(Ernest Hemingway called la Floridita’s daquiri the best in the world. The legendary Havana bar uses: 2.5 jiggers of rum, six drops of maraschino liqueur, juice from half of a grapefruit and two Mexican limes).

Nope- you think I am going to rail or fulminate about the First Family’s Palm Sunday arrival in Cuba? Or the snub from that arrogant despot Raul Castro, who apparently was appearing on The Real Housewives of Havana and had a conflict about meeting Air Force One?

No, I am not going to do it. I have my doubts about the policies being put in place regarding the Castro Brothers Personal Paradise, but I like the Cuban people and want only the best for them. Cuba Libre! I have no particular idea why we are becoming the benefactors of the single-party island state, just when their current benefactor state Venezuela is on the ropes, and the failure of the Chavez regime’s vision for how social systems should work is made as manifest as the fate of the original sugar daddy, the late and unlamented USSR.

(The former residence of the U.S. Ambassador to Cuba, where the President and his family are staying while in Havana. Nice digs.)

I certainly don’t begrudge the Obama family traveling to the island. Far from it- I have wanted to go to Havana for years. When I was working on the Hill, I was tasked with organizing a Staff Delegation- a STAFFDEL- to visit and check out the American Interests section, and it would have been completely legal and above board. Not like that wink to the customs officer after a quick trip to Mexico to have him not stamp your U.S. passport and have problems later.

(My GTMO ball-cap. The symbol is the iguana, a curiosity since it is extinct in Cuba, as it was used as a supplemental food source. They still flourish behind the minefields on the Naval Reservation).

I don’t consider Guantanamo- GTMO- to be anything but what it is. An American naval base, the “Crossroads of the Caribbean.” It is kind of cool looking at the guard towers and the fence and the realization that there are a gazzlion land-mines to keep the Cubans out, or the Americans in, I forget which.

It is a nice place, if you take out the cloying symbolism. And I wasn’t there to check the status of the detainees- they were still building the prison at that point, and the topic of the series of visits was about where we could place the Cubans and Haitians who were so desperate to leave their respective islands.

It was an interesting time, all around, before the world changed so dramatically.

Anyway, I have mentioned that I have been haphazardly writing a book about the Hemingway legacy (the one involving mojitos and daiquiris).

When I get there, I want to do a pub crawl that involves La Bodeguita Del Medio and the Floridita in the old city. You can summon the ghosts of Cuban poet Nicolas Guillen, and entertainment icons Brigitte Bardot, Errol Flynn and Nat King Cole. Havana under the dictator was ultra hip.

At the Del Medio, a hand-signed note by Ernie reads: “My mojito in La Bodeguita. My daiquiri in La Floridita.” I have heard both are overpriced, and always jammed with tourists. I don’t care. I don’t anticipate hanging out a lot in Cuba, though I am open to suggestion.

I am open to the concept of cheap rum and Cokes, too, diet Coke if the regime permits. That way I could have a good head of steam going for the nine-mile trip to Hemingway’s home, the Finca la Vigia. (“Lookout House.”)

Despite the high regard the Castro’s had for Ernie, the place deteriorated badly in the years after Mary Hemingway “gave” it to the Government. The Castros recognized they had a potential gold mine on their hands, and the place was closed for renovations for years, and still has irregular hours due to construction.

(Faux Pilar, in the Florida Keys).

But I want to go, and I want to see Pilar, the proud Hemingway fishing boat. I have seen her sister in the Bass Pro Shop on Islamorada in the Keys, and this is what Pilar might look like someday, with tourists crawling all over it. At the moment, it is being treated with reverence. As is the home itself, with the tower-like structure with a fine view of Havana, that contains the writing den built by Mary, and which he never used; Ernie’s empty swimming pool and the graves of four of the cats he loved.

I don’t know how many toes they have- the ones at his house in Key West have six.

And when I go, I don’t see an airplane in the mix, traveling to Havana, and certainly not Air Force One. I am thinking a slightly disreputable ferry from Key West. It really is the only way I would go. But one way or another, I will.

I owe it to Mom, and her passion for documenting Ernie’s time in the little Michigan Village by the Bay, and to Ernie’s nephew, who came to her memorial service. And the mojitos and the daiquiris, of course.

Copyright 2016 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com