I don't even consider myself to be a collector.
But I am beginning to doubt both of those denials after looking at the oddities I am now discarding from my life.
Take this can, for example. I found it in the fruit cooler cupboard. (Remember. The house was built in 1925.)
I had no idea why it was there. Aluminum fruit juice cans with Spanish labels are not very exotic. Not after four years in Mexico.
But this is not a Mexican can. It is a Cuban can. That I picked up on my trip to Cuba in the spring of 2001.
I have mentioned that trip on my blog and in comments on other blogs. It was fascinating. Enough to convince me that socialism has not been kind to the Cuban people.
But also enough to make me interested in returning. To do work with the Salvation Army. My plan to accompany a Salvation Army corps from Canada in February has not panned out. But there may be other opportunities.
I also ran across a photograph of our 2001 tour group. The trip was sponsored by my law school law school alumnae association. And here we all are.
If I had a better memory, I would ask you to play a little game by identifying the Cuban who was willing to talk to us about the failure of the socialist system -- and the Cuban who was assigned to us to report Cubans who talked about the failure of the Cuban system.
Neither of them is holding an orange juice can.
And neither am I.
I have assigned it to the dustbin of history. Where I trust a certain regime will be before too many more years.
