Without doubt, Old San Juan is my favorite site in PR.  I remember traveling from Hatillo and, later, Manati to San Juan by train to my Aunt Santos’ house in Santurce, San Juan’s largest suburb at the time.  Santos was my father’s oldest sister and something of the family’s “Grand Dame”.  When I went with my mother, she and I would take the bus to travel the extra miles to the old city and visit my aunt Julia, Mom’s older sister.  Julia lived at the corner of San Sebastian and San Jose streets.  In those days, late 30’s and early 40’s, that corner of old city was rather decrepit, not well kept and many of its inhabitants were seedy characters sitting on the side walk or the nearby “Sirena Bar”, a popular hangout.  My aunt always warned me about not straying close to the obviously drunk or “high” individuals.  They were all lumped under the classification of “marihuaneros” or “motos” (pot smokers).

Julia’s house was one of the many 19th century buildings in San Sebastian street, dark inside although it had the customary inner courtyard most those houses had.  It was divided into several small rooms she rented.  She eventually converted the very corner of the building into a bar and a few years later bought the adjacent house on San Sebastian which was a great improvement.  This one had 3 doors to the outside and the courtyard was much better illuminated and ventilated.  Nowadays most of Old San Juan has been beautifully restored and converted into a magnificent tourist attraction.  In fact, San Sebastian street itself has become the site for a carnival-like celebration which began a few years back as a religious celebration in honor of Saint Sebastian, but has turned into a rather pagan celebration.

In contrast, Aunt Santos’ residence was a modern (for the era) two story concrete house with garage and maid’s room over the garage.  Inside it was airy and bright and had what to me was a huge bathroom equipped with bath tub, wash basin with vanity, toilet and something I had never seen before, a bidet.  I quickly found out that contraption was not to be fooled with.  I opened the handle and got a quick squirt in my face.  My last experiment with bidets.

Going back to OSJ, some years later, when my family had moved to Santurce, I discovered La Perla (The Pearl).  A rather ironic name for the city’s most dilapidated and dangerous poor neighborhood with the most privileged location in town.  It extends from the base of the massive walls of Fort San Cristobal which guards the eastern land approach to the inner city to the western esplanade which separates the city from the imposing ramparts of  San Felipe del Morro Castle.  La Perla is actually the beachfront of OSJ on the north coast facing the Atlantic Ocean.  It has two entrances at the extremes, both are narrow, curvy passages which barely admit a car.  The one at El Morro entrance has a beautiful antique cemetery where notable citizens are still buried among the “commoners”.  This is  another of my favorite spots.  Once you are inside the gates one of the most impressive tombs is that of famous Hollywood actor Jose Ferrer’s grandfather.  It includes life sized statues of a crying angel and three children with garlands looking at the backstop where the grandfather’s name is inscribed.  It is indeed a work of art.

I’ve been to La Perla itself a few times.  It was part of my job when I was San Juan’s Medical Director for Ambulatory Health Care.   I had eight health centers or “dispensaries”, as they were know to the clientele,  under my supervision.  One of them was La Perla’s.  It was located at the extreme eastern end, closest to San Cristobal.  The local medical director was my favorite because he kept me from having to visit too often.  Driving my car along the only street capable of allowing traffic and up the rampart was not my idea of fun.

To be continued.

During the last TV debate of the Republican candidates to president, the exchange between Ted Cruz and Donald Trump provoked the most and most acerbic comments.  Cruz mentioned “New York values” in a somewhat derogatory manner sparking Trump’s typically aggressive response.  Most commentators, being born or adopted New Yorkers sided with Trump, an unusual response for people who abhor the man.  Trumps defense was based on an event totally atypical of NY’s history, the 9/11 disaster.  It gave rise to an equally atypical NY response, unity of purpose.

I understood what Cruz meant by NY values.  I’ve been there.  It is the only place in the US I have experienced overt discrimination.  Also the only place where one perceives a great many pedestrians passing you walk as if they were bearing an enormous chip on their shoulders.  Yes, paraphrasing Winston Churchill’s elocution referencing Londoner’s resistance to Nazi bombing, “This was their finest hour”,  9/11 was New Yorkers “finest hour”, but the intervening 14 years have not erased their intrinsic values.

