Josh Fitzhugh: The big question: When to tap our maples?

A "sugar shack,'' where maple sap is boiled off to make syrup.

Letter from Vermont 1

WEST BERLIN, Vt.

Snow is falling hard here in Central Vermont today, our first major snowfall of the year. Up until now we’ve had mostly freezing rain and slushy snow events and drivers have had to contend with icy rather than snowy roads.

The first couple of months of the year tend to be languid at most Vermont farms that aren’t dairies. The fall harvest is complete as is the Christmas sales season. Equipment has been put away. The days are short and the temperature generally cold. We get a succession of storms. Unless you log (taking down timber trees in anticipation of a log pickup before the roads turn muddy in spring), you spend the time thinking of the coming growing season; repairing structures or equipment; plowing and shoveling roads and roofs; catching up on sleep; and if you can, escaping to warmer climes for a week or two.

In recent years, sugarmakers (i.e., those who make maple syrup) have pondered another question that threatens some of this quietitude. When to tap?

Up until a generation ago, the question was pretty straightforward. You drilled (tapped) your maples just before the days began to climb into the 40’s after cold nights below freezing. That ranged from late February in Southern New England to early March in most of Vermont to late March in Northern New England, including Down East Maine.

The reason for this was that tap holes, once drilled in maple, would tend to dry out over time, and that would reduce the sap flow. In some cases, the dehydration would get so bad that sugarmakers would have to retap their trees, a big undertaking. In addition of course, delaying the tapping would lengthen the inactivity on the farm.

Now, however, the “tapping time” varies tremendously, for a couple of reasons. First, because most sugarmakers now use tubing rather than buckets to collect their sap,  tap holes don’t tend to dry out as much as when they were exposed directly to the open air.  Secondly, due to the size of some operations, tapping must begin in late November or December just to get all the taps in for the sugar season. (Even with tubing, trees must be retapped every year.)

Climate change also appears to be a factor. Sugarmakers find they can get a “run” of maple sap during the depths of winter when the temperature rises suddenly for a day or two, as it seems to be doing more frequently. If your main cash crop is maple syrup (as it still is for many farmers), you don’t like to miss the opportunity presented for additional production.

At our farm, we are traditionalists. Though we use tubing we don’t tap our trees late February. (Twenty years ago we waited until Town Meeting day, the first Tuesday in March.) It’s annoying when we get a nice spring day in January or February and we hear that some farmers are making syrup (or at least gathering sap) but we just don’t think it’s worth the hassle to gear up for a day here or a day there before the season starts in earnest in early March.

We figure that the trees need their quiet time, as do we.

Josh Fitzhugh, an occasional contributor, is a retired insurance executive, lawyer and journalist. His family operates Tether Loop Farm, in West Berlin. The farm sells maple syrup and hay.

Josh Fitzhugh: Let's pour some cooling reason, please, on the Trump immigration-order hysteria

 I have discovered over a lifetime of living that in a general discussion of a heated topic it is best to let the firebrands speak first and when the emotion has died down, try to raise some sensible facts in a calm voice. That frequently helps resolve the discussion.

 I think that we are at this same place in the uproar/hysteria/chaos over President Trump’s immigration orders of recent days.

 So let’s reiterate some facts.

One. President Trump won the election. He did not receive a majority of the votes cast but he did receive what I will call an “electoral majority,” i.e., a majority of the votes in enough states to become president under our Constitution.  (In my opinion some of the recent protests are less about his post-election policies and more about his victory at the polls.)

Two. It should not come as a surprise to anyone that Trump has moved to restrict immigration, at least temporarily. Controlling our borders was the centerpiece of his campaign. More particularly he said he wanted to tighten the “vetting process” for people entering the country legally from some countries, and to stop the influx of people into the country illegally. The vetting process is already quite rigorous, though made more difficult when refugees come from countries in chaos, like Syria.

