I was never in the same room as Fidel Castro, but I was in the same stadium.

It was the opening ceremonies for the 1991 Pan American Games and Castro’s Cuba was the host nation. A team of reporters had been assembled by Gannett News Service and USA Today and sent down to Havana on a chartered plane — because no regular air links between the U.S. and Cuba existed at the time.

As we entered the 50,000-capacity Estadioamericano for opening ceremonies, August 2, 1991, I remember the smell of wet cement. The infrastructure for the Pan-Ams was not quite complete and to this day wet cement makes me think of Fidel Castro and Havana.

As head of state for the host nation, Castro was supposed to speak only a handful of words: “I declare open” the Pan-Am Games, or something similar.

My recollection is that he went beyond that. Though not on a multi-hour harangue of the sort he often gave to the Cuban people in the Plaza de la Revolucion.

Castro died tonight at the age of 90, a decade after he ceded power to his younger brother, Raul.

I read lots and lots of stories about Fidel Castro over the decades, but probably none of that sticks with me as does the experience of two-plus weeks in Havana, 35 years ago.

That was when Americans ordinarily could not legally travel to Cuba because of the deep freeze in relations between the countries.

It was an exotic and attractive assignment, to be there for two weeks, walking the streets, listening to the people, watching the crowds and following the local media.

Buying Cuban cigars even though I did not smoke.

Some of the memories that spring to mind:

–Feeling as if I were being followed. It was not just paranoia. I am pretty sure I was followed, whenever I left the Habana Libre (the former Havana Hilton) Hotel — where all foreign reporters were required to stay.

The lobby of the hotel invariably contained a couple of dozen youngish men in dark suits, just hanging around. If I stepped outside, one or two of the guys stepped out after me. If I looked back, sometimes I could see them, 30-40 yards behind me.

I was not there to foment an uprising, of course, so those following me were not going to be making a big arrest. Later in the Games, I had a sense they had given up on me.

–The ancient cars. Even now, lots of 1950s-era autos can be found in Cuba, left over from the time before Castro took power, in 1959. Havana seemed to be one big museum of American sedans. I remember speaking with a Games volunteer and mentioning the word “cannibalizing”, in reference to repairing cars with parts taken off disabled cars. The volunteer said: “We have the same word! Cannibalisme!”

–I asked another volunteer what it was like to stand in the plaza for hours while Castro spoke/fulminated. She said she had heard many speeches there and it was “important to listen to one of the leading political figures of our age.”

–The motorboat that Castro purchased to sail from Mexico to Cuba to launch the revolution, the Granma, is encased in plastic and can be viewed in a Havana square. I made the pilgrimage. The government newspaper was named after the boat.

–Cuba was in economic trouble then as now, Maybe more so, then because reformer Mikhail Gorbachev was running the Soviet Union and he was cutting back aid to Cuba, the money which enabled Cuba’s economy to sputter along.

I didn’t see beggars and I did not fear being robbed, because social controls were effective and most of the locals seemed to be friendly. But the population seemed to wear the same drab, vaguely tatty clothes. And no one was overweight. When I ate at the hotel, at the buffet meals we had arranged, I had a sense that many of the staff were watching me and wondering why this Yankee was eating chicken and they were not.

–The official mascot was known as Tocopan. A Spanish-speaking colleague said he heard locals refer to it as “pocopan” — which translates as “little bread”.

–Hosting the Pan-Ams gave Castro’s government a chance to show up the U.S.  The Cuban sports program was near the zenith of its powers, in 1991, and the hosts dominated in boxing and track and field and won more gold medals (140) than anyone, with the U.S. second with 130. (Though the U.S. won more overall medals than Cuba did, 352-265.)

–Cuba’s baseball team, in the pre-defector days, was very, very good and won gold, over Puerto Rico and a U.S. team that included Jason Giambi, Tony Phillips and Charles Johnson. That Cuban team had Omar Linares, Orestes Kindelan and German Mesa, among other standouts, all of whom might have been multi-millionaires had they been born 20 years later. In Cuba, they were paid about $1,000 annually.

–The story always was that Fidel Castro — a big baseball fan — tried out for the Washington Senators as a pitcher in the 1950s, but that he was not considered skillful enough to sign. Did that happen? Probably not. But it makes you wonder how North American history might have been different if Fidel had been good enough to sign with a Major League Baseball team.

–Havana even then had a nearby tourist area called Varadero. It was new and seemed to be mostly for Canadians, and was somewhat controversial within the Cuban government because it had gone decades without catering to Western tourists. Now, Cuba seems to be charging after norteamericano tourist dollars.

–I left Cuba on August 19, bound for Miami, the morning after the closing ceremonies. The Cubans I encountered on the way out of the country seemed edgy and excited.

I eventually learned that Gorbachev, the Soviet president, had been declared “ill” that day and hard-liners in Moscow were taking power. That could mean renewed Soviet subsidies for Cuba, and perhaps a better economy, short-term, and explained the strange atmosphere there, as well as the celebratory article in the local newspaper. The coup failed. (Castro needed a new benefactor, and eventually found one in Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez.)

Did Fidel attend closing ceremonies? I would think he did. The Pan-Am Games were a huge event for a poor country and easily the biggest sports program put on by Fidel’s government.

But if he spoke, I do not recall.