My grandfather, Izu, was dying of cancer. I was a junior or senior in college and my father told me that if I ever wanted to see him again that this was my last chance.
So, I came back to Venezuela.
If you know Venezuelan history, you know that in 1998, we had a dictator, Hugo Chavez, who came to power. And the Constitution said, you could run for one five-year term.
As a self-respecting autocrat, what did he do? He packed the Supreme Court with a bunch of his buddies and they ruled that he could run again as many times as he wanted, which is exactly what happened.
The day after that ruling came down, a hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets to protest the dictatorship and that happened to coincide with my last trip to Venezuela to visit my grandfather.
He was very ill. He was in a wheelchair.
My grandfather said, “Take me out onto the balcony.”
And the people were all below us protesting on the street below.
And he said, “Your father tells me you want to go to law school.”
I said, “I do.”
He asked me, “What kind of lawyer do you want to be?”
I said, “Well, I don't know. I'm just in college.”
And then he lifted his very bony finger, and he pointed it out at the crowd and he said, “Always remember, this is what happens to a country when good people don't serve.”
Maybe a week or two later, he was dead.
So, for me when I was 34, and the President was going to nominate me to be a federal judge, and all these people came and said, “Oh, you’re way too young, you got your whole life ahead of you to make money,” I remembered my last conversation with my grandfather and all the wonderful blessings that have been provided to us in this country that welcomed us with open arms.
It has been the great honor of my life to serve and it was a no brainer from the start.
a day agoykceb7
I was in that crowd and others that followed. We tried but unfortunately many died. The dictatorship, shot at the unarmed people. Glad your Grandfather gave you great advise.
5 days agokevinschep
And that’s why you’re destined to do great things, @roykaltman. Good people have to care for others, and have to be in position to serve responsibility and administer 🇻🇪🤝
6 days agomcpalma
Que maravilla. Pero lo mejor sería que te vengas a trabajar en Venezuela, donde se está ya necesitando gente preparada, HONESTA, Y competente. Me sentí feliz leyendo tu historia
6 days agomilamoros
Thank you for sending this message but that day that you are talking about there REALLY was 1M people on the streets in Caracas .
7 days agokenny_cecilia
What a great message! So true! People from my generation did not want to get into politics because it was dirty. So what happened? We gave the power to the unprepared and uneducated to do the most important job of the country.
7 days agobosheit_
I was lawyer in Venezuela and I leave the country completely disappointed from the law… I spent 10 years of my life studying 50 years of traditional law and one MF stupid P of shit change everything in 5 years… and the worst is that I came to USA just for realizing that the orange man doesn’t have the idea of what the fuck is the state of law and he is trying to attack the judges and supreme courts and change the law etc… tha same fucking shit like HugO Chavez… now I am electrician and usually study phisic laws because it can’t modify by idiots
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