Researching and writing about the Bogotazo — whose repercussions are with us still — elicited a few childhood memories which, for what it’s worth, I’ll document here.
I left Venezuela in 1966, fully intending to return to live there one day. See Playa Hicacos, 1966 for my personal recollections of that year in my childhood, which was yet another tumultuous year in Latin America.
My intentions never materialized because, as the Spanish aphorism puts it, “El hombre propone y Dios dispone” (“Man proposes and God disposes”), loosely based on Proverbs 16:9, but quoted in classic Spanish literature such as Don Quijote. So, although I was able to visit a number of times, especially summers during student years, I never returned to live there again.
Nevertheless, as Whittaker Chambers put it in his magisterial Witness, “No land has a pull on a man as the land of his childhood.” And that pull is still with me.
In that era, “globalism” was an unheard-of term. Large companies, such as Bethlehem Steel and United States Steel, were known as “American” companies, whereas today such seek to be known as “global” companies, with minimum, if any, loyalties to the United States, regardless of their founding or corporate headquarters.
American families were stationed in myriad and distant spots across the continents and the early schooling of their children was addressed by establishing schools modeled after those of the origin state of the company. So, for instance, the Bethlehem Steel school in El Pao was generally modeled after the norms of state schools in Pennsylvania. So, as an example, when those schools required standard tests for the elementary schools across the state, those very tests were also administered to us.
As far as I know those who attended the school in El Pao did well once they transferred to the United States.
And they usually transferred at an early age. I was 12 years old when it was my turn to transfer, and I was not an exception.
We travelled to Miami for annual leave, but my stomach churned a bit that year because I knew that at the end of that vacation, I would not be returning with my family to Venezuela. We nevertheless enjoyed our visit with family in Florida and the Northeast. I was happy to see the Langlois Motel in Miami again. Our family had been staying there for years and it was a favorite of the cousins and us.
What I most remember, though, was the farewell at the Miami International Airport. Back then we had no obstacles to staying with travelers in the Pan American Airways waiting lounge and then at the gate.
My father and mother said their farewells to my aunt and cousins, as did my sisters. Then they each embraced me and expressed their hope to see me again at Christmastime. I bravely succeeded in holding my tears and keeping my voice from cracking as I hugged back.
Then we waved good-bye as they left the terminal and disappeared into the plane.
My aunt and cousins and I walked back to the parking lot, exchanging few words, but I could tell they were a bit anxious about me. I just wanted to get back home and find a spot where I could be alone.
But my aunt had other plans. She drove us to Miami Beach. I asked why are we going there, especially at this hour? “Oh, just for a ride.” Then I understood she was doing her best to distract me. I was not a happy camper for that, but I kept it to myself. The radio played that week’s top song, “Cherish”, performed by The Association. It seemed a bit too treacly, even for a 12-year-old, but what did I know. It became one of the very top songs of that year.
Then “Eleanor Rigby” by The Beatles came across the airwaves. That song, about loneliness, was more in tune with my sense at the moment. As the only surviving relative of Eleanor Rigby put it in an interview in 2008, “A lot of time has gone by, and Eleanor’s side of the family has run out. They were ordinary, hardworking folk, the Rigbys — joiners, bricklayers, farmers, and the like — not the kind of people you expect to go down in history. And now there’s nobody left.”
That about encapsulates my anomie back then.
Days later one of my cousins told me they were very surprised I had not broken down. I assured her that I had indeed broken down — inside.
Months later I learned that on the plane, a gentleman who sat across the aisle from my father had leaned over and told him about having been left in the United States years before in circumstances very similar to ours. Only in his case, the parents were headed back to Germany. He had noticed our farewells and wanted to assure my parents that all would be well. But he did not sugar coat it: he said that, even after so many years, he still gently grieved whenever he thought of that day.
The reader should keep in mind that in 1966 communication with El Pao was via short-wave radio. Or mails. It was like going to the other side of the earth.
Psychedelic drugs and English fashion — Carnaby Street, Twiggy, Alfie — were “in” and for young folks it was difficult to tell the difference between genuineness and just plain marketing and promotion. Regardless, it seemed the world was going upside down and that the self-centeredness of Alfie generally reflected western mores at the time.
