Monthly Archives: November 2008

Searchlights and the Gumshoe

This is how the search lights looked to us from Central Colon.
Image thanks to a fascinating site called skylighters.org

“At any rate, the city-wide fire would not touch the dwelling my family and I lived in at that corner of Third Street and Melendez Avenue in the historic City of Colon. As I wrote my memoirs describing the scenes, I remembered that our Papá-abuelo (granddad) came home during the fire relieved to find the family settled across the street from the home they knew. Then, he and some of his Westindian co-workers moved us all down the street where he felt we would be safer. Continue reading

Fire!

The strange “rainbow” that I watched dance from building to building
was probably some kind of back draft activity as the Great Colón Fire of
1940 got started in April, the week of my fourth birthday.

It was my first story and I was almost sure that it may have been Cuadernos Balboa’s first Westindian story of that year of 1950 or any year before. As the class suddenly became quiet, I noticed that the teacher had returned to her desk at the front of the class. Tarrying some at her desk she then left the room again as activities in the back of the classroom became louder. The writing paper I had been examining, while my memories of early childhood flashed back and forth, was almost new. I caressed the page with my sharpened pencil intent on practicing writing a story. Continue reading