Three. Legal immigration to this country (i.e., immigration with the permission of the United States) is at the highest level in 23 years. According to the Pew Research Center, we admitted 85,000 immigrants last fiscal year. Nearly half were Muslims. The Obama administration was on schedule to admit 110,000 people this fiscal year.

Four. Congress has given the president enormous discretion to determine who should be admitted to this country. In fact this is the very same discretion that  President Obama cited as authority for not deporting the children of immigrants who came here illegally.  The courts historically have been extremely reluctant to second-guess the president’s authority, although they have said that Congress could by law restrict it.

Five.  Although Trump in the campaign talked of banning Muslim immigrants, the executive order he signed does not do that. It temporarily restricts immigration from seven, mostly Muslim countries that were already on an Obama watch list, and permanently bans immigration from Syria, another mostly Muslim country.  Many mostly Muslim countries continue to send immigrants to America. To say, as the New York  Times has repeatedly said in editorials, that the order “bans Muslims” is a flagrant misrepresentation that only incites religious intolerance.

Six.  The Trump White House is still getting organized. Many officials have not been confirmed by the Congress and others have not been appointed. The executive order involving immigrants contained some mistakes (extending the ban to those with green cards, for example; not making exceptions for Iraqis who have materially assisted our troops is another) that reflect the inexperience of a new American administration. Time should cure this problem.

 Seven. Those seeking entrance into the United States have no constitutional rights. They are not American citizens nor residents of this country. While it may be “un-American” to bar a foreigner based on their belief in a religion that is not contrary to our Constitution, it is not in violation of that Constitution nor, I believe, a violation of any of our laws.

Eight. While the president’s actions have certainly sent a big “unwelcome” sign over our borders, and have probably disrupted the plans of thousands if not tens of thousands of people across the globe, relatively few people were directly detained or sent home by the order, under a few hundred, I believe. Courts are sorting out some individual cases, as they should.  Ironically, although Trump vowed to pursue “America First” in his inaugural, his family business is very international.

Nine. Many Americans believe that continuing the Obama immigration policies will increase terrorist attacks in our country. Some of our recent mass shootings were conducted by Muslim Americans who had been radicalized overseas. It is unclear whether restricting immigration will reduce the threat of domestic terrorism, and many diplomats overseas think that restricting immigration may in fact increase terrorism. A recent poll showed that 49 percent of Americans support Trump’s executive order.

Ten. The immigration situation across the globe is a mess, and is likely to get worse.  Fighting and political unrest in the Middle East and North Africa have put millions of people on the move to try and save their families. Europe is at the breaking point in its efforts to accommodate refugees. Climate change and population growth are likely to make this trend worse over the coming century. The world needs to find a better way to handle the rising tide of refugees by addressing the problem at its source.

Now I’m sure that others could cite other facts that might lead to other conclusions, but for me these facts lead to this: The president is entitled to some time to carry out the promises of his winning campaign; that a pause in immigration policy is supported by at least half of all Americans; that the effectiveness of the Trump policies in reducing the threat of domestic terrorism is hard to determine; that the courts will protect the interests of those wrongly affected by American policies; and that Congress may if it wishes restrict the discretion of the President in this area.

One final thought, which is opinion, not fact.  It is pretty clear to me that the world will not advance if countries pull back inside their borders. Young people in particular want an international world. At the same time, many Americans are nervous about this internationalism and the economic and social consequences that come with it, and their candidate won the White House. In the long run of American history this appears to be a time when the people want a reset of our foreign engagement before continuing the march toward a single, multicultural nation and world.

John (‘’Josh’’) H. Fitzhugh is a Vermont farmer, retired insurance executive, lawyer and former journalist. He served as chief counsel to two Vermont  governors – Richard Snelling, a Republican, and Howard Dean, a Democrat.

Politics in a well-mannered micropolitis

Shops in downtown Montpelier.

