Happy # "2,000 something" to the city of Roma

They tell us that this is the day that the city of Rome was founded:  

According to tradition, on April 21, 753 B.C., Romulus and his twin brother, Remus, found Rome on the site where they were suckled by a she-wolf as orphaned infants. Actually, the Romulus and Remus myth originated sometime in the fourth century B.C., and the exact date of Rome’s founding was set by the Roman scholar Marcus Terentius Varro in the first century B.C.

OK.   We won't argue details.    Nevertheless, happy birthday to Roma.     It gives us a good excuse to listen to Dean Martin's "On an evening in Roma".

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We remember President Nixon and Cuba

Between trials and border issues, Cuba was in the news this week.  We also remember former President Nixon who was a key figure in those early days of the Castro regime.

First, it was the 60th anniversary of The Bay of Pigs and I remember looking out the window that morning and telling my brother that a plane was in the area.  "The plane, the plane" and it was not Fantasy Island.  It was a real plane dropping leaflets.  My parents in the living room were listening to short wave radio and getting phone calls that something was happening in a place called Giron or where the men eventually landed.

Second, there are stories that Raul Castro is dying of cancer.  He will be 90 soon and stories about alcoholism and bad health have been around for a while.   In other words, his deteriorating health is probably driving him out.  I hear from friends in Cuba that Raul's medical condition makes it impossible to be in public view for any period of time.

Third, we remember President Nixon died on this day in 1994.  Our family was on the way to a baseball game when we heard the news on the radio.  You may remember that Mr. Nixon suffered a stroke earlier in the week and Mrs. Nixon died the year before.  He was never the same after she died or so I hear from those around him.

Cuba, the Castro brothers and Nixon will always be a part of my childhood, from leaving Cuba to growing up in the US.

In 1959, then VP Nixon met the recently appointed Prime Minister Fidel Castro in Washington DC.  It did not take VP Nixon long to figure out the Cuban visitor.

This is an account of the visit from Andrew Glass:

During his stay, Castro placed a wreath on George Washington’s grave, toured the Bronx Zoo, ate hot dogs and hamburgers at Yankee Stadium and generally made a big media splash. Wherever he went, the 33-year-old bearded Cuban leader invariably wore his trademark rumpled green fatigues.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower snubbed him, although the Cuban leader did meet with Vice President Richard Nixon and acting Secretary of State Christian Herter. Nixon later said he came away from the meeting with the conclusion that Castro was “either incredibly naive about communism or under communist discipline — my guess is the former.” On the other hand, after meeting with Castro, former Secretary of State Dean Acheson called him “the first democrat of Latin America.”

With all due respect to the late Secretary Acheson, it was VP Nixon who got it right that day.

In 1968, Mr. Nixon was elected and then re-elected in 1972.  As we know, he resigned in 1974 over the Watergate scandal.

On the subject of Cuba, Nixon was right.  I think that The Bay of Pigs would have turned out differently with Mr. Nixon in The Oval Office.  

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We remember Tito Puente (1923-2000)

Like many of you, I’ve spent a few hours of my life listening to the music of Tito Puente.   

Ernesto Antonio "Tito" Puente was born in New York City, the son of Puerto Rican immigrants and already playing music by age 13.  

He was quite a musical pioneer, mixing musical styles with Latin sounds and experimenting in fusing Latin music with jazz.

Tito Puente won 5 Grammys, including “Homenaje a Beny“, a tribute to Beny More.

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Ernie Pyle: The man who wrote about the soldiers rather than the war

(My new American Thinker post)

Before Skype or internet chats, soldiers used to write letters to their parents, sweethearts, or families back home.

Furthermore, families had very little information about their sons at war.  The news reports were about battles and soldier movements.  Often, families would hear about the boys at war when a neighbor would be burying his son.

Enter Ernie Pyle, who was killed in 1945:

Pyle, born in Dana, Indiana, first began writing a column for the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain in 1935. Eventually syndicated to some 200 U.S. newspapers, Pyle’s column, which related the lives and hopes of typical citizens, captured America’s affection.

In 1942, after the United States entered World War II, Pyle went overseas as a war correspondent. He covered the North Africa campaign, the invasions of Sicily and Italy, and on June 7, 1944, went ashore at Normandy the day after Allied forces landed.  Pyle, who always wrote about the experiences of enlisted men rather than the battles they participated in, described the D-Day scene: “It was a lovely day for strolling along the seashore. Men were sleeping on the sand, some of them sleeping forever. Men were floating in the water, but they didn’t know they were in the water, for they were dead.” The same year, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished correspondence and in 1945 traveled to the Pacific to cover the war against Japan.

On April 18, 1945, Ernie Pyle was killed by enemy fire on the island of Ie Shima. After his death, President Harry S. Truman spoke of how Pyle “told the story of the American fighting man as the American fighting men wanted it told.”

Pyle is buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific on the Hawaiian island of Oahu.

About 20 years ago, or on the 50^th anniversary of his death, I took the time to read some of his columns.

One of my favorite columns was “Digging and Grousing” from Africa 1943.  It related the story of some GIs talking about a letter:

To get to the point, it was written by a soldier, and it said: “The greatest Christmas present that can be given to us this year is not smoking jackets, ties, pipes or games. If people will only take the money and buy war bonds … they will be helping themselves and helping us to be home next Christmas. Being home next Christmas is something which would be appreciated by all of us boys in service!”

Ernie Pyle had an amazing gift.  He understood that his war reports would be read by soldiers at war, a wounded GI at a hospital, and a mother back home desperate to know what her son was going through.

I hope that our kids in school are learning about men like Ernie Pyle.

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