We left Virginia early in 1957. We drove down to Miami and took a small cruise ship called The Evangeline. I was a little seasick at first, but then I got used to it. There was a lady who did caricatures and we three kids each had one done. That’s when I learned the difference between the word “caricature” and the word “character”. I used to ask my parents about stuff like that and they could always tell me. Until later on, when they couldn’t. But by then, I knew how to find out for myself. I like a multi-syllabic word, when appropriate. The Evangeline wasn’t very big – not what you’d call a luxury liner, but it was just about right for us. There was a small swimming pool on the stern deck and I went in once when the ship was pitching and rolling quite a bit and the water in the pool would slosh you up in the air and then bring you back down almost to the bottom of the pool. Kind of like those waves back in Florida, except this was more scary-fun because you could see right out over the rail and it almost felt like you could get tossed into the sea. I explored pretty much every corner of that ship and we all got to go up on the bridge once and meet the captain. Also, he sat at our table once and then my Mom and Dad got up and danced. They would dance any chance they got. We didn’t go straight to the Dominican Republic. We were on the first leg of a cruise, so first we went to Port Antonio, Jamaica. The big thrill there was to take a bamboo raft, manned by a native oarsman, down the rapids of the Rio Grande. However, we found a cliff-side hotel with a swimming pool on three levels with waterslides connecting the levels and we thought that was so cool we stayed there. Plus, Mom and Dad probably had daiquiris to slurp on and Caribbean rhythms to dance to while we went sliding around in the pool. This was all before Reggae but not before Calypso and Trinidad-style steel drum bands. I don’t know if we knew who Harry Belafonte was yet, but we heard real Calypso music. I think that was the first time I ever swam in a swimming pool and it was probably the coolest pool I ever swam in. Anyway, I’ve always loved swimming pools and will dive into one anytime. It’s a 50s thing. Then we sailed around to the south side of the island to the capital, Kingston, “mahn”. We went up to a rustic resort in the Blue Mountains coffee plantations, where the Queen of England had just been, and I drank goat’s milk. I’ll try anything once. I don’t remember that much about it so it couldn’t have been too yucky. Next stop was Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Only thing I remember there was going to the market where Mom bought some native-art-type-stuff. She got three black ebony masks of a warrior, a woman and a boy. She’s still got the little boy, but his parents wandered off some time ago. The next port-of-call was where we disembarked – Santo Domingo, the oldest European city in the western hemisphere, founded by Christopher Columbus himself. Only problem was, it wasn’t called Santo Domingo anymore. It was called Ciudad Trujillo because a two-bit chief of police had proclaimed himself benefactor of the country back in the 1930s and had been running the place with an iron fist ever since. His posters were everywhere. As a matter of fact, if it was discovered you didn’t have his picture hung up in a prominent position in your little hovel, you soon disappeared. Most people were smart enough not to disappear, but they had to conceal their anger and hatred. He was called El Jefe which, loosely translated, means the Chief or the Boss. But his pictures, in his military uniform, announced him as Generalíssimo Rafaél Leonidas Trujillo Molina, Protectór y Benefactór de la Pátria – to which we could quietly add our own epithet, such as “pedaso de carne con ojos” (piece of meat with eyes). You were supposed to love him like a father. He was a fairly large, portly man with snow white hair, slicked straight back. Early every evening in the summertime he would take a stroll from his palace down Avenida Máximo Gomez to the sea. The stroll went like this: first, four big, black Cadillacs came very slowly down the avenue, followed by about ten motorcycle cops, followed by about twenty large men on foot, followed by an empty space with Trujillo in the middle of it, followed by twenty large men on foot, followed by ten cops on motorcycles, followed by four black Cadillacs. He would stand quietly gazing out to sea for awhile, then get into the back seat of one of the Caddys and go back home. It was all very symmetrical. What I didn’t know at first, but found out later, was that there were dozens of armed soldiers all along the avenue, more or less hidden behind trees, bushes and hedges. Fear, or paranoia, was definitely a key to survival for el Jefe. My father’s assignment was with MAAG, which is Army-Air Force lingo for Military Assistance and Advisory Group. That means he, and all the other American military personnel, were down there to help instruct and train what there was of a Dominican army in all the latest gear and tech. This made Trujillo feel big and important, but the real point of it all was to have American controlled eyes and ears in the area to keep tabs on Castro, who we were very concerned about because he was a commie and we Americans are scared to death of commies. This situation pleased both governments until Trujillo got stupid and had to disappear – as he made so many others disappear before him.
Posted on: Tue, 30 Jul 2013 22:44:45 +0000
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