Adapted from Robert Whitcomb's Oct. 27 "Digital Diary,'' in GoLocal24.com

Politics in Rhode Island, where I live, can be pretty dispiriting because of excessive identity politics, some local corruption and a low level of intelligence, education and integrity and a  high level of provincialism among too many politicians. (That’s partly due to local journalists and demagogic radio talk show hosts discouraging good people from running for office and very low voter turnout in primary elections.)

So I drove to Vermont last week to see a little bit of Norman Rockwell-style politicking.

The drive to and from Montpelier was a trip up and down memory lane.  I headed west on Route 2 through northern Massachusetts’s by turns pretty and depressing villages and mill towns. The foliage was at its most colorful and the sky was azure. I took a slightly different route than usual, turning off Route 2 well before Greenfield and heading north through unexpectedly high and steep hills and deep countryside near Northfield before getting on Route 91, which runs north up the gorgeous Connecticut River Valley, through which I had driven so many times before.

The farther north I went, the less vivid the foliage; the North Country’s maximum color was about three weeks ago. But much of the landscape still glowed.

In Montpelier, I had dinner with two old friends, Josh Fitzhugh and his wife, Elizabeth. Josh is running as an anti-Trump Republican state Senate candidate for Washington County. We ate in an excellent restaurant called Sarducci’s in downtown Montpelier, which was crowded and cheery. Indeed, the city, although America’s smallest state capital, was surprisingly lively with lots of people on the sidewalks on a mild night.

After dinner we strolled to a small cable-TV studio, where Josh and some rivals had a “debate,’’ though it was really just a discussion, on such big local issues as preventing dirty water from entering Lake Champlain. Everyone was civil. The  candidates had grown to know each other over the years in the intimate and generally friendly and honest atmosphere of the Green Mountain State.

Elizabeth (nicknamed “Wibs’’) and I sat in the waiting room outside the studio but we only heard a little of the “debate’’ on the big screen in front of the room because of technical problems. Sitting with us was a nice man called Jerome Lipani, like many Vermonters from New York City, who promoted  some Bernie Sanders-style reforms to us.

Mr. Lipani, artist, was polite and good-humored and, I inferred, pragmatic, as was now-Senator Sanders, a socialist, when he was mayor of Burlington. Indeed, with a few exceptions, such as outgoing Gov. Peter Shumlin’s overreaching for a single-payer healthcare plan, pragmatism rules. Thus the same state will elect such moderate Republicans as the late Gov.  Richard Snelling,  such Democrats as former Gov. Howard Dean (who ran state government as a middle-of-the road fiscal conservative) and a professed (but realistic) socialist such as Bernie Sanders.  Vermont candidates are judged by their records and characters far more than by their party labels. Given the increasing tendency in the U.S. to vote strictly by party and not by individual this was heartening.

Reliving again the state’s tradition of civility and civic-mindedness was a tonic, and I rather dreaded driving back to the nastiness of megalopolis. By the way, I discovered that Montpelier  along with Barre,  form something called a "micropolitan area'' and that tiny Barre and Montpelier are called the Twin Cities. Vermont cute!

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An old book by Joseph Wood Krutch, The Twelve Seasons: A Perpetual Calendar for the Country, might help you get through the New England winter, especially in beautiful but, er, rigorous Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. He sees each month as a season.

Indeed, every day is a season, emotionally speaking.

Robert Whitcomb: A little context, please, on race relations; for ferries; democracy in Vt.

This originated in GoLocalProv.com

The news media, for marketing reasons, and the general public, for psychological/emotional ones, generally want simple narratives of big events, preferably with clear villains and heroes, idiots and geniuses, not to mention vivid starts and banging ends. A recent narrative is that Britain’s exit from the European Union was suicidal and will  be a world-historical catastrophe. No it won’t, as calmer members of the financial sector quickly realized.

Last week it was the shootings by police and then the lunatic Micah Xavier Johnson’s murder of five police officers. Tragic indeed, but the implication by some news media that America is somehow doomed to ever-widening  conflict about race and related law-enforcement matters is ridiculous.

