“Cuba Libre”—A Historical Travelogue by Mort Laitner
As a ten-year-old numismatist, I examined every coin my father dropped on to the
motel’s night stand.
I studied these coins as if a I were a historian or an art collector. The US Mint had struck
deep into their metals—-dates, mint marks, words and designs.
I saw:
Shiny newly-minted 1959 copper Lincoln pennies with a handsome bearded president’s
profile;
A 1937 buffalo nickel with the majestic face of a native American on its reverse side;
FDR’s profile on the dime, honoring our polio-inflicted president favorite charity—The
March of Dimes.
I remembered pressing those dimes into MOD’s cardboard coin holder until a doctor
pressed a vaccine-laden needle into my upper arm;
A 1956 quarter bearing Washington’s somber face in silver;
A 1949 bald headed Ben Franklin fifty-cent piece with the cracked and yoked Liberty Bell
on the backside. A coin struck in Philadelphia. Ben’s hometown and where the bell still
resides. A national symbol portraying the scars of our past.
I studied the words on these coins, Liberty, E pluribus Unum (Out of many, one) and “In God
We Trust” (Our National Motto).
If I needed any of these coins for my collection, I’d ask, “Dad. I don’t have a 1937 Buffalo
nickel. Can I have this one?”
“Sure, son,” he replied.
The year was 1959 and my family— dad, mom, my younger sister and I—were on
what turned out to be our annual Miami Beach winter vacation.
Eisenhower was our president and Castro’s rebels owned Havana.
What did I know about Cuba?
In geography class, I learned it was a small—Spanish speaking— Caribbean island.
In first grade, I recited my first poem:
“In fourteen hundred ninety-two
Columbus sailed the ocean blue.
He had three ships and left from Spain;
He sailed through sunshine, wind and rain.
October 12th they sighted land,
And set their feet upon new sand.”
(abridged version—-but I bet you can still name the three ships and the October 12
holiday)—-Test questions #1 and #2
From my 1959 black and white World Book Encyclopedia, I discovered Cubans wore flowery,
flamboyant colorful outfits.
They sang, danced and played the bongos and guitars. They
drank Cuba libres and strong coffee. They smoked Cohibas and Montechristos.
In 1961, on my black and white Zenith TV, I watched an episode of the Twilight Zone (The
Mirror episode 71) about Fidel being driven into the world of paranoia by a mirror that
showed him his potential assassins.
Once a week, in front of that same TV, I laughed at the antics of Desi and Lucy Ricardo.
The TV nation accompanied Lucy on a cruise to Havana where she met and fell in love
with Desi, a horse and buggy taxi driver.
America and I loved Lucy.
Desi, the only Cuban known to most Americans taught us Babalú.
And I parroted his phrase, “Lucy you got some ‘splainin’ to do.”
Desi had his bandstand and now I take you back to that coin-laden night stand I eluded to
earlier in this story?
Yes, the one that rested in a room on the second floor of the Colonial Inn Motel.
The motel with the two white cement horses harnessed
to a large black wooden carriage.
This Gone With The Wind plantation-style motel, with its
Doric columns, would have made President Washington feel right at home.
This symbol of America’s colonial past, is where we shot our Kodak family moments.
Yes, I still have those photos.
Well, there was something else sitting on that Colonial Inn nightstand—three colorful
brochures—one with Miccosukee Indians wrestling alligators, one with photos of a
boat cruising past million dollar water-front homes of the rich and famous and one
advertising a day or night trip to Havana, Cuba,
I read these brochures as if I was studying for an exam. I concluded that a day trip to a
foreign country sounded like an adventure with one big fringe benefit—acquiring Cuban
coins for my collection.
As I waved the brochure in my dad’s face, I asked,
“Dad, have you read about this trip to Havana? It sounds like a real blast. The Tropicana
nightclub, Morro Castle, a Caribbean city serving exotic Cuban food and Mojitos.”
My dad laughed at my sales pitch and my mispronunciation of Mojitos.
“Sorry son, not on this trip.”
Little did I know that it would be over half a century later before I would see that
exotic Caribbean city.
In 1961, I watched on our black and white TV as CIA financed, Bay of Pigs rebels landed on
Cuban beaches only to fall into a trap set by Fidel’s military.
That same year Hemingway fell into the well of depression and escaped through an act
of suicide.
