Who inspires you?

Besides my parents, godparents and cousin Pepe, about whom I have already written extensively, I want to mention first of all, Mimi and Tía María. Mimi or Emilio Villamil was my uncle by marriage, he was married to Tía María, my father's eldest sister. Both Mimi and Tía María acted as functional grandparents for me.

My paternal grandparents, Filomeno Rodríguez died in 1920, grandmother Josefa Fernández died in 1943, when I was a year old, I don't remember either one. My maternal grandfather Manuel Porto was the only real grandparent I remember, he died in 1964 at age 84, but he was never warm and fuzzy with children, although I think I was his favorite grandchild since he lived at my house for a few years when I was a child, later bought a nice country estate in El Cotorro and moved there with my Tía Lucía y Pepe Porto, both single at the time. My maternal grandmother Micaela Moreno died in 1927 at age 33.

Tía María knew I loved chocolate and she bought the big bars that used to be ground for hot chocolate, put pieces of it at the dining room buffet cabinet, where I as a child, went to find and get a piece of it routinely. She made sure it was always there. I also went with her often to the family house in Pinar del Río where my father was born, to spend Holy Week or summer vacation time.

The Villamil family had lived in Key West in the XIX Century, Emilio (Mimi) had studied accounting or "Perito Mercantil" at Saint Joseph College in Louisiana, a Jesuit institution, so he spoke English well. By the time I was a child he was already retired, spent his days reading books, was subscribed to National Geographics magazine and had a stack of them in a shed in the interior patio. Although he did not speak much with anyone, he did with me when, as a child, I pestered him constantly, asking him questions and explanations of the places depicted in National Geographics and the wonderful color photographs it displayed.

He taught me Latin, which he also spoke fluently, as he was very religious and a Tertiary of the Dominican Order. I guess he liked that I was inquisitive and distracted him from his reading. While retired, he still kept books for a flower shop nearby, close to the cemetery?s entrance, don't know if the paid him or it was a favor. I learned much from him.

When I began first grade, my parents enrolled me at Mimó School. It was the oldest private school in Havana, had been founded in 1860, although by 1948 it had a reduced enrollment, it was on his way out, still very prestigious. Don Pablo Mimó was 50 years behind, dressed as if it were 1898 instead of 1948, used Leontine, booties, had a rolltop antique desk, etc. The school was at a 3-story mansion in I and 15 Streets, Vedado, Havana, he lived at the ground level, the school was at the second story, the dormitory for boarding school pupils on the third floor. This las group included three brothers, Guy, Francisco and Pablo Pérez Cisneros, sons of the Cuban Ambassador to England at the time, who participated in the writing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1947, something I did not learn until much later in exile.

The best teacher I ever had, the one that motivated me to learn the most, that made his class fun, was a redhead with the last name Roche, obviously of French descent. He taught me third and fourth grades.

Don Pablo Mimó was a true gentleman in every way, who often lectured us on life and rectitude, while at his school he arranged for our preparation for First Communion, although the school was not religious, Christian principles were demonstrated. After he finally retired and the school closed, after I had transferred to Trelles School, I went to visit Don Pablo in his retirement, he had moved to a house in the hill of Avenida Columbia just beyond the Almendares Bridge at the end of Calle 23, as you went into Marinao, before the left curve of the Cine Arenal. He was very glad to see me, but unfortunately, I never went back to visit.

The youngest of the five children of Mimi and Tía María, Rodolfo Villamil, still much older than me, unlike his older brothers Emilio and José Luis (Pepe), who were a medical doctor and surgeon and a lawyer and journalist respectively, had started to study different things at the university, but had quit, became a policeman but did not like that either, finally decided to join the military academy at Managua, which director was Comandante Foyo, a school mate of his brother Pepe.

While he studied for the entrance exams, his friend Wilfredo González Curbelo studied with him, I often watched them spending long hours sitting in the porch studying. They were supposed to graduate in 1955, but after Batista's coup-d-stat of 1952, he cut a year of the four-year curriculum of his class and they graduated in 1954.

Another of his schoolmates at the Managua Academy was Manuel Almeida, who became my sister Fanny's boyfriend. After their graduation and commissioning as Second Lieutenants in 1954, Rodolfo was assigned to the Army Headquarters at Columbia Camp, while Almeida and Curbelo were assigned to the Army Equestrian Team at Rancho Boyeros, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Ignacio Chipi. There, besides the Army, also rode the civilian members of the Círculo Militar y Naval, a social club of officers of the Army and Navy, as well as civilian associates like me. It was one of the three social clubs with Equestrian Teams in Havana, the cheapest of them and the one I joined to go to Rancho Boyeros to ride with Manolito Almeida. For a few years, Manolito Almeida acted as my older brother, but eventually he and my sister broke up, he requested to be sent to fight at Sierra Maestra, where he was assigned to the Sánchez Mosquera Battalion, called "El Liviano" which by all accounts was the only unit with high morale fighting against the rebels, where, as I already related, he was killed in an ambush in 1957.

