Twick-O-Tweet

When I first came to Mexico to live in 1999 I don’t remember seeing any signs at all of Halloween. The focus was entirely upon the Mexican “El Día de los Muertos” (The Day of the Dead) observances of November first and second. After Y2K it seemed like Halloween began to enter the consciousness of Mexican people…probably through television first and then through marketing as big chains such as Walmart became securely entrenched. It is no big deal really. The Mexicans hold firm to their El Día de los Muertos celebrations and the kids enjoy the trappings of Halloween as well. It makes for an extended holiday. The orange and black colors of Halloween pretty much go hand in hand with the colors of the Día de los Muertos so there is an easy transition from one to the other and the jack-o-lantern fits in nicely.

This past Sunday, the Catholic priests all over Mexico gave a sermon about the dangers of Halloween and yesterday the Catholic Church of Mexico officially attacked Halloween as a pagan abomination. The Church urged parents not to let their children wear Halloween costumes or go trick-or-treating. They suggested instead that the parents teach them the negative things about Halloween and hold costume parties where children can dress up as Biblical characters and give friends a piece of candy while telling them "God loves you." They also said that celebrating Halloween like inviting Satan into your home. Wow! It sounds to me like they are really serious about not liking Halloween. It does seem a bit strange, however, that they should attack Halloween and not El Día de los Muertos as well. The “Los Muertos” tradition dates back 3,000 years. The Aztec culture celebrated a holiday very similar to the present day Día de los Muertos during the whole month of August. When the Spanish Conquistadors landed in what is now Mexico, they noticed the natives practicing this ritual and the Catholic Church by right of conquest forced a change in the ritual date to November first to coincide with the Catholic holidays of All Saints Day and All Souls Day.

I think that the Church can huff and puff all they want but they are not going to stop Halloween. It is starting to become a popular holiday the world over including China. Halloween is called wànshèngjié in China and a pumpkin is called a nánguā. I really think that the Church officials are wasting their time and looking foolish by attacking the inevitable. They should embrace the change and adapt to it. I was raised a Catholic and I do believe as they do and as Saint Paul tells us that “The Devil roams the Earth like a roaring lion seeking those whom he might devour” but I think that it is more likely that he disguises himself as a pedophile priest, a corrupt politician, or a radical conservative religious figure and not as a pumpkin. In any case, Happy Halloween! I guess the worst thing that can happen is that you eat too much candy.

¡Feliz Cumpleaños!

I am sixty years old today. I really never thought I would make it this far but here I am. When I look in a mirror I am all of sixty years and then some, but deep down in my heart the year is perpetually 1964 and I will always be seventeen. It is certainly no disgrace to get older but after a certain point it is no fun any more. It makes one feel marginalized and out of place in this youth worshipping world. I am not done yet, however, "Si Dios quiere" or "If God wishes it" as they say here in Mexico. The words of Alfred Lord Tennyson come to mind from his poem "Ulysses"…

"Come, my friends, 'tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite the sounding furrows;
For my purpose holds to sail beyond the sunset,
And the baths of all the western stars,
Until I die."

After all, as I am always fond of saying, "Life is a journey and not a destination" and as my loving mother always said to me, "Onward ever, backward NEVER!"

Many happy returns of the day.

Just humming right along.

I am always thrilled to hear the National Anthem of the United States. It sends thrills up and down my spine and I just have to sing the words while the music plays. The Himno Nacional of Mexico is also a very stirring anthem and whenever it is played the Mexican people love to sing along with the music as well. I was astonished, however, to hear that although Spain has a national anthem it is just music and there are no words. The origins of Spain’s anthem are not clear. Supposedly it was composed by some German guy and given as a gift to King Carlos III in 1770 but some people argue that the composer was French. In any case the music is a bit slow and solemn and it doesn’t have the pizzazz of the U.S. anthem or the rousing spirit of the Himno Nacional of Mexico. Gen. Francisco Franco declared it the official anthem in 1942 but there were never any official lyrics assigned to it. It is my understanding that there is now a quest in Spain to find some suitable words for patriotic Spaniards to sing so that when it is time for the Olympics next year the Spanish people can belt out their anthem with pride and will no longer just have to hum along. If they can’t come up with suitable anthem in time for the Olympics I have a suggestion. All of the people from Spain who attend the Olympics should carry a kazoo. At least they will be heard better over the noise of the crowd.

