It was hard to actually pin down who Ramón Platas was -- whether you are talking about his first 43 years in Cuba, or the last 49, in the United States.
In Cuba, he was a journalist, a baseball player and underground resistance fighter, waging war against Fidel Castro.
In America, he was a Renaissance man, reading everything he could get his hands on, listening to every classical piece of music he could find, and teaching Spanish at Morris Brown College.
Ramon Platas died Nov. 11, 2011 of congestive heart failure at his home in Lawrenceville. He was 92. Mr. Platas was cremated.
Mr. Platas was born Sept. 8, 1919 in Havana to Ramón and Manuela Platas, who had emigrated from Spain in 1918 to escape that country's poverty.
"He grew up reading adventure stories and hiding in mango trees," said his daughter, Berta Platas. "He was always running around wild. He loved that freedom."
And like many boys in Cuba, including Castro, Mr. Platas loved baseball.
"He was a good catcher and a great hitter, but he never tried out professionally," Berta Platas said.
On Feb. 4, 1956 he married Luciana Fernandez in Havana. They had two daughters, Berta Platas of Lawrenceville and Laura Scott of Greenville, S.C.
Mr. Platas, who earned a journalism degree, worked as a newspaper reporter for El Crisol. It was eventually taken over by Castro and his articles had to go through censors, which infuriated him.
Staunchly anti-Castro, Mr. Platas started working for the resistance.
After the Bay of Pigs, he helped smuggle a downed pilot out of Cuba, he was a liaison for fighters camped out in the mountains, hid resisters, and helped publish an underground newspaper.
"He couldn't write what he wanted to in El Crisol. He would have been dead," his wife said. "For the underground paper, he would write the reality of what was going on."
Mr. Platas would deliver his stories to a typesetter, who would publish them. One day when he went to deliver his story, his typesetter had been arrested, a clue to get out.
In January of 1962, Mr. Platas and his family flew to Miami, where they were granted political asylum.
"I knew very little of what he was doing because he didn't want me involved," Mrs. Platas said. "I had my two little girls. After we got to America, he began telling me what he was up to."
The family initially settled in Miami, but because no one in the family spoke English, he wanted to move some place where no one spoke Spanish -- Pittsburgh.
Because his Cuban degree was not widely accepted, he started over, getting a bachelors from Mercy College in New York, a masters from St. John's University and a doctorate from Emory University.
Starting in 1972, he spent the next 25 years teaching Spanish at Morris Brown College.
Betra Platas said her father also loved Roman and Greek history and would read anything that had to do with the golden age of Spain.
"And he loved opera and Beethoven," Berta Platas said. "When he came to this country, he needed an outlet, so he started playing tennis with my mother and became very good. In his late 70s, he saw me painting, so he became a wonderful painter."
While he remained curious about the politics of Cuba, Mr. Platas never wanted to return, at least while Castro was still in power.
"He thinks people have long memories," Berta Platas said. "He loved that country so much, but he didn't want to go back."
They came close in 2010.
On a cruise to Western Haiti and Jamaica, their ship passed the Cuba isle.
"We saw Cuba in the long distance," Mrs. Platas said. "It was very emotional for both of us."
Aside from his wife and daughters, Mr. Platas is survived by six grandchildren.
They hope to return to Cuba one day -- to spread Mr. Platas' ashes.
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