Four weeks of calving heifers passed between the Philadelphia and New Jersey trip and the one just completed to Cuba. Starlight checks in the water lot counting the cows, and daylight afternoons penning the patients, cured the frayed nerves and erased the airport fatigue enough to prepare for a visit to one of the last countries practicing communism.

Further inspiration came from my friend Tony in Missouri, who suggested running a dairy would be a better way to control my wanderlust than running a beef cattle operation relying on calves to do the milking. Somewhere in the past, I remembered being in Canada and reading of Cuba buying Holstein cows from the Dominion. I knew the People to People Ambassador's Program offered a trip to Cuba in November. They were going to visit dairy farms.

"So why not take old Tony's advice," I thought, "and go to Cuba to learn to become a respected dairyman and drop the ruse of being a "Boss of the Plains" cow herder and the laughingstock of Washington D.C. and the state capital.

The sponsors' deadline was flexible as long as time remained to apply for a visa. Speed of modern technology (faxes, e-mail, etc.) plus the program's U.S. Treasury license to go to Cuba, expedited permission to join the group. One hitch was my connection to this newspaper. Bold print on the application form stated: "People to People can not obtain visas to Cuba for Journalists or Free Lance Writers." But thinking back, the last time I was recognized as a writer was in 1997 at a black bull sale in Glen Rose, Texas. After buying four bulls, the auctioneer noted my public profile in generous terms to match my generous bids. Unless that spellbinder showed up in Cuba, I felt safe listing my occupation as "agriculture-retired."

As no direct flights link Cuba to the mainland, the gathering for the initial briefing of the delegation required flying to Nassau in the Bahamas to make new connections on Cuba Air to Havana. President Eisenhower founded People to People to send Americans abroad to meet their counterparts in other countries. Teachers and MD's were already touring Cuba, exchanging information and pleasantries, the latter being the most appealing part of the program.

Passing through Customs in the Bahamas took less time than changing planes in Miami. A commuter line flies to Nassau. The commuter's gates are concealed downstairs underneath an escalator well. The sign faced the reverse direction of the other calls. I charged by the place three times before a lady curtly told me to read the signs. I didn't tell her I didn't wear rearview mirrors to look over my shoulder for gate changes. Working for an airline must give people sour stomachs; unless they have the advantage of a check-in counter as a buffer, they can be as surly as the oldtime railroad conductors.

The Bahamas is a reproduction of the posters in travel agency windows of Caribbean beaches. The islands' 2000 banks aren't advertised in travel agencies. The jugs offer offshore depository service for bigshot dealers needing to scrub their dough, or customers in the same fix because of disagreements with their country's tax code. For our financial preparation, we were warned that Cubans are not allowed to cash traveler's checks or honor credit cards issued by U.S. banks. What they hadn't told us was that dinner for two at the hotel in Nassau, or a snack with a friend at the bar, cost enough to make the numbers on a plastic Bank Americard charges stall in the airways to home base.

Bottle water, in the room or downstairs, cost three bucks for 12 ounces. I felt foolish treating the tap water with iodine tablets. Most likely the water was potable, but not only is being sick on the road miserable, divorce and grandchildren stories make a better conversation topic. I asked the wine steward at dinner what he thought made Americans sicker, the rum cocktails or the Nassau water? He laughed, "Sir, our rum distilled to one 150 proof proves perfectly safe to drink as long as our ice cubes aren't added to the glass." Later I passed by the bar and caught how bright and shiny the patrons' reflections were in the mirror. (In a back issue of Reader's Digest, fumes from 150 proof rum received a score of 10 as a hotel room and elevator disinfectant.)

The next morning at 9:30, the leaders held a briefing, explaining the customs of Cuba and proper behavior around the government officials. (Instead of saying Castro's name, we were supposed to stroke our chins, indicating "the whiskered one.") At the end, we stood up and gave our home states. Thirty-seven came from California. One gentleman was a Canadian; I was the lone stray from Texas. Questions dragged into overtime. We missed lunch, but made the afternoon flight to Havana on time…

November 23, 2000