As the American and British scenes seemed to careen off course, South America was wracked by coups and a violent Cordobazo in Argentina, further Communist infiltration into the highest echelons of the military in Venezuela, and, by 1966, La Violencia had caused the abandonment of over 40% of the arable land in Colombia.
So, as we asked, “What’s it all about?” the seeds of upheaval continued to be sown in abundance in Latin America. And the harvest in Venezuela became most apparent in the 90s and to the present day.
Langlois Motel, circa 1960 Pan American ticket counter, Miami International Airport, circa 1960 Number 2 song of 1966 Twiggy, 1966 Revolver, The Beatles, 1966 Carnaby Street, London, 1966 Michael Caine in Alfie, 1966. The song was composed separately as a promotion song and became a surprise hit.“Eleanor Rigby died in the same house where she had been born, was interred in the graveyard of St Peter’s Church, and had her name added prominently on an increasingly crowded headstone.” — The Daily Mail. She had married 9 years earlier and then discovered she could not bear children. She died of a massive brain hemorrhage a month after the outbreak of World War II. She was much loved by her family.
Scott Johnson’s column noted that Jackie DeShannon celebrated her 80th birthday last week, August 21. That in turn spurred me to invite you to briefly visit with me the summers of 1965 and 1969.
The background noise was, of course, the war in Vietnam. This post is not about that, other than to mention it as a backdrop, given that DeShannon’s renditions seemed to be reactions (or purported remedies?) to the controversies swirling at the time regarding that Hot Spot in the Cold War.
The Beatles were still very big in 1965 and their concert in New York’s Shea Stadium was their biggest, in fact the largest attended outdoor event up to that time. Press officer, Tony Barrow said it was “the ultimate pinnacle of Beatlemania … the group’s brightly-shining summer solstice.” During their brief stay in New York they also performed at the world’s fair.
As with all home office employees, my father’s employment contract included annual leave with paid travel to point of origin, which in his case was Massachusetts. That year he took us to the world’s fair and gave me memories which are cherished to this day.
Although Beatlemania was at its peak, a Burt Bacharach – Hal David song managed to break through the British Invasion that summer. I was just an 11-year old, and, when it came to pop music, I did not differ much from my generation in being mesmerized by the “Beatles Sound”. However, DeShannon’s rendition of “What The World Needs Now” caught on, making it into the top 10 that year. In Miami and Miami Beach the song could be heard everywhere, including the more “adult” radio stations some folks played while at the beach.
It is a memorable song which she handles seriously. Dionne Warwick, who was THE Bacharach – David interpreter, had turned it down, considering it “too preachy”. DeShannon agreed to record it and I am glad she did. Her earnest, captivating interpretation is linked below, should you like to hear it.
In a year that saw the Watts Riots, the song seems counterintuitive, but does manage to express a felt longing and seeking.
Other events from that year that I remember from childhood were Hurricane Betsy, which I excitedly anticipated and witnessed as it hit us in Miami, and the phenomenal Comet Ikeya-Seki which I wrote about here. This was the brightest comet of the past thousand years, and I’ll be forever grateful to my mother and father for waking us up hours before dawn and driving us to the labor camp to behold a sight of a lifetime.
And I also remember the excitement of the St. Louis Arch having been completed. I would visit it with my father and brother about 15 years later.
In 1969, as the pop world continued to move away from the existential exuberance of the early Fab Four and into a more cynical, psychedelic phase which 1967’s Sgt. Peppers album is usually thought to have unleashed, DeShannon again broke through with another “preachy song” which she wrote herself. Obviously taking her cues from her 1965 hit, DeShannon recorded, “Put a Little Love In Your Heart”. And, again, she spoke to teens as well as young adults, the song charting high in both markets. See link further below if you wish to hear it.
Both the 747 and the Concorde celebrated their maiden flights that year; I remember wanting the opportunity to fly in each. My wish for flying the 747 was fulfilled; not the Concorde. Man landed on the moon and I still hear Neil Armstrong’s “That’s one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind,” as we sat around my father’s short wave radio, listening to Voice of America in El Pao.
But those exciting technological and American can-do achievements were accompanied, if not overshadowed, by many other events reflecting trouble beneath the surface. Massive, angry “anti-war” demonstrations and marches were launched; Senator Edward Kennedy drove into a pond in Chappaquiddick Island and reported the incident over 10 hours later, prompting rescuers to the scene only to retrieve the corpse of a young woman, Mary Jo Kopechne. This event was taking place while most of us were avidly following the course of the Apollo 11 lunar flight.
