Venezuela – Page 14 – 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….

Mining Camp Memories — Foreword, Prologue, Chapter #1, and first part of Chapter #2

April 23, 2021April 23, 2021 Richard Barnes

In recent months it has been my joy to have renewed acquaintances with one of the “big boys” who lived in El Pao in my early years. When I say “big boys” I mean he was a few years older than me during the phase in childhood where a few years might as well be an eternity! But we are members of the same generation.

Michael John Ashe II (Mike) came to El Pao as a little boy with his beautiful family in 1953, the year of my birth. I remember his sister and twin brothers, who were closer to my age back then, when even 2 years was a big deal.

It’s been great to have gotten back in touch with Mike, even if only through email.

He has graciously agreed to let me post his reminiscences in this blog, something which I will do over the coming weeks and months, with a few interruptions here and there.

His writings speak for themselves, but if I have something to add I’ll do so in parentheses identified by “RMB”

For now, I’ll only say that Mike’s family is a microcosm of the many families who came to El Pao and similar mining camps throughout South America in the 1940’s and 1950’s. The backgrounds varied greatly and the adventurous spirit was very high.

I know you will enjoy these.

Thank you, Mike!

Michael John Ashe II

Foreword

Personal Narrative of Living in a Mining Camp

Now in my seventies, I thought it be best to delve into my memories of a an extraordinary childhood adventure before they escape me.

Memories of Mining Camp living was akin to Time Traveling from a modern world to a far more basic and remote jungle life.

My parents, Herbert Carroll Ashe and Gloria McCluskey Ashe provided me with this great adventure to which I dedicate this humble accounting of our camp life together.

My grandmother Mama-Mary Ellen McCluskey I will always be thankful for her unconditional love.

To my El Pao classmate, Cheryl Serrao who suffered greatly from a genetic disorder that ended her life in her early teens. You are gone but not forgotten.

To Mike Ashley, Richard Barnes, and my wife Maria Cristina Ashe for their participation, help, and inspiration.

To my children and grandchildren, you are our greatest gift from God. Your love has always been unconditional and cherished by Nana and I. You have made us very happy. God bless you always.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage on retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Mining Camp-Memories-from my childhood’s perspective (Risk Takers and Adventurers)

Prologue

Pat Korb and Mike Korb were kind to send me an audio interview of their life in El Pao (1969-1970) a mining camp situated 36 miles south of the Orinoco River in the state of Bolivar. This prompted me to prepare these series of short stories about my experiences in growing up in several mining camps but primarily in El Pao circa 1950s.

In the 1950s the State of Bolívar was sparsely populated. Cities and towns in the state included Ciudad Bolívar, Puerto Ordaz, Upata, San Félix, and Palúa. Ciudad Bolívar (aka CB) was the largest city and the state’s capital. CB’s population was less than 50,000 then and over 400,000 now. Palúa, Puerto Ordaz, Upata, and San Félix population I would estimate at less than 12,000. Now, a new city, Ciudad Guayana (formerly Puerto Ordaz, Palúa, and San Félix) population is about 1 million. The total population of the State of Bolívar is more than 1.4 million now. The country’s birth rate is one of the highest in the world. Needless to say, the State of Bolívar is a much different place now and most likely not for the best.

Pictures of Angel Falls — Water falls from a flat-topped top mountain (Tepuis) Auyan Tepui (Devils Mountain) in the State of Bolivar. The highest waterfall in the world which drops over 3000 ft. In the 1950’s and today, travel is limited to a fly by with a small aircraft. Dense jungle surrounding the falls and given its remoteness, the trip would be very risky. We never went there.

Chapter #1-Our First Mining Camp-Inspiration Arizona:

Before moving to Venezuela, Dad got a job working for an Anaconda Copper Inspiration Arizona, starting as a mucker (as a reference Inspiration lies between the towns of Globe and Miami). The company furnished houses for the workers. The only thing I can remember was that there was a stove in the middle of the living room that I got burned on. Inspiration was a very typical company-run camp at an altitude of about 3,500 ft located in a beautiful part of Arizona. The area was isolated from the rest of Arizona and was considered as the state’s frontier, mainly due to its proximity to the famous San Carlos Indian Reservation. The towns in the area remained frontier outposts well into the 20^th Century. Plenty of murders, lynching and really bad hombres. All of which was part of the lore of American Cowboy and the Western lifestyle. Even now Globe is considered to be the most dangerous city in Arizona. The western movies captured the conflicts and violence between settlers and Apache warriors like Geronimo and Cochise, but there were many others (notice how the bad guys were always the Indians maybe not a fair representation of history). They also captured the lives of colorful characters like Wyatt Earp, Doc Holiday and Big Nose Kate (hands down the most colorful woman in the frontier west). I must say that the movies captured the most important stars- the beautiful western landscapes-John Ford’s work was the best.

