We returned to Texas a couple of days ago and have spent a bit of time trying to recompose....a daunting task for a geezer in these times. We should be able to begin pontifications and brayings sometime early to-morrow or perhaps even late to-night. It is good to be among you all again.
This is posted not so much to jump upon anybody's bones, but to commemorate that we are not all immigrants. Some....many....of us are colonials, such as your humble servant, but more especially the other side of my daughter and son and their progeny's ancestry. Mine is long enough, but their mother's in Texas causes my grandchildren to be 14th generation Texians. By me, they are only 7th. In Brittanic America, well....yes, my children are 16th generation....through Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont, and Pennsylvania. But my wife's people had people inside and outside of the Alamo as best we can figure. All were heroes....as were my Yankee great uncles....brothers of my grandfather....from the Pennsylvania 96th Regiment of Volunteer Infantry....wrong side...but heroes none the less, dying for their cause.
This song is placed here for my children, their friends, and such to understand from whence my wife is ancestrally derived....which is Andalusia in Spain, and from those areas such as Valencia, Huelva, and Malaga. Beautiful and intelligent women abounded there, too many to count. They were relieved of their burkas and veils by the Christian Knights from Galicia by 1492 and continued their practice of Christianity, "more Catholic than the Pope"....even unto this day in places like Saltillo, Monterrey, places between, and among the ancient settlers in Texas.
The complexities are a joy to relate and to argue upon. My granddaughters have this high intelligence and cunning wit...all of them. They are grey and green and blue and purple of eye and think faster than should be allowed. A man almost 70 years of age should be able to outthink a child of 7 years of age...but such is not the case here. These are the prides of our family. One is not shown because the computer is grumpy. I shall send the computer to bed without supper. (and see if I can fix the problem by morning. We have another granddaughter we wish to show, but the computer prevents such.)
My local radio station of choice has, as their question of the day,
"Do you believe security conditions in Mexico are improving near us.?(sic)"
El Gringo Viejo felt compelled to respond with the best form of the truth that he knows....personal experience.
Smokey is watching you. She wants you to report the Truth of her comfort, and the truth of the abundance of rare to very rare birds to be seen at the Quinta. She also says we have good food and drink.
As most know, we have a little bed and brunch in a very rural area to the northwest of Cd. Victoria, situated on the skirts of the Sierra Madre Oriental. We have had that place since we built it 15 years ago....all adobe, split red tile roof, cane ceiling...the whole bit.
This year so far we have had 23 room nights, and March has just begun. Last year we had fewer than 20 room nights. The year before that, about the same, or a little less. We can keep pretty good records of the number of room-nights because we only let one room, which, of course, has its own entrance and private bath.
I drive down and back one, two, or sometimes three times per month, from McAllen to our remote place in the interior, about 225 miles into the "interior". My stays range from one week to, at times, three weeks. These drives have been without event. I have travelled overnight to Mexico City by deluxe bus to and from Cd. Victoria, and driving to San Miguel de Allende, to help my neighbour who, with his wife, has established a new boutique hotel on the edge of downtown there.
We were in the Belly of the Beast for the most violent years.....2010 - 2013 . The Mexican Army and Naval Infantry have performed almost a miracle in the degradation of the cartels, reducing them to cliques of pandillas, whose strut and sway has been reduced by 70 to 90 per cent. We must say that almost all the reportage, up to and including KURV and FOX News has been between 30 to 75 per cent inaccurate, sometimes purposefully it seems, especially during the past three years. One blatant thing is the failure to place the issue in the context of actuarial; for instance - How many incidents are there per capita? Most people are not informed that the city of Reynosa and its surrounding Municipio (county) has almost 1,000,000 inhabitants.
There are incidents that are hyper-reported in which certain Americans are assumed to be innocents when it is clear that they had complicity in their own difficulties....Falcon Lake, the two American military non-commissioned officers who had trouble at the border; those matters were never reported accurately, not by Greta, not by O'Reilly, not by KURV, KRGV, etc.
The fact remains that, if a person remains apart from the cucarachas, his/her probability of being able to move through the mess with an insurance actuarial probability of "no problems" is very high. It is like having good insurance rates because of having no DWIs and no speeding tickets. Our last guests started their 30 day drive through Mexico, staying the first three nights at your home by the Sierra Madre. They had driven from Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. They seemed miffed that they had been led to believe by the news and the press and the "common understanding" that things were really dangerous.
I cautioned him to understand that Mexicans, like Americans, were not all angels, and to be prudent during his drive through Mexico. He then pointed out my over-all point about this issue, "9 Negroes of the highest class, literally in the House of God studying the Bible are shot down like dogs by some white-trash....and then we have to avoid going to Mexico?" And to him I declared, "Yes, I agree and concur, but the news people have to sell advertising and Mexico is a small puppy that can be kicked around for the entertainment of the ignorant and arrogant."
One can note the dull, and the stupid falling for Trump's "Make America Great Again". They look very much like the ones who celebrated "Hope and Change". I shall watch "Mexico pay for the Wall" when pigs pilot F - 16s off of aircraft carriers. I shall not hold my breath waiting for a comprehensive and correct reporting by any Press - Mexican, American, Euro - any Press to report the totality of the human / drug / corruption / and immigration invasion story. My saying is, "Whomsoever calls these people 'migrants' is a liar or hopelessly ignorant.".
This song is placed here for my children, their friends, and such to understand from whence my wife is ancestrally derived....which is Andalusia in Spain, and from those areas such as Valencia, Huelva, and Malaga. Beautiful and intelligent women abounded there, too many to count. They were relieved of their burkas and veils by the Christian Knights from Galicia by 1492 and continued their practice of Christianity, "more Catholic than the Pope"....even unto this day in places like Saltillo, Monterrey, places between, and among the ancient settlers in Texas.
