Fernando Felgueras

I Didn't Do It My Way Either Fernando Felgueras

My memoir is set in the carefree 1950s and 1960s, leading to the dictatorship in Chile (1973-1990). It is sprinkled with irony and with a cornucopia of bizarre situations, such as when our home was broken into and my father (a celebrated radio personality), in underpants and wielding an unloaded rifle, pursued the robbers, who returned and politely requested their ladder back.

It revolves around our peculiar family, my triumphs and defeats, and those of my contradictorily tenacious father, who buried hundreds of people (but it was not a crime as they were already dead). He ingeniously imported the first peacemakers, saving many lives, while at home, occasionally, we couldn't pay our bills.

Innovative, he owned a radio station and given his gargantuan energy, enthusiasm, and style, Radio Monumental became a success, but 'Houston, we have a problem.' When he erected the mast on top of the building, that was the sole station listeners could tune into. The rest of the signals were swallowed as if by an intergalactic black hole. He was compelled to move the antenna, but what a way to do it!

Audacious, in business as good as a chimp home alone with a razor blade, he ran a casino devoid of roulettes and slot machines as if for gamblers on rehab. Compassionate, we visited the local prison, where jailers and inmates welcomed him as if he was a rock star.

'Scholarly', he taught me things that were off limits at my Catholic school: he took me (underage) to see a striptease.

Although my father acted sometimes erratically, I knew what tormented him.

Amid gradual sociopolitical change, at fifteen, I instead aspired to become a cartoonist. Broke, armed with my creations, I resorted to hitchhiking on trucks laden with goats. On one occasion, the alpha male mistook me as one of his females. Luckily, I won that battle.