It’s another January, and a time to welcome the new year, but also remember one very sad day in 1959.
Sixty-one years ago, the Baltimore Colts were still celebrating what they called “the best football game ever played,” their victory over the New York Giants in the NFL title game. (No Super Bowl back then. I’m not even sure that the AFL had started playing).
Over on the radio, The Chipmunks had the # 1 song on Billboard USA. Who can forget Alvin and “Christmas Don’t Be Late”?
Down in Cuba, my parents were trying to figure out how everything would work out. Batista fled and Castro was in!
It did not happen like what we saw in “Godfather 2,” with people rushing to their boats. Most Cubans were sleeping or celebrating the new year. My parents did not hear about it until the next morning.
No one understood that morning what it all meant. We certainly had no idea that a communist dictatorship was coming. At least, my parents did not.
Within months, Cuba began to change, i.e. the mass executions, the mock trials, the political prisons, the attacks on the press, and the radicalization of the regime.
Elections never came and Castro quickly started to blame the U.S. to distract Cubans from all the unkept promises.
We eventually moved to the U.S. and this is now my adopted country. I am a very proud citizen of the U.S. My three sons were born here and the youngest one served in the U.S. Army. We are very proud of his service.
However, it still hurts to see how much damage the communist dictatorship has done to Cuba and the people who stayed behind.
As my late father would often remind us, we were the fortunate ones. We got to grow up in the U.S. Some were not so unfortunate. They had to stay in Cuba or saw their fathers executed or spend time in a political prison.
A sad anniversary for Cubans, and for truth and freedom.
It turned out to be a terrible morning for the people of Cuba.
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