Who is Corliss Buenavida?
Who is Corliss Buenavida? – by the staff at beerfloat.calm
After Corliss’ Ocean Float musing the other day, about his name, we have been receiving a very small percentage of thousands of imaginary emails from floaters dissimilar to you in which a few or possibly none asked, “Tell us more about this Corliss Buenavida?”
The obvious answer is, ‘He is the guru of beerfloat.calm!’
But let’s delve a little deeper into who he is and how he came to be perched upon a vinyl/rubber tube with a liquid in hand and under him.
We don’t actually get to interact with him much ourselves, as Corliss appears to be quite reserved in public and that is when he does appear in public. However, a recurring comment that has been heard from him when people ask about who the Floatmaster is, and what he does, is, “I was born on earth, but enough about me, let's chat about soaking up some rays on this hot sunny day, luxuriating in liquids!”
He is very focused!
We have not been able to pin him down for a true interview but between us we have combined some tidbits garnered through various exchanges when we were able to share a few moments of his time.
He has stated, he was destined for something like this based on his name alone. How could you not drift to a happy place in this world if you are named Carefree Goodlife? (Corliss: old English for carefree and Buenavida: Spanish for good life)
But this doesn’t really tell us anything about his background. Why does this white dude have an English first name and Spanish surname? We couldn’t find any family records but he has mentioned he was named after his English/Scottish grandfather on his mother’s side, Corliss; while Buenavida comes from a paternal Latin American grandfather.
By our best estimates, a teenage Carlos Buenavida, the grandfather, probably from Nicaragua, stowed away on a foreign registry freighter which was moored, likely in the port town of Corinto. Once back at sea, he was discovered and taken on as an extra crew member. Apparently, he did well and was given actual employment by the shipping company, albeit under the table, as he did not have any official paperwork. This went on for many years with Carlos travelling the globe, improving his skillset and job titles and although he was able to go to shore quite easily in those days, he never returned to Central America or created a home base for himself.
When he was in his mid twenties, which was probably around 1925, during a visit to the port in Barrow-In-Furness, north-west England, he met a young Scottish lass, Lizzie Ellis, who was working for the Royal Navy at the local shipyards, and he was smitten. Tired of drifting as an illegal, Carlos decided to declare himself an immigrant. Even though Britain was starting to be concerned about immigration especially with Jews fleeing the continent, Carlos, as a skilled worker with a British spouse, had no problem getting papers and immediately took work as a welder for Vickers, building naval vessels.
Lizzie bore two children with the Buenavida name in quick succession, a boy, Charles (the English version of Carlos) and a daughter, Helen. The family had a home not far from the shipyard where Charles, Corliss’ father, grew up in Barrow. This community with its strong ties to the Royal Navy and the impending war made joining the armed forces almost natural for every young man in the area but even with the National Service Act for imposed inscription, Charles was too young to sign up. However, like other teenagers who lived in the area with their connections in the naval offices it wasn’t too difficult to have one’s year of birth altered slightly on some paperwork and before long Charles was in service on an aircraft carrier in the Atlantic Ocean.
While Charles was at sea in 1941, serving in the Royal Navy during World War II, his family and many others were the unfortunate victims of Luftwaffe bombing strikes which missed the Barrow-In-Furness shipyards.
We can not know Charles’ state of mind but after the war he did not return to Barrow, instead he journeyed to Canada to find peacetime employment. There he met and married a fellow expat from the British Isles, Kathleen Lorimer, from Larne, Northern Ireland who had been working in Glasgow, Scotland prior to crossing the Atlantic to start her new life.
Two boys were born, the younger being Corliss, who was given the old English name by Kathleen as a reminder of his heritage and also to express the boundless opportunities the young couple were able to enjoy in the new world.
Corliss has asked us not to divulge too much information about his own life as he has promised to present it in his own words at a later date but to give you just a hint of insight into how the beerfloat guru carries himself we offer this quote from a pool party some of us were invited to at The Villa.
Corliss’ own words when questioned by a guest who was in awe of his floatation travels and aquatic experiences, “I'm not saying I'm bigger than Jesus, but its pretty common knowledge people were smaller 2000 years ago.”
His tongue-in-cheek statement is a perfect example of his laid-back style. He wants you to chill down to his level of chill.
Thus, we won’t pry anymore and now you have a little background.
So, find your fabulous flotations, just like Corliss!
The beerfloat.calm staff
beer float.calm = beerfloat.net not beerfloat.com
