Catechism - All Lives Matter - and then a dose of (Sir Edmund) Hillary

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BUT FIRST, A PICTURE of OUR REHAB OF THE PARRILLA

(grill) ALSO KNOWN AS AN ASADOR (ah - sah - DOR).

OUR MAYORDOMO RESTORED IT LAST WEEK.

It is a little difficult to tailgate with it, but heck,
 getting there is half the fun, right?

     In seriousness, any finca, quinta, hacienda, or similar in a rural area, especially in Northern Mexico that does not have a simple, straight-up, parrilla, is a nowhere place. 

     We also have a true, real live, seven-foot deep"pozo de barbacoa" (pit barbecue) of the true classical style.  Some soon day we may be putting it back to work now that we have a bit  of predictable guest-arrival starting up again.

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Catechism and All Lives Matter:

    We are subjected to the analysis of causation of the prolonged affliction of bad schools, bad neighbourhoods, bad life outcomes, bad health, illegitimacy, drug addiction and marketting, and all such ills on a daily, almost hourly, basis.   Democrats have the best analysis and the best solution.   Racism and money.   They describe the source of the problem and then the solution.  Et Voila! Fait Accompli!!
     Republicans wring their hands and identify the symptoms but never quite make it to the cause of the socio-cultural disease.

   (1)  FACT
  Six trillion dollars after the beginning of the War on Poverty (tax,tax - spend, spend - elect, elect), forty-five years of denying social gravity and pushing young girls into marrying their Uncle Sam.

   (2) FACT
     Incessant driving of the presence of Yahweh from the corridors, classrooms, and auditoriums of public and even private schools.
  Most at fault among the private schools?  The Orthodox, including the Roman Catholic and Anglican sects of the Christian Church.  Protestants have some blame for abandoning their snake-handling, river-side baptisms, foot washing, and Hell's Fire and Brimstone sermons.
   The Orthodox have been completely absorbed by liberation theology, also known as Communism with a Cross....an impossibility on the face of it.

     What has not been absorbed by liberation theology has succumbed to the notion of moral relativism, Utopianism, and the secular progressive agenda. The entire Christian Church has more and more absentees, and more and more people who can figure out different ways to say, "Well everyone should have his/her own standards of right and wrong.   All this God stuff is silly, and besides that I don't believe in any God, and God is dead anyway, 'cause I saw that on television.   And Sunday, I'm tired, and I have a lot of things to catch up on and everything."

     It is interesting to go through the old programmes from the ancient days here in McAllen, Texas.   The Commencement of 1954, where a Roman Catholic priest, the pastor of Our Lady of Sorrows, along with our priest, Father Rollo Rilliing of Saint John's Church - Episcopal, and the Rabbi of Temple Emanuel Louis Herman all prayed over the coming in, the going forth, and the being there, for and on behalf of the soon-to-be graduates of McAllen High School.

     At our Easter Vacation Assembly, before dismissal in 1959, I remember very clearly the priest from Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church in McAllen giving the students a pleasant send-off by carefully describing, on a blow-by-blow basis the nature of the sledging of nails the size of railroad spikes into the lower arms and legs of the Nazarene, and what the physiological effect of such an exercise might be.   Three girls fainted.   It was quiet all over Lamar Junior High School as 1,200 urchins and adolescents departed for a week's "vacation".

     (3) FACT
     Public Assistance always reverts to paying off those who are feared to be capable of burning down the bakery if there is no free bread.  Private charity is always....always....preferable when done sincerely.

     When the purpose of bearing young becomes gaining additional dispensations from a government programme....food stamps, housing, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, free Medical....then Satan has won.

     The fact will always be that a child's heart is given by his/her mother.  A child's soul is installed by his/her father.    Violation of this rule results in ruin.  We recognise that there are exceptions (Dr. Carson, for instance) and we recognise that a good bench can and does frequently make up for the absence of a father....uncles and grandfathers who are responsible and who have the time and disposition to nurture and to provide a positive male example.


SOLUTION:

     Begin the immediate reduction of benefits to the consumer group by 10% per year.   AFCD and Food Stamps must be completely phased out, no matter how much the liquor stores, lottery vendors, casinos, and grocery store chains howl and moan.   School lunches (60% wasted food - Farm Bureau loves it and ethanol to save the planet), and FEMA (what sense does it make to take money out of an area so as to come in and "save" everyone when that should be a task of the locale?  It is strictly crony-capitalist, pea-and-walnut shell game.)

