I'm back on track...

after being tagged and meme'd (?).

I called my brother-in-law to ask if he could recommend a gardener who might like to cut my 5 sq. meter lawn for a modest fee. He had just the man, he said. His own personal gardener of many years.

Great!, I thought, this is the advantage of being a part of an enormous family.

The next morning an elderly man rang the doorbell. He was small, wizened and had skin the color and texture of cinnamon sticks. When we shook hands it was like touching a skeleton. His hands were bony, almost skinless, yet the latent power I felt in that handshake let me know that this was still a really strong skeleton.

We went up to the 5 sq. meter lawn and we both hunkered down in a typical Mexican fashion to discuss the wherefores. Now, if some of you don't know what 'hunkering' is I will explain it as a position many people, around the world, and even, in the southern U.S. are able to maintain while working, chatting or pausing for a smoke. It's basically, a squat with the knees spread sufficiently wide to allow both arms to pass between them, allowing the hands to reach the ground and do work.

This is a position best done by wizened, lanky, rubbery body styles. Most Americans cannot hold this position more than a minute before muscles and nerve endings begin to cry out. I have taught myself to hunker. For a gringo I'm not half bad.

My age, though, dictates just how long I can hunker. As the gardener and I continued to talk my leg muscles, knees and back began yammering for a break. The little wizened guy kept talking and hunkering. Finally, I struggled to my feet with a noticeable grunt. Courteously, he too arose,silently. I apologized for my years and condition and asked him how old he was. He smiled a snaggledtoothed smile and said, 81.

QUOTE OF THE DAY:

Horse sense is what keeps horses from betting on people. - W.C. Fields


MEXICO (as I see it):


Oh, Mexico, what spectrum you show; the present and ten
thousand years ago.

In a city of six million inhabitants, one dawning morn, I watched a man and his sons cross an open field, hunched over, trotting slowly, each carrying rocks in both hands. While pretending not to notice them they circled a flock of chickens, that had gone wild. Their manuevers divided the uneasy birds and they isolated a hen. The father and his sons surrounded her, then crippled her by
stoning, charged her, barking orders to each other, garroted her
and carried the bird away to eat. The family was laughing and congratulating one another as they left.

I stood, mesmerized by what chance had made mine, a glimpse
into a time australopithecine.


THE SERIAL: Her Viking


The first time the Widow Mora saw him, her interest was piqued. There had been no tourist business in Topolomo for more than ten years. It had been that long since the government changed the course of the main highway along the southern Pacific coast of Mexico. That change had left Topolomo isolated and more than a hundred kilometers from what then became the main route. Yet, in spite of everything, there he was strolling the beach.

The people who had commercial interests in Topolomo had long since closed down and pulled out. Those few who stayed, mostly locals who knew of no other place to go, continued hoping there would still be enough tourists to keep them going, but it turned out that there were not. A few Mexican vacationers still came in the early part of summer because they liked the depressed prices and didn't mind the intense tropical heat, rough seas or the seedy conditions. All the buildings in the pueblo had been allowed to deteriorate simply because there was no incentive to maintain them or money either.

How was it, the Widow Mora wondered, that now late in August during the rainy season, a white man was walking the beach in the early morning seemingly full of purpose?

The widow could not make out his features very well since she was watching the man from her house which was situated fifty meters, or so, up the palisades overlooking the sea. The widow Mora could, however, see the man well enough from her bedroom window to trace his movements and make some determinations as to his age, height and weight.

At first, though, her interest was nothing more than curiosity. 'What in the world was he doing here? Why had he come?' she thought. Certainly he was no bono fide tourist. How had this person even heard of our town? There were no glossy brochures lauding the pleasures of Topolomo. The only way one got to Topolomo was to mean to go there. It could not be done accidentally.

When the man passed by the second, third and fourth day, always around 7:30 A.M., even though it was too early for the Widow Mora, she found herself, barely cognizant, stumbling toward her bedroom window. Hidden behind the drapery she just peeked out to observe the stretch of beach her view took in and if the stranger were present, she felt it made the effort worth it.

Her hair was matted and pressed from sleeping on it. She wore nothing more than a roughly sewn cotton pull-over that was cut like a hospital gown. Now, she never used her make up and appeared much older than her 47 years.

The Widow Mora's life was stagnate and had been so for a long time. Her husband died 12 years earlier. He was a brutish sort and his passing had not saddened his wife. She was left with the old house, precariously perched on the cliff, which she could not sell because of stipulations in her husband's will. She received a small stipend for having been his wife for 17 long years. It came monthly from an account in a Mexico City bank and the widow had no control over it. The amount had remained the same since the beginning and now, with Mexico's latest economical problems, was only enough to buy food and maintain the house.

Along with the building, its furnishings, her clothes and a few pieces of jewelry the only other thing the Widow Mora had was Cee Cee, an ancient Indian woman, who came with the house when her husband bought it 25 years earlier.