Cuba

September 21, 2015

Greetings from Raul,

Cuba and the United States are friends on Facebook.  (Probably)

I should care more about the fact that Cuba and the United States have reopened embassies on each other’s turf.  This, after generations of giving each other the political cold shoulder, was a development of some significance.  Somehow even the Pope was involved.

 I tried paying attention when it was front page news, but because it did not affect the price of gas, reliability of my WiFi, or how soon my coffee will be brewed, it slipped to below the fold on my daily stream of consciousness.  If someone hadn’t mentioned Cuban cigars to me a couple nights ago, it probably wouldn’t occur to me now.

If you give me a map that features Florida, I can probably come up with three islands that could be Cuba, if they are not Manhattan.  Some of them could be Haiti or Fiji or the dubiously named Turks and Caicos, which has always sounded like some upscale restaurant where I couldn’t get reservations. 

Here’s what I know about Cuba: Fidel Castro.  And what I know about him is mostly related to his facial hair.  Which, honestly, makes him hard to take seriously.

I am old enough to have been alive during the Cuban missile crisis.  But really, that’s like saying I am old enough to have gone to Woodstock.  Which I am, but I didn’t. Neither event had a great deal of relevance in my life.  ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’, a minor footnote of the turbulent 60’s, had more impact on my budding psyche than the events on an island I couldn’t find on a map without a protractor.

Cuban missile crisis?  If you had asked me in 1962 what that meant I might have guessed there was some kind of shortage of missiles in the Caribbean and probably started a fundraiser. 

There were no ‘fallout’ drills at the Catholic school I attended.  I suspect that the fatalistic nuns figured that whatever future we had coming would be shaped at confession and not cowering under the barely radiation-proof desks provided to us by St. Matthew’s parish.  Just to be clear, the confessionals were not radiation proof either.

So most of my impressions of Cuba came from Lucy’s husband Ricky.  And then it basically became one of those easy to forget Junior High World Government lessons that have never played any part in my success in life. I will admit in Junior High I had my mind on far more pressing subjects than breaking up with Fidel.    

I’ve read ‘The Old Man and the Sea’ and ‘Cuba Libra’, which aside from being written by two incredible American authors who have both lived in Michigan, have nothing in common.  I have some impressions about rum, communism, and ’55 Chevrolet BelAirs, which I understand are the main form of transportation, in Cuba, second only to homemade rafts.  That’s literature for you.

To my knowledge, I have never had a Cuban cigar, which aside from Castro’s beard is the most pervasive symbol of the country.  Most of my intersections with cigars, typically in some over-amped, testosterone-driven, episode of questionable judgment, were concluded in various stages of nausea, ranging from light headed to something best described in oblique terms regarding driving a porcelain bus.  Point being, if this is what Cuba has to offer, perhaps the embargo was better left in place.

I know that’s not fair.  I realize that there have been great baseball players from Cuba, and that the music and the food from the country is remarkable.  So, I’ll admit I’m curious, but not curious enough to the point of buying a ticket.

Right now Americans are not allowed to visit Cuba if they are just planning on going to the beach and working up a sun-sweat.  If you want to go, you have to have a strategy to either help the Cuban people, or your trip has to be for ‘educational’ purposes.  My guess is that until Disney has set up a resort on the island, there won’t be a rush of people trying to sneak in to Cuba on homemade rafts.

I realize that if I were a reasonably well informed citizen with a balanced world view, I would care more about this historic change in our political relationship with one of the last bastions of communism.  Or socialism.  Whichever. 

Looking at the international landscape these days Cuba does not register, in spite of the history. Somehow it seems even less relevant to me today than it might have in 1962, for different reasons.  Sort of like an aging actress has suddenly decided to come out of retirement to audition for the lead in ‘Peter Pan’.  Seems more sad than important.

I will say that I have this romantic idea that one day I’ll go to Cuba and sit outside a Havana café, if I can’t get reservations at Turks and Caicos, and sip strong coffee and listen to the music.  And maybe reminisce about Woodstock.

Hope this finds you in revolution,

David