Pandora's Other Box

If you come from Puerto Rico or have lived in Puerto Rico for any time at all, you’ll recognize those words. If you don’t, read on… It was early summer in 1965 and my coming to Puerto Rico had taken place some few months before. The summer recess was starting, and I needed to make some income. There weren’t too many places eager to hire an aspiring 19-year-old as a CEO-in-training so, the next best thing was to hire out as a door-to-door salesman. My first gig was selling magazines. Yeah, I know… but, hey… in a worst-case scenario I could always read my wares and be entertained. And… yes, there were frustrating times when I felt very defeated and did do this. Money was not flowing at the time; at least not into my pockets, and every lunch time became a search for the least expensive fare I could find. Along the side streets, away from the main avenues, there were many small businesses which were managed from the front door of someone’s house. Usually, these dealt with some ...

Some of the blog entries are being used as reading material in my ESL classes ( no, I’m not selling the stuff, the students do like them!! ... just an added bonus…) and, after reading the Puerto Rico series, some students were asking me if I ever went back to PR after the Army years… In going over the blog from the beginning, there is a definite non-sequitur pattern, which is present throughout the “body of work” ( like that? …  no, not my words, just something I remember hearing, but applicable…) . Perhaps this may explain the gap; the Army service became the focus for a few entries and then, other issues took up time and space, blurring away the memories of that unfinished business. What is there to say? While in the army, during my early training program, my thoughts of PR were centered around the negative issues that permeated my last 3-5 months there. In fact, as you probably know from other posts, I didn’t return for Thanksgiving or Christmas. There was no resentment...

Some days we simply get up and “the” mind is in a fog. Today is one such day. We’ll see what falls on this page. In those moments when there is nothing much to do or to think about, I tend to reminisce about the long passing of the years. Childhood, youthhood (huh??), adulthood, and eventually oldhood ( another -huh??- please?). Sometimes these thoughts are full of wonderment about how we, tiny humans as we are, manage to survive many obstacles and improbabilities. There is no certain answer to this, but I do believe in the human capacity to survive, when the choice is made to do so. In talking with a friend about this, he asked whether I had ever been to a “motivational seminar”. The answer is no, I have not participated but have listened to and watched some of those gung-ho servings of adrenalin which come under the title “Motivational”, subtitle “send me your money”. I have to bring up the unasked question: Can we really go to a seminar for a few days and, along with ano...

In life we deal with many issues. Some are run of the mill, some are not, and others fall into that “more difficult to manage” status; often, we don’t really know how to go about dealing with these.   Thinking about this yesterday, while thinking about a situation that was developing, the title line of this entry came to mind. - “You must wield a steel claw covered by a silk glove” It was late 1973 and I, living then in Connecticut, had started working with a young life insurance company out of Miami, as an independent agent. This was the first time I came across a fully prepared ( canned, literally ) sales process. The government had recently passed a law allowing individuals to purchase a retirement account which could be qualified, just like a pension plan, for deductions of the premiums from the income tax basis. The company had an average product with an outstanding presentation. We carried around a self-contained machine, which showed a full 18-minute story as...

I thought about writing this as a purely personal exercise, not to be published. Why? A couple of people I cared about have died recently; this exercise would be sort of a catharsis… Then, I asked myself… “Self, why not publish? What are you afraid of?” I think a probable answer lies in the fact that most people don’t want to talk about the subject of death. It is one of those taboos we as children, especially in the Hispanic culture, are carefully steered away from. Then, we just keep the ignorance-is-bliss attitude into latter life. I have yet to understand why. After all, death is the end where, when we finally meet, we are all the same. There is no difference between black, white, brown, red, rich or poor. The body in which we have been residing as we would occupy a leased car, ceases to be. From dust we come and to dust we go. Or so it is said. Is this a depressive, contemplation of death write-up? No, it isn’t. This is more like a generational complaint. Most people are t...

We all have those moments in life when we may wish to have a built-in “delete” button…   Let’s face it. Just a few of us are near perfect, right? Yeah, I know… I must humbly accept I am not one of those, even if just missed by a little tiny step… you do realize that I say this to make you feel better, don’t you? Hmmm … I thought I would try to sneak one by while you weren’t paying attention… Anyway, back to reality and the thread at hand. Where does this come from? you ask… You didn’t ask? Well, let’s believe you did. No, not that I don’t listen to you, just that I can’t hear you right now… This old computer makes too much noise. A few nights ago, during a class ( familiar grounds?) there was an exercise which consisted of three questions to be answered in paragraph form, to be discussed. They all dealt with the concept of “options” and their consequences. One of the questions asked for the student’s opinion about the meaning of the concept represented by the word “opt...