Cuba Libre

@miamiherald.com

This past Friday night Cuban state television announced the death of Fidel Castro, long-time dictator, despot, and weirdly, friend of Canadian Prime Minister and fan of shirt-free pictures, Justin Trudeau. Although his power had, along with his health, long since diminished, the antipathy felt towards Fidel continued to simmer amongst the Cuban exile community.

As I wrote in a post here in the Den in October 2013, I spent two amazing years in Havana Norte - Miami - as a missionary, living in the thick of the Cuban exile community. It was one of the richest experiences of my life. It was there in Hialeah and Miami that I fell in love with the Cuban people, their culture, their food, and their wonderfully slaughtered version of Spanish. It was there that I also learned of what life was like under Fidel (spoiler alert - it wasn't good). I heard first-hand the stories of people whose families had been ripped apart by the Castro regime. I heard the stories of those who came over in the Mariel boat lift and I can assure you that the vast majority were not the hardened criminals and maniacs as portrayed in the press. They were people desperate for an opportunity to be near family and for a better life.

I will never forget one of the stories one of the Mariels told us. As missionaries, we had the opportunity to help in resettlement efforts as well as share our message about God and His Son. During one of those early discussions the young man we were working with asked, "God? Who is God? Let me tell you what we were told about God en la isla (on the island)." He proceeded to tell us about his elementary school experience. Every few weeks, the class would be instructed to bow their heads, close their eyes and recite a prayer, asking God for a dulce (candy - a rare treat). Dutifully, they would do as instructed. They would then open their eyes, raise their heads, and find nothing there. They would then be told to do the same, but instead of asking God, they should ask Papa Fidel for the dulce. They would again do as they were told and I suspect you know where this is going. When told to open their eyes and raise their heads, there was a piece of candy at each desk. Miraculously, Papa Fidel had provided but any sly seven year old who cracked open his eyes knew it was the teacher who had passed out the candy.

The damage was done. Faith in what parents had believed was crushed. So was any real loyalty to Papa Fidel. As rations dried up, so did the candy. So did any real belief in la revolucion. Where hope did not die was among the exile community. I saw it burning brightly in the mid-80's when I called Miami home. I've seen it every time I've been back to south Florida in the last thirty years. I saw it in all its exuberance as people celebrated wildly in front of that venerable temple of Cuban food, Versailles, this past Friday night. How I wish I could have been there with them!

While Castro's death is reason for optimism for the people of Cuba, tomorrow will not bring a Cuba Libre (Free Cuba). Change will come and with his passing, it will come even sooner. The Cuban people I know, love, and respect are patient, strong and they are committed.

Cuba will be free. !Vive Cuba Libre!

The crazy cat lady among other things

Much like Lisa, TMFKATB and his companion went
running from the crazy cat lady too

Due to a slew of meetings earlier this week, Preparation Day, or this week's day off, for TMFKATB did not fall until today. I will tell you right now that it was worth the wait. This week's letter was one of the best we've gotten from him in his nearly two years of service in Mexico and behind the Zion Curtain.

For one, and this made my English major's heart, dare I say it, swell, it was full of detail around what he was feeling during the week. As I read his letter, I felt the emotion he must have felt as he wrote it. I felt especially close to my son today and that was a tremendous feeling. Secondly, he talked a great deal about the love he has for the things he has been taught. His gratitude and love for his Savior was abundantly evident. Those are beautiful things to read.

At the same time, he's still The Boy. I laughed out loud as he briefly recounted their run-in meeting with the crazy cat lady in, wait for it, the trailer park (didn't see that coming, did you?).  He wrote:

We have met some interesting people. We met some psycho lady who

ran us off her porch. She had no teeth and a thousand cats.

I think she tried to cast a spell on us.

'Been there, done that,' I thought as I read this. The run-in with the crazy cat lady is a rite of passage for any Mormon missionary, I think. It doesn't matter where you serve, you're going to run into the local version of the crazy cat lady. My first run-in, because there were many (because Florida), happened in my first area in Hialeah, Dade County's capitol of all that is not right. We didn't run into her knocking doors. She literally ran into us. As my companion and I rode our bikes toward our apartment, we passed a series of two-story apartment buildings with six or eight units that dot much of the landscape of Hialeah. In the mid-80's, they were Ground Zero for the Marielitos. So working those buildings was like playing a supremely twisted version of "Let's Make A Deal." You really did not want to know what was behind Door #3. Trust me. As we passed one of those fun houses, she burst out of nowhere, bolting at us screaming and flailing in a way that in any other neighborhood would have brought multiple calls to 9-1-1. Not Hialeah. Convinced her ravings were curses (because Santeria), we did all we could to veer around her. The old men sitting in front of the building, chain smoking their cigars, just kept yelling, "Ay la loca!" and laughing. They weren't paying her much attention. We'd continue to run into her. She liked to surprise us, often bursting out of nowhere like she did the first time. She once hollered at us from her balcony but even in my limited knowledge of Spanish at that point, I knew she wasn't inviting us over for dinner. Suffice to say, we never worked her building.

