During the first decade of the seventies, my life was around scholarships. Those were years, seen now at a distancia, really incredible. From the Provincial Art School Leopoldo Romañach in the city of Santa Clara, where I had started in 1973, I moved in 1975 to the National School of Fine Arts in La Habana. While I was studying something serious was developing in my family in Cienfuegos. My father Angel was diagnosed a sudden throat cancer. My mother and siblings were involved among medical consultations and visits to the hospitals, while I was completely alien to such misfortune.The story begins here. During those years, all electronics were awarded through the workers’ unions as incentives for the workers. You would not find them at stores and were always disputed among the best workers in union meetings. Even alarm clocks were granted through that process. When my father Angel became sick, a Russian television set had to be awarded at the plant where he was employed. Angel was a third class bricklayer in a shipyard for fishing boats. To make things worse he was completely illiterate since during his humble childhood he could only complete second year of primary school. He was now father of five, still young but unexpectedly confronted with the end of his life.The assembly took place without the presence of my father . The participants voted to grant him the right to acquire the so much desired TV appliance. There was only one TV set for a large number of workers most of them with more credentials and better revolutionary track record than my father. But Angel - who had no merits and was a true failure in socialist emulation - had excellent friends. The union bureaucrats refused to give him credit for his work, since he ignored discipline, registered thousands of late arrivals, etcetera. However, in the middle of the discussion, a leader interrupted and made a motion to give the TV set to Angel considering he had few months to live and the appliance would be a good distraction during his last days. After a heated debate, the set was given to Angel. It was really moving to witness such a gesture from his companions.However, years passed by and my father, after a tremendous medical treatment applied at Santa Clara and La Habana oncological hospitals, lived until he was 84 years of age. Those union leaders who prematurely foretold my father’s death, died themselves, one after the other, many years before Angel did.To the memory of my Father.