On Mexican Time

Today is the last Sunday in October. Traditionally, that is when we adjust our clocks because we go off of Daylight Saving Time. A friend of mine called me this morning to remind me of that and I faithfully went around the house resetting my clocks and installing new batteries. I found out later in the day that what I did was correct for Mexico but that here in Mexico we are now one hour behind the same time zone in the United States. In 2007, the United States changed its Daylight Saving Time observance under something called he Energy Policy Act of 2005 which mandated that in 2007 Daylight Saving Time would end on the first Sunday in November. This year the change date for the U.S. isn’t until November 4. In 2006, the date was the last Sunday in October which is what we still observe down here. I don’t know if anybody ever got around to telling Mexico or if Mexico never got around to changing their law as well. The thing is, why the change? Why disrupt a system for one lousy week? Is it worth all of the problems involved with computers, airline schedules, banking transactions, and communications? I think that the people in charge of keeping time in the United States are wrapped too tight. They need to relax and take a break and get away from it all. They need to come visit Mexico and see how we do it down here. For one thing, we know better than to kick a sleeping dog. That is something the U.S. government seems to be good at.

A crying shame.

This week I had to drive to Monterrey in the North of Mexico to buy some material for the company that I work for. When I was returning I found myself driving south in a stretch of high desert country and the road ran parallel to and between two mountain ranges for about 75 miles. There was nothing growing there except for some low bushes, a few mesquite trees and some yucca plants. Not far south of the city of San Luis Potosí near a small hamlet named Huizoche I encountered a stretch of road where poor people on both sides of the road were selling dried rattlesnake meat and snake oil. Apparently these people live on whatever they can catch in the desert which is primarily snakes and lizards and they sell some of it along the road to tourists so that they can buy tortillas and other staples. I stopped to look at some of the snakes that were hanging from a pole along with an assortment of old bottles that were half filled with a honey brown fluid that was supposed to be snake oil but look suspiciously like it might be motor oil.

As I looked over the merchandise I was suddenly besieged by a group of women and children in rags who desperately wanted to sell me something to earn a few pesos. I ended up buying a dried snake each from two women with which to show my friends and I passed out some coins to the other people so that at least everyone could buy some tortillas and not have to eat their sales stock. As I was fending off the more aggressive sellers I felt someone tugging at my trousers at about knee level and I looked down and there was a little boy no more than three or four years old. He was scantily clad against the cold for the sun was going down and it was getting chilly. I think it must have been about 45 degrees and I wasn’t wearing a jacket and I was starting to shiver a bit in the blowing wind. The little boy, however, was wearing less than I was and there was snot running from his nose. He looked up at me and into my eyes and he asked me if he could have a coin too. As I bent down to put a few pesos in his little hand I wanted to pick him up and rescue him and take him home with me to a better existence but I knew that I couldn’t.

People shouldn’t have to live like that in North America but there are literally millions of them living like animals in shacks made of sticks and cardboard and eating rodents, road kill, and snakes all over Mexico. People can talk all they want about it being the problem of the Mexican government or how these poor people should lift themselves by their own bootstraps but the fact is that many, many little kids are going to live and die under miserable conditions. None of the people that I talked with had ever used a telephone and none of them have televisions or even electricity or running water and they will never ever enjoy a day at the beach in Cancún. As I got back into my big shiny new company pickup I realized that I must seem like a visitor from outer space to that little boy. His face will haunt me forever and I will pray for him every day. I just don’t know what else to do. Somehow, someday, I think that all of us collectively are going to pay a heavy price for this disgraceful disregard for the fellow human beings in our own part of the World.

Don Felix

We are going to celebrate “El Día de los Muertos” (the Day of the Dead) here in Mexico on November 2^nd so it is time to make preparations by setting up a small altar in the house on which to place photos and remembrances of all of our dead relatives and friends. My gal Gina and I were discussing this yesterday and she told me that we mustn’t forget Don Felix. I don’t think she ever mentioned this person to me before so I asked her to tell me about him.

