by Gary | Jun 14, 2013 |
I like Panama. I really do. Although I might not be willing to suffer Miami International Airport to get there again, I’m glad I went this one time. As you may know, this was one of our “Twelve Year Old Trips”. No, it’s not a trip we take every twelve years. It’s a trip we take when each of our grandchildren reach the age of twelve. It’s lost in history who came up with this idea, but it has been a really, really great one. Panama, at first glance, was not an ideal choice for such a trip, as it had little of the sizzle as some of it’s predecessor trips (Galapagos Islands, Paris, London). About all it had going...
by Gary | Jun 7, 2013 |
I told you in Panama: The Beginnings that I would come back to the subject of the Canal for the bottom line. Ok, here it is. The bottom line that is. Wow! I saw it by being on it in a passenger ship transiting the system of locks. I saw it from a small outboard as we looked for monkeys and birds, and I saw it from the air as we flew back and forth to the highlands. It defines Panama more than the pyramids defines Egypt. It defines Panama more than the Great Wall defines China, and the Leaning Tower in Pisa and the Colosseum are mere dots on the culture of Italy compared to what the Canal is to Panama. There is no other country that is defined so much...
by Gary | Jun 3, 2013 |
The word “Panama” is either a corruption of a Kuna (one of the indigenous peoples) word meaning “far away”, or a misnomer of the early Spanish explorers of a native village name meaning “many fish”. There you have it. That’s all you need to know that Panama has been and remains much of a mystery to most of us in the US of A. Of course, we know of the Panama Canal, and certainly we know Rod Carew. A few of us may even be able to call to mind the name Noriega without knowing exactly who he is or what he may have done to deserve our notice. When pressed, in Rorschach fashion, I would throw out Panama hat which, of...