       Immediately privatise the Social Security System, abolishing the disability part by taking no further applications.   Immediately privatise the Medicare system, and abolish the Medicaid programme.   Most of the American population now never knew nor heard of Charity Hospitals.   Such facilities could be resuscitated because they were no worse than what Medicaid is now, and they were substantially less expensive because they were locally controlled and financed.
     The Social Security disability and SSI programmes are overwhelmingly corrupt and heavily abused.   It is long past time that the institution be "fundamentally transformed".

    We must eliminate the engines of corruption that have turned many of our businesses and business people into vassals and beggars.   We must destroy those agencies that have enslaved millions into a prison of perpetual poverty of purse and soul.   We must release the eagles and let them soar!!! 

     So long as the corridors and classrooms are devoid of those reminders of a greater Cosmic Presence and a basic Catechism of life conduct....the Golden Rule, the Beatitudes, and a sense of propriety....then all the money and social work in the world will only make matters steadily worse.

All lives matter.

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(SIR EDMUND) HILLARY - The Odyssey of Hubris and Deceit

     She delivered an insulting, arrogant commencement harangue as she left Wellesley.   She gained a position as a cub on the Senate Watergate  Special Investigation Committee.   At a page-turning point in the life of that committee, she was fired, with the added comment by the Special Counsel in charge of the investigation that he would never give Hillary a recommendation because she was lazy, did poor work, was untrustworthy, and she was a liar.

     She persistently (three times) over-rode the orders, agreed to by all the personnel, save for one, to consent to the notion that Richard Nixon should have right to counsel during the proceedings of Impeachment and the subsequent trial in the Senate.   She was caught leaking confidential material repeatedly, and she was caught blabbing confidential proceedings and meeting conversations to friends, radical Democrat operatives, and the press.

      There is no way she could have helped but know that that white-trash hillbilly over there was the guy who was the most famous draft dodger and woman beater circulating in Washington, D.C.   He had managed to beat the rap, by the intervention of Clinton's political godfather, of the sexual assault of an English Lord's granddaughter.

(From Politico magazine)
    Rhodes scholar Bill Clinton allegedly raped 19-year-old Eileen Wellstone at Oxford in 1969.  Wellstone says she was sexually assaulted by Bill after she met him at a pub. A retired State Department employee later anonymously told Capitol Hill Blue in 1999 “There was no doubt in my mind that this young woman had suffered severe emotional trauma…But we were under tremendous pressure to avoid the embarrassment of having a Rhodes scholar charged with rape.” 
Bill left Oxford with no degree (96% of Rhodes Scholars get degrees). 

     It is thought that Billy Jeff Blythe's get-out-of-jail card was the quick intervention of Senator J. William Fulbright, the Chairman of the very powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Billy Jeff's political godfather.   Her Majesty, the Queen determined in her wisdom to allow the wayward boy to leave so as to avoid an international incident with the Colonies across the pond.
     Eileen Wellstone was left with a ripped and torn lower lip, requiring many stitches, a dislocated shoulder, and a broken jaw.  Nothing serious....move on along....nothing to see here.   Her grandfather was a respected elder of the House of Lords.

     Since that union, between a narcissistic young hag who espoused marxism as the solution for all the little peoples' problems and money for the solution to her problems....and a narcissistic white-trash coward, woman-beating bully and draft-dodger, proven liar under oath (at the sacrifice of his law license), and well-practiced shyster and fraudulent operator....we have America's couple.   Why?  Because they will forward bolshevik and national socialism and abortion on demand, anytime, any place favored by the effete and elite who control the popular media and popular culture.

Makes you proud to be a member of an electorate that could vote for this pair and for another dolt who could read "Hope and Change" on a teleprompter.  Elective democracy, anyone?
El Gringo Viejo

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Tren en Santa Engracia, Tamaulipas

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     Two quick points here.  This is the scheduled freight train that comes down the Monterrey - Tampico rail line, north-bound every day around 10:00 am.  This train has at the front of its consist about twelve cars that are made-over box-cars, obviously and that are used for families who have a worker that is an internal, necessary person in a technical field.   For instance, the operator of an Emory laser rail leveller would have a car like that, because he is going to be reworking a couple of 50 kilometre mountain stretches for the next 45 days, perhaps.  His family will go with him, and there will be a couple or three cars with teachers where class will be held for the tezquintles (pups).