She said that when she was about six years old they lived down the street from a little store called an "abarrotes" which is like the little “Mom and Pop” grocery stores that used to be so prevalent in the United States.

The man who ran the store was loved by everybody in the neighborhood and his name was Señor Felix Murillo but everybody called him Don Felix. The word "Don" (pronounced Dohn) is like the word "Mister" in English. It is a term of respect. Don Felix and his wife lived in a little apartment above the store and everyday at about 2: pm, as is the custom here, they closed the store and went upstairs to eat lunch. After a long lunch period (as is also the custom here) they would go back downstairs and reopen the store and Don Felix would sit in a chair out by the sidewalk and doze in the shade of the awning until the kids came by from school. One particular day he came down from lunch and he didn't feel so good and he got worse and worse until finally two of his sons put him in his old pickup truck and drove him to the hospital. Like lightening the word went out by the jungle telegraph that Don Felix was sick and had gone to the hospital and everybody in the neighborhood was buzzing about it and worried about Don Felix, especially the kids because he was always so kind and generous with them.

When school let out, Gina, who was in first grade at the time, was walking home and she saw Don Felix's truck go by with one of his sons on either side of him and Don Felix sitting in the middle. Gina ran to the store to see Don Felix and make sure that he was okay. When she got there Don Felix´s sons were taking him out of the truck. He had died about a half hour after getting to the hospital. His sons had quickly found a doctor who was willing to sign a death certificate that said "natural causes" because if they didn't have a death certificate they couldn't take him back out of the hospital without an autopsy and Mexicans don't like autopsies. To them an autopsy is like desecrating the dead. They brought him home quickly so that they could put him in his bed before rigor mortis set in and they sat up with him all night had a mass for him and buried him the next day (as is the law and the custom). When Gina watched them take him out of the truck and put him in his bed she had big tears running down her face and she remembered the words from the song "Mexico Lindo y Querido" which goes:

México lindo y querido,
Si muero lejo de ti
Que digan estoy durmiendo
Y que me trigan aquí..."

"Mexico pretty and beloved,
If I should die far from thee
Oh that they say I am only sleeping
And that they bring me here to you." (paraphrased)

The man who wrote that song was a popular Mexican singer named Jorge Negrete and he died while he was in the United States so they brought him back home to bury him and they sang that song at his funeral. This all happened not long before Don Felix passed away and that is why the song made such an impression with her. She made me promise her right then and there that if she ever died while she was away from Mexico that I would bring her home and I asked her to make the same promise...that I be buried back home in Mexico too.

No matter what!

It seems like a day doesn't go by without a new crisis unfolding somewhere in the world and depending on if you are a Democrat or Republican, a Liberal or a Conservative, a Christian or a Jew, a Muslim or a Hindu or even something else you might be praying for different things. The same thing goes for the president. No matter who is president they have to continually watch out to make sure that they don't pray for the wrong thing and run afoul of the law of unintended consequences. The first impulse may not always be the best. They tell a story here in Mexico about a couple who had two sons. One son was a farmer and the other was a rancher. The father went to see his son the farmer and he asked him how things were going. His son told him that things were great and that it looked like he was going to have a huge crop of wheat unless it rained. If it rained within the next fifteen days the wheat would be ruined so he was praying that it wouldn't rain. Then he went to visit the son who was a rancher and asked him how things were going. His son told him that they weren't going very well at all. He said that it had been too dry lately and that the water holes were drying up and if it didn't rain within the next fifteen days he would probably loose all his cattle so he was praying very hard that it would rain. The man went home feeling very sad and when he got home he hung his hat upon the usual peg and his wife said to him "So, how are the boys?" and he looked at her and what do you think he said? Well I really don't know what he said because I wasn't there but if he loved his wife he probably just looked at her and said "Fine dear, just fine"...and that is what the President of the United States continues to tell his wife and the American people...no matter what!

Shot in the other foot.