It's probably been thirty one years since I last saw her. TMFAKTB's letter and the memory it triggered make it seem like yesterday. Given what I saw during my last two trips to Hialeah, one just last month, methinks she may still be there, bursting out of nowhere and surprising / scaring pretty much anybody. Good for her.

SaveSave

#roachrant2016

Yeah, this is pretty much how it played out

One of the things I had warned CAL about as she made the move to America's, oh how do I put this delicately, most insane state, was its state bug, the cockroach, or the Palmetto Bug as it is graciously called there. Let me assure you, as I tried to assure and warn her as any good father/Florida refugee would, there is nothing gracious about this indestructible strain of cockroach. I knew it would only be a matter of time before she'd have a dramatic encounter with one of them.  When I woke up this morning and opened my Twitter feed, there it was. She'd had her Palmetto bug showdown and she documented the whole thing in an epic Twitter rant. With her permission, I share it with you now in the order it played out, because it's genius.

• Tonight marks a truly defining moment for me. As I'm getting into bed I hear this noise in my blinds. I thought it was just a fly no big deal.
• I keep hearing the noise and then I see its no fly...it's a FREAKING COCKROACH! So I jump out of bed and run into my bathroom and slam the door.
• I sat in the bathroom for 3 minutes listening to this nasty thing take over my room like its the freaking Queen of England 
• After 8 minutes of hiding in the bathroom and every so often opening the door to see if I can see it, I decided to put on my big girl pants.
• I stepped out of the bathroom flip flop in hand ready to kill, and I saw it on my laptop. No way was I going to get it on my computer.
• So I ran back into the bathroom. Two more minutes pass and I step out again. There it is just siting on the floor...taunting me... 
• I flailed my arm and smacked down on the ground as hard as I could. I had my eyes closed so I didn't know if I'd actually killed it.
• So I open my eyes hoping this cockroach would be dead & not spring back at me the second I opened my eyes. And there it was dead on the ground.
• I had killed it! There was no life left in that cockroach to come back at me. I ran back to the bathroom to grab tissues to cover this thing.
• Then I grab that pile of tissues with the roach dead inside and flushed that thing down the toilet as hard as I could.
• And that is the end of my story. It was probably the most terrifying 13 minutes of my life.
• But I alone killed a cockroach and I didn't even cry or scream for help. Tonight is a really big night for me.

So there you have it. No crying. No screaming. PETA be damned. She took care of that nemesis. That she had the presence of my mind to document it on Twitter in near real time makes me laugh. This probably means if she's ever in an airplane evacuation, she'll put the evac on Periscope.

#roachrant2016

Road Trip - The End

After a relatively brief four hour drive, the Oranges of Wrath Tour came to an end when we pulled into our hotel earlier this afternoon. It was, ironically, the longest day of driving thanks to hordes of cars adorned in the orange 'T' of the Tennessee Vols making their way to Tampa. Turns out the hotel I picked is within spitting distance of Raymond James Stadium where the Outback Bowel (not a typo) is being played and our hotel seems to be housing an inordinate amount of orange-clad Vols fans. I had no idea how literal the Oranges of Wrath Tour would become...

The highlight of today's trek was breakfast. Breakfast at the Waffle House. I've been fortunate to eat in some amazing places all over this world. I've had some really memorable meals. This was one of them, but not because of the meal. It was not a bad meal at all. It was a simple waffle and I loved it. As the three of us saddled up to the counter, I looked around and saw the most democratic, even catholic (broad or wide-ranging) institution I've ever seen. It was a cross-section of what our country is: multi-colored, multi-generational, all kinds of bank balances, all enjoying a simple staple of Americana, the waffle.

Now it's the last day of the year and I can say we are beat! Since we started this trip, the stunningly patient and mighty fine SML and I have racked up 3,365 miles driving through ten states. By the time we return to Connecticutistan in a few days, our total state tally will be 13.