     This "mobile home" provision for certain workers has always been a tradition in Mexican railroading.  Also note, that the Mexican companies own 51% and are partnered with American companies now, who hold 49% of the shares of stock.  The Mexicans hold the title and handle the legalities, and the Americans run, with Mexican approval, the day-to-day operation of the trains and cargo.   The American companies have first call on profit division to a certain level, and after that the Mexican share of any net gradually increases as the amount goes higher.   Each of these "rail marriages" between various Mexican and American entities obviously have different "dowries".

    Finally, also notice that there are no people riding the train on top of the rail cars, like you see in the news.   That is almost a 1,000 miles away, and pertains to a stretch of about 40 miles over an old, seldom-used trackage.   On this train, one might see one or two flagmen sitting in a car or something like that, but hundreds of people riding on top.....never.   This train pulls through the Estacion Santa Engracia at about 50 mph and then, when the mile long convoy clears the community, it will take off about 80 mph.  No one can ride a box-car very long at that level of velocity, although the ride is relatively smooth, very little car "wobble".   The Mexicans have always been noted for having a good railway.

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Stream of consciousness from the past.....but it leads to the future. The Hacienda de Santa Engracia, quite near the Quinta Tesoro de la Sierra Madre

     To be clear, it should be first stated that the ex-Hacienda de Santa Engracia

The Hacienda de Santa Engracia - a bit of distortion
due to the 360 degree format, but a true presentation

remains as a hotel, with an official rating from the certification group within the central government as a 5 - Star facility.   The main problem at this time is that the occupancy has dropped from an average in 2009 of 55% to the present 01.4%.   In relative terms, it is essentially moribund.   The worst of the decline began in 2011, and by the end of the year of 2012 the facility was comatose.   What was a permanent staff, "de planta" under full coverage, wage & hour, IMSS, etc. was 19 people, and it is now 3.

     Given a week's notice they could be up and running to receive a group.  Given 10 or 12 days they could be ready for the bishop to officiate the wedding of the governor's daughter.   It is one of the great lamentations.   We used to pick up clients referred by the Hacienda who would use the Quinta Tesoro de la Sierra Madre as an overflow valve, especially from functions like weddings and funerals.   Many of our repeat Mexican guests came from those who had first contact with us via said method.

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An interior corridor

     (1)   The times of the Hacienda as an outback, hideaway place for the rich folks from Texas, Mexico City, and Monterrey (and other places including New York, Chicago, Dallas) began shortly after Emilio Portes Gil, native of Tamaulipas and the Cd. Victoria area .... and one-time provisional President of Mexico, signed the formal normalization of the Agrarian Reform initiative at the Hacienda de Santa Engracia in 1932.

     He served the next administration as sort of a minister plenipotentiary in  implementation of a very clunky, arbitrary Agrarian Reform Law mandated by the Constitucion de 1917.   By his efforts, it was agreed that depredations by extreme leftist agitators would desist from further anti-social and bellicose behaviour as it was stated.  It was further agreed that the latifundistas (large property owners) had agreed and complied to sacrifice their properties, once and for all times, to the process of repartition of small tracts to what was hoped to become self-sustaining farmer & family operations.   Various "ejido" governing councils had been established and they signed the agreements along with the five or six hacendados (large land holders) who held massive citrus and other farming operations, totalling up to 2,000,000 acres.

The main dining room.
  The all-ebony table
weight a little over 4,400 pounds.

     They all went their separate ways, more or less, and Don Jose' Martinez Gomez decided to try to make a living raising ultra-fine horses and breeding bulls.   To this day, amazingly, there are scores of trophies from State Fairs and other expositions where the Hacienda de Santa Engracia took a 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place trophy....from Texas to Queretaro, Aguascalientes, and other places.  Don Jose (known as Don Pepe among his friends and the locals) also had a horse in the Kentucky Derby that finished 4th....

     Because of the hobnobbing he did with the Gringos...especially Texans of the Southern Methodist University and University of Texas crowd, and oddly, the Texas A & M crowd....conversations would turn to the old Hacienda that his family had held for "....thousands of years down in Old Mexico".​   He invited people down, and as were things in those days....although the heads of government were decidedly anti-American....there seemed to be little to no 

compunction about driving down to the interior even though the roads were not up to the task, at times.   Of course, in those years, the highways and bi-ways were of a different level  as well.

