Meegan's Art

My friend Meegan lives in the Tarheel state. That's North Carolina for the geographically challenged. Lovely lady, great sense of humor, warm, and caring. Meegan has had her share of difficult times, as we all have, but has found a way to keep herself cheerfully occupied.

A few years ago, she took up painting as a hobby. I was so impressed by her talent that I prevailed upon her to let me share a few of her paintings with the world. Or, at least the small part of it that stumbles upon my blog. Here is just a small part of her work.

My Bay of Pigs Memories

Recently, I stumbled across something pertaining to Cuba and how the people’s lives were changing for the better


The article caused me to have a flash of déjà vu.

One day in the summer of 1960, when I was 18 years old, (Damn….that’s nearly a half century ago) I was listening to radio station WNOR, in Norfolk, VA. During the news broadcast, the announcer mentioned that some people were in town recruiting for a group called the International Anti-Communist Brigade, whose purpose was to invade Cuba and kick Castro’s communist government to the curb and establish a democratic government.

Even though I was only 18, I had been on my own since I was 15, was already divorced and had been in and out of the Army, and was really not doing too much worthwhile with my life. This group sounded to me, street kid that I was, like an ideal thing for me to be doing. Kill a Commie for Mommy, and all that.

The news announcer didn’t give any way to get in touch with these people, so I called the radio station and talked to the announcer and was told that they didn’t have any information about getting in touch with the recruiters about joining the Brigade, but that they would try to get some information for me, and to call back.

The station ran a little piece about the Brigade and ridiculed them a bit….saying it seemed strange that they were recruiting, but that no one was able to get in touch with them. Next day, they had some names and a phone number for me.

I called the number, which was in South Norfolk, now known as Chesapeake, VA, and talked to a person named Bernard Barker, whom I found out later is a native born Cuban, in spite of his name, and a former member of the Cuban secret police under Batista, Castro’s predecessor. (Born in 1917, Barker was still alive in Miami Florida as of January 2009)

Barker talked to me a bit, and turned me over to Frank Fiorini, also known as Frank Sturgis. Sturgis, among other things in a multi-faceted career, was at one time in the mountains of Cuba with Castro before Castro won his revolution. As it turned out, both of these guys were working with the CIA at this time. (Another couple of interesting tidbits about these two guys later.)

The three of us met, along with a friend of mine who was also interested, and we were finally invited to go along with them and do our part to save Cuba from Castro and the “Red Menace.” We were to meet in front of the post office in Norfolk (Now a Federal Courthouse) and be transported to Florida, and from there to Peru for training.

My friend and I were there when we were supposed to be, but Sturgis and Barker never showed. I talked to Sturgis’ wife, Juanita Fiorini, who worked as a waitress at the Virginian Restaurant on Granby Street in downtown Norfolk, but she denied any knowledge of their whereabouts or activities. I never saw them again.



The landing, as is well known, was a spectacular failure. Castro not only survived the invasion but outlasted ten presidents despite every effort to force him from office—including at least six attempts at assassination.

To prepare for the invasion, the CIA trained the force in secret camps in Guatemala-not Peru, as I was told- for nearly six months. But long before the landing, it was widely known in the Cuban community in Florida (and, presumably, the information was also available to Castro agents) that such a landing was in the offing. Finally, the invasion failed because Kennedy refused to provide U.S. air support for the brigade. Castro's aircraft easily disposed of the exiles' tiny air force and proceeded to sink the invasion ships and cut down the men holding the Bay of Pigs beachhead.

This in spite of the fact that some of the Cuban militia was bussed….yep…bussed to the battlefield.




Only about 150 members of the 1,500-strong brigade managed to escape; the others were either killed in battle or captured by the Cuban armed forces. I remember seeing some of them on TV being landed in Florida in handcuffs and chains. I remember saying to myself…”Self…you are one lucky SOB!”



Twenty months later, in December 1962, Castro released the 1,179 Bay of Pigs prisoners in exchange for $53 million worth of medical supplies and other goods raised by private individuals and groups in the United States.



You remember Frank Sturgis, and Bernard Barker, that I mentioned above? Well…these two showed up again a few years later. They were two of the Watergate burglars!



During the time between the Bay of Pigs fiasco and Watergate, they were both suspected, and still are in many quarters, of being involved in the Kennedy assassination.

As far as the Kennedy thing goes, though, I like my daughter Jackie’s theory the best. She said: “I think Elvis did it.” The poor girl takes after her old man.

First Day of Fishing this Year

Went fishing today. Tried a lake and a pond but didn't catch anything worth keeping. Had the strangest feeling, though, that a big one was close by. Guess he wasn't hungry. Oh Well. Maybe I'll have better luck next time.

Our TV Travails

Recently, we decided we deserved a large screen HD TV. After checking all the sale papers, we decided on:


We arrived at Sears less than an hour after the sale started, only to learn from the sales person that they didn’t have the advertised TV and, in fact, had not had any. His excuse was that the sale’s newspaper ads were prepared far in advance and they had sold out before the sale began. He said that it was last year’s model and that they had actually sold out of the advertised TV that we wanted last year. Of course, he tried to switch us to another TV that was more expensive. We did not go for it. It seemed too much like the old bait and switch game to us. The whole experience kind of torqued Marsha’s jaws, so she wrote an email to someone at Sears. In return she got a sort of “screw you” email back. Not hard to understand why they are having financial difficulties if that is the way they treat their customers.

Next stop was:


They had a sale going on several brands. We decided on a Sharp 46 inch HDTV.


They had it on sale for a reduced price, plus they threw in a Sharp Blu-Ray DVD player. We figured that was a good deal. We also got free next day delivery. The TV and Blu-Ray player have a gazillion different wires and cords to hook up, so we felt it was worthwhile to get them to do it. It is all I can do to figure out how to plug in my computer, so…we sprung for the


to come out and do the hook up and installation.
The TV arrived …not the next day, but in two days….acceptable, since there was about 90 feet of snow on the ground. (More or less) In another couple of days, the Geek Squad showed up, in the person of a frazzled young fellow that was in sort of a hurry for some reason. He hooked up the TV and the dvd player, turned it on, and got an error message. He looked at the error message and switched the electrical plug to another outlet, got the same message, and told me the TV was defective. So…..he hooked up our old Sanyo 32 inch CRT TV again, with the Blu-Ray player and left. Unfortunately, he hooked it up wrong and the Blu-Ray player would not play any movies, and it took two remotes and a PHD degree to operate the TV.

In due course, another TV arrived. I had the other one repacked for them by the time they got here, and they carted it away.

In a couple of days, another Geek Squad guy arrived. This one was in one of the cute little Volkswagens we see on the TV advertisements. (The first guy was in a van.)


I was further impressed when I discovered that this guys name is Matt. I mean….we all know that Matts are known all over the country for being exceptionally knowledgeable, competent, and industrious, as well as being handsome, suave, and debonair. (See pic at top of page)

Matt took one look at the wiring the first guy had done and whipped out his telephone and took several pictures of it. (Yes, Grandma, they take pictures with telephones now.) I asked the reason for that, and he told me that he was the guy that trained all the Geek Squad people that came from the store we got our TV and DVD player from, and he was intending to ask this guy why our stuff was wired in such a poor manner.

To make a long, and probably boring, story shorter, Matt hooked the stuff up, showed me how to operate the remotes for both the TV and the Blu-Ray and departed into the sun riding his trusty VW. No problems since. I am inclined to believe that the first TV may not have been defective at all, but who knows? We are satisfied now.