Castro’s obituary: “El motor se apago”

By now, everyone is familiar with the story of the truck taking Castro’s remains to their resting place.     It must have been very interesting when the driver said to the soldier:   “El motor se apago”.

Just a few days ago, I saw this in National Review:

Cuba’s capital, Havana, was a glittering and dynamic city. In the early part of the century the country’s economy, fueled by the sale of sugar to the United States, had grown dynamically.

Cuba ranked fifth in the hemisphere in per capita income, third in life expectancy, second in per capita ownership of automobiles and telephones, first in the number of television sets per inhabitant.

The literacy rate, 76%, was the fourth highest in Latin America. Cuba ranked 11th in the world in the number of doctors per capita.

Many private clinics and hospitals provided services for the poor. Cuba’s income distribution compared favorably with that of other Latin American societies. A thriving middle class held the promise of prosperity and social mobility

How else do you think that Castro contacted Cubans almost nightly by TV? Well, there were lots of TV’s spread out throughout the island with Cuban-owned stations broadcasting.

Again, it was not a perfect country and politics had always been challenging.   Nevertheless, let me tell you about two things that did not happen in pre-Castro Cuba:

1) People were not taking homemade rafts to the U.S.; and,

2) Funeral cars did not break down on their way to the cemetery.

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