The front veranda to the Hacienda

     There was a train that ran from Saint Louis, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, Laredo....and then made connections with the elegant old Aztec Eagle (Aguila Azteca) for the 40 hour trip from Nuevo Laredo to Mexico City,   It had 224 stops, carried 3rd, 2nd, and 1st class coaches, an opulent saloon car, an amazing diner, and usually 6 Pullman dormitory cars, two of which would be from the Missouri Pacific's Texas Eagle International.

   In Monterrey, the passengers could de-board and take the Monterrey - Tampico train that left around 8:00 am.   It would have a 1st class car or two....somewhat survivable...and normally had a consist of 8 - 10 coaches, and occasionally a few freight-laden boxcars.   It could normally make the arrival at the Estacion Santa Engracia shortly after mid-day.   There (in the 1930s - 1954 +/-), buggies and buck-boards awaited, along with a Packard (or similar) if arrangements had been telegraphed two or three days in advance.  The Packard was, of course, from the Hacienda.   The six mile trip from the Estacion to the Hacienda would require almost an hour.   There was a mule-drawn drayage on a very narrow-gauge extension​ that went out to the Hacienda with two flat cars, one for passengers, and one for freight.   If there were any blockage or catastrophic damage to the dirt road that went to the Hacienda, everyone had to use the drayage.   Our first trip - (Summer 1952) to the Hacienda was on one of the last runs of that same drayage. 

     Returning to Don Pepe's Gringo friends  -  a group came down in the early 1930s to have a good ole Texan time in Old Mexico.   They actually drove down, did all the bad roads, and lack of facilities.   They had engaged a guide in Monterrey...something that was required by laws en force at that time...and that guide, interestingly enough worked with us on our Excursions fifty years later.   The Pan American Highway had been been constructed to Cd. Victoria by that point, and that guide was offered and accepted a position of secretary and administrative aide to the Construction Superintendent of that project from Cd. Victoria to Tamazunchale, San Luis Potosi....because the Guide, old Rudolfo Tellez Vasquez spoke completely unaccented English (he had lived and studied in Dallas, Texas from age 5 to 25.) and had a college degree from the University of Nuevo Leon in History and Anthropology, and could speak Huastec to a more than functional level. (Rudy is another whole story)

     In any regard these people arrived at the Hacienda and were greeted very, very warmly.   Remember how absolutely boring it must have been out there at that time.  Plus, Don Pepe was a true Gringo-phile, and had a deep affection for the concept of America.   The pachangas (barbecues) and the music played by rustic but competent musicians, and the service and the mystique of Mexican food and alcohol, civility, and that sense of a perpetuity that Mexico seems to have intoxicated the Gringo friends who had taken Don Pepe up on his offer of a free week's stay.

    During one session while under the influence, let us say of the gardenias, orange blossoms, and mesquite smoke from the grill...., it was noticed that there is a support beam of the ceiling of the dining room where a hammer and sickle had been carved.   When queried, Don Pepe confessed that he had ordered his carpenters to put the hated emblem there, in case the leftist "community organisers" would manage to break through some day and threaten the lives and property that pertained to the Hacienda.  He also allowed that he still had fear of such an event, because the "communists never give up until they have ruined everything and replaced it with slavery". 

     One of his Gringo friends who had been handling various cases that had to do with Mexico opined to Don Pepe, "You know that there is a provision in the Agrarian Reform law that states that any large holding that has  remnant buildings, homes, and other such antique structures can gain exemption from harassment and over-enforcement by establishing a touristically oriented service.    Such a service can be a hotel, restaurant, or some culturally important matter."   He outlined a plan whereby the Hacienda could become a destination for city people to "return'' to the country in order to escape the madness of the big city, at least for a week or a week-end.   He also said that he would be willing to guarantee, the very next summer, the arrival of 30 Gringos to stay for a fortnight, and to pay 10 dollars per day each for room and board.

     For the next year every three or five days, the runner from the telegraph station at the Estacion Santa Engracia would come with a message about the group to come...how many married couples, how many single men, how many single women, who wanted a girls' room for four, who wanted a poker-after-supper setting for the men....can we have a huapango group play so we can dress up and dance?   They also warned that perhaps not all the people would be Texans.   Then one day the messenger came from the telegraph office with 1,000 pesos (about 1/2 a good salary for a year in Mexico in those days).  The message?   Tell Don Jose that this is a deposit for the group arriving in June.

