Key West and Cuba 1955: Adventures of a Woman Traveling Alone

By Patricia Johnson

KEY WEST and CUBA 1955 is a novel showing a young woman maturing from self-interest to the importance of family. Healing from a brief affair in San Francisco she starts on the journey to reestablish bonding with her brothers, separated when their parents had died many years prior.
After traveling to Canada, New York and Mystic, Connecticut, she chooses to move to Key West, Florida. Working for the “Key West Courier” newspaper, she is sent to the island of Cuba to write travel articles. Although innocent, she is suspected of being a spy, unaware she is transporting illegal papers.
She suffers precarious situations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Oct 19, 2021
• ISBN: 9781663230652

Patricia Johnson

Mark A. Michaels and Patricia Johnson, a devoted married couple, have been teaching Tantra together since 1999. Their approach combines traditional lineage-based Tantra with the best contemporary methods so that students can bring heightened awareness and expanded capacity for pleasure into all aspects of life. The authors are senior students of Dr. Jonn Mumford (Swami Anandakapila Saraswati), and have been named lineage holder of the OM Kara Kriya® system for the Americas and Europe. Sunyata, co-author of The Jewel in the Lotus, named Michaels his lineage holder in 2001. The two have also studied Bhakti Yoga with Bhagavan Das, and Tantra with Dr. Rudy Ballentine.

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Copyright © 2021 Patricia Johnson.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Certain characters in this work are historical figures, and certain events portrayed did take place. However, this is a work of fiction. All of the other characters, names, and events as well as all places, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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ISBN: 978-1-6632-3064-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6632-3065-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021921448

iUniverse rev. date:  10/18/2021

CONTENTS

Preface

Tell Me A Story

Homeward Found

Old Stories - Sometimes

Told, Sometimes Not

Caleb’s Great-Grandchildren

Dear Brother: I Care

Where Is Luke?

Raven, Fish And Frog

Searching: The Meaning Of Life

How Did You Meet Raven?

Mark Reveals His

Love Of Geology

Back Home: Childhood Memories

Halibut, The Fisherman’s Dog

On The Road Again

Highway Over Seas To Key West

End Of The Rainbow

Clear Water And Mudd

Shorty, Hendry And

Kirk Douglas

Upsetting The Status Quo

The Gathering Of The Band

Born In Key West =

Conchs (Konkz)

A Tower For Bats?

Luke’s Plan A Or Plan B

Only Your Mailman Knows

Grandma Reveals Tales Her

Grandmother Told Her

Redhead Woman And

A Black Cat

Life Is Not Always A Bed Of Roses

Key West Party Prep

Irish Party: Mum Is 96

A Chicken Farmer Names Fidel?

"Save The Botanical

Garden" Tea Party

A Moonlit Drive

The Proof Reader

How To Trap A Spy

What She Doesn’t Know

Can’t Hurt Her

Key West, An International

Airport

Havana Airport To

Hotel Via Taxi

Traveling Solo

Don’t Drink Water But

Eat Chicken And Rice

The Americana

Carries The Bomb

Jesus And Jorge Give

A Private Tour

More Strange And

Tense Moments

Wash That Man Right

Outa My Hair

Flying Birds And Bats

The Dangerous Train Ride

Key West Interrogation

By Mr. Bill

Time For A Woman

To Woman Talk

Shopping By Sears Catalog

Be Jolly. Tis The Season

Christmas At Matt And

Marian’s Home

Holiday Time On Peacon Lane, Key West

One Never Knows

An Irish Wake

On The Good Ship Viking

Epilogue

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1

PREFACE

G enealogists search old legal records attempting to find information about someone looking as far back as those records were kept, but who knows the personal stories not revealed there? Sometimes we can hear tales never told if we simply talk with the oldest person in the family.

Oral history was the first way of keeping stories remembered. At night in an Indian’s teepee it was grandmother who told about when the white man came. Those strange men shot buffaloes not for food or animal skins. They killed multiple buffaloes, as many in one episode as they could, leaving the carcasses, riding away and laughing. Very crazy people.

In an African village one old woman told about the time a man offered the village chief money for a strong young man. At first the chief was offended but every place has one trouble-maker, like Bolu, a constant upsetting influence. The man lured Bolu to his boat with a tale about going to work on a rich man’s plantation in America.