And then there was Woodstock, which is still reported as a pristine shout for love, freedom, peace, and harmony. It was none of those, although I do not doubt the sincerity of the hundreds of thousands who attended. One after-the-fact look at the farm where the event took place ought to be enough to cast doubt on the promotion of Woodstock as some sort of Elysian Fields, dreamscape sojourn. It was pretty filthy. But, one could argue (and many have argued) that hundreds of thousands more showed up than were expected and hence the defilement and devastation. Even if we stipulate that, we can still ask, if this was such a massive promotion of peace and love and harmony, has that been its progeny? A quick look at crime statistics, suicides, divorce, and utter breakdowns in society since Woodstock should be enough to cast doubt. Maybe it was no more than what many of the participants described: drugs, sex, and rock and roll. Jesus said, by their fruits ye shall know them, and that includes events such as Woodstock.
And in the midst of this psychedelic haze, Jackie DeShannon had her 1969 “preachy song” hit.
Her 1965 song did not improve things and neither did her 1969 version. Both merely gave a voice, albeit weak, to the longing for meaning and love in lives. These are very real needs we all have, but few attain. In this, Thoreau was right: most men live lives of quiet desperation. And they seek for those eternal verities in the wrong places. Such can only be found in the Creator of life and of all there is. Man cannot create or be the source of absolutes. Only God can and is.
Iconic image immediately evoking the New York World’s Fair of 1965 – 1966.The Beatles in Shea Stadium (1965) Neil A. Armstrong on the moon (1969) Car driven by Senator Edward Kennedy the day after the incident where Mary Jo Kopechne died (1969) Woodstock (1969)
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.
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.
She had come home for the summer. Her mother had told my mother that she was all aflutter about a band that only sang, “Yeah, Yeah, and Yeah”. I remember hearing my mother’s laughter.
I had promptly forgotten about it until, a few days later, at the club.
I was in the club’s main hall doing I-don’t-know-what, when Anne came running from the pool tables area where the short wave radio sat and called out, “Ricky! Come! You’ve got to hear The Beatles!”
Now, to give some context, no one in El Pao had a television set in that era; we saw our TV when we either visited Caracas or the USA. To give an idea of our sliver of acquaintance with American pop music back then, consider the club jukebox. It was built into the south wall, poolside, and enclosed by a sheer, transparent glass door through which its many records could be plainly seen as the gentle mechanism pulled one disc to replace it with another. As I learned to appreciate later in life, our jukebox fare was most unusual in my early childhood. You could hear Debussy’s Clair de Lune and other such classical or easy listening pieces, not to mention Christmas hymns and songs during the joyous season. By the mid-1960’s or shortly thereafter, the jukebox contents had been replaced by more of a Venezuelan, interspersed with American, pop fare.
My point is that I heard American pop music only when I visited Miami or New York or when my cousins would come down to Venezuela to visit us and happened to bring “The Bristol Stomp” or “The Twist”. For example, when I was about 6 or 7, I was in a New York City restaurant with my parents. The violinist who was playing from table to table, came to ours and asked me what I would like to hear. I said, “Three Coins in A Fountain.” He was floored. Nevertheless, after he made the other patrons laugh by saying he expected me to have asked for “Pop Goes the Weasel” or some contemporary pop, he played my request beautifully. He was a very jovial character.
It wasn’t that I had any hankering for that Sammy Cahn song. It’s that I was not expecting to be asked for a song and so just thought of one of the records we would hear in El Pao.
So, at that time, to me, The Beatles was nothing more than a bunch of bugs. Misspelled.
I must not have been very much engrossed in whatever I was doing because, like a sheep led to the slaughter, I nodded and let Anne swoosh me to the radio.
The sound of whatever the song was (“I Want To Hold Your Hand”? “Can’t Buy Me Love”? “She Loves You”? I just don’t remember or don’t know) rooted me in front of that radio. Not wanting to let on that some silly rock group could grab me in any way, I said, nonchalantly, “What’s the big deal?” But she saw right through me, “You like them! Everybody does!”