America -- like all nations! – has plenty of racism. But the progress  that our huge, and complicated country has made in recent decades toward an inclusive and  mostly un bigoted society is impressive. I can remember back when drinking fountains were segregated in the South. The United States is a far more just (except perhaps economically) and peaceful place now than it was in, say, 1968 --  the disorderly year to which 2016 is now compared by people who didn’t live through ‘68.

That three of the key personalities in commenting on last week’s racially related incidents  -- Dallas Police Chief David Brown, President Obama and U.S. Atty. Gen. Loretta Lynch--- are African-American says something important.

Most Americans are ignorant of many basic facts of their nation’s history. About foreign matters they’re even worse: The bigotries in most of the world far exceed America’s. That’s  one big reason that, for all our faults, so many people from the rest of the world want to move to the United States. Those denouncing  extremely ethnically diverse America as somehow uniquely vicious in race relations ought to do more reading and traveling.

A couple of other observations spawned by last week’s horrors:

Some people complain about the “militarization of America’s police.’’ But what do they expect given that it’s so easy for nonpolice to buy or otherwise get military-style weapons? The NRA, its employees on Capitol Hill and the likes of Walmart that sell so many weapons have been the biggest militarizers of America. They’ve made the nation an armed camp, and the police have to protect themselves.

Meanwhile, an interesting story in the July 11 New York Times reports:

“A new study confirms that black men and women are treated differently in the hands of law enforcement. They are more likely to be touched, handcuffed, pushed to the ground or pepper-sprayed by a police officer, even after accounting for how, where and when they encounter the police.

“But when it comes to the most lethal form of force — police shootings — the study finds no racial bias.

“’It is the most surprising result of my career,” said Roland G. Fryer Jr., the author of the study and a professor of economics at Harvard and anAfrican-American.’’  Here’s the link:

The conventional wisdom can usually use a bit of editing.

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Let’s hope that the return of warm-weather Providence-Newport ferry service, which will last just 10 weeks, helps get Rhode Island officials, working with the U.S. Transportation Department,  to start year-round commuter services by boat around Narragansett Bay. TheBay’s coast is heavily populated, there are lots of harbors and the (bad) roads are often congested – all making Rhode Island a damn good place for ferries.

In Europe,  most bodies of water with dense populations around them have ferry service, as does Massachusetts Bay. See:  http://www.bostonharborcruises.com/commuters/

Boston Harbor Cruises (BHC) runs  MBTA commuter boats that carry thousands of passengers to and from work each day, including the Inner Harbor Ferry between Charlestown Navy Yard and Long Wharf; the Hingham-to-Boston Ferry service, and the Hingham/Hull/Boston/Logan service.  BHC also operates the Salem Ferry under contract with the City of Salem in the summer. Its slogan is:  “Leave Gridlock in Your Wake’’.

What a fine economic-development tool ferries could be for a crowded state much of which is a bay.

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Ah, Vermont, where citizens flock to hear local and state candidates take (usually) polite questions. Vermont and New Hampshire, for all their differences, have especially civic-minded and engaged citizens.

I saw an example last Sunday at a forum sponsored by the Washington and Orange County (Vt.) Republican committees, at which two smart candidates vying for the gubernatorial nomination answered some questions prepared by a moderator, made brief general statements on why they should be governor and took some queries from the floor. The forum was in the barnlike Vermont Granite Museum in Barre. That city is the site of famed granite quarries and some of the most bizarre cemetery sculptures I have ever seen! 

The candidates – former Wall Street executive Bruce Lisman and Vermont Lt. Gov. and businessman Phil Scott – were both very articulate. They generally had coherent if, of course, predictably vague answers to questions and made  sure that they told the audience what they wanted they to hear.

This led to some typical (hypocritical?) contradictions such as talking up the need for business-friendly deregulation and economic development while also implying that they’d block a big (and utopian) development proposed by a Utah businessman and put the kibosh on more wind turbines on Vermont’s ridges because they’re unpopular among the neighbors. 