At Colegio Trelles, Armando Trelles, who was from Sancti Spiritus, authoritarian and have several suits completely alike, so that he also wore a uniform like us students. Ramón Clavijo taught Spanish Literature, was passionate about it, always formal, inspired us and me particularly with poems of Plácido.

During the late fifties at the riding academy where I went, also rode Antonio Jacomino, son of a Minister, wealthy and older than me, but very humble and friendly, who often gave me rides back to town in his new Pontiac. The only other guy that was about my age in the team was Ignacio Chipi, son of Lieutenant Colonel Ignacio Chipi, chief of the Equipo Hípico Militar. Jorge Batista, son of President Fulgencio Batista was also about my age, but did not ride at our stables, he was a member of the classy Biltmore Country Club. During the Country Fair of 1956 or 1957, Ignacio, Jorge and I hung around together at the fair that was taking place at the grounds just next to our stables, with Jorge's bodyguards following us. Jorge invited both Ignacio and me to go to the Presidential Palace a few days later and I went. My mother was away, I think in Miami, otherwise she would not have let me go, since she hated Batista, but my father did not mind, so I went. Ignacio and I met outside the Presidential Palace post by which we must enter, our names were there, so a guard with a submachine gun accompanied us in the elevator to the third floor, where another machinegun bearing guard was by the elevator, took us to a room where we me Jorge and left us alone. Jorge showed us around some, then invited us to go to Kukines, their recreational farm in the outskirts, at Arroyo Arenas.

We all three were travelling in the back seat of a 1956 Mercury station wagon, with a driver and a machinegun toting bodyguard in the passenger seat. We were followed by an identical station wagon with another three bodyguards. As soon as we went through the post and inside the fenced in Kukines, Jorge told the driver and bodyguard in the front seat to go to the other car and he took the wheel; before they had a chance to get in the trailing station wagon, he took off, made a couple of turns and hid, car and all, behind a bunch of trees. The other wagon was driving like maniacs up and down the roads and after a while, Jorge pulled out into the road to the relief of his bodyguards who could not even reprimand him. Later on, we went by a baseball field, stopped and Jorge wanted to play baseball, so his bodyguards took off their suit jackets and played baseball with us. We went to lunch at the house of Roberto Fernández Miranda, Director of Sports and brother of the First Lady Martha, inside the compound, he was there with some woman I didn't know.

Later we stopped by the Country Club where a couple of women approached Jorge immediately trying to interest him on their respective daughters. Afterwards we went to San José de Las Lajas, to the recreational farm of García Pedroso, the Director of the Lottery, where there was a birthday party and picnic; we rode horses western style, where the bodyguards could not follow us, though they were nervous at our return, one of them asked me to convince Jorge to ask his father to transfer him to another post he desired; we ate there, eventually returned to Havana and they dropped me off at home after 9 PM. Never again, it was an unforgettable experience to spend the day with bodyguards around all the time.

I visited the homes of three of my classmates very often, Otto González Penichet, Enrique Almagro Rodríguez and Raúl Fernández de Castro y Estrugo very often although Raúl, who lived at a big house at Calle J between Calles 21 and 23, a house with twelve bedrooms and seven bathrooms was where we had more room and thus frequented most. It was his grandfather Angel Estrugo?s house, where I saw the first color television ever when it began in Cuba in 1957 or 1958, as he was already old and sickly, mostly in his room, but whenever he saw me as I went by his room, he talked to me. It turned out that he knew my grandfather Manuel Porto and, as most lonely old folks, enjoyed talking to me about him, telling me anecdote, it seems my grandfather?s stubbornness was legendary.

Eugenio Rainieri was the civil engineer in charge of all the big construction projects during the government of Gerardo Machado (1925-1933), such as the Presidential Palace, The Capitol, assortment monuments such as the one to President Miguel Mariano Gómez in Avenida Paseo and Calle 29, etc. Since this is a small world, it happened thatEugenio Rainieri lived just across the street from the pharmacy of my father-in-law Alfredo Torralbas. My grandfather had worked as a stonemason contractor with him in all those projects, so he also liked to tell me about him.

Another person that I enjoyed listening to was Benito Martinez Nebot Magistrate of The Supreme Court, whom Miriam considered as her uncle, a very, very likeable and knowledgeable fellow, a pleasure to listen to.

While in the Army in Rose Barracks, Bad Kreuznach, Germany, my first boss, Mr. Johnston, a CWO4 Warrant Officer close to retirement age, was a real gentleman, as was his replacement, First Lt. Robert Vento, an Italian-American from New York. Later on, Major Harris, the commander of the Eight Signal Battalion, a survivor of the March of Bataan about whom I already wrote, was another great gentleman who tried to help me, offered to recommend me for officer?s school, wanted me to stay in active duty.