If you are interested in the 20th century and have not read The Gospel According to the Beatles, by Steve Turner, look it up. In my opinion, Mr. Turner brilliantly captures the “why” of that band. Their incarnation, or personification, of the reigning existentialism of the mid-20th century West — putting Jean Paul Sartre into music and antics, if you would — goes a long way to explaining the explosive impact they had on pre-teens, teens, and young adults of that era and up to today.
The book gives context to John Lennon’s “The Beatles are more popular than Jesus” (in the same series of interviews, Paul McCartney’s comments were even more explosive but he was shielded by the press). The church, especially in the Philippines, was outraged and gave the statement more publicity than it would otherwise have garnered. However, the real question that should have been asked was this: Why? Why, in the West, is a rock group more popular than Jesus?
Because they were, at the time. And that said very much, not only about the then state of the church, but also about the grip existentialism had on our generation. And still has on many.
In the late 70s, a few years before his murder, John Lennon wrote Oral Roberts, asking him about life. He told Roberts that he had fame, girls, drugs — but was trying to make sense of it all. Towards the end of the book, the author tells of his own personal encounter with Mr. Lennon. Mr. Turner felt he was not a good witness to him about Christ. I disagree; he, a young man at the time, was willing to engage Mr. Lennon about eternal truths and about the One Who said, “I am the Truth.” He did well.
Years later, long after The Beatles had broken up, I was seated on the window seat on a flight to Chicago, reading, when I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was Anne. She became my seat mate for the flight and we immediately caught up and went on to talk about culture, economics, and Beethoven. It was Anne who piqued my interest into buying and then listening to the 9 Beethoven symphonies back to back. She was right: it’s quite an experience.
Ludwig Von Beethoven (1770-1827) is one of Western Civilization’s most famous and prolific composers. His symphonies go from the First and Second, which most consider to be hat tips to Mozart, on to the explosive Third (“Eroica”), the somewhat melancholy Fourth, and the most popular Fifth with perhaps the most memorable 8 notes in music history. But what a treat to go beyond the 8 notes, all the way to the end of the fourth movement! Going therefrom to the Sixth (“Pastoral”) is like going from rapids to a wider but still exciting river. Then the dance-like Seventh and the deceptively powerful Eighth await you.
It all culminates with the phenomenally glorious Ninth whose fourth movement, almost in exasperation, declares that musical instruments are not enough for the sentiment. The human voice must now be heard.
So voices are lifted up to sing Friedrich Schiller’s (1759-1805) “Ode to Joy”, whose last stanza reads:
Brothers, above the starry canopy
There must dwell a loving father.
Do you fall in worship, you millions?
Seek Him in the heavens;
Above the stars must He dwell.
In 1907, Henry van Dyke composed “Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee,” set to Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” melody and this hymn is found in many church hymnals to this day.
Beethoven’s nine symphonies, which he composed with progressive loss of hearing (he was totally deaf by the time he composed the ninth), do reflect much that a life can relate to and are worth careful consideration by all.
However, to consider his first two symphonies to be acknowledgments to Mozart, sounds a bit condescending, at least to me. Mozart composed 41 symphonies and the last three — the 39th, 40th, and 41st — are as much a “transition” to the Romantic era as anything Beethoven composed. At least they are to me.
We talked non stop till we landed at O’Hare and said goodbye. That was the last time we met.
Anne passed away some years ago, but if she were here today, I would tell her that she was right on both counts: that Beatles sound had indeed stunned me, as it had captivated her. And, as we matured and returned to our mutual heritage, I too agree with her in that Beethoven’s nine symphonies are a wonder to experience.
In October, 1964, a few months after my childhood encounter with Anne, I was back in front of that radio, along with a crowd of other boys and men, listening, cheering, groaning, hollering. But it wasn’t over The Beatles. Oh, no! It was something far more important.
It was the World Series between the St. Louis Cardinals and the New York Yankees. As it turns out, this was to be the last hurrah of the famed Yankees.
This team had played in 14 of 16 World Series since 1949. Their appearance in 1964 was to be their last until 1976. By the end of the 1964 season, the Yankees would have won 29 American League championships in the 44-year span since 1921.
They’ve never been the same since.
This series highlighted the grace and power of many baseball stars, including two who have died very recently: Bob Gibson and Whitey Ford.
We’ll conclude this in the next post.
