An opportunity for U.S., Cuba to get reacquainted

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With the end of the Castro era in sight, the day will come when Cuba and the United States get reacquainted, although this time without the gangsters and dictators.However, we have a ways to go.Most Americans -- with the exception of Cuban-Americans and tiny bands camped on the far reaches of the political spectrum -- don't think about Cuba at all. If they know anything at all about the island, it's probably from watching "The Godfather: Part II" or what little they remember from reading "The Old Man and the Sea" in high school.Che Guevara T-shirts and posters are still sold but in vintage-clothing shops and places specializing in '60s memorabilia. The young people who buy them probably think he was something like Bob Marley.We do know that Cuba is an island and a pretty close one because the phrase "only 90 miles from the Florida mainland" is inserted automatically into any news account about Cuba. We'd still have a hard time placing it on a blank map.If we think long and hard, we'll remember that Guantanamo Bay, now more of a legal and philosophical abstraction than an actual place, is actually in Cuba. Somewhere.Cubans, on the other hand, if they don't necessarily think about the United States all the time, hear about it constantly -- or at least they did until Fidel Castro checked himself into the retirement home. Fidel blamed us for everything that went wrong in Cuba -- and under his rule that was a lot -- and most of what went wrong in the world. If we were only half as clever and nefarious as Fidel says we are.Around 1960, as Fidel imposed his dictatorship, Cuba went into the deep freeze. Travel beyond the island was largely banned, and also most communication with the outside world. The state-controlled media jammed our attempts to broadcast to the island. So what they know about the United States is pretty much what they knew in 1960.Let us picture a Cuban pondering his first trip to the United States:"I think I'll take plenty of cigars, Cohibas, maybe. I'll pass them out in restaurants so we can light up over coffee after dinner. It will be a way of meeting people."Then I'll head to a car dealership and check out the new Studebakers and maybe go look at the DeSotos. It's too bad they don't make Packards any more. I really like mine."And if the Kingston Trio is in town, I'll go hear them."I hope I won't have trouble making myself understood. The one thing that worries me is that there are probably so few people in America who speak Spanish."Getting reacquainted should be interesting -- fun, too.(Contact Dale McFeatters at McFeattersD(at)SHNS.com. Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.shns.com)