Childhood Villains

I have read and listened with interest to news stories of Fidel Castro's decision to step down as leader of Cuba. He was a very present figure in my childhood. I know he was behind those drills when we had to dive under our desks.

My grandfather was a newspaper man and we had to be quiet when "Meet the Press" came on TV. He had a keen sense of politics that I did not appreciate at the time. Grandad had been in both WWI and WWII. He was quite concerned about the possibilities of WWIII. My grandmother was also well-versed in current events. My most vivid memory of how world events affected my 6-year-old self involves my grandmother.

I was fascinated at the idea of having more than one phone in the house. I would occasionally listen in on a conversation using the extension in my grandparents' bedroom. One afternoon I forgot to hang up the phone. When the reminder tone came over phone line, my grandmother thought it was the air raid siren. I don't remember how long it took her to find the source of the alarm. I do remember her anger with me and not being able to sit comfortably for a while! All Castro's fault, really!

The other political villain of my childhood was Nikita Khrushchev. He and Castro seemed always together in the news broadcasts. It's Khruschev's face that I remember from a childhood dream. I was spending the weekend at Näna's house. (She was the grandmother with the drawer full of Betsy McCall paper dolls.) In my dream, a bald man was knocking on the window above the paper doll drawer. I recognized him from the nightly news broadcast - Khruschev himself was pounding on our window.

Khruschev and the U.S.S.R. are long gone. Fidel, though, has endured. What will happen next in Cuba? I'm grateful for the example set by my grandparents of staying informed of world events.