The Way I Remember Danny Levinson. . . . Nicaragua, August 1965
January 18th, 2008 @ 22:14
Posted by: John Whipple Sr.
Nicaragua is a Country in Central America about the size of the state of Illinois yet it has the largest area that no man has set foot on. I lived here 3 weeks of my life that seems like three years any place else. It has more new specimens of unknown plants and insects and critters then any other country in the world.
Lake Nicaragua is a freshwater lake with shark and whatever else eats those weird florescent bugs you see when you step off the beaten path.. . .and I’m not kidding. . . .they are really weird!.
The Islands you see here are typical of the one I own on Lake Nicaragua I got for free from the attorney that drew up the paper work on the car sale. I never actually saw it but Danny never saw his “Taper” either. A Taper is an animal that is close kin to the elephant family, small with a short trunk. Danny wanted one and set up a deal with Colonel Redding to get one delivered to his house in San Antonio. . . .I think he traded a Rolex watch for it in a typical Danny deal. . . .and I am sure it worked out like Danny deals do. They don’t use deeds for islands and he assured me that the paper he gave me suffices as proof of ownership as long as Somosa was in power and the government would love to have me live on one. . . .just spend money and I would be most welcome. . . .This is truly Amphicar country. (link)
So long Danny!
There is a story here that may never get told. . . . .It would be a story of the kind of stuff movies are made of . . .I did not realize when I talked you into this caper that I was taking the adventure with me and it turned into the longest 3 weeks I ever spent in my life. I wanted to get your side of the story on tape because no one is ever going to believe. . . . .Not even me and I was there!
Danny and George Apostolos Stamoulis (the Greek sailor we met the night we arrived ) took the car on a test run to Panama one night to buy some replica Rolex watches from someone on the ship George worked on docked in the Panama Canal. I stayed at Jack Head’s house hooking up a old 1950′s Swan and Drake HAM transmitter and reciever I bought for $30 downtown Managua. Jack was on the air the following day as “Uncle Jack” and was 100% legal with a license he bought for $2.50 “YN2TJH” (there is no test required in Nicaragua for a HAM station) and became the terror of the 11 meter band in Central America. The most amazing thing about this set up was the antenna I built in the back yard made out of the soft wrought copper wire from 2 old automobile coils forming a broadside horizontal dipole center fed with a doublet feed line to a open wire hand wound balun using no coax and the SWR was zero. I remember the first time Jack used it he said it sounds better than his telephone.. . .and you know. . .it really was.
Danny and George got back with the watches and I should have figured something was up, because I was no longer included in all conversations. The short and skinny of the goings on was Danny had bought about 6 watches for about $500. The one he wore cost him $2,500 and he offered to sell it to several people for $1.000 to get money to get home on. He had his watch appraised at a well known jeweler in Managua (I went with him) he also had a tiger eye pinky ring and diamond cuff links and tie pin that he had appraised and he used that appraisal to deal the bogus watches just hours before we caught a flight out of the country.
I remember him hiring a cab driver to get him back to the Grand Hotel to get the gifts he had bought for his family and friends that he had left statched in the hotel room. He ask me to go with him and I told him “no” I am on that plane and gone with or without you. Lucky for him they held the flight about 30 minutes.
This is a picture of the other Danny, a man we met at the Granada Social Club and he represented the International Rotary Club.., He was the Carrier Air Conditioning Distributer in Managua. He was also the brother of the girl that George was going to marry that weekend and who had left her at the alter once before and I learned that his new to be Father-in-law was buying my car and George was thinking of escaping again after his new Father-in-law pays for the car! I can see now how George and Danny Levinson hit it off so well.
This guy in the picture also named Danny was one of the people Levinson sold a watch to and was at the airport and was paging him when I boarded the plane and when I got to my seat I saw Danny slinking low by the window and he hands me 3 bags to put in the rack above. I was really ticked at what he had done, but I really didn’t know how to deal with it. Several hours and 2 glasses of champaign later they announced that we have an engine out and we will be making an emergency landing in Cuba and we happen to be the only gringos on the plane. I carefully got up and went back to the rest room and all of the right side of the plane was dark and heard a hundred frightened little Spanish voices chanting disbelief and I noticed oil and soot forming on the right side windows. I went back and sat down but did not want to wake up Big Bear yet till I thought this thing out. The life vests were dropping from a little door in the ceiling and that woke Danny up. I was surprised to see him so composed. . . I expected the usual overbearing problematic attitude. He had already figured out how he was going to get out the emergency door which was at the next seat up. We had already come down below the clouds and I noticed another engine stop on our side of the plane. I looked out the window and saw water standing in fields maybe 200 feet below us. I did not know the United States just had the biggest rain it ever had in 1965 and I thought this was Cuba. This went on for a long time full bore on two engines then I finally saw pavement and heard that sweet little squeak kiss of the tires. By the time I could get out into the aisle I realized we had landed at the end of the runway at the Miami Airport. I chose the front door to exit and Danny took the rear and as I passed the pilot stepping out of the cockpit door. . . .He had a big lipstick kiss mark on both cheeks and a glass of champagne in his hand. I had planed to shake his hand but he looked well rewarded so I just went right on out the door in a twilight zone moment.