Norwegian bestemor would tell tales about red-haired Viking men and women who chose to leave the safety of home for the adventure of sailing into the unknown. Chinese lao lao knew about when, long ago, young girls suffered having their feet bound so they might be chosen as having the most exquisite tiny feet.

American pioneer women sat at the bedside of their children with stories about their choice of leaving towns on the East coast to brave the trek in a covered wooden wagon toward the unknown West.

This story is told by a woman born almost 100 years ago, about the time when she was a brazen young woman who, back in 1955, had the urge to travel, alone and fearless.

Her first trip was from Newark, New Jersey to San Francisco, California. Next were British Columbia, Canada and New York City. Then, on to Mystic, Connecticut and Key West, Florida, plus the tropical island of Cuba (only 90 miles from Key West).

Grandma told stories about those trips, but that pioneer did not travel in a slow and dusty wagon train. She traveled via airplane and an old DeSoto automobile.

KEY WEST AND CUBA IN 1955

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2

TELL ME A STORY

O ld Lady Steele lived in the second house from the corner on Bunker Street. She was also called Grouchy Old Lady Steele, but she had her reasons. People said she was a witch, a thief and just generally hateful. For one thing, it was her last name. Rumor was she had stolen money but that just shows you how people hear a word and make up a story from that. And it’s true, she really did look a lot like the Wicked Witch in the movie The Wizard of Oz. Plus the fact she liked to take naps so anyone making noise outside her house would see her appear on her porch, shaking her fist and shouting Go away!

The house next door had been a ramshackle mess. The wood had not been painted in any time within memory. Rusted gutters dangled down from the roof, the wind causing them to sway against the side of the house. Some windows had been broken when neighborhood boys threw rocks, trying to rouse up the ghost or hermit who supposedly inhabited the place. The yard was a jumble of weeds. The remnants of a picket fence leaned against overgrown bushes.

Oh, someone lived there, all right. It was Willie Forbes. The house had come down to him through inheritance, him being the last of the original line of a once-upon-a-time wealthy family who had lived in it generations ago. The home had been a showplace, a site of many extravagant parties, with women in pearls and lace ball-gowns, men dressed in formal finery, too.

Willie inhabited the top floor. Years ago he had befriended a simple soul, known as Higgy, and had made an arrangement for Higgy to bring him food each day. Higgy would stop by twice: in the morning he’d bring the local newspaper, a cup of coffee and a grilled cheese sandwich. In the late afternoon Higgy would deliver another cup of coffee, a cheeseburger and a bottle of whiskey.

He would walk up the path of broken bricks up the rotting wooden stairs to the porch, then ring the brass bell that hung outside the front door. Although Higgy’s routine was set in the same time daily, it was important to ring the bell because Willie had a shotgun.

Then Higgy would open the door, which was unlocked, and call out, It’s me. Willie would lower a reed basket on a long rope, down the stairwell from the top floor to the foyer. In it were some rumpled dollar bills. Higgy would place the prescribed items in the basket, then turn and leave.

Willie had that gun because several times the local boys would try to sneak into the house, certain that Willie had money stashed throughout the house. They soon learned Willie would use that gun. Those who had been able to view anything on that first floor said it was a mess of old newspapers and empty bottles.

One morning when Higgy called out It’s me no basket was lowered. Higgy couldn’t figure that out, so left the food on the bottom step of the staircase. That afternoon he came again, but when Willie didn’t answer he got scared. He went back to the coffee shop and told them about that strange break in the routine. Someone called the police. Sure enough, Willie was dead. Old age, malnutrition and alcohol did him in.

The place was empty a long time. The County wanted that property, but Willie had kept up on that one bill, his real estate taxes. Then some lawyer did a little genealogy search and found a niece. Arrangements were finalized and she moved in with her husband and her 7-year-old daughter, Shirley.

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Nellanore Steele was seventy-two years old with a full head of white hair, so lush it looked like a huge cotton-ball as if she might have slipped it over her head like a cap. Like many older persons she didn’t sleep much. She woke up early and was out in front of her home, sweeping the sidewalk. Tall and thin, she stood stooped over, leaning against the broom. She stayed up late, reading Good Housekeeping or Saturday Evening Post or Collier’s Magazine. Those hours that she did sleep in the nighttime were restless. But she did enjoy her afternoon nap.

