Love it or leave it — Chapter Eleven

Years ago now.  Up in Canada on my birthday. Coming home through the Okanogan. But before we left Vancouver, my X bought me a handful of Cuban cigars.  The best kind.  I don’t smoke anymore.   Never did very much.  You can’t convince me though that there are any cigars that taste better than the good old red dirt Cuban handrolled numbers.  But they were Cuban and nothing Cuban was permitted in the U.S.  So I figured I ought to hide them, just in case.  Thought I’d put ‘em in my tool box.  But no.   X thought I should just stick ‘em in the pocket of my jacket in the back of the pickup.  Well, she bought them, OK.  That was back before I learned to trust my own instincts in situations like this. We crossed over at Nighthawk.

The guy at the border was pleasant enough. But he went straight for the side pocket of my red and black Filson like he’d had a camera on me when I hid the cigars. After that, I was "buddy". "O.K. buddy."  He made a bunch of phone calls.  Checked me out.  Decided he’d have to confiscate the stogies, Said he’d have to shred ‘em.  I told him he really ought to smoke them.  Not waste them.  "They were a present from my wife," I told him, "today’s my birthday."  He checked my driver’s license again.  "Ya shoulda told me," he said.   Some of the air had gone out of his tires.  "I have ta shred ‘em now," he said.  "If I can’t have ’em back, please smoke ‘em," I said, as we rolled away.

Years later now. Castro comes to the U.S. a wizened caricature of his old self almost.  Pleading for help, investment, an end to the U.S sanctions.

Fidel, the last chip off the old blockade.   We’ll never know now, but just what if one of these little, social experiments would have worked?  That’s what we’re afraid of, yes?  So much so that we have to snuff them out in the end, one way or another.  Never the experiment.   Always the control.

-- Denny Redman

Originally published by L D Books, used with permission.

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