Picture of Malachite Quartz and Blue ball Azurite from a mine in Globe.

In 1950 during a routine medical checkup, it was determined that Dad had a mass in his left lung, that needed to be dealt with. His doctor suggested that he go to Mayo Clinic (Rochester MN) since lung operations of this type were rare at that time. Actually, the operation they performed was one of the first lobectomy at Mayo. It was a brutal operation with a very large incision on his back (the procedure today is less invasive since it is done from the front). The left lung has only two lobes while the right has three lobes so they ended up removing half his left lung. Thankfully the mass was benign. My mother would always tell me to take care of Dad, as we might not have him around for too long, he ended up living to 91!

I had to stay with my Grandparents in Cananea Mexico (A mining town also operated by Anaconda where my grandfather worked) while my parents went to Mayo. My mother returned by bus to Cananea while Dad remained in the hospital recovering. Aunt Charlene was a nurse at Mayo and had just married my Uncle Don. Their honeymoon plan was to drive to Cananea but that did include Dad tagging alone. Dad would also be complaining about how much the incision hurt during the trip but Aunt Charlene always felt that he was milking it!

The drive from Inspiration to Cananea took about 5 hours so we would make the trip quite often which was particularly fun for me once we crossed into Mexico. The road from Naco to Cananea at that time was not paved and you would have to cross a series of arroyos (steep and not so steep gullies formed by fast -flowing water) most of which were dry or partially filled with water. There were no bridges so the cars would have to enter the arroyos. When it rained, we would have to wait until the water subsided in order to pass. For me the trip was always a great adventure. On one trip Dad and Uncle Don took me jack rabbit hunting. The jack rabbits would stand up on their hind legs which provided an easy target for the hunter. I think I was 4 years old at the time and my dad sited the rabbit and I pulled the trigger. I remember crying and was unconsolable on the way back to Cananea after killing and retrieving that bunny rabbit. At my uncle’s 90^th birthday he reminded me of that hunting trip which apparently left a long-lasting impression on both of us!

My grandparents house (owned by Anaconda) was located on a ridge just outside of town. There was a Baseball Park nearby where the Cananea Mineros played as part of the Arizona Mexico League Mineros and won the league in 1955/56. I was lucky to see Claudio Solano once, he played third base and hit over 200HR for the Mineros. Globe Miami Arizona Miners were also part of the league. Any time I would go to Cananea I would visit the park. The Cincinnati Reds were affiliated with the Yuma’s team in that league. I don’t think that the Cananea Mineros played ball after 1958?

There were about 8 company houses on the ridge where they lived and most folks had horses and barns out back. My grandparents didn’t have horses but raised fryer chickens as well as egg layers and turkeys. They had a maid for twenty years; her name was Anita A wonderful woman (anyone and everyone that knew her loved her) I remember she would be in charge of killing the chickens (ringing their necks). One thing for sure chicken/eggs were always on the menu.

Naco on the US side crossing into the State of Sonora Mexico

Both my uncle Don and Dad worked for Anaconda for a short time. I think both felt that opportunities were limited but it did end up giving both a good head start in their careers.

Chapter 2-Second Mining Camp-El Pao Venezuela

Infrastructure

The El Pao ore deposit was discovered in 1920. Iron Mines Company of Venezuela (IMCOV) a wholly owned subsidiary Bethlehem Mines was formed after WWII. In the late 1940’s IMCOV began Engineering Procurement and Construction of the El Pao ore deposit and supporting logistics facilities 1) Rail 36 miles/Locomotives /Gondola Cars used to transport ore to Palúa, 2) two port facilities a river port at Palúa (capable of holding 850,000 tons of ore and seaport at Puerto de Hierro and 3) a fleet of river ore carriers.

Sparrows point shipyard in Baltimore Maryland built 6 ore carriers for IMCOV. The ore carrier Punta Anamaya was the first of eventually five sister ships that were built for the Iron Mines Company of Venezuela. These small ships, each 381-feet long and 64-feet wide were expressly designed and built for service on the Orinoco River in Venezuela to haul iron ore from Palúa to Puerto de Hierro (8,500-ton capacity) and then to be transshipped by ocean-going ore carriers (26,000-ton Capacity) primarily to Plants in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and Sparrows Point, Maryland. IMCOV also maintained an office in Caracas (capital of the republic) to interface with the Venezuelan Government.

I’d see them in port at Palúa and on the Orinoco. I would always be amazed at how big and beautiful they were.