It had been difficult when Willie Forbes’ old house was being refurbished, what with the workmen sawing wood and hammering away. Thank goodness that was finished and over with. Inheriting that old house had been a gift from God for the young couple, because the company owning the factory where her husband had been working announced they were closing it down entirely. Luckily, he got a job in the local hardware store.

They had torn down the rickety old picket fence, saying there should be no fences between neighbors, but they really hadn’t seen much of the old lady next door. When the weather was nice and the windows were open they could hear her sweeping the sidewalk early in the morning. Sometimes in the late afternoons she would be sitting in the rocking chair on her front porch. She never seemed to look over their way.

Seven-year-old little Shirley lived next door. She had big blue eyes and curly brown hair and when she smiled she looked like the movie star Shirley Temple. What this little girl liked to do was roller-skate. There was a new cement driveway adjacent to their house but it had a rough finish that made skating kind of a jiggly affair, and she couldn’t slide very far. It was like skating on sandpaper. However, the sidewalk leading up to the porch stairs of Nellanore Steele’s house was made of slabs of very smooth slate. Wonderful skating surface.

At first Shirley was afraid to venture there, but it was so tempting. She couldn’t imagine how it could hurt anything for her to skate there. She timidly tried it a couple of times when the lady didn’t seem to be around and nothing happened, so she would skate from in front of her own house, past the neighbor’s house, then all the way to the end of their block. Next she would skate back and sort of reward herself, as a grand finale. She would dart up the slate sidewalk to the neighbor’s steps, turn around and skate back to the front sidewalk and home again. It was such great fun. It certainly made Shirley smile.

Until one day, when the old woman slammed open the front screen door, timing it to when she knew Shirley would turn onto the slate. She yelled, Go away. I’m trying to take a nap! Then she went right back inside, slamming the door again.

Shirley was so startled! She wondered what she had done that was so bad. No one had ever yelled at her before, because she was one of those quiet children who almost always did what they were told. The most her mother did was raise her eyebrow and point one index finger up, as a warning. That would suffice to make Shirley behave.

The little girl hastily skated home and by the time she got inside to tell her mother, she was crying. Her mother soothed her, and when Shirley calmed down her mother explained, I just think that lady is lonesome, living all alone. Next, her mother suggested Let’s you and me make some peanut-butter cookies. The part Shirley liked best was pressing a fork in the top of each cookie, one way and then the other making a nice pattern.

When the cookies were cooling Shirley’s mother was going to take a plateful of them to her neighbor, but she thought that wouldn’t help her daughter learn not to be afraid of the old lady. Believing that everyone is basically good, she felt the lady was not doubt sorry she had been so hard with a child. Shirley’s mother gave the little girl the hard chore of taking the plate of cookies next door by herself.

Shirley had her mother’s positive outlook. She bravely marched up to the door and knocked. It’s true, Nelllanore Steele did feel a bit ashamed. Seeing Shirley at the door she didn’t know what to expect. She opened the door and quietly asked, yes?

The little girl held out the plate of cookies. My mother sent these to you.

In response the woman asked Shirley if she would like to come inside and share the cookies, but the little girl told her No, thank you, I’m not allowed to go inside anyone’s house.

Well, how about we sit on the porch and have some milk with your cookies?

That sounded fine to Shirley. She sat in one of the rockers and looked toward her house, wondering if her mother was outside watching, but could see no one. Her mother was, of course, standing behind the opaque curtains, making certain her daughter’s gesture to the neighbor was well received.

Two glasses of milk were placed on the small wicker table between the rocking chairs. One might think they wouldn’t have much to talk about but Nellanore Steele had raised enough children to ask a few questions like What’s your name? and How do you like your new house? and Do you have any brothers or sisters?"

It was Shirley who kept up the conversation, being a chatterbox. When the cookies and milk were gone, the woman stood up. Ask your mother if you can come back on Saturday. I’ll bake us some sugar cookies.

Thus started the melting of the old lady’s heart. She didn’t have to be in the role of moral-guidance counselor. That was a parent’s role. She didn’t have to do anything except enjoy the company of a little girl.

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Saturday Nellanore Steele had set up a lace-covered table and two chairs under the large oak tree in the back yard. It was a setting for an artist to capture: the woman bending over and talking with the child. She asked Shirley where her grandmothers lived. The answer was one had died and one lived ‘far away’. Continuing that subject the old woman asked, Of course I am not your real grandmother, but would you like to call me Grandma? Shirley thought she’d better ask her mother first, but she could feel the answer the old woman wanted. She answered, Okay.

