We parted ways around the third grade, courtesy of various idiocies of public education. Her family was strong on education, and quickly realized that the public schools were not up to the job. She found her way to the local Catholic School, and I found my way to a different private school via several public schools in the course of one year. It seemed like fate was going to send us completely apart, when a joyful thing occurred: her father was released and allowed to come to America. Their family was made whole again, and fate brought me into close contact with her father for a year.

He was a quiet man, gentle in many respects, and not at all what I was expecting. I guess I was expecting a big man, bulging muscles, warrior supreme. What I got was an average sized man, thin, and quiet. A nice man, one both horrified and amused by the passions of youth and politics. I liked him, and wanted him to like me, and he did manage to teach me a great deal – though some of it took years to grow. It was funny, but during that year I don’t think I ever saw P, though I was most willing to do so. I suspect he knew this, and in hindsight I think there was both amusement and protection there. For both P and myself.

That year also was a loss of innocence for me, for I saw something despicable happen within my world. This brave man was working at a job where the top person in the chain bore a resemblance to the actor who played Baltar years later in Battlestar Galactica. Alas, he also seemed to bear other resemblance to that character, and I watched this person abuse their authority and abuse this man who had already been through so much. To be honest, it was a matter of politics and I had innocently started the chain by asking P’s father to be a part of a group. Turns out, this boss above him was against this group and any related activities, which to him were politically incorrect, and in front of many others ridiculed and humiliated this man.

That was my introduction to the abuse of power and the willingness of the liberal extreme to do whatever was necessary to attack that with which they disagreed. I was horrified by it all, and most of all because it brought fresh hurt to a man who had suffered so much. A man who was a real Man, unlike the male creature who so carelessly and thoughtlessly abused his power.

P’s father had suffered enough under a real tyrant, and had no cause to put up with a petty tyrant and would-be tin-pot dictator. He quit his job and went to work for an outfit that liked him, admired him, and respected him. This incident, among others, prompted the board to fire the disgrace in question, and I wish they had acted sooner. I was ashamed of what had happened, and my part in it however innocent, and I have had no contact with him or his family since. I have heard bits and pieces over the years, but have never had the courage to talk with him since the day I apologized for starting the chain of events. I have never had the courage to try to contact P either, and I do regret that as well. Who knows, maybe I will do so soon, just to say hello and find out what

I long ago got over what the creature in question did to me, for there were things done to me and at me by him as well. Yet, I have never forgiven or forgotten what he did to a man who had paid a terrible price for freedom, and understood what it meant far better than I could have at that time. Guidance by P’s father probably kept me from getting into trouble later, and it also caused me to support even more strongly the liberation of Cuba.

In my heart, there is still a warm fuzzy spot around my memory of P, and I am glad. From this family, and others later, I have come to want to travel to that land, to enjoy the beaches and the people, and to see it for myself. I will wait on that, for to go there now for any reason only supports tyranny and makes life worse for the people there. No, I will go only when it is free again and I know that the welcome is real and the people spend time with me because they want to, not because they have to. I want to see the places of which I have heard, enjoy the beauty, and celebrate the return of freedom to the people. When that day comes, I know that in spirit or in flesh, P and her family will walk with me.

On that day, the sun will set on tyranny and oppression there. For the sun also rises, and I long for the day it will rise on freedom and opportunity for all there, so that no family be torn apart, no prisoners starved, and the promise so long denied blooms bright with the growing day. Cuba Libre!