Just the logistics of getting equipment through the jungle was a monumental task not to mention the amount of planning and engineering supporting this major undertaking which was extremely expensive. Potable water from the Caroni, Fuel to Run the Electric Generator at all locations, not to mention the camp and ports’ housing roads and infrastructure. Don’t know if the returns justified the investment?

Puerto de Hierro IMCOV Deep water port in the state of Sucre.

(Will continue with next section: “Moving In”)

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

Which is it?

February 10, 2021February 10, 2021 Richard Barnes

The Indian worker is poor, but he is free. His condition is preferable to that of the peasant in great parts of northern Europe …. — Alexander von Humboldt, circa 1800

… y el pobre en su choza, libertad pidió [And the poor man in his hovel, for freedom implored.]. — Venezuelan National Anthem, 1810

Well, which is it?

This blog has often referred to Humboldt (see Monster Aguirre and The Invention of Nature for but two allusions; the search bar will direct you to more). Humboldt was no royalist; he did not even pause for an irony alert to ponder that “modern”, progressive France denied him permits to travel for scientific inquiry, whereas obscurantist Spain did.

Nevertheless, he recognized that the poor in pre-revolutionary Spanish America were free and many were prosperous. He wrote that a Mexican peasant under the Spaniards earned five (5) times more than a peasant in India under the English. He further discovered that Nueva España (Mexico) provided twice more to Spain’s treasury than India, with 5-times the population, did to England’s. During his visit to Spanish America, Venezuelans consumed 189 pounds of meat per capita, compared to 163 pounds by Parisians. Mexicans consumed 363 pounds of bread per capita compared to 377 by Parisians. Miners earned 25 to 30 francs per week compared to 4 to 5 francs by Saxons.

Esquivel Obregón, a Mexican, wrote that a wage earner in his country could buy 38 hectoliters (a hectoliter is 100 liters) of corn and 2,300 kilograms of flour in 1800, but only 24 and 525, respectively, in 1908, after “independence.” These are not isolated figures, but they do signal the catastrophic decline of Spanish America’s standard of living and reflect the desolation caused by the “chimera of liberty”.

But no need to rely on a Humboldt or an Obregón. What did Simón Bolívar himself write in 1829, a year before he died?

“From one end to the other, the New World is an abyss of abomination; there is no good faith in [Spanish] America; treaties are mere paper; constitutions, books; elections, combat; liberty, anarchy; life, a torment. We’ve never been so disgraced as we are now. Before, we enjoyed good things; illusion is fed by chimera … we are tormented by bitter realities.”

So one must wrestle with the fact that “the poor man in his hovel” most certainly was not imploring for freedom. He was free and prosperous.

Much, much more was going on at the time, but the overarching canopy was the French Revolution and its atheistic concepts which sought to disparage all that went before, including one’s own history. A 19th century Colombian diplomat wrote perceptively,

“In the codices [Spain was notorious for documenting everything. These codices are treasure troves for those willing and able to research largely unread tomes waiting to be rediscovered] known by me, the history of the Conquest and of the vice-royalty was recorded…. Three centuries of a patriarchal empire whose glories were echoed in palaces, pulpits, taverns, Indian colloquiums, and in royal audiences…. Then the violent winds blew and our ship ran aground on the Oedipus reefs where the desire to assassinate the fathers, to destroy the moorings of common ethics and religion which bound diverse cultures and civilizations to one tongue, one culture, and one loyalty to common principles, exalted the passions and drove men to madness.”

That diplomat went on to say, “…the degree of destruction and depopulation experienced in these lands compares with my vehement desire that someone, one day will love the Truth enough to divulge what I have observed and written.”

Readers of this blog know that I love Venezuela, the land of my birth. It is a land of heartbreaking beauty and one that has absorbed many rivers of blood since the early 19th century and is even now suffering greatly. The way back to sanity, prosperity, liberty, and peace begins with the Truth.

Readers should also see significant parallels to current events in the United States. George Washington, in his Farewell Address, addressed similar matters as were addressed by that Colombian diplomat, including the need for a common religion and common culture to bind together diverse peoples. The current, unbridled rush to deny anything good in our founding, and especially to denigrate our common religion, is very similar to the temper which became prevalent in Spanish American elite circles in the early 1800’s.

In both, Truth is the first casualty and all else follows, beginning with ordered liberty.

To restore and preserve our ordered liberty, we must recover and speak the Truth. Pilate tarried not for an answer when he asked, “What is truth?”, but turned away from Truth Personified, Who stood before him.

Unlike Pilate who inquired and did not await for a reply, we must do differently.

And the Truth will set us free.