By late 1963, we were waiting for "el telegrama" to leave Cuba.  It was routine for Cubans to announce their decision to leave the country and then be forced to wait for a departure date.  It was generally an opportunity for the regime to mock you, for thugs to scream in front of your home and call you traitors, and for your dad to be squeezed out of any way of making a living.  My father's employer, a Cuban-owned bank, had been expropriated, so that put him in an even more difficult position. Our resources were limited, and my parents kept having their differences with the local CDR, or the so-called "Comité de la Defensa de la Revolución," the local neighborhood spy gang that would watch your every move like a hawk.  It was not a fun time for my parents and many other Cubans on the island. In the middle of this, I recall President Kennedy's assassination and then the shooting of Lee Harvey...(Read Full Post)