MIAMI (WSVN) - It’s their favorite pastime, held at the usual time, but players who came together to plays at Little Havana’s Domino Park on Sunday had more than winning strategies on their minds.
7News cameras captured several games of dominoes, chess and cards in full swing while bystanders watched. “It’s awesome. I used to play dominoes with my grandmother in Hialeah when I was a kid, and this kind of brings it back,” said Mike Mutti, a Cuban-American visiting from San Francisco.
What’s different this weekend, according to the players, is that everyone is just a little happier. “Everybody’s happy. There’s a festival over here,” said player Enrique Diaz.
The sun was shining, but some saw the day brighter than ever after the passing of former Cuban leader Fidel Castro at age 90, late Friday night. “It’s the end of an era, and hopefully the beginning of a new era,” said Mutti.
It is also the hope for those who left the island nation however they could. “I take a plane, with a little gun, out of Cuba,” said Diaz. “Then we stopped in Canada, lived in Canada six months and came here.”
For Diaz and many other who frequent this popular Calle Ocho destination, playing dominoes was a popular pastime since their younger days in Cuba.
It’s a tradition that Diaz has been glad to continue in the U.S. “God bless America,” he said.
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