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As your humble correspondent
attests elsewhere, Poco Cabesa has a rich and varied
history typified by bursts of frenetic energy that free-fall
into total languor. It is hot, it is dusty, and it is
hard to believe anyone would want to live here (except
in tropical Medillo
Grande).
But around the time
that JFK and Nikita were nose-to-nose over that little
slice of heaven known as Cuba, an earth-shattering event
occurred... Something changed.
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"Who?
Me?"
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Victim
of tight shoes.
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"Tell
her I've got a country to run and take a message."
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| Comrade
Joe the First (whose given name
is Joseph Obologo Feinman Forneaux) is the progeny of
a barmaid originally from French Guiana by way of Savannah,
Georgia, and a marine supplies salesman from Natchez named
Virgil. |
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Virgil
was basically a happy fellow, but hard times made
him hard.
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Abandoned guano-packing factory.
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Desperate Virgil passed
through Poco Cabesa during the Great Depression, looked
around, and stayed just long enough to expand its gene
pool and leave behind a few brochures.
Despite the island's
isolation, things like this did happen occasionally.
Two years later Virgil
fell asleep at the wheel of a "borrowed" Chevrolet
outside Clearwater, Florida, and drove into a canal and
drowned -- proving that the Big Amigo does sometimes
work in mysterious ways.
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important about all this is the fact that Virgil and DeeDee's
son, Joe, grew up and did... well, something. Albeit
a bit involuntarily. |
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Like his peers, Joe
Forneaux came of age during the waning hours of the post-guano
aristocracy -- referred to by the island's only historian
as "The Days of Torpor" -- and spent his days and nights
sleeping, singing, drinking, and borrowing against next
month's Trust check.
(In 1939, Hyman's beneficence
had been expanded by the trustees of the Poco Cabesa Limited
trust to include more Poco Cabesans after a three day
temperance strike by the island's very own mahatma, Sing
Ree Smith.)
It was Joe's mighty
thirst and lustrous baritone tremolo that earned him the
nickname, El Negro Dino - the black Dean Martin
-- and his sparkling gray eyes caused many a young female
to swoon.
Although Joe and his
mates were inspired by the socialist revolutionary tides
sweeping the world in the 1950's, in so far as taking
action went, it was really just a topic of conversation
to while away the hours between Trust checks.
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Rum
deliveryman, circa 1952
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Joe's
idol.
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Someone
stole Che's bicycle when he visited Poco Cabesa
as a boy.
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The
Caribbean ladies just loved young Joe.
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Nikita
sends his love.
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Ex-Prime
Minister in exile in New Ulm, Minnesota.
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Joe's life changed
forever one stormy night when he interrupted his extemporaneous
one-man street staging of "Oklahoma" to break into the
home of the island's Prime Minister looking for something
to eat or anything not nailed down.
The terrified, chinless
P.M. saw the size of Joe's walking stick, misunderstood
Joe's intentions, and surrendered the government to his
dazed intruder. Drunk but not stupid, Joe immediately
accepted the charge.
When Joe sobered enough
to respond to electro-chemical stimulation of his gray-matter
he started thinking. Then he started doing.
First thing, Joe's
entire family went on the public payroll. At this, most
of the island's elite migrated to Boca Raton or St. Paul,
Minnesota. Fortunately for Joe, the Cuban Missile Crisis
had the world ducking and covering like the gallery at
a Gerald R. Ford Pro-Am golf tournament.
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collective sigh of relief when Nikita decided one less U.S.
missile in Turkey was worth two of his in Havana meant that
Poco Cabesa's political sea-change went largely unnoticed.
Not that anyone was paying attention. |
The
universal brotherhood of man is our most precious possession,
what there is of it.
-- Mr. Twain |
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