Eladio Secades style is a little like the American Benchley who wrote "The Off-Islanders" and several books of essays about typical American characters. Secades was a newspaperman in Cuba and his Estampas were published in the paper weekly, if I remember correctly. The Estampas are small essays about typical Cuban people and attitudes. Unlike other people, Cubans laughed at themselves during those years. We laughed at the chaperons who took daughters to dances; we laughed at the "picuo" (a Cuban word that in other Hispanic countries may be equated to "cursi") who wore the huge medal of St....