American Airlines subsidiary, American Eagle, was the airline that took us from Miami to Havana, Cuba.  It was a good plane.  An older propeller driven plane, fifty-person capacity, but no chickens in the aisles, no cargo on the wings.  It was an American Eagle…but perhaps with a bit of an upper respiratory infection and a case of the shakes (from the Cuban rum?).Most of the trip, we flew above a constant pillow of white puffy clouds, as we approached Cuba, the deep blue of the sea broke forth and spread out around us textured like fine linen paper, with just the hint of the ripples in the vast blue.  As we approached Cuba, we could clearly make out Havana Harbor and we veered west and around the city.  The country side was surprisingly just as expected - like a picture postcard from a time gone by - groves of short trees, occasional groves of palms, small farms with their fields tucked next to the houses, wide plains with small shrubs and trees interspersed.  The small fields that exposed the earth to the moist tropic air shone red in the morning sun.  Small roads weaved through the chaparral and converged in either villages with a church spire in the middle or a large apartment complex (the joy of socialism).  As we approached the airport, larger fields of sugar cane and citrus groves could be seen as well as large confinement hog and poultry operations. 

The plane landed and we walked onto the tarmac and towards Jose Marti terminal.  Inside the terminal, we were met with a large mural that said viva la revolution! 

Cuban customs was good, thorough, friendly and fast.  Before we knew it, we were at the table to change our money (US dollars are illegal to use in Cuba…but they have a 1 for 1 fixed exchange rate to the dollar).

We hopped a cab and headed to the Hotel Nacional de Cuba - the signature hotel for Havana, and the entire country of Cuba.

To fly to Cuba, one of the requirements is to be at the airport three hours before departure.  At 4:30 am, the taxi picked me up from the hotel and deposited me at Miami International Airport.  Row after row of American Airlines desks were in front of me, after searching, I came to the one, and only one marked, for travel to Cuba only.I will admit, the flight makes me nervous.  I’ve heard some horror stories about the planes.  Small, cramped, charter jets - cargo on some seats.  Less then twenty seats all together.  Someone even jokingly said to make sure you don’t sit next to the seat with the chickens, ala a bad 1980’s movie about Central America.  And the best one was they tie your luggage on the wings.

As I found the check in area for flights to Cuba, I noticed a man wrapping suitcases in blue shrink wrap - I had never seen that before.

The check in process went very smooth (although not knowing Spanish was a bit of an issue for me - darn Gringo that I am).  The people from American were top notch.  Security was thorough, but good.  Only one political comment was made from a check in official, “with any luck, this process will come to an end soon.”

As I was walking towards the gate, I asked the guy shrink wrapping luggage what it was for, he said, “to protect it from the weather.”

Huh, I thought, I suppose the weather in the Carribean was a hot, wet climate, subject to showers and rain.

But where would the luggage be sitting that it could get wet?  On the tarmac, waiting to get on the plane, waiting after it was taken off the plane…ON THE WINGS IN FLIGHT!

I am nervous about the flight as I sit by the gate…but at least I can have a good chicken dinner in flight, as long as I’m willing to clean my own….

“Remember, we need to get up early tomorrow morning, you boys will have to finish up the milking and chores before school.  I need to be at the town hall by 7:00 am.”  Dad would remind us.How could we forget.  Every year, the first Monday in November we would get the reminder - tomorrow was election day and that meant Dad was going to be gone.

I don’t remember an election day that my Dad didn’t serve as judge.  Regardless what else was going on the world or in our lives.  Harvest, snow storms, sick cows, sick kids, you name, you could still find Dad down at the little old school house that served as the polling place.  Turning up the heat and sweeping it out the day before, making sure things were in order for the election the next day.

Mom would have a big thermos of coffee, some koblaha (a Czech sweet bread, filled with poppy seed and fried) and various other cookies ready for Dad to take with him.

Dad has never been very politically minded, he never ran for office (unless you count almost forty years on the township board an elected position…technically, it is, but no else really wants the job either…), but he has always been a big fan and a big supporter of good government.  A government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

He would put in his eight hour shift as an election judge, and stick around to fill in for people that had to leave early, had to dash out for an errand, or else he would be there to visit with the friends and neighbors.  He would get caught up on the local gossip.  He would get updates on the neighbors that rarely came out - the sick and the shut-ins.  Asking about parents, and grandparents, or kids and grandkids that had moved out of the area.

At the end of the day came the counting.  This was old fashioned, hand counted, democratic government at its best.  Tallying up the marks next to the names (and the ever hated write in candidates - “If you kids ever write in Mickey Mouse for President….” Dad would lament).

When everything was counted, Dad would seal up the results, the other judges would disperse, Dad would turn down the heat and lock up the town hall and bring the results into the county courthouse, sign his name saying that the results were valid and legal, and wait around as the rest of the results trickled in.  He would see which townships were pulling for which candidates on the local, state, and national level.

About ten o’clock at night, he would come home to give us the update.  “Well, it looks like the sheriff won re-election tonight, and the judge is safe.  Peterson lost Marsh Creek, which was pretty surprising, but looks like he won the rest of the county, so he should be going back to DC.  The county commissioner race was still too close to call, might all come down to Rosedale.  They don’t have their results in yet.  Don’t know what takes those guys so darn long.”

When we think of government, we think about the pork barrels, the cronyism, the fraud, the largess of our federal system, but we should think about the thousands of men and women manning the polls and making sure that the system works, that our votes are counted, that we get the government that we chose.

I’d like to call and thank my Dad on election day, but I know it would be futile…he will be manning the polling booths, and making sure that this government, of the people, by the people, and for the people continues to go on without a hitch.

Flight was long, but uneventful from Minneapolis/St. Paul International to Miami, Florida.  Landed to 84F and a thundershower moving in off the coast.  The sky was clear blue - except for the growing thunderhead in the distance.What in the world was I doing going to Cuba?

Part of my job is exporting vegetable oil out of the United States.  While the United States government and the Cuban government hate either other, we both love to do business, and if that means doing business with each other, we will both do so.  Cuba needs commodities and the United States, only ninety miles away, has them in abundance.

Part of doing business with Cuba is through the government buying agency and their annual trade show in November.  It is to this event that I am heading, to meet with the people…and the buyers for the Cuban government as one of many representatives of my company.

But part of me was also asking what in the world was I doing going to Cuba?

In many ways, I am still the simple farm boy from Northwestern Minnesota.  It wasn’t that long ago that I was going to school, milking cows, and reading stories of the rum runners during the US Revolution, Teddy Roosevelt riding up San Juan Hill, the fall of the Batista regime, the rise of Castro, his move towards communism, the failed attempt for US backed “liberation” at the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban missile crisis that brought the world to the brink, the boat loads of people that fled the island…and continue to flee the island in search of a better life.

I had read about the repressiveness of the Cuban government, but the openness of the people.  The palm trees, the poverty, the wealth, the food, the life that is Cuba - it all seemed so foreign as we worked the land on the northern plains.  While I dreamed of this far off place, I scarcely dreamed that I would one day get the chance to go there.  Now, with visa in hand, letters and documents in triplicate, and passport tucked in my coat pocket, I was thirteen hours away from departure.