A Prayer and a Strong Recommendation…The Common Man Speaks of today's Republic of Texas

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To be Texas or not to be Texas, that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of stupidity, ignorance,

                          prepotency, and outrageous fortune,

Taxes that improve little or nothing…and which

                         destroy industry, self-sufficiency,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

And by opposing… end them.

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     The waves come…and at times leave…searching for something magic that has filled movie screens, television hours, and all sorts of imaginings, books, boots, and musings.

     Just to-day, Elon Musk was being interviewed on CNBC.  It was an oddly moderate and dull financial production, quite unlike its pinky and whiney mommy, the National Broadcasting Network.   Mr. Musk relatively quietly informed the nice interviewer about the why's and wherefore's he was moving his tents to the improbable destination of South Texas.  His explanation was rather long, detailed, and pointed.

   Another large financial company has also determined to leave New York City and move into the same misery in Houston…(bad thinking, fellows).   Mr. Musk surprised your humble writer by exhibiting a bit of cold blood and reasonability concerning his choice destination.   The financial services company has arrived at a seemingly improved choice, but they will rue the day they made that choice.

    Mr. Musk has placed a rocketry launching compound that has had a bit of stuttering during the "lift - off" phase over the past few months.   The compound is located close to the very most point of the tip of Southernmost Texas.  Essentially it is near the Boca Chica (the "little mouth" of the Rio Bravo / Rio Grande) where the Rio Grande meets the Gulf of Mexico.

This is Musk's most recent rocket
awaiting launch.  Supposedly, within
one year, Musk's works may include
a Lunar visitation.  There is some 
 rumouring about the owner might
will be aboard.
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 There are some reasons for the location of this facility , having to do with centripetal and centrifugal force resolutions by being ever closer to the Equator, while remaining close to something reasonable in terms of comforts and normality. Just yesterday, another of the "test firings" was scrubbed, leaving an ugly behemoth of a rocket sitting forlornly on the launching pad.   Another effort might be tried towards the weekend…two or three days from this date (9 December 2020).

    There are numerous millionaires in Texas.   Many tend to ostentatiousness but, in the main, the majority might be mistaken for a ranch foreman or a small business fellow.  Bankers tend to put on the stuff and cologne, but they're generally okay fellows.  Musk has been view with a little skepticism, but in the main, the people are approving of his developing dream.

     Sometimes are  people are amazed to think about Texas as a potent national and international force.   In terms of juxtaposition as well as geographics, things can become very interesting if studied correctly.  For instance almost all high-school students make it through and continue with training schools, military, and/or university.   Many, in my opinion, are prepared nowhere near as well as during the period from 1920 through 1967.   In recent years, however, there seems to have been a bit of improvement in both traditional and new intellectual instruction techniques.

     Before this ramble becomes a harangue, however, it would be my pleasure to point out quirky things people might not know about Texas once you decide to look us over.   Texas is full of people who are very proud of knowing things that are not true.  Davy Crockett swinging his best friend, the rifle "Old Betsy" on the parapets of the Alamo, surrounded by hundreds of bloodthirsty Mexican infantrymen is interesting, but not true.   The true story is just as romantic and heroic and ridiculous.   For instance, Travis should never have chosen to defend the old "Alamo" Fortress / Chapel compound.   Two hundred infantry bottled up in an old abandoned church facility engaging 1,600 top-flight infantry and cannoneers is not  good odds for the 200. 

     Another example of "how we are" even though we don't even know it, is found in the following picturesque real and imagined family history.   This tale could be patterned after early arrivals and settlers back to the mid-1800s, and a bit before and a bit after.  Only the Spanish colonised effectively, but sparsely, in the times from the 1570's (very few) through around 1805 (perhaps 40,000 souls).

A TELLING TALE…ALL TRUE:

   A lady of high degree and pedigree…a Latin lady…prided herself in the length of her genealogy in what would become north central and northeastern-most Mexico and into Texas during the latest 1690's and into the 1760's.   Almost all of her genealogy was central and southern Spanish.

     Many of her forbearers had significant amounts of money to settle in where the environment was not precisely a garden party.  In the higher elevations it is bitterly cold in the Winter sometimes, even heavy snows.  Down lower along the coastal zones, fierce hurricanes could set back 15 years of hard work of bringing prosperity for folks, in less than 15 hours.   Indians came through, sometimes more or less friendly and looking for trade, although the majority of the "Indios nativos" were hostile to a point.   Lamentably for the Spaniards,the various Indian warriors were almost all triple - A minor league warriors or higher.   They had adapted well to the use of horses, something they had never seen before the arrival of the Spanish colonisers.

  The second church built in Mier, 
Tamaulipas, on the main plaza. The city
 was founded in the 1750s,  by the hand
 of Jose de Escandon.
  The church pictured is 210 years old.
 Thespire is 160 years old.
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     Moving on, we learned that there were two great settling efforts.  One was a fellow whose last name was Carvajal y de la Cueva who settled areas more in the interior.  Dry mountainous extensions are the rule there, but with some spring-fed rivers and good grassing extensions grazing and pasturing was good for goats, sheep, and cattle.  There were even "joyas" (jewels) of extensions of good fertile soil for crops.

      The previous settlers' agent came in during the 1569 through 1590 time span in three different groups.   By the passing of forty years there was significant population, perhaps 40,000 people spread over 35,000 square miles or so.

