The most important aspect of the post-1956 era was the opening up of the party and the economy to Belizeans whom we used to call ?Spanish?, people who lived mostly in the so-called districts. His political opponents charged Mr. Price with ?Latinizing? the country. The truth was that the ?Spanish? people of British Honduras, like the so-called ?Caribs?, had been oppressed and discriminated against in colonial British Honduras.

For those of us Belizeans who grew up in the late 1950?s and early/middle 1960?s, the most remarkable evidence of the change in Belize took place in our music. Rhaburn went to Guatemala in 1962 to cut his first album ? TROPICO Y RITMO, and he came back with a black Guatemalan named Jorge Hill, who contributed to ?Latinizing? us. Our music became infused with Mexican vibes. Los Platinos, Los Aragon and Los Dinners, combos from Merida, became stars in 1960?s Belize. Big time Belizean musicians, like the late saxophonist Bill Belisle and the guitarist/calypsonian Cleveland Berry, began to travel and perform in the southeastern cities of Mexico.

This is an aspect of our history which no one has researched and discussed. Belizean historians need to interview Rhaburn, Cleveland Berry, Jesus Acosta, Tony Wright, and other musicians in order to educate our young people about this relatively recent history. The same thing that Latin music did to Belize music in the 1960?s, Garifuna music did to Belize music in the 1980?s. Things musical did change. Check it out.

I must tear myself away from the 1960?s to look at the major shift in the PUP after Mr. Price and the PUP lost power in 1984. A second generation of PUP leaders, people who had been children in the 1960?s, emerged to rejuvenate and re-energize the PUP. These second generation PUP?s featured Ralph Fonseca and Glenn Godfrey, friends from childhood and classmates at St. John?s College. As children from solid PUP families, Ralph and Glenn assisted Mr. Price with his Pickstock Street domestic chores. For true blue PUP families, remember, Mr. Price was an awesome hero, an idol.

The dedication to the PUP, the brilliance and energy of the second generation PUP leaders, returned Mr. Price to power in 1989. But this was a term of office, from 1989 to 1993, when party insiders first realized that Mr. Price was fading, and that Ralph Fonseca was taking charge of the party and the nation.

There were things that took place between 1989 and 1993 which foreshadowed the excesses and ?mistakes? since 1998 which have enriched the PUP and impoverished the nation. My thesis is that the second generation PUP leaders were loyal first to the PUP, and only secondly to the nation. Whatever was done which benefited the party but injured the nation, would not have been seen as wrong. The end game was the empowerment and glorification of the PUP, because of personal allegiance to Mr. Price.

We return now to those nationwide travels of Mr. Price to which we referred in the second paragraph of this essay. There is nothing like the personal touch. Mr. Price?s personality was always charismatic, and older Belizeans in the hinterlands of our country whom he visited on these travels, will revere him until death. And rural Belizeans have therefore been slow to anger in Belize?s present financial crisis. Their loyalty is to the PUP because of Mr. Price.

If Mr. Price does not denounce the excesses and ?mistakes? which have created the problem, then rural Belizeans will remain largely mute. Yet, the party was the most of Mr. Price?s life, and the party itself has not been harmed in any way. In fact, the party has benefited. You see the dilemma.

There is a history to this, my young Belizeans. Life did not begin here in 1981 with independence or in 1982 with television. Old people were not born old. It is a strange thing for me, because it seemed like forever that I was young fighting against old. Things have changed. Now I am old observing young.

Power to the people.