While in Miami I visited an upholstery shop. The gentleman that took my order spoke little English so I communicated in Spanish. He said he was from Cuba and that he had arrived in Florida about nine years earlier.
Our conversation went like this, to the best of my recollection.
“Do you think you will return to Cuba after Castro?” I asked.
“Sure, there are free farms for the taking in Cuba!”
“Really?” I asked. “How come?”
“Well, the farms are vacant, the coffee is falling from the trees and no one works the farms. People just left them and when I was there, they would have given me any one that I wanted for free!”
“How come the people do not work in the farms?” I asked.
“Because they have no tools to work the land, no knives, no machetes, no sharpening equipment at all.”
“What, no machetes! How come? How can they cut the sugar cane with out machetes?”
“Communism does not work” he said.
“The first thing they did was take the guns away from the people. All the guns were registered and then confiscated. Then they took away the machetes and the knives and all sharpening equipment. You in America have guns, but in Cuba they took them away. The farmer can not even cut sugar cane unless the government loans them the machete [for the day].”