     On the date indicated, the people arrived.   There were seven or eight motorcars with a bunch of people and lots of luggage.  Don Pepe had his "peons" (they were all employees at that time) ready to carry the bags of all to a centre point in the interior patio where the bags could be claimed and then carried by the staff to the appropriate quarters.  In those years there was only the Manor House of the Hacienda.  It miraculously accommodated the group, with the four single ladies over there, and the married couples here, and the rowdy single men at the next place....

     The next thing was that the rowdy men were swinging on the long rope off of the rubber tree, and dive bombing each other in the concrete swimming pool.  The benches were made with the very expensive, special order tiles, and were covered with towels, people, and all nature of food and drink.

     All were toasting to the idea that there was no electricity, no telephones, no radio.   Of course, Don Pepe came to inform everyone that there is now electricity, derived from his diesel powered generator.  There will be electric lights until midnight.   He also informs one and all that there is a desk at the entrance where the Telegrafos y Comunicaciones de Mexico has established a temporary desk for the sending and receiving of telegrams.   And....there is a radio in the library that can pick up American stations if you wish, he would add.

     As the fortnight came to an end....the horseback riding, the trips to the mountains, a couple of nights for some to Ciudad Victoria and purchases at the markets and from the State Prison of nice furniture made of ebony and mesquite....training to Victoria and training back to the Hacienda and all the pleasantries....tears....abrazos....good-byes....you come and visit us now....the bulk of the group left, and only the four single ladies stayed behind.

    They stayed behind because they needed another fortnight to truly appreciate the Mexican addiction.   And Don Pepe said he would personally escort them back to Monterrey and put them on a Pullman dormitory, destination Dallas.   We have no understanding of the impressions of Mrs. Martinez during these matters, but it is known that she went and stayed in Mexico City with her aunt for a couple of months after this entire episode.

       It is true that Don Jose Martinez Gomez had some peculiar sway over women....and he was just a scrawny bald guy.   It is still something that some of the now-middle aged, but then younger employees noticed.   Correct ladies putting on careful make-up, wearing designer cowgirl outfits and heirloom jewellery for supper.   Don Jose did appreciate attractive women.

      But the main point is that from that time forward, from about 1935 through 1960, including the Second War, Korea, prosperity and recession the Gringos emanating from that first group arrived at the door of the Hacienda de Santa Engracia.   People from the registry of America's cities....especially Highland Park area of Dallas....made the visit a once or twice event every year.   Many took their children and grandchildren there in order to experience their first encounter with the "Real Mexico" that seems to entice so many Gringos.

(The bulk of this information comes from conversations about Don Jose' Martinez  Gomez is derived from Ascension Ramirez Martinez, the ranking non-commissioned officer of the Hacienda.  He was Don Jose's man-friday, butler, general overseer, and the boss in the absence of Don Jose'.   He learned a good use of the English language by practice and by reading many of Don Jose's books.   Our conversations were in Spanish, and usually after Ascension {"Chon"} had taken a good amount of relaxant (beer mixed with tequila).  One thing that made his stories good to excellent were the photographs, some that dated back into the 1920s that demonstrated Chon's closeness to Don Jose' from Jose's adolescence until his death.   Ascension (Chon) left this earth about 10 years ago now.

     (2)   The train between Monterrey and Tampico was used by people (the people we speak about above) as a conveyance of choice....more like a "fling among the common-folk"  when coming down and back from Monterrey.   Once involved in this cocoon, they knew that they could get back on an essentially deluxe overnight train from Monterrey to Dallas.  The Monterrey - Tampico train, in those days, had no amenities beyond restrooms that functioned well-enough in the first-class cars and then in declining  quality in the 2nd and 3rd class.   By 1946 the 3rd class designation was eliminated.  I rode the train on various occasions, and it was tolerable, but not what one might consider "World Class - Gran Turismo".   During the 1950s, people arrived more commonly by motorcar, although a few came by train just for the lark of it.

     Late in the final stages of passenger train service in Mexico, "Star Trains" were established.  One of those was an overnight express between Monterrey and Tampico (every night, simultaneous departures)....the trains were full and quite nice with refurbished and well-maintain coaches, but all passenger trains stopped running in the mid-1990s, leaving only the Copper Canyon run as true passenger, business, tourist, and local use transportation line.

     (3)    We began to operate at the Hacienda de Santa Engracia in general tourism in 1977/1978

.  It followed a search to find "where I had been as a child" while I was trying to show a friend, Gordon Simmer, some of the back doors and closets of Mexico.  It was somewhat difficult to find a place with a paved road where there had been none, and where there were big electricity standards where there had been none, and where there were great extensions of citrus and other tropical vegetables where once there had been nothing but hennequin maguey plantations.

