July 20, 1944, Lexington, Virginia Dear Allan, You are not alone. Stacy and I will be your family. Maybe, we can come and visit you in August. I have a special child psychology seminar in the first week of August. After that school doesn’t start again until after Labor Day. Why didn’t you tell me …
September, 1942, Somewhere on Guadalcanal Dear Mrs. Lowe, My name is Allan Brady. I was in your husband’s company. I am sure you have been notified by now of his death. You will soon learn that he has been awarded a posthumous Navy Cross for his leadership during the action which cost him his life. …
(Mountains north of Maturín in eastern Venezuela) Mauro Ortega, El Gato, lay on a ridge above the lonely rancho and observed the events below. The morning had dawned bright and sunny, but by early afternoon clouds began to gather in the north along the coast. The November rainy season would bring moisture to the mountains …
PART 2 I flew to Caracas and we met with our attorneys. The attorney had little to say. He observed as my bosses informed me of their decision to renege on the commitment. I returned to Maracaibo and a week later the milling division VP flew out and we had dinner. I informed him of …
PART I(Revisiting the past) Recent events have motivated me to resurrect and edit an unpublished memoir of my years as a mill manager in Venezuela. I may have learned more about life in the real world in the years of 1966 to 1974 than any experience I’ve had before or after. Now, with time for …
In Cali, Colombia, Alberto Hernán Guerra, a young man suddenly found himself as head of the substantial family business when his father, Don Saturno Guerra, was hospitalized in Houston, Texas, and diagnosed with a terminal illness. The milling business in Colombia was just emerging from almost total government control. Prices of inputs and products had …
On 13 August 2005 two scholars, Eduardo Neves, a Brazilian, and James Peterson, Anthropology Department chairman at the University of Vermont, visited a roadside restaurant in the Amazon jungle. Two gunmen walked in and demanded their money. As a departing afterthought, one shot the American in the abdomen. Peterson died before Neves could get him …
The last vestiges of day had fled. The rich spicy aroma of recently trimmed hedges of rosemary permeated the warm evening air.
After a long and futile search the adventurer sighted a mountain of glistening gemstones, (perhaps wet quartz crystals glistening in the setting sun from a recent rain).
A man walked into a bar in Panama in 1921 and approached another, who sat hunched over a beer. “Say, are you the pilot they call Jimmie?” The somewhat scruffy, downcast drinker in his early twenties, looked up, “Yeah, what of it?” “You open to a proposition?” “Sure, but I can’t fly you anywhere, I …
Mirage de el Dorado – The Search for Legendary Gold Continues Read More »