And the scary word “Trump’’ was never mentioned on the stage.

I went mostly because I wanted to see and hear my friend Josh Fitzhugh, chairman of the  Washington County Republican Committee, dress up like Vermont founder Ethan Allen and give a speech, rife with 18th Century language but along the lines of what a Republican circa 2016 might say. To read the speech, hit this link: http://newenglanddiary.com/home/2016/7/11

The speakers, the earnest and cordial audience, the stout and rich-voiced lady singing “The National Anthem’’ at the start and “God Bless America’’ at the end and a fried-chicken  picnic (inside – it was raining) made it a day of industrial-strength Americana.

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Donald Trump’s capacity for sleaze is exceeded by his campaign manager, Paul Manafort, a man who apparently would do just about anything for money.

For decades,  Washington lobbyist and fixer Mr. Manafort has represented some of the world’s worst people, including the late Congolese dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, former Ukrainian dictator Viktor Yanukovych  and the late Somali dictator Siad Barre. He has  also worked with Pakistan intelligence services (which have worked hand in glove with Islamic terrorist groups). In purely domestic matters, he has also shown a similar rapaciousness. He is truly an archduke of amorality among his fellow Beltway Bandits. Donald Trump presents himself as an “outsider’’ who will shake up Washington. Eh?

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I think that many readers will look differently at their own lives as they plow through My Struggle, Karl Ove Knausgaard’s 3,600-page, barely edited autobiographical novel, or extended journal, or whatever it is. The Norwegian writer’s astonishing recall of the joys, pains, drama and tedium of daily life deepens our understanding of what it has been like to live in a Western nation for the last few decades.

xxx

As I walked our dog on a balmy night last week, I heard   a man softly playing songs from the ‘30s on a piano in his living room.   The music mixed with the sound of leaves being rustled by the southwest wind. It was a magical moment, and rare in these cacophonous times.

Robert Whitcomb is overseer of New England Diary.

Ethan Allen returns to warn Vermont

Josh Fitzhugh’s version of a speech that might have been given by Vermont founder Ethan Allen at a July 10 gubernatorial-candidate forum and picnic at the Vermont Granite Museum, in Barre. Mr. Fitzhugh is the chairman of the Washington County (Vt.) Republican Committee.

My fellow Vermonters! The Almighty has given me an unprecedented Opportunity after 225 years to revisit the haunts of my Youth, to see what has become of my own special Green Mountain State, and to share with you my Thoughts regarding the same, with no Shame or Fear but only a Desire to arrive at the Truth using Reason which is the only Oracle of Man!

Ever since I arrived to a state of manhood, and acquainted myself with the general history of mankind, I have felt a sincere passion for Liberty. Many times have I hazarded my life for you, as in my attack on Montreal and my barbarous captivity by the British. You know that when I lived, with a small band of fearless countrymen, I stormed and took Ticonderoga, a stony symbol of Oppression and Tyranny, “in the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress.” ( I might also have said, “Come out of there, you goddamn old rat!”) 

The Green Mountain Boys later defeated the British warlord Burgoyne at Bennington. For many years I wrote, spoke and fought against New York authorities who wished to Deprive us of Property secured by the New Hampshire grants, even to the extent of sentencing us to Death in absentia for our Actions and Beliefs.

There were a number of Depraved and mean spirited Rascals, who would probably have assisted that designing government of Land clenchers to divide and enslave us, had not the Integrity and Heroism of the Green Mountain Boys prevented it.

Since New‐Hampshire had forsaken us, and New York tyrannized us as much as they possibly could or dare, we were left a people between heaven and hell, as free as is possible to conceive as any people to be; and in this condition we formed a government upon the true principles of Liberty and Natural Right.

