Arias Cardenas ponders grandmother's long life

Posted: Thursday, January 23, 2003 - 2:27:12 AM By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue www.vheadline.com

In thoughtful mood after the death of his grandmother, Carmelina, Lt. Colonel (ret.) Francisco Arias Cardenas reminisces incidents in her life span starting with stories she heard from her teenage mother, who bravely questioned the right of a black Federal War General sitting at the gentleman’s table.

The story about his uncle, Luis Level de Goda, who Antonio Guzman Blanco refused to help on the battlefield, arguing that his (Blanco Guzman’s) mule was also injured. The great grandparents fleeing in exile to Arauca in Colombia where she was born.  Her love of music and fun led to love and marriage with Felipe Sebastian Cardenas.

When grandmother Carmelina found out that her grandson, Francisco was in love with a girl from Maracaibo, ’No doubt she identified the place with the imprisonment of her husband when he challenged warlord Eustoquio Gomez armed with a flute.

"She wouldn’t find today’s Venezuela all that strange as we still walk the path towards a national structure … God willing, the crisis will see an end to messianic warlords (a recurring characteristic of our peoples) and the end of oligarchies or groups of power stage-managing puppet politicians, defending their interests and living like leeches off the National Treasury. "