When Kenny Rogers sang, “Ya got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em … ” in his hit, “The Gambler,” he was singing about more than playing cards, he was singing about life with Josefina. With all that’s going on in the world today, I should probably be more upset about unchecked […]
Continue ReadingMexico’s economic downturn may be worse than those of other nations, because so much of Mexico’s economy depends on tourism. Mexico City is desperate to restore its tourism industry; perhaps they’re suffering from an abundance of media coverage of killings, kidnappings, and cartels. What can Mexico possibly come up with to attract tourists under this […]
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Even if you have never wondered what ties Mexico to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, I’m going to tell you anyway. It begins with a poem. Longfellow’s epic 1847 poem, “Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie,” is the story of an Acadian girl, Evangeline Bellefontaine (“Fair was she to behold, that maiden of seventeen summers”), her betrothed, Gabriel […]
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In 1934 during the depths of the Great Depression, horse trainer Tom Smith was living out of a stall at Mexico’s Agua Caliente racetrack in Tijuana. Flat broke, Smith shared the stall with Noble Threewit, who trained horses for a friend of Charles Howard. Howard was seeking a trainer for his new horse, Seabiscuit, a […]
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The mean streets of Tijuana have at last dispatched something other than media reports of killings, kidnappings and cartels. The bloody, dusty, bullet-ridden streets of Tijuana have wached Cejas emigrate, even without proper papers. You may be wondering, Who is this Cejas of whom she writes? Is he a Mexican hero? Is he a famous […]
Continue ReadingIt may be time to add one more famous face to the posters hanging on my wall, the ones of Brando, Depp and Jim Morrison. Someone new may be exciting enough to be placed among them. I know because I heard all about it from Juanita, the Mexican cashier who snatched the special Obama issue […]
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Ever since Al Gore sounded the alarm about global warming, everyone on earth is aware that mankind (an oxymoron if ever I heard one) must preserve itself and the environment if it is to survive. We must waste nothing. These days, you don’t have to be a member of the Corleone family to be in […]
Continue ReadingFor a change, this year I’m not going to fool around with a list of resolutions to alter my behavior, resolutions that have always been elasticized by my characteristic rationalization. There’s always a way around those things if you can only justify your case first to yourself, and then try to fool everybody else. For […]
Continue ReadingEveryone who relocates to Mexico sooner or later cooks a big holiday dinner for visiting family and friends. My first Christmas, everyone I ever knew, casually met, or went to high school with, showed up. Sure they said it was to visit me, but I knew darned well it was an excuse to visit Mexico, […]
Continue ReadingGlobal economy just can’t be ignored any longer, no matter how hard I try. To keep up with the times and learn at least one more language while still keeping things simple, Spanish seemed a good choice because our alphabets are the same. Besides, each Spanish word is pronounced phonetically. What you see is what […]
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