Illiterations: Laughing At My Own Expense

Thank you, National Geographic of my childhood, for my crystal-clear memories of engaging, intriguing, "differentness" delivered to me as a young girl in the mid-1960's.  Delivered, I note, by way of the rich beauty and stark reality contained in the photo-essays of your journalists of that era as they scouted out the vast wonders around the globe. Thank you, for planting in my little-girl recollection the story of Cuba in the 1960's.  Cuba, when all of its pain and its Socialist ideals were new.  When neither the US, nor Cuba, had any idea that the rift between us would span five decades.  Five decades, and counting. In those times, the magazines showed gritty black and white photos of old men sitting on the front terraces of small stone houses, wearing broad-brimmed hats and clenching fat cigars between their teeth.  Little girls peered from back seats of passing Chevy Bel Aires.  Dogs lounged in dirt roads. I reflect on my having been intrigued by these store