Interesting Stories

I got to hear a fascinating story from a co-worker last night around how he escaped from Cuba. Back in 1961 (around the time of the Bay of Pigs) he was 15 and living with his brother and parents in Cuba. His brother and he were able to get out of the country and into a refugee camp in Miami. Two days after they arrived in the US, Castro declared that all professional workers in Cuba were national treasures and could not leave the country, hence their parents couldn't follow them.

The two brothers took jobs to earn enough money to try and pay for the bribes to get their parents out of Cuba. The one brother took a job as a valet, and made money on the side by renting out the high end cars he was parking. After two years, they earned $25k and they were able to send it over to his parents through a friend in Canada. Their parents were able to use the money to bribe their way out of the country shortly before the Cuban Missile crisis.

The other guy I talked to was the head of operations for the White House for four years. He was responsible for the entire facility in terms of management, up keep, staffing, etc. He had some very interesting stories in terms of things he'd seen and his interactions with the President and other staffers.