Faith & Family

By Joe Carrion

I am starting to write what could be called my memoirs in response to the urging of some of the members of my family. I always believed an autobiography to be an ego trip and resisted all previous ideas about doing so for that reason. Nevertheless, they pointed out that details were needed to pass on to my grandchildren and to those that might follow, so I was finally convinced.

I am determined to do all the writing, so the content of the book and any observations and opinions should truly be mine. I recognize, however, that I am going to need a lot of help in many aspects of this project. I will try to be as accurate as possible and relate the salient facts as faithfully as I can. I am, however, relying on my memory, so I may have to ask my son and two daughters to help me with dates and chronology of events. Most importantly, I have not kept up with the many wondrous technological changes that we have experienced over the last few years and I will be forced to rely on them for the many things that have to be done to bring a project like this to completion. Without their help I would not even attempt this undertaking. So from the beginning I wish to acknowledge their contribution and support.

My plan is to relate the events that transpired in more or less chronological order. I say more or less because different things might have been going on simultaneously at home and at work and, for the sake of continuity, I may have to jump ahead in one and fall back later to catch up in the other.

I am now eighty seven years old and it would probably take me another eighty seven years to put on paper everything that happened. Nevertheless I will try to mention most of the salient facts in order to convey as complete a picture as possible.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Dec 12, 2011
• ISBN: 9781467845595

Joe Carrion

Jose L. Carrion

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© 2011 Joe Carrion. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 12/7/2011

ISBN: 978-1-4678-4558-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4678-4559-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011960079

Printed in the United States of America

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

INTRODUCTION

THE EARLY YEARS

VALLEY FORGE

WEST POINT

AFTER GRADUATION

OUT OF THE ARMY

SWIMMING

SAN PATRICIO

BANCO POPULAR

KIDNAPPING

PRESIDENT

BANK OF MIAMI

RETIREMENT

REFLEXIONS

FINAL THOUGHTS

INTRODUCTION

I am starting to write what could be called my memoirs in response to the urging of some of the members of my family. I always believed an autobiography to be an ego trip and resisted all previous ideas about doing so for that reason. Nevertheless, they pointed out that details were needed to pass on to my grandchildren and to those that might follow, so I was finally convinced.

I am determined to do all the writing, so the content of the book and any observations and opinions should truly be mine. I recognize, however, that I am going to need a lot of help in many aspects of this project. I will try to be as accurate as possible and relate the salient facts as faithfully as I can. I am, however, relying on my memory, so I may have to ask my son and two daughters to help me with dates and chronology of events. Most importantly, I have not kept up with the many wondrous technological changes that we have experienced over the last few years and I will be forced to rely on them for the many things that have to be done to bring a project like this to completion. Without their help I would not even attempt this undertaking. So from the beginning I wish to acknowledge their contribution and support.

My plan is to relate the events that transpired in more or less chronological order. I say more or less because different things might have been going on simultaneously at home and at work and, for the sake of continuity, I may have to jump ahead in one and fall back later to catch up in the other. I am now eighty seven years old and it would probably take me another eighty seven years to put on paper everything that happened. Nevertheless I will try to mention most of the salient facts in order to convey as complete a picture as possible.

THE EARLY YEARS

I was born in Santurce, Puerto Rico on July 12, 1924.

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My dad’s name was Rafael Carrion Pacheco. His mother died when he was only about four years old and his father died when he was about eleven, so I never got to meet them. From very humble beginnings and with only an eighth grade education, he went on through his own efforts to become the most prominent businessman in Puerto Rico and well respected in New York where he served as a director of Chemical Bank of New York. He was truly a self-made and self-educated person. His biography is certainly more important and interesting than mine.

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My mother’s name was Ernestina Ruiz Morales. I never got to meet her father either, so the only grandparent I ever knew was Mother’s mother and not too well at that because she died when I was about eight years old.

I was only three days old when I almost died. It started when Mother noticed small drops of blood coming out of my ears. Panic set in as the bleeding got worse. You have to remember that this was 1924. The doctors had no explanation nor any idea what to do. I don’t have all the details because I can only pass on what was told to me years later.

In any event, after much suffering and many moments of desperation, one of the doctors suggested they should try a transfusion. This they did directly from Dad’s arm to the top of my head. The improvement was not immediately apparent, but it seemed to have been the right thing to do and gradually the optimism returned. Telling me the story years later, Mother related how, while breast feeding me, she would gently massage the back of my neck where a large swelling had developed as a result of the transfusion. Fortunately, I gradually recovered with no long-term complications.

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For years, one of my aunts always called me Carrion ‘neto.’ It was her way of saying that I would forever be doubly linked to my Dad.

I was number five in a family of eight children. Actually, we were four boys and four girls born in order: boy, girl, boy, girl, boy, girl, boy, girl. We always thought of ourselves as four couples. The two oldest were named Rafael and Ernestina, the same as our parents. There was a gap of about six years after them before the next child was born so to us that first couple were like second parents and they were always known as Papi and Mami.

After the gap mentioned above, the other six were born in what we jokingly called rapid fire. Number three was Billy followed by Gloria, I was number five, then Rosita, Jimmy, and Sylvia.

When Mother was asked how they had managed to have us born in such perfect order, she simply replied, blue, pink, blue, pink, blue, pink, blue, pink. When a lady at a party asked Dad the same question, he jokingly replied that he could not explain it but would be glad to demonstrate.

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As I remember life in those early years, I can’t help but feel how lucky we all were to have grown up in such a wonderful family environment. The dinner table was like a family reunion celebrated every day. Dad and Mother not only were at the head of the table, they were the center of the universe to us.