I guess I should not be too hard on Danny. . . .especially since he is not here to defend his position on these issues, He did manage to procure these tickets that got us out of the country. . . .it may have cost him another Rolex watch to bump those two passengers off flight 416 that fateful day, August 21st 1965. Danny was a super salesman.. . Presto. . . .Just like watch work! The tickets appeared! He could sell a refrigerator to an Eskimo. . . .Where ever he got these tickets they are probably wearing a cheap Rolex watch. We had been on a waiting list at Pan Am for two weeks and there was nothing in sight closer than another month.
We missed our flight out of Miami because of the Lanica delay after running with bag and baggage only to have the steps pulled away just as we approached the plane. We saw the pilot wave goodbye as he turned the airplane around and Danny waved back his flag of discontent which I had seen many times before. We had a quarter of a mile up the hill that we had just run down to get back to the ticket counter. Danny’s bag was bigger and heaver than mine and his shirt was soaked with sweat. He turned started walking up that Hill.
I stayed and rested a bit and was enjoying seeing the amount of distance increasing between us. You never get to know somebody like you do after living with them every day and I was getting fed up. He was about a 100 yards up the corridor before I even started. I was still resting. I saw a baby stroller and put my suitcases on it and started up the hill at an easy pace and I was catching up with him. When I started to pass him he inched over an kicked my bags off of the stroller and put his bag on it and took off with the stroller. I came up behind him and grabbed the handle of his bag and made about three swing circles with it and let go flying back down the hill and calmly picked up my bags and put them back on th stroller and started back up the hill. I heard him walking behind me but I was so angry I was ready to take him on. . . I slowly begin the trip back up hill. I knew he was trailing close behind me but I also saw the fear in his eyes when he saw his bag go flying.
By the time we got to the ticket counter and found out there were no flights till early morning. . . ..We got the tickets below on National and we elected to have one last dinner together and wait out 10 hours before flight flight time. There is more to this story. . . .but, I’ll kinda keep it to myself being that there may be a pool table in the sky. . . .
Guess who was waiting to pick us up from the airport . . . .
My new Ford Thunderbird. . . . of course!
The picture below was taken with a J33 Polaroid at the Alhambra Hotel on the Square and there are many pictures of interest of a very interesting historical town on Google. . .I won’t pick them for you . . . . . .just go ahead search on your own. . . . It will be well worth it!
Start your search here! (Click)
Danny, “Stay clear of the 8 ball, play for position and remember winning was never a sharpie shot. The loser only thought it was. . .Hope you made it to the promise land.”
George, “Hope you are coming up on your 43rd wedding anniversary with 12 kids and 37 grandchildren and a boat big enough to hold them all.”
John, “Early to bed. . . .Early to rise. . .Makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise. . . .and remember. . . . .Keep the rubber side down.”
June 25th, 2008 21:58
Hello Mr. Whipple, my name is Angel Stamoulis, I am George Apostolos Stamoulis, the Greek sailor’s daughter.
I happened to come across this site while searching for information on my grandmother, Angele Stamoulis, I nearly fell to my knee’s when I saw my father’s picture on your site!
I would really love to speak with you Mr. Whipple. If you would, please call me.
Unfortunately, my father passed away 30 years ago this December 28th. He and my mother, Cecilia, were married 13 years before his passing. They had three children, Apostoli, my oldest brother, Michel and I, we are twins, Michel is the male, I am the female.
My oldest brother, Apostoli, passed shortly after my father, four months later to be exact. My mother, Cecilia, passed in April 2007.
Anyway, I would really love to talk to you about my father, the rolex and the wedding.
By the way, the other Danny you mentioned, that’s my uncle, his name is Daniel Lacayo, he now lives in Florida.
I hope to hear from you soon.
