The Irish Aunts

Rita had five Irish aunts. Her father’s sisters, like her father, Thomas Honan Jr., grew up under the watchful eye of the OG Irishman who’d stayed in Cuba after fighting alongside Teddy Roosevelt as a member of his vaunted Rough Riders. Four out of five of the Irish aunts made it out of Cuba. Until this episode, I knew three of them only by their nicknames - Cambucha, Lola and Pilín. Alicia - one of whose daughters became a nun, writer and Zen practitioner - was the only one that I knew of with a so-called normal name. Pilín called herself “mi abuela postiza” (my fake grandmother). Pilín was my favorite if for no other reason than she bought me my first baseball bat. Lola married an alcoholic whose claim to fame or infamy - outside of prodigious drinking - was playing high school baseball and basketball alongside Fidel Castro. Lola outlived her husband and all of her sisters. Emma was a dreamer-novelist who kept a rooster in her house published fantastical stories of love and loss. She stayed- and died in Cuba. And for reasons that we hope you discover during this episode, all of them have lived on in Rita’s and my memory for both good and weird reasons. Visit Us! https://www.cubancowboys.com/ Follow Us! https://open.spotify.com/artist/4CHd70lHwOLcpp3AWaPt8T https://www.instagram.com/cubancowboys/