Hey, Fidel, That Was Some Kind of Fun!

Dear Fidel:

Thank you so much for sending your athletes to the Pan Am Games.

They did a splendid job representing Pan.

How did they enjoy Indianapolis? Havana without the glitz, right?

We all enjoyed watching your wonderful athletes, particularly the boxers, who knocked them into the aisles.

Come to think of it, they knocked them in the aisles.

When some anti-Cuban demonstrators hassled you during the boxing competition, your guys really took things into their own hands, didn’t they?

They didn’t wait for security cops to beat those guys up. They beat them up personally. Professionally.

The judges scored it 8-4 and 7-4-1 for your fighter against the dude in the “Mom and Dad Went to Cuba and All They Got Me Was This Lousy T-Shirt” shirt.

That should teach dissidents not to protest against a boxing team.

I’ll bet in your country, if anybody pickets against nuclear warfare, you just send them to the Soviet Union and have them nuked.

You Cubans don’t mess around, boy. That baseball team of yours, for instance. Tough. You took the Pan Am gold medal and, given a chance, you’d win the American League West, wouldn’t you? Beat the Twins with your eyes closed.

Come on, Fidel, let’s see what some of your guys can do in the majors. Boat eight or nine of them over here, will you?

If that little village in the Dominican Republic--what’s its name? San Pedro de Guerrero, or whatever it’s called--can turn out so many good players, Havana could stock Tampa’s entire expansion franchise.

We know for a fact that your country has hundreds and hundreds of outstanding athletes, Fidel, although I gotta be honest with you about one thing. In the Winter Olympics, man, you stink.

Now that you have permitted your athletes to visit the United States with a minimum of damage, what say we keep the airport doors open and become friends again, like we used to be when you were just a baby in green khaki diapers?

Look, Fidel, my friends are tired of Club Med trips to Barbados and Bermuda and the Bahamas. We’ve done that scene. We’ve done the West Indies so often, we’re thinking of visiting the North Indies and South Indies. And we do not want to vacation in Grenada. We’re embarrassed to visit any country we’ve licked in a war.

But Cuba, ah, our parents and grandparents used to go there for their honeymoons and holidays. Drink those rum drinks. Smoke those stogies. Dance to those congas. Now, the best we can do is hang around with Barry Manilow at the Copacabana, the warmest place north of Havana. Ricky Ricardo used to tell Lucy all those great stories of growing up in Cuba. But if they made “I Love Lucy” today, Ricky would have to be some guy from Jamaica.

Come on, Fidel. You’re only 90 miles from Florida. Your people could be partying on Miami Beach next weekend in their fatigues. Donna Rice could speedboat over to your place and be there in two hours to sit in your lap. Throw a beach party. Dance all night. Improve relations between our countries.

We think the Pan Am Games can be the start of something big. The dawn of a new day in international friendship.

After all, it ain’t like Nikita’s still running the Soviet Union. Gorby and that good-looking wife of his have done a lot to bridge the gap between the United States and the Soviet Union. We kept their ballet dancers and sent them Billy Joel and a keyboard player to be named later.

Next thing you know, they’ll have an Olympics and we’ll come, and we’ll have an Olympics and they’ll come. We’ll invite the Soviets to the next Pan Am Games and make them honorary Pan Americans.

The Pan American Games were a good experience for everybody. Even the Nicaraguans came. Ollie North particularly enjoyed their baseball game against the Americans. They got shredded. Now that they have visited Indianapolis, hard telling how they’re going to keep them down in Managua? At this very moment, rival forces in Nicaragua are probably throwing down their guns, throwing their arms around one another and planning to move to Indiana in time for the state high school basketball tournament.

You could move, too, Fidel. Exchange those tacky khaki clothes of yours for a nice red V-neck sweater and some checkered slacks? Move to Bloomington, or Evansville, or Terre Haute? Sell your sugar plantation, buy a farm in Valparaiso, take it easy the rest of your life, maybe sit out on the front porch with your neighbors, Mr. Bartles and Mr. Jaymes? Admit it, Fidel. Sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? Come on, sing along now. The farmer is Fidel. The farmer is Fidel. Hi, ho, the derry-o, the farmer is Fidel.

And next time, we can have the Pan Ams at your place. Host the basketball and volleyball at Guevara Square Garden. Run the boxing and track competition at the Castrodome. Hold the swimming and diving at the Bay of Pigs natatorium. It’ll be great.

Nice to have Cuba and America playing together again. From now on, no longer consider yourself our enemy. Consider yourself South Florida.