So what do I see in Vermont today? I see a Beautiful land, as gorgeous as I recall, with as striking views of the Green and Adirondack mountains as ever I witnessed in my youth. I find people warm and friendly but sadly uninspired by the true Passions of our existence, a perpetual quest for Liberty and Personal Achievement. I see well-worked farms and hard-working farmers, and a strong commitment to our militia and armed forces. I see a people less controlled by clerics and more believing, as I am, in the law of nature.

Most proudly I see a state which still exists, independent of New York. But sadly, I also see a government which in many ways resembles the Schemers and Land‐Jockeys who worked so feverishly to deprive us of our Possessions and Liberties some two and a quarter centuries ago

You ask for examples. I see towering industrial windmills placed on Pristine mountaintops, because lobbyists have secured tax breaks and incentives in back room deals. I see contractors unable to choose how they wish to employ their help. I see local schools controlled by state know‐it‐alls. I see one’s very health determined not by one’s lifestyle and family and the will of God, but by the State itself. I see taxes imposed not to fund a critical social need but rather to redistribute income amongst the population. I see a high proportion of families under the regular supervision of state social workers, and I see rows of empty storefronts in some of our biggest cities.

When I lived, except for debts caused by war, government expenses were miniscule. Today, nearly 50 percent of all human enterprise in this state is attributable to government. Taxes and fees are imposed on nearly every human product and activity, from beehives to ginseng, mutual funds to fuel oil. State expenses are increasing twice the rate of income growth. I did not fight to create a “land of endless taxation!”  

Our legislature was composed of farmers and small merchants, busy people who found time in winter to discuss and resolve the important issues of the day. Now I see that your solons are nearly full time and no issue seems too small to address. Where is the faith in the people and their families to solve these problems themselves? Above all, I see a state in which Freedom is defined as the ability to Ask for Permission rather than a Right to Act and Do, and where the political leaders routinely hand back our tax money and expect a thank you in return. Our leaders may not seek, but in fact are getting, a permanent dependency from their citizens. My wife, Fanny, doesn’t like me to say it, but I call it the “Mother May I” syndrome, after the children’s game:

“Mother Vermont, may I put a shed on this property? Yes you may, dear Ethan, if you pay us a fee and it satisfies our extensive rules.

“Mother Washington, will you give me some money for a new business? Why yes, Ethan, if we like your business, and you swear an oath to satisfy these 30 conditions.

“Mother Vermont, may I buy a gun from my neighbor? Today, yes, Ethan, but given your reputation, probably not for long.”

A dependent people are an impoverished people. A dependent people are those waiting for, indeed expecting, some kind of a handout. A dependent people are a people who believe that because they live, they are entitled to happiness. By my Beetle of Immortality, Happiness is not guaranteed in life!

You have this strange game where people try to throw a ball through a basket. A player in this game, LeBron James, said it well when he talked about his home in the Western Reserve. There he said, “Nothing is given; everything is earned. You work for what you have.” That is the Vermont I left and the Vermont I love!!

Tyranny, my friends, does not always come at the end of a gun, nor does it always come quickly. You can lose freedom slowly law by law, tax by tax. When I lived, hard currency was scare but we were free to build our lives and fortune in this new land. The opportunity to innovate and profit inspired all of us. Now it seems life is a network of credits and debits so complicated that even your vaulted computers can’t keep them straight, and the word Profit is treated like blasphemy.

We fought the New York patroons, the British lords and the Loyalist sympathizers because law was being used as a tool to cheat us out of the country we had made vastly valuable by labor and expense of our Fortunes. And if my life meant anything, it is that faced with such insatiable, avaricious, overbearing, inhuman, and barbarous intentions, you are not bound to be an accessory to your own ruin and destruction, but may act in accord with the law of Nature and Self Preservation.

Now don't assume I am against all government. Anyone who is acquainted with mankind, and things, must know that it would be impracticable to manage the Political Matters of this country without the assistance of civil government. People without it are like a ship in the Sea without a helm or mariner, tossed with impetuous waves. As the poet Alexander Pope wrote, “Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule / then drop into thyself, and be a fool.”

