Monday, July 16, 2007

One Crazy Cuban Story

Wow, Lou's last post reminded my of something I was writing this morning. It was the story of my grandparents. The beginning of the story deals with the Great Depression poverty, etc...
Then

About the time of my grandparents' marriage, the brother who was a
printer was in _________ where a new ________ was going up. He sent
for my grandfather and literally gave him the print shop. “Antolin, this
town is going to grow. You will be here to grow with the town.” And
so he did. The single street that ran parallel to _________ where they
settled eventually became the main street of a thriving small town. My
grandparents became solidly middle class.

.... My grandfather had a car, a big, black Pontiac, which he
kept in immaculate condition. He also had the print shop, which was more
of a print shop/office supply/Kodak distributor, and at Christmas, a toy
store. He and my grandmother were creatures of habit. Every day, my
grandfather would close the shop, take a bath, change into his afternoon clothes
and eat dinner. After dinner, they would invariably sit in the big rockers
on the front porch until their early bedtime. Small towns being what they
are, everyone knew this. Well, as the “democratic” revolution became
progressively less “democratic,” the revolution seized his car. And every
evening, the milicianos in their beards and green fatigues would pile into
the car and drive erratically up and down the street in front of my grandparents
on the front porch. My grandfather could only watch as his beloved vehicle
was run into the ground. It didn’t last long.


I think, the final straw for my grandfather came the morning he went to open the
shop and found out that the shop was no longer his. He was working for the
revolution now. He would not even be the manager. There was a woman
who knew nothing about the business who would henceforth be his boss in the
business he had worked his whole life to build. Shortly thereafter he put
in to leave. It was not that simple. By doing that he was opening
himself to all sorts of repercussions. He and my grandmother were now
Gusanos,” or worms. A woman came to inventory every last one of their
possessions, an inventory which was repeated the morning they
left __________ on the way to the United States. When I met my
grandmother and grandfather, they had only the clothes on their backs to their
name.

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