Although it is often said that life takes many turns, those made by Jorge Gómez Hernández as a driver of Radio Angulo during 44 of his 65 years of life, have exceeded his own expectations, for the contributions made in such a long journey, with the greatest simplicity.
When we shook his hand this June 28, on the occasion of the Cuban Transport Workers’ Day, we remembered the coverage of the great marches of the fighting people in support of that just claim, whose technicians and journalists were transported by drivers like Jorge.
Also the open stands and other activities, which followed during the international battle for the freedom of The Five, which concentrated friends from different countries in the Colloquiums held in the city of Holguin; as well as other activities that took place in the municipalities.
Jorge next to the mobile radio, CMKO Radio Angulo, Holguin
With this vehicle Jorge has ensured the radio transmissions of important events.
Of course, as Jorge himself acknowledges, other drivers also played their part in these radio transmissions, which included events and parades for the First of May and July 26, but with the particularity that for more than five years he has been driving the new mobile radio journalism equipment, which he takes care of and maintains with total care.
In love with his profession
“It is that all that story began in my youth when, before entering the Active Military Service, in 1975, there was a call from the Armed Forces for a driver’s course and, as I was one of the best records of the eastern provinces, I was among those selected to serve in the General Staff of Santiago de Cuba, where we fulfilled different tasks.
“Then I was transferred to the rearguard of Military Unit 1640, which was where I started driving and when I was discharged from the army I continued doing it in Tele Cristal channel and from there I went to Radio Angulo, which is where I have remained most of my life, because it is what I like to do and I am satisfied to be part of ensuring so much coverage we have done, in favor of the radio and the listeners.
Spiritual growth
The third of seven siblings, Jorge grew up with the example of his late father, Luis (a combatant) and an 88-year-old woman, Digna, who lives up to her name. They, of peasant roots and from Yabazón, Gibara municipality, made their family in Alcides Pino neighborhood, where my interviewee continues to live.
Coincidentally, Jorge was born one month and 21 days after the revolutionary triumph of 1959, the year in which, on January 6, CMKO -founded on August 1, 1936 by Manuel Angulo Farrán, member of the 26th of July Movement, murdered on December 9, 1957-, took its first name and was renamed: Radio Angulo.
Workers of Radio Angulo, Holguin, 1980.
In his youth, the protagonist of this story, who loves his country, his family, the radio station and the profession to which he has dedicated more than four decades, also took a short course as a mechanic in the bus workshop, worked as a greaser in the meat company and as a baker in the Miró bakery.
He admits that the values reached from his parents and in the relationships with other worthy and responsible people, he has transmitted them, together with his wife Odalis, to his children, Yamilsia and Leosdán, as well as to his beautiful granddaughter, Natalia.
Is he thinking of retiring?
He says because he has already reached the age established for that necessary rest and he certainly feels tired, because, in addition to the tension that the driver lives, when answering for the people he transports and the technological equipment, he fixes his gaze for long periods of time and all that is reflected in his face.
In his case, a face that shows the nobility of his peasant origins, the seriousness inherited from his father and the firmness that characterizes a pure Cuban.
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