      I finally remembered where "it had to be" and we drove up a paved road....the same one you left the Santa Engracia area on....passing through the fields and orchards, until finally arriving at the Hacienda de Santa Engracia.   We went up the steps and met the same boy that you met, but when he was 13 years old.   I asked if Don Jose was around, and he asked "Which Don Jose?"

     I responded, "El sen~or hacendado, el pelon."  (The hacienda-owner,  the bald fellow.)

     The boy...whom you know as "Efrain", declared that El Sr. Dn. Jose is with the Angels.  "His son is now the owner of this."  Efrain declared simply.  I advised him that we were interested in seeing some of the work, because we had heard that there was quite an investment being made in the modernisation and expansion of rooming capacity for tourism.  Efrain told us that the son was not available but that he would be to-morrow, early in the morning because there was a crew coming in to do a foundation and to outline the old gardens so as to renovate them.

     "Can we speak with him?"   I asked.

     "I can call for you on the radio-telephone"

   Then, to make a long story longer, I spoke briefly through the radio-telephone with Jose (4) aka "El Hereford" and he assured me that he would be at the Hacienda in the early hours of to-morrow morning.   So, Gordon and I made ourselves comfortable at poolside, because the owner had left instructions to give us whatever we wanted, and that everything was courtesy of the house.

    We found ourselves ensconced in the best and biggest of the rooms...the master room of the residence for our night's rest.   The next morning we awoke to a tap at the door and the entrance of the same Efrain who came through the door with a tray, balancing a clear ice-water cruet, another cruet with freshly squeeze orange juice from nearby orchards, and a large hottie-pitcher with an excellent coffee.   "What time do you wish breakfast and what would be your preference?"  He asked as he placed the tray on a service table.

     We ordered whatever came to mind after being awakened at 06:45 in the morning.   Later, as promised, "El Hereford" showed up, before 09:00 and he joined us for the tail end of breakfast.   We talked about business, I showed him a list of possible dates of reservation for groups of 32 people, and he negated all requested dates Feast of the Nativity through Feast of the Epiphany because that was for the Martinez family's annual reunion.

    All the other dates he confirmed.   Two nights for most groups, at 20 dollars per night per person with breakfast and supper included....no gratuities to the employees because such had to be given to the owner or manager, because the men would just drink up the tips and the husbands would beat up their wives when they came home from the day's service to get money to buy beer.

     Strange contractual conditions, to be sure, but I signed onto the reservation-of-dates sheet, with a proviso that there would be no charge for partial or total no-shows with 48 hours notice.

     This led to our first group going in on 26 January 1978,   It was a group returning from El Tajin Archeological Zone near Poza Rica - Tuxpan - Papantla in Vera Cruz State.   The forecast as we headed northward was not good, but Rudy, and our driver from Mexico City's ADO Tourism Group, and your humble servant decided not to tell the people that we had a rare snow, sleet, and freezing bridges advisory after leaving lunch in Tampico at the Club Corona (82 degrees F).

     By the time we arrived at the parking area of the Hacienda de Santa Engracia the wind was whipping and stinging and a fine mist had set in and the temperature in Fahrenheit was passing below 40 degrees.   All of the rooms with fireplaces were being filled with firewood, and the little electric heaters were being plugged in the rooms where that was the heating solution.   By the time the supper was over, and a fine supper it was, a fine sleet and snow was falling....a true rarity thirty miles from the Tropic of Cancer.   Being Midwesterners and convivial, they all retired to the saloon / recreation room by the pool and began to play canasta and poker, drinking anti-freeze and Irish coffee/chocolate....the call went out for "Otra, otra!!! Otra, otra!!".   Then they apparently set about a conspiracy to mutiny.  They called Efrain over to bring the Gringo to the "rec-hall".

      Efrain​ come looking for me in the library where a small Klatch of folks was demanding and receiving a comprehensive explanation concerning the source, meaning, and purpose of the wall-murals....that story we save for later, as we do many stories.   "Don David....La gente quiere hablar contigo".

     I wrapped up the lecture and went to the saloon / recreation room and found myself among the vast majority of the clients.  A man said that they had taken a secret ballot among 24 people and the vote had been 24 - 0.   It was unanimous that everyone wanted to stay at least one extra night....no matter the cost.

