The Sears Radio Console

The few Sears catalogues that
came my way became a source of
literature which I read for hours
at a time. This rare image of a page out of
a 1943 Sears Catalogue can be found
over at www.costumes.org

The big cardboard box that the large radio console my father sent to buy from the Sears Roebuck catalogue became a toy for Aminta and me. We were home alone so much that we had the run of the place. Like clockwork my father left home early in the mornings to work on the Canal Zone and was gone all day. For us kids God only knew where my mother might have been as she would suddenly disappear for most of the day right after my father left. So, during most of the day we learned to stay busy just playing quietly by ourselves.

For a while we were afraid to touch the dial on the new piece of furniture in our cramped barrio room. But, soon we were confident that no one would find out or even care what we did. So, the radio console became one of our play things and I soon assumed the responsibility for what occurred while we were alone at home. Since we had arrived from Colon, in fact, the only member of my paternal branch of the family to visit us was my uncle Clifford “Pinky” Reid. Although he lived nearby on the same block as the Jamaican Society Hall, however, he seldom put in an appearance at our home.

The way I remembered Uncle Pinky at the time was from a rare visit to our maternal grandparents’ home in Colon while we were living with them. I had just turned four and on that day my mother turned me entirely over to this man who placed me on his motorcycle ordering me, like a maniac, “You hold on!” He then cranked up the contraption and took off through the street of Colon as fast as he could go with me holding on to his waist too terrified to scream. Even at that tender age I looked at this man and thought that he was totally demented. That nothing serious happened to me I have only to thank the Lord for.

On that first meeting with my young uncle he took me directly to a room were we spent the day while he kind of played around with a woman he seemed to know and I sat in the bed trying to figure out how to play a guitar he had handed me to entertain myself with.

Well, I had almost forgotten this uncle of mine until one day when he showed up at our room on Mariano Arosemena Street on one of those days that my mother had finally decided to cook and feed us. I remember the day because he brought us some Butter Pears as the Westindians called them or Aguacate – Avocados- which we kids immediately loved. We learned how to sprinkle the soft buttery slices with salt and enjoy their delicate flavor. Our meal that day consisted of fried fish with some white rice and the Butter Pears on the side- simple but delicious.

From that moment on my Uncle Pinky would remain in our lives as a male presence and he became for me a model of Westindian manhood that I was supposed to imitate as I grew into a mature adolescent.

The radio shows of the time in both English and Spanish became my companions. The different radio personalities became practically the only means of communicating with other human beings that would assist me in deciphering what was expected of us kids as we entered a social milieu that was so uncommunicative.

Up until then Westindian men had been what my maternal grandfather, Seymour, had been to me. It would only be until years later, however, and I’d have the benefit of a college education and a writer and researcher’s skills that I would discover that I was the descendent of the pioneering Silver Men of the Panama Canal. These discoveries alone would fill me with great pride and a different and better concept of what manhood should be.

Even though I would arrive at a more complete picture of the lives of men such as my paternal grandfather, Mr. Joshua Reid, piece meal through gathering information from conversations with people who knew him and from my paternal grandmother and, to a very limited extent, from my aunts and uncles, it was well worth all those years of investigation.

This story continues.