It looks like the Department of Homeland Security and DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff are in hot water again. This time it was discovered that they have been constructing a portion of the border fence between the United States and Mexico using steel posts that were made in China and identified as such by prominent lettering on each post that says “CHINA”. This faux pas has angered Republicans and Democrats alike who think it outrageous that the United States is using Chinese steel to build a border fence to protect the U.S. against illegal immigration. Apparently no one has even asked the Mexican government what they think about it. If the United States does not intend to use steel made by American workers in American plants then why don’t they buy the steel from Mexico instead of China. After all, isn’t Mexico a neighbor? The American poet laureate Robert Frost once said “Good fences make good neighbors” but I think he got it wrong. I think it should be “Good neighbors make good neighbors”. We don’t need a Chinese fence. Their Great Wall didn’t work very well at keeping people out and neither will the fence. We only need neighbors who care about each other. Remember what Mr. Rogers always said:

"It's a beautiful day in this neighborhood,
A beautiful day for a neighbor.
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?...

It's a neighborly day in this beauty wood,
A neighborly day for a beauty.
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?...

I've always wanted to have a neighbor just like you.
I've always wanted to live in a neighborhood with you.

So, let's make the most of this beautiful day.
Since we're together we might as well say:
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?
Won't you be my neighbor?
Won't you please,
Won't you please?
Please won't you be my neighbor?"

(“Won't you be my neighbor?” by Fred M. Rogers)

It’s now official!

It’s now official!

Yesterday we learned that the Catholic Church made an announcement that the father of Mexican independence, Miguel Hidalgo, is not excommunicated after all and we can enjoy the 2010 bicentennial without this stain on the national psyche. Apparently the Vatican searched their voluminous records and conveniently found a slip of paper that mentions that a fellow priest heard Miguel Hidalgo’s confession just before he went before the Spanish firing squad to be executed for treason and so all is forgiven. I am sure that Padre Hidalgo was happy to hear that and surely he has been given time off for good behavior for his stay in Hell and is now on his way to Heaven.

José Maria Morelos is another story. Church officials are still investigating Morelos' case, although they suspect he also confessed and they will probably find a note somewhere in the files that attests to that fact. This will be a great relief because for two hundred years it has been considered an insult that these two men were excommunicated and it has always been widely believed that the excommunications were actually in retaliation for having defied the Spanish government. In the end I suspect that the pardon will come and the Devil will fling open Padre Morelos’s cell door as well and he will be on his way to Heaven to join Padre Hidalgo. I just love a good ending to a story don’t you? All’s well that ends well.

Never say never!

Now that I have been living and working in Mexico almost nine years many people ask me when I am coming back to live in the United States. I tell them that I am very happy living in Mexico and that since I am nearing retirement age I have no plans to return to the U.S. to live. They almost always say something like, “Oh, I could never do that”. Well, maybe not and then maybe so. In the next couple years many of the people born just after World War II are going to start retiring. In about five more years it will be a flood. They will combine their savings and their Social Security and the millions of those who have no other equity or source of income are going to have a hard time. That is when retirement in another country might become an attractive option.

Right now there are retirement homes for the aged being planned in Mexico for elderly Americans and I understand they are also being considered in places like India, Asia and Africa. Where the cost of a decent home for the elderly including nursing care would be prohibitive in the U.S., it could be very affordable in other places. There is nothing to be scared of either. I have personally received in-hospital care after major surgery twice in Mexico and I was cared for equally as well or better than the hospital treatment that I encountered in Chicago. Many Americans don’t understand what is happening and won’t until it is too late.

The time to start planning is now. Living in another country is not as bad as it sounds. It isn’t unpatriotic or shameful either and it can be very rewarding. For one thing, I don’t have to shovel snow. My flowers bloom year around. I live in a city of 465,000 people and yet rush hour lasts all of about 10 minutes if you could even call it “rush hour” because nobody rushes. I live only a few blocks from Walmart, Sam’s Club, a major supermarket called Comercial Mexicana, Homemart, Office depot, and Office Max. Bus service around town is convenient and cheap and first class bus service between cities is inexpensive and luxurious. You can go anywhere in town that you need to go for about two dollars in a taxi and they are everywhere. There is a hospital, a fire station, and a police station close by to where I live. I am 30 minutes from an international airport. There are restaurants everywhere and the food is plentiful and cheap. I have satellite TV with HBO, CNN, and all the rest. We have cinemas with all the major Hollywood films in English with Spanish subtitles.

In short, I think it is time that older people take a look around them and instead of saying “Never” they should start thinking “Maybe”.