As I sit in front of the computer, there are many thoughts that come to and through my mind. What to include? What to gloss over? What to leave out? How accurate are these memories? After all, it has been 47 years since we first arrived there and the memory train may have been derailed or detoured along the way. The Lord knows there have been many roads taken and, not always, it has necessarily been the high road the chosen one.
Through the graces of Facebook, Twitter, and other of these social networking services (not to forget the old tried and true phone book), I am now in communication with some of the people who were part of this group and we all hope that, as time goes on and the word spreads, we will be able to find many others and re-establish the bond we once had. Perhaps some are gone from this world; I know I thought for a long time that my brother Hector had died in V’Nam, where he went as a Marine. Yet, there he is in Miami, “vivito y coleando” (this means “alive and well”, sort of…) and getting bigger thanks to the good cooking of his wife. Needless to say how happy I was to be able to connect to him again, thanks to the good word of a mutual Richland friend, Gary Setbacken (also a Marine). Another from the group, Manuel (short Manny) is also well in Miami, where he runs his construction outfit in the company of his sons. Becky and Stella are alive and well and have given the world a good number of little “Cubamericans” (Oh My!! third gen. already!! years do fly...) to help build the newer generations. Through them (the grandmas ;) not the children) we are contacting others…
Sadly, some of those who were a very important part of our lives in Richland (at least mine) have gone on, and this saddens me. Not that we may die, this is an accepted part of living; but it saddens me that people whose presence was integral to a very important period of my life have gone on, without my being able to let them know just how important they were, and the good they did. These, as all others who already lived, worked, studied and functioned as part of an existing Richland society, were people who could have simply gone on with their lives, but chose to share their lot in order to make ours better. Some were classmates; some were simply friends made in the course of a too short stay and in my case, a husband and wife who, along with their 6 surviving children (and in memory of the one who had recently died) gave me loving shelter and helped point me in the right direction at a time when, for a 16 year old, the wrong direction would have been easier to follow.
I know I am supposed to be writing here about the first summer in Richland, and all the things we did then. Some that were old and some which were new to us. BUT… allow me to on a grayish, cool Saturday morning and still nursing a headache from the minor surgery yesterday, go on a rambling, directionless expedition… That summer of ‘63 will not go away, but will faithfully wait until I get to it, probably tomorrow or Monday.
Where were we? A long list of names of those beautiful people would be too long to include here, and a short list would be too unfair to those not included; so, let it just be said that those who were there and part of this “experiment” had a heavyweight effect on us; all for the positive. Even in those instances when the contact was not totally positive, it was still part of the overall learning process.
Well, ‘nuff for the rambling process. I guess it must be the catgut (03) which sits on the top of my head. It is very unnerving to pass my fingers through my hair at the top (well… what’s left of the ever thinning hair) and come across a stiff, sticking out little piece of nylon. It feels weird. Almost like being pre-wired for a chip to be placed in my brain... ugh!!
Be well! Tomorrow is a new, beautiful day and to be lived.
God Bless!
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