Author Desi Sanchez, a native of Cuba, was twenty-two years old when the Bay of Pigs incident took place there in 1961. He had made the decision to side against Fidel Castro long before the confrontation and served as a merchant marine in the SS Houston during the invasion. In 2010 Desi Sanchez received an honorary crew member certificate of the DDE-510 Eaton. Havana was Desi Sanchez's home. He was born there, grew up there, went to school there, and fell in love there. Eventually, however, as Castro's regime began to take hold and everything began to change, he learned that home isn't where your life happened; it's where your heart is. Sometimes you just have to find a new home. Originally writing his memoir in order to bridge the gap between generations within his own family, Sanchez has since come to realize the importance of preserving history from the perspectives of the participants for all to see. Now he shares his life story. A Funny Thing Happened on My Way to Freedom By Desi Sanchez iUniverse, Inc. Copyright © 2012 Desi Sanchez All right reserved. ISBN: 978-1-4759-5520-0 Contents Prologue............................................................xi1 Crushes and Crashes...............................................12 Rock 'n' Roll, Bullets, Graduation, and Girls.....................193 Who Took My Prostitutes Away?.....................................334 Deceit, Breakup, and a New Year's Nightmare.......................395 Women and Children Only...........................................456 A New Sheriff in Town.............................................497 Looking for a Way Out.............................................598 My Merchant Marine Card and Something Extra.......................679 Bye-Bye, Havana...................................................8110 A Great Time in New Orleans?.....................................8911 Choosing between Life and Death..................................9512 Right behind My Back.............................................9913 Sailing for Nicaragua............................................10314 Midnight Fireworks, No Fiesta....................................10915 Sitting Ducks....................................................11516 A Shower and a Change of Clothes.................................12317 We Have to Get out of Here.......................................12718 Getting Weaker...................................................13519 Among the Dead and the Doomed....................................14120 Ours or Theirs?..................................................15121 Hello, Miami; Good-Bye Alice.....................................16322 Connecticut or Bust..............................................171Epilogue............................................................183Notes...............................................................191 Chapter One Crushes and Crashes Mother's Day, May 12 1951, a beautiful Sunday morning, was still the dry season in Cuba; the early morning carried a nice, soft , cool breeze. The sky, which could be seen among a variety of architectural designs in buildings from different eras—from Spanish Colonial to Art Deco was blue with some puffy clouds here and there. After wishing my mother a happy Mother's Day and having breakfast with the family, I went out to our balcony. You could still smell the acridness of asphalt that had recently paved our street; by then, the city was in the process of completing the removal of the old 1920s vintage streetcar rails and converting to an all-bus mass transit system. There was little traffic that morning; the narrow street was wide enough to fit a car and half, so the city had prohibited parking on that street due to it being a bus route. The same bunch of guys who always gathered at the corner grocery-bar diagonally across from my building—a typical pastime in Havana—were already there. I could see their hands moving with the rhythm of their conversation. The jukebox at the Taberna de Pedro (Pedro's Tavern), a bar across from the grocery store had all doors open, ready for anybody to walk in. In old Havana, grocery stores, bar-groceries, and bars did not have any doors closed while they were open; they had no air-conditioning. (This same practice is in place at Sloppy Joe's in Key West.) Someone had already put a nickel in the jukebox and played a Glenn Miller tune, "String of Pearls," as if Havana wanted to wake up nice and easy. If my memory does not fail me, there was a Sloppy Joe's at the port of Havana. Sloppy Joe's bar and dining area was decorated with autographs of many famous Hollywood actors; Sloppy Joe's catered to the weekly visits from the cruise ships, mainly from Florida, as well as to sailors from the American Navy when they touched port. Sloppy Joe's was immediately closed by the Castro regime. "Mom, I'm going to church; I have a mass to help with this morning, but I'll be back in about an hour," I said to