Lakeside resident Robert Sandels, who turns 86 this year, has racked up plenty of jobs in his lifetime. From restaurant worker to history professor to writer on Latin American issues, the one job that stands out as his all time favorite took place on a U.S. naval base in Key West, Florida.
“There I was, 22 years old, just out of the Navy, and getting paid to ride through the tropics while delivering mail,” Sandels said. “I would buy cheap hamburgers at the base’s ‘Gedunk bars,’ or snack bars, and flirt with the office girls. When I wasn’t working, I was on the beach soaking up the Florida sun. How ideal was that?”
Unfortunately, his “dream job” lasted less than a year, at which time he was promoted to the base’s accounting department.
Says Sandels, “I only lasted one month at that accounting job because I didn’t have a clue as to what I was doing. Accounting was clearly not my thing.”
At a later point Sandels spent a year teaching high school, but when that turned out to be another bad fit, he did the next best thing – he returned to school, got his PhD in History, and landed teaching jobs in five different universities, in California and Connecticut.
“Sadly, I discovered that most students who attend universities are ill prepared because their high schools fail them,” says Sandels. “I got burned because as teachers, one of our biggest jobs was bringing students up to speed in the most basic skills, like remedial English.”
What his career as a history professor did for him was to spark a keen interest in Latin America and its culture. So, after abandoning his teaching career and with a particular affinity toward Cuba, he visited the island a dozen times. He also wrote numerous articles about U.S.-Cuba relations for alternative media such as CounterPunch, and the socialist magazine Monthly Review.
“I took my first trip to Cuba while in the Navy,” he says. “I was taking classes on the base, and the deal was, if we passed all of our exams, we could go to Cuba for the weekend on a naval ship.”
Hitching a ride on a destroyer from Key West, Sandels arrived in Cuba three hours later. Upon debarking, he vividly remembers the scent of cigars.
The last time Sandels visited Cuba was in 2006.
“What impressed me about that trip,” he says, “was that I didn’t see any homeless people on the streets. Although many Cubans are seen as impoverished, they have access to subsidized housing, free education and free medical services, so how impoverished are they, really?”
Several of his trips to Cuba took place on tours through the University of New Mexico, where he was working while his then-wife was studying for her advanced degree. Hired as an online newsletter writer, he wrote for a Latin American database, with his focus being Central America and the Caribbean.
“I was doing straight reporting on what was happening in those countries,” he says. “Since our department was teeming with liberals, we could write about practically anything and no one cared. It was a good job, except for the long hours.
“I had to read 14 newspapers every day, just to keep up on current events. If I went on vacation for two days, that meant catching up on 28 newspapers. I don’t even think I took a vacation during the seven years I worked there.”
Sandels moved to lakeside six years ago. He is no stranger to the area, since in the late 1980s he had enjoyed a stint working as a writer/reporter for the Guadalajara Reporter, covering both local and national news.
Now enjoying his retirement at lakeside, Sandels spends much of his time reading books on his Kindle.
“My latest book is about the Roman philosopher Seneca,” he says. “The reason I chose it was because it was free.”
He continues: “As a kid, I never read ‘Alice in Wonderland,’ so I read it a few months ago – also because it was free. Same with Jane Austin novels. With Kindle, I can go onto Amazon, type in ‘Kindle free books,’ and peruse a long list of titles – usually far too many to get through.”
Sandels says that he’ll take retirement any day over working at something he doesn’t like.
“Usually we know we’re not going to make a career out of those after-school-type jobs, like working in a factory, a warehouse, a restaurant – even at a lunch counter in a dime store. In a way, these jobs of mine don’t really count, and maybe that’s why I wasn’t supposed to like them.”
But his job as a messenger on a naval base proved to be a whole different story.
“When people ask me who I am,” he says, “I tell them I’m a retired bicycle messenger. Sometimes the simplest, most innocent jobs turn out to be the best ones.”