My trip to Havana

I’d like to say I visited Cuba, but it was really just Havana for a few hours on two consecutive weekdays in August, 2017.  Nights were spent on the cruise ship that brought me to the island.  Saying I visited Cuba is like saying I visited the United States but only saw Washington, D.C. 

The Havana I saw was a study in contrasts.  From a five star hotel built in 1930 to run down and crumbling buildings, at least on the outside.  Cuba is a Communist country and as such, the government runs and controls everything.  Even the cigar stores are controlled by the government, although I was approached by locals wanting to sell me cigars on the black market.  Fortunately, I am not a smoker.

Since Castro took control of the country on January 1, 1959, things seem to have been going downhill.  I was in Havana on a Wednesday and Thursday in August and although I saw scaffolding on a few buildings, I saw no workers.  Indeed, it seems people don’t have to work because the government supports them.  I met one woman from Tampa,Florida, who told me her cousin was a doctor in Cuba and earned just $17 a month.  That’s just $2 more than I tipped the taxi driver who drove me through the city in a 1955 Buick.  These old cars are kept running, not by mechanics, but as they say, by “magicians” using Russian car parts.  They are passed down within the family and very few other Cubans own cars.

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Cows are nearly non-existent, so there is no beef.  The meat they eat is chicken and pork.  For a port city in the Caribbean, I saw no small boats – they are banned for fear they will be used to escape to Miami.  I saw no grocery stores, no fast food restaurants, no movie theaters, and no banks.  These things are not necessary when people have no money.  I did see one church, which charged an admission to tourists since the government wasn’t supporting them.

There were two forms of currency, one for the locals and one for the tourists.  Americans are charged a 13% tax both when purchasing Cuban money and when exchanging it back for dollars, for a total of 26%.

The people seemed friendly enough, but I got the impression they have no idea what the outside world looks like.  Police and soldiers are everywhere and you are not allowed to take pictures of them.  One elderly woman  begged me for a ballpoint pen I was using,  It was a Bic, worth about ten cents, but to her, it was the world and she thanked me profusely when I gave it to her.

The bottom line is that if you are wealthy, you can do fine (ambassadors live in mansions), but if you are poor, you don’t know what you are missing.  Castro had banned Christmas until one of the three Popes who visited the island convinced him to allow it and now it is a national holiday.  But the everyday life of the average citizen of Havana seemed to consist of waking up, standing or sitting around and going to sleep.

The rest of the island may have beautiful beaches or other amenities but I did not leave Havana, which seemed stuck in 1959 and is taking its sweet time moving into 1960.

Survivor

I keep in touch with some of the people I attended grade school with through the magic of Facebook.  What strikes me is this – we all began at the same starting point, give or take a few months, but we will each be exiting the human race at a different age.  Some of my fellow classmates have already finished their journey and are six feet under or inhabiting a vase on a mantel.  I feel as if I am in a reality show called Survivor.  Who will be the last classmate voted off the planet?

Moral: Treasure each day while you can.

Creeping towards a simpler life

The following was written by me in 2006, about a year before I started this blog. I post it here for the first time:

It's difficult to write anything today without first checking the internet to see what someone else has written on the subject in question.

I've become a devotee of the philosophy of "less is more," so I did a Google search and found an article which claimed that the phrase "less is more" was first written in 1855 in a poem by Robert Browning.  I read a portion of the poem and couldn't understand it, so I'm going to use my own definition for "less is more."

"Less is more" is essentially the same as K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Stupid).  I have enough education to use five dollar words, but I prefer the simpler ones.  Although the phrase "less is more" is catchy, what I really mean is "fewer is better."  A case in point.  There is a sign in front of a vacant lot near where I live and it reads: "NO PARKING ALLOWED."  Every time I pass that sign, I wonder what the word "allowed" adds to the parking prohibition.  In other words, isn't "NO PARKING" the same as "NO PARKING ALLOWED"?  Of course it is.

One place when the "less is more" concept should be abandoned is the sign at the express checkout lane in the supermarket.  When I see "12 items or less," I cringe.  It's "12 items or fewer."  Think of it this way: less time but fewer minutes.  If there is a number involved, it usually should be "fewer" not "less."  "But," you say, "fewer has more letters than less."  That's true, but I couldn't care fewer.