After returning to Miami in 1965 and going to work for Western and Southern Life Insurance Company, my bosses, Tom Taylor and Gene Gust, both of Lima Ohio, became close friends, as did Jim Hemphill, from Covington Kentucky, just across the Ohio river from Cincinnati.

After going to work for The Travelers Insurance Company in 1970, agents Mike Groff and Phil Webb gained my respects as highly ethical insurance professionals; another person to mention is René García, whom at the time owned a company that distributed men socks from Puerto Rico and later became a multimillionaire selling grey market perfumes
(bought in duty-free stores elsewhere, paying import duties and changing the labels to obscure their origin, thus bypassing the US Distributor that had higher prices), whom without speaking or writing English, I taught enough so that he memorized questions and answers and was able to pass the life insurance license test. He was the father of the famous actor Andy García.

When I became active in the Latin Chamber of Commerce of Hialeah, of which I eventually became president, I met Hialeah Mayor Dale Bennett, an optometrist, purportedly a redneck who rallied the dwindling Anglo population of the city, but who privately was a very likeable guy, not prejudiced at all. I translated for him at press conferences with Spanish press, notably El Sol de Hialeah, whose owner and later mayor of Hialeah, Raúl Martínez was always very aggressive toward him.

As President of the Latin Chamber of Commerce of Hialeah, bank president Manolo Casanova, who was very active in the Republican Party and I were invited by the Secretary of the Treasure during the Presidency of Gerald Ford to go to Washington D. C. for an economic conference at The Whitehouse, which was in reality not at The Whitehouse proper, but at the Whitehouse Office Building. The Chamber of Commerce had no funds to send me so I paid my own way. There, Casanova introduced me to U. S. Representative Manuel Luján of New Mexico, an insurance broker from Santa Fe, who was at the time the only Hispanic Republican in the House of Representatives. He was a very nice fellow who invited us to drinks at the Congress Club. Later I met him again during a trip he made to Miami and, as I already related, was the person I tried to contact in Albuquerque when we had difficulty in obtaining a New Mexico driver license for my son Humberto.

While working at Select Insurance Agency and Business Insurance Consultants, I want to name Pepe Alvarez, owner of AIB, who offered me to be his partner at 50% while I was at Select Insurance and he was starting AIB, but I declined because I already had health troubles, was in the process of losing my eyesight, I think to the detriment of both of us; Paul Fraynd with whom we financed many policies while at Select Insurance before he started Orion Insurance Company under Indalecio Patallo and later went on his own with the company, offered me the opportunity to be a General Agent or wholesaler, since he liked the way Select Insurance operated, computerized shortly after we opened the office at 2562 SW 27 Avenue, Miami. I guess he wanted a Cuban presence on his side, but he actually remained loyal to me, always respected my opinions, something that baffled the Jew who operated his premium finance company when he tried to impose their financing to my agents, I refused and Paul told him to desist, which he did not understand.

As far as priests, I must mention Father Thomas Rynne, pastor of Saint John the Apostol of Hialeah, Padre Andres Coucelo, an associate pastor there when we met him who also became a close friend, after we helped him and he was very diligent when my mother was dying in 1972; later on, Padre Emilio Martin, who baptized our son Daniel and whom we helped build Saint Joachin Catholic Church in Perrine; during its inauguration ten-year-old Danny told him while inside the church after the ceremony, that we have helped him, but he had done well with the help, while looking around and admiring everything; that had impacted him greatly, he told us several times afterward. Padre Angel Villaronga, brother of Pancho Villaronga, a close friend and colleague, was a very famous preacher in Spanish in the Miami area. Father David Russell, the best preacher and most efficient executive I ever met, was our pastor during 27 years, both at Saint Louis and Saint John Neumann.

Arlen Beach Condominium at 5701 Collins Avenue, Miami Beach, brought a new set of friends, including notably
Angel Socarrás, Pepe Villarruel, Ramón Moral, René Boan, Roberto Junco Santana and others.

Moving to Fort White brought the surprise of the lack of availability of good health insurance, Special Transportation Services and other things to which I was accustomed in Dade County, so upon the suggestion of a friend at church and at Miriam?s insistence because I thought I was ineligible, we went to the V A Hospital in Lake City and to my surprise, I was eligible, enrolled on the spot and met Judy Hayes, the Visual Impairment Special Training or VIST director, a very nice lady and David Johnson, Blind Rehabilitation Outpatient Specialist or BROS, also very nice and helpful.

Saint Madeline Catholic Church of High Springs brought another set of excellent people who also became good friends and influenced me, including our neighbor Mike Wilson, Jim Fogarty, Bill McCarthy, Sam Viviano among others, in addition to another excellent priest, this one from Kerala India, Father Sebastian, now in Saint Joseph?s of Jacksonville, whom still stays in touch.


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