Many thanks,
Angel Stamoulis
June 28th, 2008 05:44
I decided to post my answers to your comment for all who may be following this story to stay informed with what makes an interesting story like this to unfold into maybe a deeper meaning and a clearer understanding of a really great life experience now in memories.
I first want to say that I am so glad you called because some long unanswered questions are now at rest. I’m still freaking out to find out that Hope was Somosa’s lady friend or whatever. Seems that local culture had it that if you were a girl older than 18 and not picked yet your chances of getting married start to get slim quickly because it was beneath an local eligible young batchlor to ask her. Her next option was a foreigner or some older stud with money.
I was 28 and Hope was 33 and over the hill. . . I should have hung around! maybe I would have wound up with the prettiest girl in town and become president of Nicaragua. . . . . who knows what life has in store for those that can concur time and age boundaries.
. . . . . and if nothing else. . . . .There is “Hope”
I hope you are laughing . . . . .
I can honestly say that George was a really great guy. He had a aristocratic nature about him. He seemed to know a lot about the world and places and things. He was very very polite and mannerly, dressed neat and clean and what I said about him being like a “cat on a hot tin roof”. . . please, understand that whenever a man gets close to a major life change such as marriage “They get like that”. I would rather hear it from a man that was sensitive and aware than from a man that was just in love at the moment. . . . .Let me put it this way. . . .He was walking the floor, but, he didn’t walk out the door! and that being “left at the alter” was just a proverbial figure of speech that hung heavy on too many local peoples minds at that time.
You know. . .if it hadn’t have worked out well. . . .We would not be having this conversation. . . . .
are we still laughing?
Thank God for the laughter between the tears and the years. . . .and called it ” Life!”
June 28th, 2008 11:58
I talked to Angel for a little on the telephone – she got the phone number off the domain registry. It didn’t take long to tell that she’s a very good person.
If you’re reading and can’t connect the dots, the series of events here is that Dad made this post at the beginning of the year after one of the guys who made this trip with him passed away.
Angel said she was intensely yearning to learn more about her father. Like she says in her comment, her dad passed away when she was only 10. She is living in Florida without any Central American contacts who would have known him. The other day she took a long shot to see if there might be anything about him on the Internet. This pretty detailed personal story on Whippleworld with a actual photo of him was what she found. She was extremely excited and at times fighting back tears when I talked to her. I got her in touch with Dad and they talked for several hours.
So that’s the Internet for ya and by having Whippleworld we keep our fishing pole in it. I’ve been surprised by the benefits so far but the biggest haven’t happened yet. Someday our great grandkids might use it to learn a little bit about us; who our friends were, what we were doing, seeing digital photos that didn’t get saved any other way, old stories otherwise forgotten. You cannot guess what Angel might be out there or what will be interesting to some relative or friend 20 years from now. It will be a picture of way back now.
June 28th, 2008 13:36
Hello Mr. Whipple!
Thanks for your reply.
About Hope, I think I may have provided you with wrong info. Now that I have composed myself, I was really emotional the day we spoke, I can process my thoughts.
Hope Portocarrero Debayle was born in 1929, in 1950, she married Anastasio Somoza Debayle (her cousin) in 1967 Hope became the First Lady of Nicaragua. By the 1970′s, Hope and Somoza went their seperate ways. In the 40+ years that Hope and Somoza were together, they had five children: Anastasio, Julio, Carolina, Carla and Roberto.
The Hope you described sounds very much like Somoza’s wife, however, I just can’t imagine her doing something like that, but then again, anything is possible.
By the way, remember I told you Hope was Daniel’s “friend,” I was wrong. It was public knowledge that Somoza became involved with Dinora Sampson, who was also involved with Daniel, my uncle. How embarrassing!
Take a look at this link, is this the Hope you met? http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/somoza-debayle-1.htm
The Rolex story, my brother spoke to uncle Daniel about it, he remember it well. My grandfather, my father and uncle Daniel purchased three of the six watches Mr. Levinson bought in Panama. Definitely not the answer my brother was hoping to hear since he was under the impression that it was a real Rolex. Not sure if at this juncture, he is going to have the courage to take in to a Rolex dealer to get the final verdict!
I CAN imagine and accept my father’s ambilance towards settling down, after all, he was a Greek God, an Adonis in my eyes.
My brother, Michel, inherited his good looks and movie star like apperance; women are always going out of their way to get his attention, and like my father, Michel, too, ‘walked the floor’ before settling down.
Mr. Whipple, thank you for taking the time to talk to me, I really enjoyed listening to your stories. Like I said, if you remember more, pls call or e-mail.
Thanks,
Angel Stamoulis (Brentwood, CAlifornia)
BTW…I am always laughing, it’s what makes life fun!