The Beatles arrive in New York, February, 1964 The “existentialist moment”. Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980). Very influential 20th Century French existentialist. The Gospel According to The Beatles, by Steve Turner, helps explain the juxtaposition between The Beatles and existentialist philosophy. I give credit to Anne for piquing my interest. Shortly after our conversation, I bought this set and have it still. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791). To me, his last three symphonies sound like as much a transition as Beethoven’s works. In my childhood memory the club’s shortwave radio was this type, but larger. My childhood friend, Anne (far left), circa 1959 Anne in the early 2000s (her brother sent me this photo a few years after her passing) The fearsome Bob Gibson (top) and the calm, but commanding Whitey Ford both pitched in the 1964 World Series. We’ll say more about them and the series in the next post.
Fernando Rodriguez was an Arthur Andersen audit manager in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He had a delightful sense of humor which, upon remembrance, still makes me chuckle, if not laugh outright.
Once, around noon, having gotten his haircut in the barber shop in the lobby of the Royal Bank of Canada, he walked out and ran into one of the firm’s partners who gruffly rebuked him, “Hmmm. Getting a haircut during office hours!” to which Fernando, without missing a beat, replied, “My hair grows during office hours!”
Of course, the partner laughed.
During one of our trips to the mainland, we had a stop in Miami during which he called relatives there, introducing himself as “Fernandito”. After he hung up the phone, I asked him a bit about his childhood in Miami. A couple of his stories remain with me presumably because they are not too dissimilar from my own childhood experiences.
As a child, he had escaped Cuba where, like his friends and family, he was a die hard New York Yankees fan, as I had been in my childhood. They lived in the Coral Gables area of Miami and every day, he and other young Cuban refugees would run to Sears where they could see the previous night’s baseball scores. He told me of their loud delight whenever the Yankees had won and, looking back, how strange that must have seemed to the Sears employees. Who are these Spanish-speaking kids yelping as they would in the baseball stands when this is not a stadium and there is no game going on?
As he told of that era, I instantly related. Every year our family took our annual leave in Miami where we also had relatives. And every year, my mother would include a long, tedious day or two of shopping in Sears of Coral Gables. In retrospect, I have to admire my parents’ planning. They guesstimated their children’s growth for the following year and bought them clothing on that basis. I can remember only once or twice having to buy clothes in Venezuela, for funerals. It was very expensive and that is why we, and other families in El Pao, bought in the USA once a year.
And I also recall rooting for the Yankees over the big short wave radio at the El Pao Club.
Fernando went on to tell of how he and his childhood friends were so taken by The Beatles phenomenon. They would run to Sears every week, baseball season or no, to check the standings of any Beatles songs on the hit parade. He chuckled as he pondered how crazy they must have seemed to those Sears people.
This too rang true. In another post I’ll tell about the “arrival” of that band in El Pao in 1964 and how that coincided closely with a heartbreaking Yankees loss that year. But for now, I’ll say that when their hit song of the moment came on that short wave radio, my childhood friend, Anne, came running to me, insisting that I come and hear them. Just like Fernando and his friends ran to see how they were doing against the competition.
Fernando went on to live and to thrive in Puerto Rico, first as an Arthur Andersen audit manager, and then as partner and president of a regional CPA firm based in the San Juan area. I last saw him when he and I along with a mutual friend and colleague, Vicente Gregorio, met to reminisce and, mostly, to laugh, in Christmastime, 2012, during one of my visits to Puerto Rico. He passed away on June 4, 2014.
Coral Gables, Florida, was founded in the 1920s and was designed to be a pedestrian city. That, it certainly was as my childhood memories can attest: walking up and down Miracle Mile and Alhambra; visiting the Miracle Mile movie theater; walking to and diving into the gigantic Venetian Pool are all vivid memories decades later.
Many Cubans settled in Venezuela and I was privileged to know them, to love them, to miss them. As I miss my friend, Fernando.
Sears in Coral Gables is one of the very few remaining Sears stores in Florida.
Douglas Entrance to Coral Gables, Florida as I and my friend, Fernando, remembered it. Sears in Coral Gables, Florida. Miracle Mile is seen in background. Thanks to Dreamstime for photo. Venetian Pool, Coral Gables, Florida Miracle Mile Theater, Coral Gables, Florida Fernando Rodriguez, my friend and colleague. May he rest in peace.
