about a month ago, my friend C told her father that she was seeing someone new. like any good father would, he launched into a series of questions about him. among the questions: republican or democrat?
"of course he's a democrat," she replied. while telling me the story, she sheepishly tells me that her father is a republican.
"mine too!" i confess.
she laughs and tells me that it seems to be the dirty little secret a lot of us twenty and thirty something liberals carry around with us: republican parents.
we can't do anything about it. we love them anyway.
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a few weeks ago, my dad tells me that he's just seen the movie, the motorcycle diaries. he tells me that it was pretty good.
i'm a little suprised that he's enjoyed this movie about the revolutionary "che," but i know that my dad also loves photography. i imagine that he appreciated the movie not just for its story, but also for the gorgeous cinematography as che (portrayed by my boyfriend, gael garcia) and his best friend travel through latin america.
i almost forget that his comments about the film until he tells me that someone from work has lent him a biography about che. he tells me that it's 700 pages long.
he and my mother embark on a summer vacation to a beach in baja california. my dad takes his che book with him to read, poolside. they are gone for a week.
having recently returned from the trip, he calls tonight to catch up. i ask him how much progress he's made on the book. he tells me that he's almost done! he figures he'll finish it up within in the next day or so to give back to his coworker. it's a pretty good book, he says. i've really enjoyed it.
then he starts to tell me some of the things that he's learned about che's life. didn't spend much time with his kids. worked a lot, but refused to receive much money for his labors. he says, "he was really a communist."
he rethinks. well, actually he wasn't a communist like the soviets. he was more of a maoist. he and castro just had to deal with the soviets so that they could help cuba become less dependent on the united states. he muses a little more on that point while i sit in silent suprise.
!!!!
my father the republican. expert on communist revolutionaries!
@>-->>---
1 comment:
wow- great post, I'm pretty sure that the book your dad read was the bio by Jon Lee Anderson... it's by far the most in-depth bio out there on Che, and it's pretty fair- it doesn't paint him out to be a monster and it doesn't over-romanticize him like a lot of people (myself included) tend to do.
and your dad was dead on in his "Maoist" description... Che grew to hate the Soviet hypocrisy and then couldn't shut his mouth about it- it didn't go over so well with Fidel and in part led to his departure from Cuba... but now I'm rambling.
Anyway, I'm impressed that your dad would even take the time to read a book about a communist and keep an open mind while reading it! Not to mention the fact that he finished the book in a little over a week- it took me FOREVER to get through.
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