Next was a tour of the flower garden, looking at the peonies, hollyhocks, snapdragons and pansies. Shirley was a little leery of squeezing the snapdragon flowers to make them ‘bite’ and she said the pansies were her favorite. Truth was Grandma Steele was especially fond of her prize peonies but she said to Shirley Pansies are my favorite, too.

One day Grandma Steele showed Shirley how to press flowers between wax paper to dry and preserve them. Shirley made one to give to her mother and Grandma Steele said she would give hers to her granddaughter Liz, who was expected to arrive soon from San Francisco.

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3

HOMEWARD FOUND

O n the long cross-country airplane flight from San Francisco back to the East Coast Elizabeth Steele rested her head back in her seat, remembering when she had first arrived in California. Looking for somewhere other than Newark (derogatorily called Nerk) she chose San Francisco as her ideal of sophistication.

Leaving New England in March three years ago, she arrived in San Francisco carrying her old black winter coat, fleece-lined snow boots and wool scarves. She checked into the Fairmont Hotel in Union Square. When she awoke the first morning she eagerly wanted to walk in that golden sunshine, needing only a light weight jacket. From a sidewalk flower vender she purchased some violets for her lapel and continued on to a coffee shop for breakfast. She overheard an a woman order a Snail. When the waitress delivered a swirled pastry bun Liz could not stifle a laugh. The woman glanced at Liz and immediately Liz explained her expectation. The two women shared the laughter.

As the plane had continued its long cross-country flight Elizabeth Steele allowed memories of her life during the past several years wash over her: the newly learned delight of prawn-filled avocado, dinner at Sutter Lodge, after-work Rob Roy cocktails. She was hired at KPIX-TV in the Publicity Department, writing articles for TV/Radio magazines promoting the television programs. And she found an apartment across the Golden Gate bridge in Sausalito.

There were plays and programs and lectures to attend. A fellow-worker at KPIX invited her to hear a talk at the USF French Club meeting. A young Chinese man would be speaking in French. He would talk about his childhood in Hong Kong during the time it was occupied by the Japanese. Although her school-talk French was limited she was entranced by the speaker: It was there Cupid struck. Liz and the young man from Hong Kong had a whirlwind romance but months later the winds of Fate moved on. He returned overseas to his parents. When Liz recovered her mental stability she wisely chose a similar path: she was flying home to be with the woman who had raised her, Grandmother Nellanore Steele.

Elizabeth Steele had been eager to move away from her hometown when she was 20 but now Liz was eager to be back to the slower pace of home. The long taxi-ride from airport to her grandmother’s house gave her time to relax, breath more slowly, and dream about returning to the old familiar setting. Sure enough, there was Grandma, sitting in a rocker on the front porch.

Grandma!, Liz called out. She left her suitcases on the sidewalk and ran up the porch stairs. The older woman was still attempting to raise up from her seat before Liz reached her arms around her grandmother and lifted her with a hug. I’m home. As they stood there, arms wrapped around each other, Liz realized she was getting a strong hug right back. They exchanged several sentences, social chatter that meant little. Both understood what each meant was I love you and I missed you.

Suitcases retrieved, they entered the living room. Liz set down the suitcases without venturing any farther. She remembered when she was eighteen. She had thought she was the most grown-up person there ever was. When she was twenty-one she had looked back on herself at age eighteen and thought about how sophomoric she had been at that time. Now at the advanced age of twenty-five she felt like she was 14 again. She gazed around the familiar room, almost breathing in the memories.

That old brown mohair sofa she had once hated as being prickly she now looked upon with affection. The afghan that was draped on the arm of the overstuffed chair, ready to be pulled over Grand’s knees if she got a chill, was made out of the end of many different colored skeins of yarn. Liz remembered holding out her arms with the yarn slipped over them while her grandmother had rolled the strands into a ball so there would be no tangling which she was crocheting.

The rug, now threadbare from so much vacuuming, was edged in a fringe. Liz remembered learning how to braid by taking three strands at a time. She had braided two feet long section of fringe before her grandmother had noticed. It was more difficult to unbraid it than braid it.

She looked with fondness at the old brown-leather hassock. That footstool was lopsided, tilted toward the chair where grandma sat with her feet up, causing the lean. Liz even remembered how it sounded: as if it was filled with straw whenever you sat on it, making a funny scrunchy sound.

Grandma broke