In 1962, I feared death as I hid under my school desk in anticipation
of thermo-nuclear war. This October Cuban Missile Crisis caused by Chairman
Khrushchev’s placement of missiles 90 miles off our shores and President Kennedy’s
embargo of Soviet ships carrying missiles to Cuban ports.
At my father’s behest and in preparation for war, I brought my most valuable
possessions into our makeshift basement bomb shelter.
I dropped my coin collection on top of a 4’x4′ lead box my father had placed in our cellar.
A box that was suppose to protect our food supply from radiation.
I stacked: my Boys Life magazine collection; my Scouts Handbook; my collection of Field and
Stream; and Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea on the bunk bed.
Now I thought of Santiago’s ordeal in the sea and wondered what it would be like floating
in a sea of radiation.
On one of the cellar’s wall’s multiple tin cans rested:
Green Giant peas and carrots, Hormel’s corn beef hash, Bush Best baked beans,
Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup, Popeye spinach, boxes of Uncle Ben’s rice
Gallon glass milk containers filled with water rested on the floor.
“How long am I going to have to live in this bomb shelter?” I thought as I grasped
on to a roll of uncirculated Lincoln pennies and my portable Channel Master 9 volt
transistor radio housed in its leather case.
“Are we going to run out of food and water?”
“Are our neighbors going to try to steal our food?”
“Should we buy a gun to stop them?”
I noticed that those very neighbors seemed to have stopped looking me in the eyes.
“Is that lead box really going to protect our food from radiation?”
“Are my coins going to become radiated?”
“Will I ever be able to touch my coins again?”
“Should I put them in the lead box?”
“What is the world going to look like when we leave this shelter?”
“Should I put my faith in our national motto?”
“Are we really prepared?”
“Do I have enough reading material?”
“Would our president order our pilots in their B52 bombers to drop hydrogen bombs
on Moscow?”
I imaged pressing my profile of fear onto a blank metal disc.
“Am I going to die?”
Luckily, my questions needed no answers except for the one about our national motto
and my own demise.
In 9th grade (1964), I was assigned to read Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea and
thought, “Would I ever see or fish in Havana Harbor?”
“Probably not since U.S.-Cuban relations were as cracked as the Liberty Bell.”
“Would I ever visit Papa’s house?” (a nickname Ernest picked up in Spain)
“Probably not unless Castro was overthrown.”
In 1967, I befriended Juan, a Cuban-American student at the University of Miami. He had
fled the island.” After Fidel’s took over, Communism robbed my people
of liberty. If you said anything bad about Castro, you’d end up in jail or before a firing
squad. My family had to get off the island. Castro declared G-d persona non grata. He
closed the churches. In the States, we are free. But one day Castro will die and I will
return to my home. Cuba will be libre.”
Juan and I ventured into “Little Havana”.
There for the first time I tasted sweet café Cubano. I learned how to order coffee:
café con leche sin azucar; cafecitos; coladas; and cortaditos.
I loved: Versailles’ media noche sandwiches with caramelized plátanos maduros fritos; La
Carreta’s arroz con pollo, Cuban bread, (pan) schmeared with butter that I dipped in my
café con leche.
For dessert I feasted on creamy flan or tres leches.
At my graduation in 1971, I drank mojitos and Cuba Libres (Two ounces of Bacardi rum
and six ounces Coca Cola over ice).
I sang,“Drinkin’ Rum and Coca Cola and now I’m working for the Yankee dollar.”
I chugged frio Hatuey cerveza out of glass bottles wondering if I had to go to Cuba since it
appeared it had come to me.
In 1974, I watched The Godfather II and learned how the American mob infiltrated the
island and how Castro booted them off.
In 1980, I inspected a makeshift tent city, found under I-95. It housed thousands
of “Marielitos.”
They arrived on boats in a mass migration from the Cuban port of Mariel.
On some of those boats Castro placed mentally ill patients and criminals.
In 1983, I watched Al Pacino in Scarface. A fictional Marielito become a Miami
drug lord. (Test question #3: Name the US gangster known as Scarface)
In 2000, I watched the Elián González saga, as the nine-year-old was dragged from the
arms of his Miami family by the US officers and sent back to his father’s arms in Cuba.
In 2018, I finally arrived in Havana via a cruise ship.
I saw Morro Castle.
I drank mojitos.
I went to the Tropicana show where I toasted my father with Cuba libres, “Dad, Havana is
a real blast. I wish we could have done it together. I even got some Cuban coins.”
