What Does WelcomeTheEagle Have In Common With IBM, Mercury, and Farmacias Benavides?

Article dedicated to my daughter...

I was born in Mexico City. I’m garden variety but not so garden, I have Breton, and Turnbull in my linage from my Grandmother on my Dad’s side. I married a Chaboya and now my daughter has some pretty deep and traceable roots. Here is some show and tell:

Keep and eye on child #5 Ramon to 2nd wife Ramona Higuera…

See that Silver Creek and Almaden mine bottom center?

Next, take this “Origins of IBM” video with a grain of salt as it came directly from IBM.com. No wonder there was no mention of the Nazi’s and IBM’ers like Ross Perot who made his first billion selling Electronic Data Systems (EDS) to the California Medicaid folks aka the government.

In the minutiae of all this IBM stuff it wasn’t mentioned just how important mercury was to all this “tech” right down to the initial versions of the punch card machines that counted those millions and billions of people in Germany and around the world. Be sure to poke around IBM.com because it does leave some clues of how important mercury was for those punch card machines (click here or the previous link). In proximity, one can ride a bike from that IBM Research campus to the New Almaden mercury mines no sweat, but with a few inclines and declines.

I throw in Farmacias Benavides only to say, those were some not so distant relatives. For a while there, Farmacias Benavides was like the CVS of Mexico. In recent decades there was a name change to Farmacias Oro (Gold), but who knows how the ownership works and if those Oro pharmacies are still considered in the family? There is so much corruption and “greasing” in Mexico it’s impossible to tell who the real owner’s of anything is these days.

click to launch article

Looks like the patriarch Filipe Benavides passed away in 2017 at 99 years old, I’ll have to ask my Dad if there is any juicy back stories? I bet Don Filipe didn’t take much of his own products? Curious thing in Mexico, they like their shots! They sell syringes over the counter and it’s not difficult to get whatever you want or need…, double edge sword for sure, but that’s part of what make Mexico beautiful.

Here’s both my Grandma’s Juana on the left and Dolores Breton on the right.

My Madre is center and my Aunt Aurora in the pink. Aurora is in Carlsbad now, but she was a long time HP/Agilent HR chick. She knew Carly Fiorina or at least spoke to her a couple times. Back in the 70’s my Madre & Aurora were known around town as the “Aguilar sisters” they were like pretty little rock stars and my Madre use to do the Spanish commercials for MMM Carpets that were in the area back in the day. Lots of randos knew my Madre from those commercials, and I think Aurora had her first job at channel 26? Channel 26 was like the Spanish channel back then. I think that’s how my Mom got the gig?

Below is me in the center with my family in Mexico, Grandma Delores on my left, Grandpa Alberto Benavides III on my right. My dad (not Dr. Gomez) with the fat mustache (Alberto IV). That’s my uncle Martin on far right who is six months younger than me! My dad’s wife Trevi (Trevino), my little sister Cynthia in blue and long hair. My cousin little Monica in the white dress, Monica’s sister Viridiana and her Mom (my aunt) far left. Lalo my uncle and 2nd oldest behind my dad. Luis my uncle in the red living in Acapulco and Tres Marias. Monica lives in Spain and married to an Italian chef. Just missing my uncle Marco who would slip in after Lalo and another aunt who both aunts slip in between Luis and Marco. My “baby” brother was asleep nearby and not pictured. I was fifteen in this pic in the summer of 86’ Cuernavaca, right after the big earthquake on September 19, 1985. It looked like a bomb hit Mexico City even ~9 months later. I got a ton of cousins let me tell you, they are spread out but mostly Cancun, Guadalajara, Mexico City. I could get lost in Mexico real fast! lol

Another note, my step daddy, but not quite my step daddy at the time was the first Mexican homegrown physician in San Jose in late 70’s and I remember he had purchased one of those IBM behemoths right around 78, 79, or 80? I remember the big spinning wheels of tape that occupied it’s own room with AC to keep the room cool. He purchased that thing for $500K and signed the deal in a old watering hole El Baron Rojo in East San Jose on N. Capitol and Mckee Rd. The “Rojo” was pretty divey by the time I was of age, but I guess in it’s epoch it was the one of the only places to wet your whistle. I’m sure that place has a pretty wild history because it was practically ancient by my high school days in the late eighties.

I got a lot more info and more nuggets about San Jose history here:

https://www.vaersaware.com/post/dedicated-to-my-daughter-who-is-apart-of-the-deepest-roots-of-san-jose-and-silicon-valley

God Bless, please support The Eagle and please sign our Federal Investigation Petition here:

https://www.vaersaware.com/fedinvestigation

Lastly I want to give a shout out to this Substack author, because she has such incredible articles! Amazing recollections and factoids of history and deep insights into the goings on from San Francisco to Sunnyvale when Silicon Valley was just an embryo. Her articles are worth a follow. God Bless you A.J.

Incense & Peppermints

Lastly lastly, I know you probably think I’m not going hungry, and I’m not. My family and friends are much to big to go destitute. But believe me, if I didn’t have family I probably would be destitute, even though I have enough brain power to survive and thrive in Silicon Valley if I just went along. I refuse to go along and I’m trying to carve out a different way of life. I’m trying to eek out an existence and keeping my faith in Jesus. This eugenics program is not right, and I can’t save anything for the swim back, I’m all in and I care too much to now give a shit about earthly things I once cared about. I care about my family, and most understand. The one I want the most to understand is my daughter. Whether she understands sooner or later, I just want her to be proud of me. It might take a thousand years, but that is exactly what I’m doing this for. It’s for a thousand years from now. God Bless. Please support The Eagle.