     The rest of that story is for later.    But suffice to say that the people in the morning were tearful and hugging one another, the Mexicans with tears, the Gringos with tears, because this had been the first group of general tourist visitors since the remodelling of 1977.

     When it was all over, we had conducted 116 excursions to the Hacienda with an average of 30 persons in each group, during the last quarter of the 20th Century. ​

    

​El Gringo Viejo

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SPITFIRE 944 - Sent by the Folks in Extreme Central Texas

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Repost from 2013 - Worth Reading Again

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     This is only slightly tongue in cheek.  It is also substantially substantial.   It speaks to that fundamental reality that the Nazarene did not call on men to be equal, but rather to follow Him and to glorify their father in Heaven.   He did not order us to turn over to Caesar the task of making society fair, or the social composition of the culture somehow equal, one man to the next.   It cannot be done in the political realm, less is it possible in the philosophical realm. 

     The OROG will find a bit of a very informative and inspiring website, from across the pond, and very much up our philosophical channel.   Just type in Cranmer and it should lead the reader to things that are not just Anglican, but also reasoned and clearly thought conservatism.    

Cranmer's Conservative Creed

I believe in one Party,

Preserver of all that is good in our Constitution,

And of Individual Freedom, Limited Government, National Defence and the Rule of Law:

And in one Party Leader, the only-begotten of the entire Membership,

Chosen democratically by the whole Party,

Centre-Forward, Darling of Conference,

Pre-eminent Parliamentarian of Parliament,

Elected, not appointed,

Being of one philosophy with the Party,

By whom Conservatism is articulated and maintained;

Who for us Members, and for our earthly salvation came down from CCHQ,

And was invited by Her Majesty to form a Government,

And was made Prime Minister,

And was vilified also for us under the BBC.

He was airbrushed and scorned,

And day after day he shrugs it off because that’s his job,

And steps up to the Dispatch Box,

And sitteth on the right hand of the Speaker.

And he shall come again with a larger majority to annihilate the Socialists and the Liberals:

And his Government shall have no end.

And I believe in the Voluntary Party,

The giver of life to the Parliamentary Party,

Which precedeth the Party and the Leader,

Which with the Party and the Leader together should be acknowledged and appreciated,

Because they do all the donkey work.

And I believe in one Conservatism, though it be severally termed 'One-Nation',

'Compassionate' and 'Progressive'.

I acknowledge one Membership for the right to select candidates.

And I look for victory at the General Election,

And for the realisation of the policies to come.

Amen.

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The Anglican Communion has no peculiar thought, practice, creed, or confession of its own. It has only the Catholic Faith of the ancient Catholic Church, as preserved in the Catholic Creeds and maintained in the Catholic and Apostolic constitution of Christ's Church from the beginning.
Dr Geoffrey Fisher, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1945-1961

O! Great Cosmic Ordering Force,  We request that Thou provideth of Thine own Holy Will,  that Thy Grace and Attention be cast upon the words of your servant, the Humble Father Cranmer, and Thy servant, the AB of C, Father Fisher, who now rest with Thee and in the company of all the Saints, Amen.

El Gringo Viejo

ADDENDA:

I am in politics because of the conflict between good and evil, and I believe that in the end good will triumph.
Margaret Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher LG, OM, PC, FRS.
(Prime Minister 1979-1990)

We have not overthrown the divine right of kings to fall down for the divine right of experts.
Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, OM, PC.
(Prime Minister 1957-1963)

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.
Sir Winston Churchill, KG, OM, CH, TD, FRS, PC (Can).
(Prime Minister 1940-1945, 1951-1955)

I am not struck so much by the diversity of testimony as by the many-sidedness of truth.
Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, KG, PC.
(Prime Minister 1923-1924, 1924-1929, 1935-1937)

If you believe the doctors, nothing is wholesome; if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent; if you believe the military, nothing is safe.
Robert Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, KG, GCVO, PC.
(Prime Minister 1885-1886, 1886-1892, 1895-1902)

I am a Conservative to preserve all that is good in our constitution, a Radical to remove all that is bad. I seek to preserve property and to respect order, and I equally decry the appeal to the passions of the many or the prejudices of the few.
Benjamin Disraeli KG, PC, FRS, Earl of Beaconsfield.
(Prime Minister 1868, 1874-1880)

Public opinion is a compound of folly, weakness, prejudice, wrong feeling, right feeling, obstinacy, and newspaper paragraphs.
Sir Robert Peel, Bt.
(Prime Minister 1834-1835, 1841-1846)

I consider the right of election as a public trust, granted not for the benefit of the individual, but for the public good.
Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool.
(Prime Minister 1812-1827)

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
The Rt Hon. William Pitt, the Younger.
(Prime Minister 1783-1801, 1804-1806)

Check with Cranmer.  It is a worthwhile site.