The Tropicana show is a must.
A tropical outdoor setting— on three levels— a cast of over 50—- singers, musicians and
leggy dancing showgirls dressed in only sequins and feathers.
Here I sang Camila Cabello’s song Havana.
“Havana ooh na-na (ayy) Half my heart is in Havana, ooh na-na ayy, ayy.”
I saw an island painted by G-d in primary colors and by men in worn-out pastels;
I imagined a Twilight Zone episode.
Time had slowed in Havana. An American actor, played by Paul Newman,
enters a cluttered gift shop which only sells black and white postcards of Che and Fidel
brandishing rifles.
While outside the shops, classic candy apple red Chevy Style Masters, sky blue Buicks, and
kelly green Desoto’s, pink Cadillac’s, yellow Oldsmobile’s paraded down the street.
The Newman leaves the shop and observes some automobile owners buffing, polishing
and waxing their cars as if they were a natural treasures. The actor knows they are.
The actor studies the cars rocket-jet hood ornaments, V-8 engines, hand-rolled window
openers, push button cigarette lighters, lidded head lights, chrome grills
that smile into his face. Newman thinks, “These cars have personality. They beg
for names like Monica, Rita, Sandra, and Jessica. (Test question #3 name the song and the
artist that sang it.)
The Newman ponders, “Some of these cars have large fins, like the sharks that tore into
the flesh of Santiago’s fish—ripping the marlin and Santiago’s heart into shreds.”
The actor looks up at the billowing white sheets. They hang from clotheslines and catch
the wind. as if they were the sail on Santiago’s skiff.
The actor thinks, “These Cubans live on a meager diet of hope and dreams that Havana
will once again be called the Paris of the Caribbean.”
Newman wonders if that day will ever happen. and if it does, will the Cubans
collectively say, “Fidel, you got some ‘splainin’ to do!”.
On the way back to downtown Havana, Newman concludes,”Cuba is a poster-child for
the failures of Communism. An experiment gone awry.”
He thinks, “Americans have lived on a diet of hope that unhappy people would rebel and
throw their dictators out. Some diet.”
The taxi driver takes him to Hemmingway’s house. He sees Papa’s typewriter and wants
to steal it. He has long realized that the magic of the writer rests in the machine he uses.
Newman sees two tarantulas fighting inside his empty swimming pool and
wonders, Were Papa and his wife reincarnated?”
The actor touches Papa’s fishing boat, “The Pilar.”
he recalls this boat was christened after the God of Sailors.
And as his eyes examine the boat, Newman pictures Santiago praying, “Dear God of
Fisherman, I have not caught a fish in 84 days. Today, I beseech you to bless me with one
large fish.”
The actor leaves Hemingway’s home and takes a 53 Chevy taxi, driven by Pablo, to José
Fuster mosaic tile village. It is called Fusterlandia.
He greets the artist with mucho besos y abrazos and says, “Señor Fuster, you have created a
masterpiece!”
On the way back to the ship, the Pablo comments “Señor Newman Do you know how
skilled our auto mechanics are? They mix and match parts from Soviet-era Ladas and
incorporate Soviet parts into these American antiques and they run so well.”
The taxi driver continues, “Señor Newman, while you are here, take time to smell our
flowers—our red hibiscus, purple boganvillas and white poincianas.
Savor the flavors of our cuisine. Taste our buttery lobster and shrimp covering a bed of
rice.”
“Pablo, I will follow all of your recommendations,” Newman replies.
The Pablo continues,”Señor, do you know in my nation education and medical care
are free, but toilet paper is hard to find. Our coins do not mention G-d but you must
see large statue of Christ stands tall facing he Havana’s harbor.
The Newman asks, “Pablo, are Cubans happy?”
“Our school children smile and laugh a lot;
we have learned to accept our lot in life.”
Then Pablo pauses in thought before whispering,
“Most of us don’t own cars, homes, cell phones or credit cards but we have food
in our bellies and music in our hearts. Some of us have found G-d, while other have
commenced business ventures to break out of the mold of classlessness.
I guess there are many ways to find happiness.”
As the taxi pulls up to the cruise ship, the actor looks the driver in the eyes,
“Pablo, hopefully, next time I’m in Havana, we’ll toast,
‘Cuba es Libre.'”
Submit all answers to test questions to mortlaitner@bellsouth.net