You ask what can be done. I came here today because I feel these good people speaking today can help get Vermont back on track. I know they care for this state and understand the values that created her. I have previously, upon mature deliberation, expatiated on the good effects which cannot fail of redounding to the inhabitants, in so extensive a frontier country as, from the blessings of a well established civil government; and think it worth my trouble to communicate my sentiments and reflections to the public, with a view of encouraging the good and virtuous inhabitants of this State, to persevere and be happy in the further confirming and establishing the same.

In closing let me repeat something I wrote in my letter to Congress urging acceptance of Vermont as a state in the new Union. “A confederation of the state of Vermont with the other free and independent states cannot fail of being attended with salutary consequences to the confederacy at large, for ages yet to come. What a nursery of hardy soldiers may in future be nourished and supported in this fertile country (which is one hundred and fifty miles in length, and near sixty in breadth), stimulated with the spirit of liberty, having a perfect detestation and abhorrence of arbitrary power, from the exertions whereof they have suffered so much evil.”

I said then, and say now, that Vermonters will instill the principles of liberty and social virtue in their children, which will be perpetuated to future generations. The climate and interior remove from the sea coast will naturally be productive of a laborious life, by which means they will be in great measure exempted from luxury and self indulgence, and be a valuable support to the rising empire of the new world.

Hear ye, Hear ye. What was true then is still true today! Good luck and may I see you again some time!

Josh Fitzhugh: In Cuba, old U.S. cars as metaphor

Editor’s note: Insurance executive, lawyer, farmer, Vermont maple-syrup mogul and former editor and reporter John H. (Josh) Fitzhugh, sent us this piece the other day. By the way, New Englanders should be aware of the very long social, cultural and economic ties between Cuba and our region. The old Boston-based United Fruit Co. is just one example, not to mention the many New England firms  that made candy, booze, molasses and brown and white sugar from Cuban sugar cane, some of it grown on farms with New England-based owners. And yes, the slave trade. My paternal grandparents and parents went down there a couple of times to enjoy the raffish activities under assorted pre-Castro dictators/gangsters.

-- Robert Whitcomb

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I traveled with my daughter, Eliza, on a Dartmouth College-led tour thinking that I should “time travel” to see what Havana and the island were like now before tourism and American business interests transformed it.

I needn’t have rushed. While change is certainly underfoot in Cuba, I left the island after a week with the conviction that the tangled relationship between the U.S. and Cuba will take decades to sort out absent some leadership change as dramatic as occurred a half century ago.

First, a bit about the trip. As required by the rules of the U.S. embargo of Cuba, the trip was organized as a people-to-people exchange to enhance “contact with the Cuban people, support civil society, or promote the Cuban people’s independence from Cuban authorities.” 

Dartmouth’s method for accomplishing these goals was to have us accompanied by a professor of Spanish; to organize numerous lectures by Cuban authorities; to visit various art and music venues; to eat predominately at small private restaurants called paladars; and to permit us to pepper our good-spirited and intelligent Cuban guide, Abell, with constant questions regarding the deficiencies of the vaunted Revolution.  Over the course of the week we toured old and new Havana; Hemingway’s residence, Finca La Vigia; the towns of Cienfuegos and Trinidad; and places in between. To say that we were exhausted by the time we left would be an understatement.

We also all learned a lot, and by that I mean that we all struggled on a daily basis to reconcile our growing understanding of Cuba with opinions as to how American (or Cuban) policy should change to better the lives of the people of both nations. Now that may sound kind of arrogant (who are we to assume such responsibility?) but it was the truth. As an American you can’t travel in Cuba without feeling some responsibility for the ways things are, including the country’s turn toward socialism. And President Obama’s initiative to press for closer contacts with Cuba have given these thoughts greater immediacy.

