Events I Witnessed In Cuba & Jamaica in Early 1950's

In 1950, my father, who was stationed at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, ran the golf pro shop at the golf course. Just above the golf club in the hills, there was a riding stable where one could go and rent a horse for fifty cents an hour to go horseback riding. My brother and I used to do this regularly. The trails led down from the hills, around the edge of the golf course and back to the stables.

Those horses were well trained. You can imagine kids who had never been on a horse, but had watched Hopalong Cassidy, Lash Larue, and Roy Rogers and Dale Evans movies, and the horses never, but never walked. We thought the horses were supposed to run all the time, so the minute we had paid our fare and were hoisted into the saddle, we would kick the horse and he would oblige by trotting off obediently along the trail away from the stables. Of course, he couldn't keep a running pace and would slow down after about five minutes.

Invariably, the out leg of the journey was always the fastest. On the return, all the imprecations and cajoling in the world could not make the horse go above a walk. Naturally, we would be late getting back to the stables and would have to pay an additional fee. As I said, those horses were well trained!

The man who broke the horses and trained them at those stables was an old black man about sixty five or seventy years old, and he had ridden with T.R. Roosevelt on the attack at San Juan Hill. He used to tell us kids stories by the hour, but sorry to say, I didn't listen as well as I should have, because he was a part of history in the making.

It appears that during or after the attack on San Juan Hill, this gentleman got separated from his comrades. He may have found a place to hide until it was all over, for all I know. I remember he told us that he was left stranded in Cuba after all the others had left. In effect, he was a castaway.

I didn't place too much credence in his story at the time. Years later, in 1968 to be exact, while I was in the Army and stationed with the Forth Squadron, Twelfth Cavalry, at Fort Carson, Colorado, an article came out in the paper about him that verified his story. Yes, he was in his eighties, and still breaking horses at the riding stables at Guan­tanamo. From what I gather, the Roosevelt pullout from Cuba was a bit hasty, and he was listed as missing in action. He was restored to the living then and paid all back wages due him.

We lived in a Quonset hut at a place called Bargo Point in 1950. It was built on a peninsula of coral that stuck out into the bay. The peninsula extended out over a huge expanse of salt flats, which led to a mangrove swamp.

A Quonset hut has an apartment on both ends. Usually there are two or three small bedrooms in each one. They are separated by a thin partition. If your neighbor sneezes and you say "bless you," you can generally hear him say thanks. Got the picture? It looks like a large, corrugated, tin drainage ditch cut in half, turned upside down, and having doors and windows.

We kids used to walk out across those salt flats and usually we would find old, tarnished, salt‑coated ammunition shells, and links, which had been discarded during the Spanish‑American War of 1898. (That's the one we got in when the battleship Maine was sunk in Havana harbor.) Some­times the shells were embedded in the flats to form names or dates.

We were crossing to the mangrove swamp because there was an old, sunken, rusted‑out ship in there that we used to fish from, and just about the only thing we ever caught were gars, barracuda, or blowfish. Now those blowfish were funny fish. They had two very big top teeth in front that you had to be careful of, when removing the hook. When you pulled them from the water, they would suck in air and blow up their bodies, I assume, to scare away predators (us). They weren't good for eating or anyth­ing else that I've ever heard of, and the skin was tough like leather. We just caught them to see them blow up.

No matter where I was, as a military dependant, my folks had impressed upon me that my actions would always affect my dad. If I did someth­ing bad and got caught at it, my dad was likely to get called on the carpet for it. That thought was always uppermost in my mind. My father's wrath was to be avoided at all cost. He wasn't a violent man and seldom hit us kids. When he did, it was usually just one whack in the back of the head, and a stern warning not to do again, whatever it was we had done wrong.

I can remember one such incident that happened when we were in
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It was during the summer months, and I had been going to the wharfs on the base to watch from dockside while the sailors worked on the ships. There were several native banana boats tied up along the wharfs, trying to sell fruits, vegetables, and fish to the sailor­s. Most of the crews only spoke pigeon English.

After seeing me for several times in the area, one boatman became friendly with me and taught me how to peel pineapple for display and to "make a pitch" to passing sailors. He found that with me acting as inter­preter, his sales increased. Thereafter, he encouraged me to work for him, enticing nearby sailors over to his boat so that he could make a sale. It was a nice symbiosis we formed, me learning the sales trade and getting an occasional treat to take home to mom, and him learning a bit more English, plus increasing his sales.