What a trip! It's been an honor to spend so much time with CAL. She's ready for this next step in her life. We'll get her settled over the next two days and then it's back to reality.

But my reality now is a bed. I'm tired. One of my most favorite cities in the world, Sydney, Australia welcomed 2016 hours ago, so as far as I'm concerned, I don't need to stay up watching horrible lip syncing and even worse scripted celebrity yapping from Times Square.

Thanks for sticking around for the Oranges of Wrath Tour. Happy New Year! 

On Florida Coming Back Into My Life

Late last night, my second-born, the lovely CAL posted the following on the Interwebs:

"I am so happy to finally announce that in just a few short weeks I will be making my way to Florida to begin my internship at All Children's Hospital as a Child Life Specialist. I am so excited for this opportunity and cannot wait for this new adventure!"

Excited doesn't begin to cover it! She has worked so.very.hard to get to this point and this opportunity at All Children's is amazing. This is the first step in securing full-time employment for her and training at a Johns Hopkins-affiliated hospital is some top-notch stuff. The process of securing this internship has been a massive lesson in patience for her, no thanks to the actions of a middling bureaucrat at her university. Suffice to say, I can't even get into it about this person's actions at this point other than to say even JoJo the Dog-Faced Boy would say they were terminable offenses. Maybe when my rage comes off DefCon 5, I'll be able to speak of it...

So my girl is moving to Flo-Ri-Duh. I never suspected that this state would come back into my life in the way it is now. As has been well documented here, I spent two amazing years in South America South Florida as an LDS missionary during the coke-fueled, Cuban boat people, Nicaraguan refugee, 'Miami Vice' years in the 1980's. I loved those two years and the people and I loved the crazy that is the state of Florida. That said, I never envisioned one of my children would be calling it 'home.' Yet, here we are.

When we were in Tampa / St. Pete for Thanksgiving trying to find CAL a place to live, I tried to give her a feel for life in the state that none other than Homer J. Simpson called "America's wang." As we explored the area, each time she or her mother would point out something that seemed a lot little off, I would just shrug and say, "Yeah, well that's Florida." To give her a little more color, I share the following insights (jokes) about Florida from Jack Donaghy (shame on you if you have to ask who Jack is):

But Central Florida is dominated by Jewish retirees, serial killers, and secretly gay Disney princes.

It's a combination of elderly shut-ins, beach bums, bus passengers who run out of money, swamp people, and pirates.

Have you ever been to Florida? It's basically a prison population. It's America's Australia!

Jack nails it, as always. While Jackie D is fictional and his comments about Florida may seem absurd, there is an amazing Twitter account that proves that, indeed, truth is stranger than fiction. I give you @_FloridaMan  

Florida Man Gets Lost at Sea While Riding Jet-Ski, Snapchats

Florida Man Surrenders Marijuana Crop to Police Chopper, Later Learns It Wasn't Looking for Him

Florida Man Caught Driving Cadillac Naked at 110MPH in the Middle of the Afternoon

Florida Man chokes to death while eating steak during his birthday

And then there is this gem, which is my current favorite:

Florida Man Hides from Deputies in Swamp, Eaten by Alligator

Yeah, that one pretty much sums it up. I'm excited that my girl will get to experience the madness. But I'm even more excited for all that she's going to learn as she works with her patients, children that are facing battles I can't even begin to imagine. She's going to help them fight.

I am one proud dad.

In brief.

It would be foolish of us to expect that TMFKATB writes a version of "War and Peace" each week. In what is now 75 weekly letters, he has kept us up-to-date on what's going on his life and has rarely left us  wanting for more. Maybe since it was his 75th, today's letter was brief, as in MTV News brief (gotta keep it snappy when your audience is the very definition of short attention span).

Most importantly, he's happy. He has a new companion and is now working with a young man from Florida (the Panhandle area, which is a whole new level of Florida crazy that he gets to learn about) but he's enjoying working with him. Per him, it was a week with some excellent training and spiritual growth.

That said, it was awfully short on detail. When he's brief like this, I tend to do a little reading between the lines, just to reassure myself that all is well. In doing that today, I get the sense that he's doing fine. He's making sure that things are never boring as he serves. Life was never boring when he was home. He excels at making sure things aren't dull.

Even though he kept things brief today, even though it's been a few hours since we had our exchange, here I am mulling things over, smiling at some of the things he said and I'm grateful for that. So there is beauty in brevity after all.