Cuba.

AuthorWiesner, Pat
PositionOn Management

"A THIRD WORLD COUNTRY WITH FIRST WORLD PEOPLE!"--Bill Bryson, travel writer

A CANARY YELLOW, 1953 PLYMOUTH! THIS WAS THE first car I ever owned! It had a lousy heater and one of those metal sun-shades like the bill of a baseball hat hanging over the front window. I bought it after graduating from college in 1958 for about $100. It carried me across the country as I left Buffalo, N.Y., to seek my future; it served as the chariot for my first dates with Janet, my wife of 43 years. I drove it for a few years; it dropped out of my life and I never thought about it again ... until two weeks ago.

One of the first autos I saw in Havana on the way from the airport to the hotel was a '53 Plymouth. It brought back all kinds of memories, and I realized that for Cuba, in many ways, time stopped in the fifties.

Cuba is a country that was put in a box, in isolation, when John F. Kennedy signed the embargo against Cuba in February 1962, after Castro had expropriated millions of American assets and began murdering thousands of Cubans who disagreed with his socialist plans. Every U.S. president since, whether Democratic or Republican, has purposefully continued this blockade or bloqueo as Castro calls it, as a matter of policy. The result of nearly 50 years of being pretty much cut off from its nearest neighbor to the north is quickly apparent. Even in a nice Havantur tourist bus from Jose Martin Airport to Havana, the part about it being a Third World country is easy to spot.

Of course it's warm, lush and tropical. A perfect setting for a hot sunny vacation. As we got closer to Havana itself a new dimension appeared, that of the island's Spanish Colonial history, but even that perception was clearly linked to the one of history stopping and the island's economy-strangling embargo of the 50's. Once-beautiful old colonial buildings were mostly falling down from 50 years of socialist neglect, while a few were beautifully kept up by the government for appearances sake.

But the people turned out to be wonderful. The first and biggest surprise of the trip was just how much the people seemed to like Americans. The second was how much we came to like them.

One day a guy approached me along the malecun or seawall in Havana and asked if I were American. All he wanted to talk about was baseball, especially about Cuban players in the big leagues. He wanted to talk to an American. He even told me that if Fidel (nobody says Castro or Fidel Castro) hadn't been cut by...

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