Yesterday I attended a Three Kings feast in the manner they used to be celebrated in PR back in the day when I was visited by the Kings who brought me presents for being such a good kid.  Yes, Virginia, the Kings were PR’s version of Santa Claus.  The Tampa Bay Latin American Medical Society was kind enough to invite me to join them at Dr. Crespo’s country house in Spring Hill, Hernando County, north of Tampa.  Three Kings Day is known in Tarpon Springs as Epiphany Day, celebrated by the Greek colony in that city.

Most of the young doctors attending had their children with them.  If I had them, it would have been great-grandchildren.  There was a very good female singer accompanied by an electronic keyboard musician.  Near the end of the activity, a group of “pleneros” from Ponce came to increase the tempo.  (Pleneros are percussionists who play various kinds of hand drum-like instruments, they play “plenas”, an African derived musical genre popular in the city of Ponce and the municipality of Loiza, PR).

My favorite part of the activity was the presentation and subsequent consumption of the honored guest, Sr. Lechon Asado a la Varita.  (Roast pig on the spit.).  It was delicious, just as I rememberd from the days we used to have similar feasts in my grandmother’s house.  All in all a great day which evoked a great era in my native island.

El Pastor de las Cabras.

Isla de Cabras is actually a prominent feature of the entrance to San Juan Bay (San Juan, Puerto Rico).  Any of you who has approached the city by cruise ship must remember the imposing ramparts of the huge fort looming on port side (left) as the ship enters the canal into the bay.  This is the world famous Morro Castle (San Felipe del Morro).  Most likely you did not notice what was on starboard (right) side.  It is a thin spit of land capped by some ruins at the tip and several coconut palms further back leading to a very small fortification facing  El Morro.  This is El Cañuelo.  It served to anchor El Morro’s  protecting chains.  The chains were strung from one side of the canal to the other if enemy ships attempted to enter.  So Isla de Cabras in spite of its diminutive size and humble appearence, actually played an important role in defending San Juan.

South of the islet, the area used to be populated by marsh and mangrove along the western shore of San Juan Bay,  Whether it was once inhabited by goats is open to speculation.  We do know that up to the 1940s, what are now ruins in its northernmost tip were Puerto Rico’s leprosy hospital or Leprocomio.  In the early 20th century it was customary to keep patients with leprosy isolated in prison-like conditions.

The other feature of the bay’s entrance is La Fortaleza or Palacio de Santa Catalina.  This was the original defense of the city at the time Juan Ponce de Leon, the island’s first governor, settled the citadel.  It was merely a tower on top of the bluff  where it still stands.  This was not Ponce’s first residence, that honor belongs to the early house he built in what is now known as Caparra.  He soon realized the chosen site was a mistake.  It was west of the swampy margin of the bay, full of mosquitoes and foul smelling with decay from the dead vegetation.  He traveled east and then north, rounding the bay until he reached the north islet which capped the bay itself protecting it from the Atlantic Ocean.  He placed the tower south of the prominent moor which later became the city’s main defense.  He eventually built a second tower with fortifications in between.  Long after Ponce had left the island in search of what he called La Florida and died in Cuba, his relatives built another residence a few yards further north and La Fortaleza remained a fortress until it was enlarged and beautified to become a palace, Puerto Rico’s seat of government.  The family’s residence became La Casa Blanca (the White House, no relation to Washington, D.C.). —To be continued.

I write these classic words barely 120 minutes before the arrival of 2016.  I do hope all of you are blessed with a year full of good fortune.  As Scarlett O’hara said in her famous soliloquy in Gone with the Wind, “Tomorrow is another Day.”

Santiago, El Pastor de la Isla de Cabras

It’s December 29, 2015, the 363rd day of this year.

My abuelo has been asking that I assist in making his foray into the world of blogging official so that he may engrave (into the Internet) his thoughts and ideas leveraging historical data and fact on passions near and dear to his heart: politics and Puerto Rico – even if he will only admit to one

So, here we are. La isla de cabras is in motion, and I cannot wait to read what the most brilliant man I know has to say about the world at large from his perspective; even when we disagree.

Con mucho amor y respeto,

Miranda J. Miranda