At breakfast the other day, I noticed a bottle of Heinz ketchup.  In big bold letters, the label proclaimed "TOMATO KETCHUP."  I immediately thought the word "tomato" was superfluous (see, I told you I knew some five dollar words).  I'm a child of the Fifties and never did I taste ketchup that wasn't made from tomatoes.  However,if figured I'd better check the internet for a definition of the word "ketchup."  Lo and behold, it turns out that when ketchup was first introduced, it was a "sauce made from fish brine and spices" but no tomatoes. However, in America, at least since the early 1900s, ketchup has been tomato based.  So, just as some words change meanings over the years, I'm calling for the elimination of the word "tomato" on the front of the Heinz Tomato Ketchup bottle.  Ketchup is ketchup.  That condiment we slather on hamburgers, french fries and everything else.  In my simpler world, ketchup isn't a sauce made from fish brine, no matter what the dictionary says.

Library books

I went to my local library the other day because they were having a book sale.  After browsing for nearly an hour, I left empty-handed.  Oh, there were books that interested me, but what prevented me from buying any of them, was this: I have too many unread books on my bookshelves already.  Books that I purchased, intending to read, but never got around to reading.

Another factor in my not making any purchases is that lately I have been reading books on my e-reader.  It is so much more convenient and you can even read in the dark!  These electronic books take up zero space on my bookshelves and an added plus is that they sync with my smart phone so I can read anywhere at any time.

So, before I buy another book printed on paper, I am determined to first check my bookshelves for those books I have already purchased but never read.  The other books on the shelves - the ones I have read - will remain there because I like to look at them even if I will never re-read them.  Having favorite books look at you every time you enter a room is an experience that someone growing up in today’s world of electronic reading material will never realize. They will never know the joy of holding a real book.

I just hope the library isn’t selling all their books.

News in print vs online

Each day more and more people get their news from the internet.  Most of these people no longer read newspapers, except perhaps online.

They are missing something.

When you read things online, you tend to see the headlines and big stories, easily missing the smaller news pieces.  I came to this realization while reading an actual newspaper, printed with ink on paper.  Of course, the main news stories were on the front page, but it’s the smaller items on the inside that are the most interesting.  Those smaller stories, sometimes no more than a paragraph, are scattered throughout the newspaper.  If they are even on the paper’s website, they are not easy to find.

When you open a fullsize newspaper, sometimes you are faced with a huge ad for some product, store or company.  Many times, on the same page, there are small news items with headlines that catch your eye.  One recent one concerned the mystery of the gravestone next to Lee Harvey Oswald’s cemetery plot.  The gravestone read “Nick Beef” and until recently, no one knew who this person was.  The article identified the owner of the plot, who is alive and thus was not buried there, and explained why he purchased the cemetery plot.  The article was interesting but I can’t imagine anyone having seen it while reading a newspaper online.

Another advantage of an actual newspaper is that you can pick it up at any time, read it for a minute or two, put it down and pick it up again later at the point you left off.  How often is that done with electronic news?

So, too, you can clip an article and save it.  Has anyone ever been found with an electronic news article folded in his wallet?

Of course, internet news is delivered much faster than a one day old newspaper. 

But sometimes it’s nice to slow down and smell the newsprint.

A silver lining

Today something happened to me that has not happened for nearly 50 years: I received a silver coin in change at the grocery store. 1964 was the last year US coins were made of 90% silver. Since then, coins have been made of an alloy of metals with basically no intrinsic value. Since the last silver coins were minted, the price of silver has risen, making the value of pre-1965 coins higher than their face value. People routinely sell these silver coins for many times their face value. The buyers usually melt the coins to retrieve the silver. Today’s spot price is about $1.50 for the dime in question. The coin was a well worn 1943-S Mercury dime. The S mint mark indicates it was minted 3,000 miles away in San Francisco. Mercury dimes were last minted in 1945 when they were replaced by the current Roosevelt dime. They have virtually disappeared from circulation since 1965. The supermarket clerk who gave me the coin was an older woman. She either didn’t know the value of the coin or didn’t notice it as she counted out my change. I spotted it immediately because I used to collect coins as a hobby. I guess the moral of this story is: Keep your eyes open when dealing with money.

Recycling?

Scene: Waiting at a bus stop on a late spring afternoon. Action: A young woman comes to wait for the bus. She begins to eat pistachio nuts, tossing the empty shells onto the grass. One final unopened nut falls into to the roadbed and, unbelievably, she stoops to retrieve it, dodging traffic in the process. She then removes the pistachio nut and makes a final toss of the empty shell halves onto the grass. My first reaction was that this was littering, but as I looked down, I saw several cigarette butts and that tempered my reaction somewhat. After all, the nut shells were at least biodegradable, weren’t they? Still, the wonton act of tossing what amounted to garbage onto the beautiful green grass upset my sensibilities. Is there ever an excuse for tossing things you no longer want or need? Who raises people to do this? Certainly not my parents. I hold onto trash until I find a proper receptacle. I suppose that makes me a rebel by today’s standards.