Castro

Revolution is a fetching ideal for those who can afford it. But as uncomfortable as DJ Trump makes me, I am still probably a little too cozy to-- you know-- 'take up arms' or whatever you guys call it. Not as so in Cuba in the late 1950s.

Whether 50 years of Castronomics elevated the high of the average Cuban is, incredibly, still unclear on the Monday after his death was cheered in Miami and solemnly mourned in Havana. As confounding a figure as has ever pounded a podium, Castro made a career out of thumbing his great nose at the omnipresent hovering United States, brushing off assassination attempts like dandruff. He in turn treated his lesser adversaries to much more effective brands of merciless retribution. It was Fidel's way or the highway-- a highway often stocked with hammerhead sharks or lined with firing squads.

My mother's future husband Arthur Bender was a 20-year-old sophomore at Rutgers during the holiday break of 1959, and with a few more days to kill before returning to the books, he and 3 buddies piled into a car and drove down the eastern seaboard to some stockcar race in Sebring, Florida. Back then you could just do shit like that on a whim. One thing similarly led to another and before the boys knew it they'd taken a dare flight from Key West to Havana where they stood amongst the cheering throngs as Castro's freedom fighters rolled west into Havana atop the very tanks that had vanquished the forces of the previous badass dictator, Fulgencio Batista.

But even revolutionaries like a good photo gag, and a few of them paused to yuck it up with the young Americans on their way to the Havana Hilton. Stick em up, Yankee...

Americans can say what they want about Fidel Castro, but it is worth noting that we just elected Donald Trump to be our president. It's unlikely he will be 'in power' for 50 weeks let alone 50 years, but with comparable morals and only a pale fraction of the conviction, intelligence and personality of Fidel Castro, he could really leave a lasting mark.