June 28th, 2008 14:23
I bet that as age does down the not having a clue who Somoza was goes up. To about 99%.
Somoza was the dictator of Nicaragua and one of the most famous people from Central America. To those of us who were adults in the 70′s he was a household name; in the newspaper and evening news headlines as much as Castro for a long while. Castro had stabilized his power but the U.S. and the CIA were all over Somoza because he was in play; it was a hotbed of potential communism and human rights issues and contra rebels and on and on.
Dad was there in that period several years after the Bay of Pigs when America was super worried about more Latin trouble and before the Sandinistas really got going and made the country much less safe for Americans.
So… when Dad and Angel are commenting about Hope, the question is if that was the women named Hope who married Somosa in 1967, two years after Dad was there.
There, that’s the Cliff Notes for those who might have needed them.
June 28th, 2008 21:04
I read the link and looked at the pictures,thank you. I am about 90% sure that this was the lady that I met. The age and her marriage to Anastasio Somoza Jr.in 1967 pretty well zeros in on the time factor. I did not meet the other gal and she was not the one from Portugal that I escorted to the Street Celebration and Rodeo. I’m going to quit talking while I am ahead.. .but, what ever happened to Hope. . . .did you tell me?
There has been a mysterious feeling about Granada ever since I first arrived in 1965 like I had been there before maybe a hundred years earlier than 1965. I can’t put my finger on the issues but in some dreams I had it seems to involve William Walker.
I would say more about it . . . .If I knew more. I am still searching for clues of what that is all about.
June 29th, 2008 01:34
Hello!
You really think that is the Hope you met? Everything you said to describe the Hope you met sounds just like Hope Somoza, however, I just can’t wrap my head around the idea of her going out on Tacho. According to stories I’ve heard, Hope was known for being very intelligent, well educated, rich, thoroughly in control of her emotions, and snobby, I just don’t see Hope attending a street celebration much less a rodeo. Besides, I doubt Hope would agree to associate herself with a street vendor, the Portuguese woman you told me about. Remember what you said, ‘in Nic., there are only two kinds of people; the rich and the poor and they don’t intermingle.’ Anything is possible though, I think I said that before, I sound like a broken record!
As for what happened to Hope Somoza well after Tacho’s quota of power increased so did his indiscretions with Dinorah, his mistress of 18 years. Hope was constantly being humiliated in public as Tacho grew unconcerned at being seeing arm and arm with his mistress. Eventually, Hope moved to London where she met and married a wealthy gent from El Salvador. I believe she passed away in 1991, she is buried somewhere in Florida, her place of birth.
William Walker invaded and captured Granada in 1855, he proclaimed himself President of the Republic and declared English was the official language of Nicaragua. Walkers Presidency did not last long as he lost international support and was driven out of the country but not w/o first burning Granada to the ground.
My family was forced to leave Nicaragua due to the revolt led by the Sandinistas against the US-based supported right-wing dictatorship established by Somoza. 1978 was a particularly bad year, although I was only 9 years of old, I understood something life changing was about to happen.
Communist were drafting kids, I recall my parents talking about a home invasion, in the middle of the night, where the kids were taken away from the parents after a ‘friend’ of the family gave up the family plans to take the kids out of the country. My parents did not want the same destiny for us, mid December Apostoli, Michel and I boarded a plane headed to New Jersey where we would be ‘spending the Christmas holidays with the Greek relatives.’ The plan was to get the kids out first, my parents would follow, leaving Nic under the excuse that they would be traveling to N.J to bring us back, well, that’s what they told everyone except for immediate family. The real plan was that my parents would travel to New Jersey, pick us up and head to Venezuela where my father had gotten a job.
December 28th, the phone rang; uncle Mike picked it up, seconds later, and tears where streaming down his face. Being that we did not speak a word of English, we had no clue what he was saying or why he was crying. Shortly after, more relatives began to show up at the home, everyone was crying. The next day, December 29th, the Stamoulis brothers boarded a plane with us heading back to Nicaragua. Best as they could, in Spanish, they told us we were headed back because our father had been in a car wreck and we had to go back to Nicaragua to see him.’
When the plane landed in Managua, we were greeted by friends of the family, all of which refused to speak Spanish while we were around.
I recall asking ‘why we weren’t stopping by the Hospital to visit my father’ as our car drove past it, I was told, ‘we need to go home first so that you guys can change out of your winter clothes.’ Made sense, therefore, I did not ask any more questions.
