Another Anniversary

This is the inner flap of my Cuban passport from 1961; the yellowed card stapled to the cover with my photo is the autorization to leave.

Today marks the 48th anniversary of my arrival in Miami in the company of my two sisters... My older sister Bea tells me that she had a presentiment as we were departing that it was to be forever... but I think none of us ever thought the Castro regime would last this long.

That there are still human beings on this planet who support Castro and believe he has done "some good things" for "his people" is beyond my ability to fathom. I understand it's the power of lies and propaganda; Castro has always had a close ally in Satan, the Father of Lies.

It seems to me that Evil is on the rise in the world at this moment, and in Latin America in particular, with the Castro-Chavez hard-left axis of evil sweeping across the continent. I worry about what is happening to our freedom here in America too. It's probably not uncommon for a person my age to have so many worries and feel pessimistic about the future, but these times seem darker to me than any I've ever seen before. May the Almighty protect us; Lord knows our leaders aren't!

Moonrise

Moonrise, oils on gessobord, 9" x 12"

The full moon was rising one breezy spring evening a couple of years ago, and I don't know what it was about the light or atmosphere that made the dissipating clouds glow with an amazing burnt-orange color, but it was so unusual, I took some photos.

I painted this small oil yesterday based on those photos. My palette is unusual because I mixed indigo with ultramarine for the sky. Indigo is not a pigment I use often, but it works here. The painting is selling for $100 as is. Shipping is additional and there is a $5.00 handling charge. If you are interested, please send me an E-mail.

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On a completely unrelated but personal note, today happens to be the 47th anniversary of the fateful day of my departure from Cuba and my arrival in Miami. It's hard for me to believe so much time has passed since my sisters and I, three very frightened young girls who had never spent so much as one night away from home, were put on a plane by our parents to escape the disaster overtaking our beloved island. We didn't know then that we were among the 14,000 Cuban children who would leave Cuba under what later became known as Operation Pedro Pan.

By 1961 Cuba was rapidly being transformed into Castro's gulag, but the signs were still unclear for many. Two weeks later, during the ill-fated Bay of Pigs Invasion, mass arrests would take place all over the island, with hundreds of thousands of innocent people detained in makeshift prisons.

Since then Castro's gulag has increased the eleven provincial prisons we had during Batista's time, to over 200 Dantesque prisons scattered throughout the island. The Castro regime has not managed to invest one dime in building or maintaining a civilian infrastructure, but they sure have perfected a system of total repression and control. About a hundred thousand people have perished in the Florida Straits trying to escape from the tropical gulag on rafts. Another two million of us live in exile, scattered all over the world. When will it all end? When will the Cuban people finally be free?