas bags on either side, towards the rear, swinging heavily, slowly, comically. Seen from behind, José looked like an unstable, ponderous metronome atop a slow yet choppy sea, while the canvas or hemp bags swayed behind him like loose pendulums, slapping the donkey’s upper thighs as she plodded the quiet streets of El Pao where Jose’s gardens graced several homes.

“Sra., las rosas se ven bellas hoy,” he would invariably utter those or similar words, sotto voce, as he unloaded his baggage and pulled his spade and shovel from their respective canvas casings draped on either side of the burro’s neck. To me, it seemed José was born wearing a permanent, drooping straw hat. It was part of José. I never saw him without it.

“That’s thanks to you, José. This whole garden is thanks to you!” My mother would give directions as to what she wanted to see done and often she worked the garden with her own hands, but always gave credit to José.

His sister, Rosa, would accompany him many a time and while he worked the gardens and landscapes, she’d assist with laundry, general cleaning, and even rearranging the furniture at times. She also became a sort of informal nanny to us for a time. By and by Rosa became as well known to folks in El Pao as José. In my child’s recollection, I had thought they lived in the labor camp in a home provided by the company. But my mother corrected me on that memory. They were well known and loved in the labor camp too, but did not live there.

Cancer struck Rosa. A nasty, encroaching, overwhelming, suffocating cancer. Her beauty and bustling energy rapidly became things of the past as her Spanish skin became sallow and her cheeks sank and her eyes lost their happy luster.

Soon she no longer could play with the boy, and he didn’t want to play with her because she just looked very sick.

And soon, she no longer came to the camp.

“I’ll be back shortly,” my mother had paused by me as I memorized my assigned arithmetic tables one afternoon.

I saw her taking a small pot.

“I am taking her a beef stew. She asked that I bring her a little of that stew that we make here once in a while. She’s always liked it because she says it combines an American dish with Venezuelan seasoning and it’s a favorite of hers. I asked the doctor and he said it’d be OK for me to bring her some.”

“Rosa died this morning,” I heard my mother speaking into the telephone mere days later. “We will attend the wake tonight in the labor camp; as you know, she’ll be buried tomorrow.”

Although she did not live in the labor camp, someone had offered his home as the site for the wake.

Rosa had expressed, as best she could, her gratitude for the beef stew. But she never tasted even a teaspoonful. She just could not. Impossible.

“I want to go.”

“That’ll be fine, son. But just remember, Rosa will not be there; only her body. She will rise again one day, and on that day you will not see her stumbling stiffly because of the pain. You won’t see her cheeks hollowed out or her skin with that deathly color. You won’t see her wasted, unable to eat or drink….”

But that night I would see that I did not really understand what my mother was trying to tell me. As we entered the house I became uneasy seeing all the candles uncertainly piercing the darkness. Why didn’t they turn on some more lights? What seemed to me a multitude crowded the small living room. I saw José standing next to the simple coffin, at the head as folks milled by, expressing their pésame and hearing his expression of simple thanks in reply. I barely recognized José, probably because I had never seen him looking so sad and forlorn; but most likely because this was the first time that I saw him without that drooping straw hat resting easily on his head. On this grievous occasion, it revolved, slowly, loosely, by the rim, by means of José’s sun-darkened, scarred, knobby hands.

I was just tall enough to see Rosa lying there, covered up to her neck in what looked like white lace, under which she seemed clothed in a white, shiny dress. At least that’s what I’d always remember. Then I looked at her face. I hardly recognized her. It was hardened and wasted; it seemed battered. I saw pain, much pain in poor Rosa’s face. I noticed cotton in each nostril and wondered at that and did not like it. I wanted to cry, but did not.

I could not pull my eyes away from her face.

“Son, we need to go home now,” my mother had leaned over me and gently whispered in my ear.

And so, I opened my hands, which had been lightly gripping the edge of the casket, and backed up a bit, and, after a long look, I turned away.

But for days, and months, and years I’d have dreams, frightfully real dreams, of Rosa peering at me. Sometimes I’d fear going into a room alone at night because I could see her face right outside the screened window, looking at me.

I would learn, much later, that these visions and dreams were vivid examples of paradox: I loved and missed Rosa very much. I wished she had not gone. I loved her. But I hated seeing that face of death.

May you rest in peace, Rosa.

Rosa was not glamorous. But to get an idea of what she looked like, you could see Gale Sondergaard and imagine her without the makeup and dressed plainly.

For an “idea” of José, shave off about 40 pounds from Al Lettieri, dress him in rough khakis, and soften his features a tad.

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.