One Saturday, when I decided to stay home and read comic books instead of going to the wharfs, we heard on the radio that there had been a big explosion near the piers. Come to find out, one of the ships had been leaking fuel into the water and someone on a banana boat had thrown a cigarette over the side. The resulting explosion had killed the boat crew and caused some damage dockside. Of course I didn't know that at the time, but when my dad found out about it, he told me not to hang around the piers anymore. I disobeyed him the following day, and went down there. It hadn't been the boat I'd been working on, but all the talk that day, was about the accident. I was seen on the piers, and word got back to my father. That evening, one of the afore‑mentioned slaps was administered, and a stern warning not to disobey him again was given. I'd lost my job at the banana boat!

We had a maid and gardener while in Cuba, but nobody should get the idea that we were putting on airs, because nothing could be farther from the truth. Under agreement of the lease between the U.S. Navy and the Cuban government, local nationals had to be hired for that type of work. So, yes indeed, we took advantage of it, because the wages were inexpensive, but good pay for the nationals.

The first maid who worked for us was old and had a permanent running sore on her elbow. Though she spoke English well, her cooking was abysmally poor, and my mother didn't get along well with her, so she was fired. The second maid was a large‑boned, young girl of sixteen, who spoke little English, but could cook and work like a horse. She was very pleasant‑natured and always tried to keep learn­ing things from my parents and us kids. When we left in 1952, Virgin (that was her name) wanted to come with us. She was from Oriente Province across the bay and came from a large but poor family.

All the domestic help came to the base by boat from Oriente Province early in the morning. They signed into a work pool office and report­ed to their place of work or to the family they worked for. They would work all day and depart in the evening. A special permit would have to be authorized for them to work on weekends because they usually worked weekdays only. They were happy to get the work.

About this time of life, I entered puberty. I knew it, because I had a wet dream one night, and didn't know what strange things were happening to my body. No one had ever told me about that happening. I was scared, but when I asked my mom, she assured me, everything was normal. My mom was great that way. I could usually talk to her about anything. Of course, it was almost a necessity, because my dad was not around for a good many years.

Our school May Day festivities of 1951, profoundly affected our banana tree. The banana tree grew outside my bedroom window and was too young to have bananas (about a six‑inch diameter at base), but offered good shade.

The school was about four miles from my house, and we had to walk down the street and around the corner about a hundred yards to an open‑air covered bus stop and wait for transportation. Now today, I know you are thinking school bus when I say that, right? Not so! We were transported in converted cattle‑car trucks, with open mesh screen on the sides, and an aroma that led you to believe that it was recent­ly used for the original purpose it was built. The school was up on a hill overlooking the bay and you could see the airport and the open‑a­ir theater with its many bleacher seats off in the distance.

I was in the school band and played the tenor saxophone; my brother played the trombone. For May Day the band would play for the visiting parents, and the kids were to put on various skits, play games, and of course, dance around the obligatory May Pole.

Naturally, we had to have costumes. My mother had made my brother and me some bright shiny pantaloons of green and red material, with white blouses, and matching bow ties and sashes. This was her idea of keeping a swashbuckling appearance she wanted to achieve. To cap it off, my brother made some swords for him and me, which we were to buckle on to the sash.

You have to practice for a May Day celebration, so my brother and I decided to practice early. We got a little carried away with the swords, though, and I'm afraid the banana tree, which was used to dodge behind from time to time, suffered more punctures and slashes than was good for it, and subsequently, the tree expired. God ought to have known to make those trees more durable, don't you think? Our parents weren't too happy about that little caper, but we made it up to them by making them proud of us during the festivities.

When we'd left the states for Cuba in 1950, television was just beginning to come into it's heyday. We didn't have one until a year after we returned to the United States in 1952. I think the biggest change I noticed was that there were now machines that sold candy, cold soda, and cigarettes. All you had to do was drop the appropriate coin in a slot and pull a handle or push a button. These things may have been around before we left in 1950, but I sure didn't notice them. They were fascinating to me!

My parents couldn't afford to buy both my brother and me our musical instruments when we returned to the States, so since my brother was the older, he got a trombone (which he took with him upon entering the Navy years later, and which he later hocked in a pawn shop to get money to buy dentures for his new girl friend, who then left him for another . . .but that's another story), and I got a promise that my saxophone would be forthcoming at a later date. It never did, because my teeth grew in wrong and would not have permitted me to continue playing that instrument. I took to learning to sing in the shower, much to the amusement of my mother, but I got good enough to sing in the glee club at Central Falls High School.