It is well to remember that there was no television then and radio was not yet as important. The daily newspaper was the principal news source for our parents, but not for us. The dinner table was like a school where we got all our information, but it was nothing like our regular school which often was a chore to us.

I have nothing but good memories of those daily family gatherings. With only hearsay from our friends as our alternative information source, we were always full of questions. Dad patiently and thoroughly answered them all. Together with Mother, he also subtly taught us many lessons; lessons about right and wrong, integrity, civility, and consideration for others. He also imbued us with a deep love for our country. A better education than we could have ever gotten any other way.

My oldest brother was almost exactly ten years older than I and in many ways was considered to be like a second father to us. In fact, I think that is why he was given the nickname Papi, which stuck to him and was the way he was known by almost everybody for the rest of his life. Papi was my idol. I followed him like a little puppy whenever he was home. I remember that when he called his girlfriend on the phone, he would post me in the next room to watch the phone extension and make sure that nobody picked it up.

Papi introduced me to baseball. He would play catch with me from time to time and finally took me to see my first baseball game. It was an all-star team from Cuba that was playing an exhibition tour in Puerto Rico and featured stars like Satchel Paige and the great Joshua Gibson. I was hooked.

To this day, baseball is my number one sports love. Even though later in school I learned to enjoy football, I still prefer baseball.

Our parents tried to provide for us a well-rounded education. Among other things, my sisters took piano lessons, but for me, arrangements were made for guitar lessons. A teacher would come to the house twice a week and, of course, I had to be waiting for him, guitar in hand, according to Mother’s instructions. I took my lessons and was given assignment of the things I needed to practice every day in preparation for his next visit, but I could not wait for each lesson to end. The moment he left, the guitar went back to the closet, was replaced by my baseball glove, and I was gone for the rest of the afternoon.

There was no organized little league in Puerto Rico then, but there was always a pickup game somewhere in one of the empty lots in the neighborhood, and the guitar would not come out of that closet until the arrival of the teacher for the next lesson.

Many times since then, I have wished I had taken advantage of the opportunity that was given to me. I am ashamed to say that the money spent by my parents in that endeavor was completely wasted and to this day I can’t play a note.

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For kindergarten and first grade, I was sent to San Jorge Catholic School. I transferred to La Milagrosa in Rio Piedras for second grade because they had a second grade teacher there that Dad believed was outstanding. Then, from third to eighth grade, it was the Pedro G. Goyco public school which was located only about two short blocks from our house.

Of course we never even asked why all the changes, because it was normal to accept everything Dad said without question. It is only in recent years that the thought occurred to me that the change to a public school might have been for financial reasons. I was seven years old at the time which makes it the year 1931, right in the middle of the Great Depression. As it turned out, transferring to public school was probably for the best.

At the time, Puerto Rico was a territory of the U.S with the governor and other officials appointed from Washington. The public school system had been upgraded and the teaching of English was compulsory. I was fortunate to have excellent teachers and we always started the day with the Pledge of Allegiance. It helped to reaffirm our Dad’s teachings of admiration and love for our country. I don’t see how I could have gotten a better elementary education. All my subsequent studies would be in the U.S and it was a blessing to have had the opportunity to learn English at an early age.

I have nothing but good memories of those early years. On Sundays, usually other members of the family would come for lunch and to me, it was like a party every time. People like Abelardo (Mother’s brother), Agripina and Gulita (Dad’s sisters), Pepito (Dad’s nephew), and, of course, Tití (Mother’s sister).

Pepito lived less than a block away and his wife Ana Rosa usually made the ice cream that we would have for dessert. It was a treat to go there and offer to turn the crank on the manual ice cream maker and of course get to lick the paddles after the ice cream was taken out.

My allowance most of those years, was twenty-five cents a week. I was always pretty good with money, so this really took care of all my needs including the obligatory Wednesday afternoon movie.

The theater was the Savoy on Loiza Street just a few blocks away. Every Wednesday, they would show two episodes of a serial like Flash Gordon and a full length western. I was a big fan of some of the old time cowboys like Tom Mix or Buck Jones. Tickets were ten cents and they advertised that the show would start promptly at three o’clock. Well, we didn’t get out of school until three, so at three, a whole bunch of us would get out of school and make a mad dash to the theater praying that we would not be late. Miraculously we never were. It never occurred to us that the theater owner would always wait for us to arrive before he started the movie.

I was never much for candy, which allowed me to save my money, but on hot days, I would sometimes buy a piragua which cost one or two cents. Other times, I would buy a lemonade or Cola Champagne drink from the Santurce Soda Water which cost two cents. I never bought a Coca Cola, which at five cents, was too expensive for my budget.

I was 12 years old when I joined the Boy Scouts. Our troop was one of the best in our area and I was eager to do well. Unfortunately, shortly thereafter, I would be going to the U.S. to school and as a result, I never got higher than Tenderfoot. I probably would not have gone too much higher anyway as a result of one incident.

The troop was planning a field trip to stay out overnight. The plan was to pitch tents and sit around a campfire and there were other ideas for the other activities to enjoy the scouting experience. Dad owned a small farm about thirty minutes from the metropolitan area and, eager to cooperate, I promptly volunteered it as a good place to carry out our plans, an offer that was quickly accepted. Dad went along with my plan, but said he would need to go there ahead of time to make sure the place was adequately prepared for what we intended. I didn’t realize then that he was concerned for, not just my safety, but for the safety of the entire group that would spend the night on his property.

The only structure on the farm was a large barn-like building typical of that rural area with straw roof. The building featured a large all-purpose room which we would use from time to time for small family parties. Of course it had electric lights, toilet facilities, a shower, and a coal burning