November 22 means another anniversary of the Kennedy assassination. It always takes me back to that day in Cuba when we got the news.
We were "gusanos waiting for el telegrama" to leave Cuba. We eventually left in July '64.
"Gusano" is Spanish for worms. This is what the Castro opponents were called in Cuba. I heard later that Castro got the idea from Hitler who referred to Jews as "worms" too. Frankly, I don't know if that Castro-Hitler connection is true but it sounded plausible to us back then.
Kennedy's assassination was a time of terrible tension and fear that "el comite" would find some excuse to delay our exit or make life miserable for our parents. "El comite" was the neighborhood spy committee. It was their job to keep an eye on "gusanos".
It was the daily grind of a repressive communist society. You couldn't trust anybody beyond family and a very select number of friends.
Such is life in a communist country. Yes, that was the "gusano way" in Cuba!
My father was working at a friend's "pasteleria", or bakery, after the banks were "nationalized", i.e. stolen from their rightful owners.
My mom was constantly arguing with the local "comite" president about food shortages. She would always scream at them: "Esta revolucion no tiene pan o leche"! It translates to this revolution has no bread or milk!
On the afternoon of November 22nd, my brother and I were playing that game of "beisbolito" that we loved so much. "Beisbolito" was a board game that Cuban boys used to play. I miss those "beisbolito" games against my brother. We had teams, batting averages and each team had a play by play announcers.
The phone rang and my mom answered. She said the usual "oigo" and yelled: "Mataron a Kennedy".
My father got home a bit later and tuned in the Voice of America for more news. We got more details, such as that it happened in a place called Dallas, in the state of Texas, and that someone had been picked up by the police.
Dallas, Texas? That's where I live now!
Later that night, or maybe the next day, I sat down with my father and watched Castro talk about the assassination. I don't recall what he said but my father found it interesting. I learned years later that there were all kinds of conspiracy theories about the assassination.
The funeral came a few days later. We heard it on VOA. I recall everybody talking about the little boy saluting the flag. (I saw that picture of little John later when we came to the US).
From the communist takeover, to the tragedy at The Bay of Pigs, to the tense Missile Crisis to the assassination of President Kennedy, it seems like I was in the middle of some of the most dramatic moments of the 20th century.