I remember the scout shack down by the water, and a long pier that led out over the water, with many small boats tied up. We'd usually arrive early on scout night and I'd walk out on the pier to see if I could spot any barracuda. Being inducted as a tenderfoot was a singular event in my life.

Not too long after the induction ceremony, we had to put up some static displays on the tarmac near the outdoor theater. There were signal towers, bridges, knot tying stations, life saving skills, etc. All these points were manned by the scouts. Visitors toured through­out the area, asking questions and generally getting a feel of what scouting was like for us. One of my biggest embarrassments was being asked to man one of the signal towers while this kid went to take a leak. I told him I didn't have a badge for semaphore yet, but he said to wave the flags like I was sending a signal. Any fool could plainly see that I didn't know what I was doing up there, and one adult stopped to ask me some questions. I had to admit my inadequacy! What a blow to a young man's pride that was!

In 1951, the navy took our whole troop aboard three of their ships to visit Jamaica for two weeks during a Boy Scout Jamboree. We anchored in the bay because they had no facilities to handle large ships port side. The plan was to transport us Scouts ashore by longboat. We were close enough in, though, that we could see the activity along the shoreline quite plainly. That isn't what held our attention, however.

The water of Montego Bay then, was crystal clear, and though there must have been four fathoms (twenty‑four feet) of freeboard beneath our keel, one could clearly see the bottom. Even before we dropped anchor, the small boats and dugouts put out from shore to rendezvous with us. When they reached us, some of the larger boats had craftsmen and merchants aboard who proceeded along the hull, and attempted to hawk their wares to the sailors and passengers lining the rails.

What caught most eyes, were the smaller craft that began circling us. The occupants, who were mostly young men without a stitch of clothes, and black as polished ebony, began calling for coins to be thrown to them. When coins were tossed in the water near them, several would dive in after the coin, and the water was so clear, you could follow their progress until they had retrieved it. They usually caught it before it hit bottom. They would stick it in their mouth and surface amid the cheers of the onlookers. What marvelous swimming abilities they had! Those activities occupied us for a couple hours, and then we were notified to get ready to go ashore, so we packed and boarded the longboats.

Ashore, we divided into more manageable‑sized groups for the scout master and chaperons to handle, agreed on a time and place to meet for the afternoon meal (The Pirates' Den Restaurant and Bar, of which I'll tell more shortly), and proceeded to disperse to all points of the compass to do some souvenir‑hunting. Once we were in smaller groups, we became targets for the pickpockets, and some did lose valuables, but we had been warned and most of us came through un­scathed.
This was my first lesson in how to haggle price over an article one wished to purchase. Overseas, one never pays the price the merchant is asking, but one must bargain for a lower price or the merchant will not have much respect for you. It is the norm, even among locals. The merchant seldom loses out anyway, because he generally starts his price range at a ridiculously high level, and by the time a price is agreed upon, he still gets a profit and you are satisfied that you got a bargain. It is a shrewd form of business and one that most Americans are not comfort­able with (a fact not lost on the local merchants).

I got what I thought was a bargain and still have some of the articles to this day. A baby stuffed alligator (which has since lost part of its' tail and a leg) now graces a spot under the fireplace logs in my phony fireplace. It scares the cats when they spot it. Some hand‑carved coaster sets, with Jamaican coins embedded in them, are seldom used because they warp if they get wet. They make good decorations (make that dust‑­catchers, if you're my wife) on festive occasions. I have some carved bamboo vases and coconut shells and several large conch shells.

After shopping, we all gathered at the Pirates' Den for lunch. The motif was lavishly tropical in nature, with miniature waterfalls, palm trees, and other shrubbery. They even had several large and colorful parrots sitting on perches throughout the restaurant. Occasionally these birds would let out a raucous cacophony of sound or say something deliciously naughty. The main draw of the place, though, was the super‑l­arge treasure chest on the stage, which opened up to reveal a small combo inside that proceeded to play Latin rhythm throughout the meal.

We toured the Island and met other Scouts from all over the world. We played a softball game against some Jamaican girls who were supposed to be the same age as we were, but they were head and
should­ers taller than most of us Scouts. They won the ball game, but we had a great time anyway. I still have pictures of that event lying around in my scrapbook someplace.