We arrived at our home where we were taken into a room and told the truth, I don’t much recall what happened next other than my oldest brother, Apostoli, could not stop screaming and crying. I don’t recall having changed into the black and white dress that had been made for me to wear to the funeral. I don’t recall the wake or looking at his beautiful face one last time, I wish I did though.
I do recall sitting on the pews of the church during his mass, talking to my best friend about my trip to New Jersey as though his body weren’t lying just a few feet away from me. I think back to that moment and regret not having recognized the magnitude of his loss and how it would leave a void in my heart.
I recall how hundreds upon hundreds of people, rich and poor, showed up to my father’s funeral. I vividly remember how men took turns as pallbearers choosing to carry his casket to the cemetery rather than to have it put in the traditional horse drawn carriage as the funeral procession followed behind them and still, I did not recognize the magnitude of his loss and how it would leave a void in my heart.
I am a 40 year old woman, married, I have a beautiful daughter, yet I often times want to be the little girl who ran out to the garage soon as she heard the door open, the one who shared a love of pistachio ice cream, the one that received warm hugs every time lighting struck, the one that looked up at him and always got a smile. I am thankful to have been given the opportunity to spend 10 years of my life with my father. In my eyes, my father, George Apostolos Stamoulis will always be taller than the Eiffel Tower and stronger than Hercules.
I hope you don’t think am some nut or disfunctional person, I am not,I am about as normal as they come. I am merely a woman trying to get to know her father through those people that knew him.
June 29th, 2008 07:23
I understand and respectfully sense your devotion to him. I really wish I had known him better. . he was a true quality person. If I could say something to comfort you it would be this, “He is still with you. . . .maybe not in the way you remember but because you remember”. You will see him in the mirror, you can see him in your daughter, you can hear his voice in memories, He is embedded in your soul. Enjoy him, he will always be there for you because he loved you dearly and you are a part of him. And how do I know? You told me in your letters.
If you would go to the homepage of the Whipple world blog and follow the left hand column down till you find “Russell Memorial” and it will take you to my son Russell’s life story. I see him here and in memories everyday in the garden, at the shop, whenever a Volkswagen drives by. . . .He died 2 years ago at age 46 and I miss him more than anyone else could ever know. I brought him up myself in hard times. . . .we worked together 12hrs a day since 1976 solving the worlds problems and rebuilding more than 5,000 engines. You can’t hang that tight without gathering precious memories and he is in most every one. and I treasure them dearly because I can see him there everyday.
I also miss him there everyday. . . .Because of his having been a good quality person his memories bring the pain of my loss down to bearable . . . .
June 29th, 2008 17:35
Mr. Whipple,
My condolences to you and your family for losing Russell, his memorial on the site is just gorgeous, thank you for asking me to view it.
My mother lost a son also, Apostolic, my oldest brother, he was 11 years old at the time. His death and that of my mother’s younger sister, Janet, came a month after my grandfather’s and three months after my fathers. I watched my mother mourn my father and brother every day of her life, when she passed last year, I was heartbroken, however, I found solace knowing she would finally be reunited with her beloved husband and young son.
Mr. Whipple, your words have comforted me more than you can ever know. I have spent 30 years looking to learn more about my father through everyone else’s memories when all I had to do was look at my own person.
May you continue to see Russell in the garden, at the shop, or whenever a VW drives by, and remember, you still are and will always be working together.
Thanks and God Bless.
Respectfully,
Angel Stamoulis
April 25th, 2009 21:44
I was reading this post and i get pretty exited.
You really met Hope Somoza? my grandmother was very good friend of her?
she spoke english perfect because she was not nicaragua she was american, is this lady the woman you met?
[url=http://subefotos.com/ver/?d3e723910a330e529ed2f49dfb9c3b80o.jpg]
April 25th, 2009 21:45
sorry the link again
This is Hope Portocarrero Somoza with their children in 50s
http://subefotos.com/ver/?d3e723910a330e529ed2f49dfb9c3b80o.jpg
March 28th, 2010 11:48
Hi, how are you doing? I genuinely like your article ! I was wondering if you might help me (I am certain your other subscribers may also be interested). I want to get into creating a blog also and I currently have a blog with Word Press, but it is quite difficult for me to build and I would like to attempt to find several good training guides or courses (preferably free) that can assist me in making use of wordpress correctly. As a word press web master yourself, do you perhaps maybe know where i can learn online tutorials to be able to do this myself?? Thank you
July 15th, 2010 11:46
Not sure if this helps but there are free public wifi locations listed here:
http://bit.ly/b1VYAt throughout Nicaragua