I’d like to paraphrase Jose Marti and start by writing: “Th is magazine is for boys, and for girls, too, of course.” But for boys and girls of all ages. In this fi rst issue of our magazine, I’d like to let you all in on a secret:

Th e fi rst fi fteen years of my life –the entire 1960s all the way to the mid 1970s- that is, during my Golden Age, I had the privilege of living in a Colmenita. Yet it was a smaller one, made up of my siblings, my mom and my father, who was the leader.

Each and every major development in life used to be turned by my daddy into a theatrical family event… If we were going to the movies to watch a Japanese fi lm of samurais, as soon as we were back home and at dinnertime, there were cushions spread on the fl oor, chopsticks and dishes of rice balls cooked by that magician and director who then used to show up wearing a kimono and his hair snooded up. Th at little magic was a great dinner entertainment, and it also happened with the Western movies and with every single day of that fi rst family of little bees…

Later on, that small beehive was joined by my two only maternal cousins and we formed a group that used to imitate (by dubbing) the blockbuster bands of the times, like Th e Beatles, Th e Mustangs or the Formula V… We were called “Th e Wig Cousins” and there was no family bash in which Th e Five Fabs could perform an act.

I’m sure this Colmenita we’re showing you right now through the pages of this magazine is the same that came into being in those years of musical prodigies, smiles and beards, multiplied today by hundreds and hundreds of Cuban families that play the performing arts. Th ose are the basics of our lives because they become the neverending extension of the loveliest childhood and the most golden of all ages.

Our Colmenita –you can rest assured- is still dwelt by all of its members and is still led, from somewhere up in heaven, by the scandalous laughter of the most blissful and theater-loving of all human beings: my adorable dad. And Dad –who used to love Marti so much- would have wanted me to end with the Marti’s words:

“We want children to be happy… and if one day we fi nd a child somewhere around the world, we’d like that kid to hold our hand tightly, as if he were an old friend, and hear him cry out loud: ‘Th is man of the Golden Age (and of La Colmenita) is my friend!’”

Carlos Cremata