Now as to some observations. It would appear that over the past  50 years, Cuba has made great strides in health care and education (provided free of charge to the population) but at a cost of economic stagnation and tremendous deterioration of its physical structures. The government is quick to lay the blame for the latter on the embargo but in my opinion it has less to do with that than with the socialist mentality that has discouraged enterprise and private investment of any kind.

A good example is the deterioration that has occurred in old Havana, the location of many beautiful European style structures. Before the Revolution, according to a tour member who had been there, Havana’s old structures, mainly of cement and stone, were in pretty good repair. Today, one in ten is missing a roof; one in five have no windows. Three a day collapse, we were told. The reason? While families are permitted to live in the structures, they are not responsible for their upkeep, which is the government’s responsibility, and whether by design or lack of funds, it has not done so. The picture above is a good example of this decline.

Today, the only structures in old Havana in good repair are tourist spots (such as government-owned hotels) or small paladars snd small hostels, owned by families which under current rules can tap into and keep some of the profits from the burgeoning tourist trade.  Even major government centers, like the Museum of the Revolution, are shabby and decrepit. The Capitol building, designed to look like Washington’s, has been closed for three years (although that may tell more about Cuba’s one-party rule than its finances, frankly.)

Faced with the loss of its sugar daddy, the Soviet Union, Cuba in the mid-‘90s first went through a horrendous economic decline (they call it the “special period”) and then began to pull itself back with help from Chavez’s Venezuela and an increasing reliance on tourism. Today, China and Vietnam seem to have replaced Venezuela as major trading partners but tourism continues to grow, and with it major economic issues.

In short there now appear to be two economies in Cuba: the tourist economy, where taxi drivers, restaurant operators, hoteliers, tour operators, artists and musicians prosper; and the rest of the economy, which suffers along at $20 a month in government wages plus whatever black market income one can find. This income disparity is worsened by those lucky enough to have relatives overseas who send back “remittances,” and most of these are Cuban whites from formerly middle- and upper-middle-class families in Havana.

An example of this disparity was manifest in a dinner we had with some young artists. The young Afro-Cuban at our table has an art degree and has had some moderate success selling his work, mainly to tourists. He now supports his brother a dentist who is on the state payroll.  Another example was a young man whose father was ambassador to Paris in the ‘70s. Trilingual in Spanish, French and English, he worked in a restaurant until three years ago, when he began driving his family’s original 1955 Chevy as a taxi in Havana because his income prospects were better.

The lack of investment is also apparent in the country. Cuba nationalized the hated sugar plantations and mills, but after a disastrous attempt to maximize sugar production in the 90s, has now cut back on sugar production in an effort to diversify agriculture and reduce food imports. Despite efforts to privatize small farms and urban gardens, however, a tremendous amount of land remains fallow, land  that to my eye was probably cultivated before the Revolution. Coupled with the ongoing demographic flow from country to city and the lack of any environment for foreign investment, I don’t see much prospect for agricultural growth and believe Cuba’s goal of producing 70 percent of its own food a pipe dream.

In general we found the Cuban people well behaved, good humored and (as best as one can generalize such things) happy. They are proud of their independence and tolerant of their leaders. They seem willing to recognize mistakes and move on. While constantly reminded by their government that Uncle Sam is evil and untrustworthy, and that the socialist ideals of the Revolution should be venerated and followed, my sense is that most Cubans love American culture and take an attitude toward their government that “this too shall pass.” Many have become very adept at managing their immediate environment to try to benefit themselves and their families.

The prevalence of  old Chevys, Fords, and Cadillacs is a kind of metaphor for this attitude, I think. Keeping these vehicles going is of course a necessity due to the U.S. embargo and a real testament to the mechanical ingenuity of Cubans, but since they are so obviously a symbol of America, and of Cuba before the Revolution, they also bespeak(to me at least) a kind of protest with the way things are and a hope as to what may eventually return. So is the practice of using the dollar sign ($) to denote an item’s cost in pesos.

Like a divorced couple, Cuba and America have much history to remember and to forget, but will forever be linked in some fashion by their proximity to one another.