Cuban Cue Chalk Challenge

I spent some of the holidays at a resort in Veradero, Cuba. I collected about 50 pounds of seashells and spent a lot of time doing nothing at all.

One afternoon, I saw a an example of the legendary Cuban resourcefulness while watching two of the staff playing pool. Every artefact in Cuba is either broken down or held together with tape, and the pool table was no exception. It wasn’t level, its felt was bare, the cues were bent, and there was no chalk. They played anyway. Before taking a shot, one of the lads chalked his cue by jamming the end of the stick into a crack in the wall and spinning it around.

The episode made me realize just how helpless we are in Canada. We don’t need to know how to fix an appliance, mend a sock, or forge any of life’s necessities from cast-offs. Let’s hope our luck holds.