El Gringo Viejo....

Posting for Saint John's Church, Episcopal - Auction Prize

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BED AND BRUNCH ADVENTURE

Quinta Tesoro de la Sierra Madre

A SPECIAL OFFER TO BENEFIT 
SAINT JOHN'S CHURCH - EPISCOPAL,

McALLEN, TEXAS

 IN FURTHERANCE OF ITS GOOD WORKS

Entrance to the Quinta

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The multi-purpose parlour of the Quinta

     This package offers to the bidder a stay of at the little adobe home of Diana and David Newton in the outback of a rustic and charming part of rural Mexico.  The little place is located about 24 miles northwest of Ciudad Victoria adjacent to the high Sierra Madre Oriental ranges.  It is a picturesque and somewhat antiquated, intensely farmed area, yet adjacent to great stretches of the "forest primeval".  Your home will be found situated on the spring-fed Rio Corona, lined by 500 to 1,200 year old cypress trees.

A view from your little adobe home

     It is on the very edge of an ejido community named Francisco I. Madero and it traces its history back to the days of opulence represented by the Hacienda de Santa Engracia during the Spanish Colonial period.  That hacienda compound still exists and will be visited, in that it is less than a mile from your adobe home.

     This offering is well directed to those who are serious to somewhat serious about birdwatching.  The grouns of your home are heavily wooded and structured to attract birds coming in from near and far. Our area's annualized bird specie count is in the vicinity of 450.

     Butterflies abound as well.  We happened to have built right on a major flyway of the Monarch Butterfly.   Dragonflies and all nature of interesting beasties call the Quinta's grounds and surrounding Home.

El Gringo Viejo,
surveying his "estate"

      Your home is truly adobe, built by fellow Episcopalians, selfishly to enjoy, along with those who deign to "come down the road" to our little place.   It is built in the ancient, Spanish Colonial, somewhat Spartan, military style.  You have a private entrance and a private bath. And full run of the rest of the house....refrigerator, television, etc.  We even have a telephone!
 Foregoing or including such things as birds and butterflies, this offering is excellent for a couple who would appreciate some of the above, and a lot of time just to amble, relax, and do nothing.   Perhaps relaxing on our famous "long, west-facing corridor" imbibing in any number and presentations of liquids, and eating a couple of really nice meals each day would be reward enough.

     This is the perfect place to sit in your huge rocking chair (mesadora) and read your Agatha Christi or whatever  and let things pass by without need of attention.     At night the lightning bugs and the  Milky Way are always ready to put on a good show.  During the afternoons and early evenings you might even see a bobcat or some foxes;  one can even be content that the bears have managed to recover their populations, but they remain up in the mountains.
    Your home is truly adobe, built by fellow Episcopalians, but selfishly to enjoy along with those who "come down the road" to our little "mud hut".  It was built in the ancient Spanish Colonial, somewhat Spartan military style.  You do have a private entrance and, of course, a private bath.   And, you have full run of the casa, including the refrigerator, the satellite television(SKY). We even have a telephone that can connect the guest to "back home'' on an at cost basis.

The famous long,
 west-facing corridor

      We offer a stay of at least three nights.  There are things to do and see, or not, as the guest wishes.   Days can be full, or totally relaxed, or any combination thereof.  It is recommended that the guest(s) choose dates between 10 February and 1 June or between  20  September - 10 December so as to avoid heat of Summer or the worst of what Winter has to offer.  If the prospective guest does not have "climate issues" then any time is fine.

     We do request a minimum of two weeks notice before your arrival, and we would need to know how the winner of this very pleasant "estancia" would prefer to arrive.   Arrangements can be made for transportation to and from.  The highways are adequate to excellent for those accustomed to driving in Mexico.
  We would like to hear from the winner at the earliest possible time concerning what kind of travel arrangement would be to the clients' liking.

     Also we have excellent water, and bottled water, and we have electricity of the same kind used in McAllen.   Alcohol and soda pops will be sold at the lowest price in North America.  Smoking is permitted, outside only.   For more about the Quinta click here:

https://sites.google.com/site/quintatesorodelasierramadrecom/

The Rio Corona
About 220 yards from your front door

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