“Imagine the refreshment of finding water after days of dusty travel. A reliable waterhole hidden at the base of a sandstone bluff made El Morro (the headland) a popular campsite for hundreds of years. Here, Ancestral Puebloans, Spanish and American travelers carved over 2,000 signatures, dates, messages, and petroglyphs. Make El Morro National Monument a stopping point on your travels.“
This is the 'catchphrase' of the National Monument of Pueblo, New Mexico. Beside El Morro I introduced in my post on the Pacific Coast, there are quite a few El Morro sites in the US. The one I know well is in the Caribbean, formally called Castillo San Felipe del Morro - the fortification on the corner of the islet of Old San Juan, Puerto Rico, which is celebrating the 500th anniversary of the city's founding as the oldest city in the United States.
Spain ruled the island for about 500 years. England and the Netherlands were two countries to first challenge Spain. England tried three times (1595, 1598, 1797), all in vain, the Netherlands once in 1625. Then the US challenged in 1898 in the Spanish-American War and won.
I was sent to New York City by my employer in March 1963, when my daughter Yukina was only a few weeks old. My family joined me in June of that year.
I worked at 40 Worth Street, downtown, near West Broadway, renting two desks inside a medium-sized (70 employees) trading company dealing primarily in iron and steel chains. Two desks were for me and my partner - Guy Karaki, younger and a dynamic character, an excellent electrical engineer who graduated from Tokyo Denki University in Kanda, Tokyo. Both of us had to walk to the nearby deserted Hudson River warehouse to ship measuring instruments after the “Ima-Ima” (now-now) calibration to fulfill the occasional customer orders. We already knew that Americans use the so-called “all-in-one” multi-purpose testers, disregarding standalone ammeters, voltmeters, wattmeters, or ohm-meters. So, Karaki and I had tactics to sell, with some success, more sophisticated hysteresis tracers (priced at $5,000) to some higher-level institutions.
As the year-end approached, I mentioned to Karaki that we owe everything to our wives who took care of our children in an unfamiliar environment. Can we offer them a trip during the New Year? First, he looked puzzled, but consented. I finally suggested a weeklong trip to San Juan, PR.
I cautioned him the deal was between us. Do not tell anybody about our plans, not even our employers in Tokyo.
We purchased the tickets and provided detailed instructions on where to visit. Off they went. The El Morro in Old San Juan was included in the plan. We babysat the kids. We thanked them in an unorthodox way then and we loved listening to them talk about their trip.
Unfortunately, Mrs. Karaki passed away after returning to Japan and Karaki himself passed away about 10 years ago. RIP to both. Amen.
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