From the Editor: My Smartest Dude

As long as I can remember, I’ve always been fascinated by politics. I mean, really fascinated. I have hazy memories of watching Robert F. Kennedy’s funeral with my Mom—I was three years old that summer—and her sympathetic how-much-can-this-woman-suffer? commentary directed at the stoic figure in black, Jacqueline Kennedy. No fan of the Kennedys—no Cuban person of my parents’ generation was, think Bay of Pigs—my mother was still visibly distraught at the hardship that Jackie Kennedy must continue to endure. I vividly recall finding the entire spectacle riveting. And I wanted more.

An avid reader of newspapers by the age of seven—a habit my parents happily encouraged—I found myself drawn to two of my life’s continuing passions: Sports and politics. I sprung out of bed early each morning before school to read all about my favorite sports teams and examine the baseball box scores, only to be followed by reading mostly confusing articles about current events. The ins-and-outs of Washington politics piqued my curiosity the most.

Then, Watergate.

Entering the fourth grade, while exactly 100 percent of my friends were talking about what they did that summer, I wanted to discuss Patty Hearst or Richard Nixon. Not exactly chit chat fodder for the average nine-year-old. The breathless newspaper coverage surrounding Watergate—for years I didn’t know why it was even called Watergate—was genuinely baffling to me but I knew bad people were saying terrible things about Richard Nixon, a man (and a president) my parents greatly admired.

A few years later, my grandfather, Nicolás Rodríguez, came to live with us in Miami after decades in Venezuela, where he set up his business after Fidel Castro’s rise to power in his native Cuba. I had never seen the likes of this Nicolás Rodríguez. Built like a barrel, my mother’s father was completely bald, had the brightest blue eyes I had ever seen and had such a gentle, urbane way about him that I frankly didn’t know what to make of him. When I first laid eyes on him, I examined my grandfather a bit like I imagined Jane Goodall examined primates in Africa: With what-are-they-going-to-do-next? rapt attention.

The very next morning after my grandfather arrived—a Saturday—I heard my dad screaming in the kitchen. As I walked into the room, I saw my grandfather calmly sitting at the table while my father was flailing his arms not unlike a mad orchestra conductor. My dad kept saying, “Are you crazy?!” to Nicolás and my grandfather would smile and shake his head no. I had never seen my dad so worked up. What set him off was that, unbeknownst to any of us until that very moment, Nicolás Rodríguez was—wait for it—a Democrat. I couldn’t even process what that even meant. How could this seemingly intelligent man of the world not see what was so clear to everyone else in my family? Republicans always had the right answers. My grandfather then took it a step further: He said, “Jimmy Carter is an honorable man who will make a great president.” I saw my dad’s face turn crimson even as I felt my own heart rate accelerate as never before. Them were fightin’ words. Game on, grandpa!

So many of my childhood memories of my dad and grandfather involve them incessantly arguing about politics. My dad in his flamboyant, passionate way and my grandfather in his sotto voce, bemused manner. It was exactly like watching Andrew Dice Clay taking on Yoda. The one thing these frequent debates were for sure? Great theater.

By the time I went off to college and President Ronald Reagan had declared ketchup a vegetable (Google it), I started investigating my own political proclivities and soon discovered that—surprise!—I, too, was a Democrat, making me the second member of my family to admit to such a crime. In the first couple of summers before I returned to school, I spent an inordinate amount of time with my grandfather as he regaled me with stories about his own political heroes, particularly President Woodrow Wilson, who my well-traveled grandfather had seen speak in Cincinnati in 1918. He also admired Abraham Lincoln, our greatest president by his estimation, and the only worthwhile Republican in history. Nicolás would often recite the Gettysburg Address from memory, just because he believed those were the most important words ever uttered from a president’s lips.

My grandfather became my unexpected confidant and political mentor, much to my parents’ amusement and horror. But what Nicolás Rodríguez taught me above all else is that you didn’t have to raise your voice to make a point, you could disagree vehemently without being disagreeable and, mostly, to not be a follower and think for yourself.

I have a black-and-white framed photograph of my grandfather sitting at his huge desk in Venezuela circa 1965 hanging in my bedroom. As that great man watches over me as I sleep, I know that I’ll never meet the likes of him again: Elegant, independent, soft-spoken, funny, intellectual, compassionate. How lucky was I to meet, learn from and love this incredible man, this Nicolás Rodríguez? He literally changed my life forever. So, yeah, pretty damn lucky, I’d say.