Computer problems, internet access jitters, etc... I have tried to be "good" and write a little each day but... In any event, we will continue on.
If the first 12 months could be put under the headings of Lynette, university, radio and modeling, then the last 12 months would fall under the headings of Sheila, university, hotels (work, that is), summer camp counselor, late night revelries around the corner (I’ll explain that one) and, eventually, Uncle Sam’s Army.
At the beginning of my second year at the University, I met Sheila. She was pretty, was going to the “Big U” or University of P.R. and had come to our “lowly” (then) campus to visit a friend who was attending Inter. Black hair and big, dark brown eyes. The rest was not bad either. She was talking to some friends (one of whom I knew) and I just walked over and introduced myself to her and the rest of the group. It was definitely good to feel pretty sure about yourself, for whatever misguided reason that may have been.
-“And what is your name?” I asked her.
-“Who wants to know?” she answered.
-“The good looking guy behind you”, I countered, without batting an eyelash.
And as she, without thinking much, turned to her right, I moved on her left and positioned myself behind her. When she came around and found herself looking straight into my eyes, she burst out laughing.
-“I guess you win this one” she said, -“my name is Sheila”.
-“I am Rafael, and am desperately in need of someone who can show me the real PR”… “Do you think you are game?”
The first time I asked her out after this exchange (roughly one hour), there was a degree of hesitancy on her part. After prodding and pushing, it came out that she was “going out” with a guy named Julio, who was a close by neighbor and whom she had known for many years. Back then it was OK for the guy to run around (even expected), but it was not well accepted if the female half of the relationship did something considered “not nice”. So, it took some persuasion on my part and a couple of times of meeting at the Inter before she took the plunge and ditched her relationship with her then boyfriend.
At that point an up-down, good-bad, happy-sad relationship was born. She was one of three siblings, one brother and one other sister. They were a good, loving family with internal issues with which to contend, same as any other family on this earth. We got along well, and eventually I even got to meet Julio. I know… I know…No contest!! Actually, he was not a bad guy; unfortunately, it became the always known, tried and true factor versus the uncharted possibilities, and curiosity won out. Nice way of putting it, no?
Since my leaving the radio station, I had taken up some odd jobs, especially in the area of translation and writing English letters and documents. Also, at the University, we (the English class group) had started, under the aegis of our teacher, a small dramatic reading class. Our professor, whose name escapes me now, was from Madrid and I guess that dramatic reading was the literati rage there –or so he said. It was fun, and we started putting out weekly readings for anyone who wanted to come. It was a lot of fun and, little did I know it, but it prepared me for later radio work and for much of the sales management and training seminars that eventually became my work.
A friend of mine worked at a small Kosher hotel on the beach area in San Juan, and he told me that they were looking for front desk managers (clerks with a fancy name) so I went to this hotel (long since gone, I believe) and applied for the job, without knowing what was really in store. This was a hotel that catered to NYC guests, with probably 99.9% coming from the Jewish community in Brooklyn. The hotel had an in-residence Rabbi, as well as a synagogue and the accepted separate Kosher kitchens, dairy restaurant on the top floor and meat dishes coming out of the kitchen/restaurant on the second floor. No bar, no music and no drinks anywhere in the hotel. Please understand that this was then pretty new to me. I had had very little contact with Jews prior to this, since the Jewish community in Cuba was small and I believe it was mostly in Havana, and in Richland we knew there was a fairly small community then but they kept pretty much to themselves.
I would think that if you are an avowed member of a specific religious/cultural community, Jewish in this case, you would be happy to come on your vacation to a hotel which accommodated the rules of your community. Boy, was I wrong!! Many guests came to me (I had the late night shift during the week) trying to find a way to get away from what they called this “oppression”. Their usual complaint? –“I paid a lot of money and traveled all this distance just to get away from this!!!”… There was little I could do to break the rules; everything that was done, was supervised by the Rabbi. All I could tell them, at least food-wise, was to order through room service whatever they wanted from the different restaurants and eat in their rooms, at their leisure. And if it was music and entertainment they wanted, most any other hotel up and down the street could provide this. In the end, my tenure lasted about 3 months at this hotel; it became a daily tightrope act and, at age 20, I did not see a need to become an unwanted champion for a cause that wasn’t even my cause.
As a result, my eagerly developing hotel management craft shifted over to serve at La Rada Hotel, a new apart-hotel which had just opened a few blocks down. Best features? A great beef restaurant and a cozy piano bar just around the corner, which conveniently opened at the same time my shift ended (11pm). This is what I referred to, at the beginning, under the concept of “revelries around the corner”. You must understand that having an appropriate night life was a very important part of the cultural development for a 20 year old… Right?
Besides, if one had to discuss Kafka and his ilk, or the encroaching Viet Nam situation, this was definitely better done after a couple of rounds and a song or two at the piano bar. To top things off, Luis the piano player/crooner, had gotten this particular ongoing “gig” through a recommendation of my father to the owner of the little joint; however full the bar may have been in any given night, there was always a place open for me and whoever was my companion. All in all, a very nice set up and I made the most out of it, while I was there. This was a good semester; perhaps not so good from a GPA point of view, but great otherwise.
More tomorrow... Be Well!
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