   The next coloniser was Jose de Escandon, regarded by many historians as the best of all of the colonisers.   He bought in several thousand Spaniards, fairly late in the colonial period, those dates being from 1749 through the early 1760's.  Many settlements were established, most of whom are still extant to this day.

     SO Now we return to the issue of the nice lady who knew that her grandfather had been a hero in the War Between the States, thinking he had been a Yankee soldier.  And on she went about her business.  Remember, dear reader, that this nice lady is a really nice lady.  She is proud but not pretentious, and she is well educated.   She is gliding gladly through the nice little cemetery on the very frontier of Texas, within stone's throw of the Rio Grande, in a community known as Garciasville.

  Then suddenly something catches her eye.   Gasps…chortles, and catching of breathe. The nice lady sees a gravestone that she knew had to be in this cemetery, but because she lived about a few hundred miles away or whatever, she did not have a lot of chances to really spend  time with her cousins at their place.  The surprise, the dark doom of it all, causes the nice lady to confess her findings. "It must be a mistake."  None of her ancestors would have ever owned a slave, it's impossible, she thought.   The other family members together and gradually the real story comes forth.  The Austin American Statesman had some necessary and comforting words:

       Other readers, however, also quickly came to her rescue, not only with helpful history but also with a guide to finding out more about veterans buried around the state and the country.

“My ancestors on both sides of my family came to Texas from Mexico as soon as they could,” writes Fannie Cavasos Hewgley of Leander. “I am a third-generation American and have always enjoyed Texas history and our genealogy. But I recently discovered that one of my maternal ancestors, Fernando Farias Garcia, fought on the side of the Confederacy, and that a marker was recently placed on his grave in Garciasville Cemetery.”

Hewgley spoke of a gravesite in the town of Garciasville, up the Rio Grande from McAllen and Mission.    “I would like to think that he fought because he needed the money rather than because he supported slavery,” she writes. “I do have so many interesting stories about my family, but I would like to find out … why the Confederate marker was placed on my uncle’s grave (and by who).”

I reassured her that the military usually keeps scrupulous records, although I was unsure if the physical resources would be available during the pandemic. I need not have worried. The internet solves so much these days."

But first, two readers wrote to reassure Hewgley that service in the Confederate military did not necessarily equate with support for slavery."

'My great-grandfather, Dario Gonzalez of Laredo, Texas, served under Col. Santos Benavides in a cavalry unit that acted as a home guard patrolling the South Texas area and dealing with bandits, federal troops and preserving the trade routes,” writes Alex Moreno Jr. of Buda. 'They had little to do with slavery as there were very few slaves south of San Antonio.''

Moreno recommends “Vaqueros in Blue and Gray” by Jerry Thompson, which lists the 4,000-plus Tejanos in Civil War units and the unit in which each served."

     As time passed, slowly and quickly, the Confederate unit from deep South Texas under the command of Santos Benavides and his two brothers settled into the peace.   Every analyst and commentator who researched this corps of 2,700 light cavalry did conclude that this proud collection of Confederate believers were the equal to the best who had served gallantly elsewhere for the Confederacy.  This was the feeling of his peers as officers and later, during cold, hard evidence and analysis of Benavides's strategies and tactics.

      Benavides and his men served until the end of the last battle.  That engagement just happened to have occurred one month AFTER the signing of the accord between General Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant.   Two matters were in place on the south point of Texas.  The first was to protect a huge shipment of fine cotton in bales that in present-day terms would have amounted to about one billion dollars.   It was an extensive amount of bales steadily being transferred to French soldiers on the south side of the Rio Bravo (Rio Grande).  The French soldiers were part of a large body of same deployed in much of Mexico to defend and guard the Emperor Maximilian who had been installed as "Emperor of Mexico and Central America". 

    And the second point, there were Texans up in the San Antonio, Austin, Houston triangle and thereabouts who were debating and trying to re-organise.   There was even planning for a  re-withdrawal from any political nexus with the United States of America.

     They would then reinstate the old Republic of Texas  (1836 - 1845).   Benavides, his two brothers, and their men learned that the troops had been ordered to stand down. Throughout the South a devastating "Reconstruction" began, and the rough treatment by the occupying Union forces and "business scouts" from the North and the disorder amongst the white-trash element of the Southern population drove the better parts of the populace into emotional and economic depression,

     The loyalist Negro element and the Whites who had catechism and a sense of dignity and honour were the only things that helped lead the Southern people back to the conditions we find now in most places below the Mason and Dixon Line.  It has been a long, long return.

     This writer is relatively certain that the nice lady learned a bit about the system of slavery, manumission, bonded indenture, and freeman status.   The story could to on and on.   But we are here to speak to the issue of folks coming to Texas so as to avoid the poopy streets and alleys in downtown Los Angeles, New York City etc.  It does not help that in the advanced liberal areas like California, Oregon, Washington State, and almost all the northeastern sector of the United States are truly deteriorating.   Street bums and brazen thuggery and peculiar social codes have left people with a normal sort world view more than a bit out of focus.

The toil of practice and requiring perfection, the stage hands,
 keeping the restrooms clean, the tonnes of specialty lighting
 and the engineers to operate them, the doormen, the security
 people, the maintenance of buildings of this size,the physical
 and emotional response a person  must have after seeing so
 many perform for so few…each person in the audience knows,
 that for to-night,

 I am a King or a Queen.

But not  at the moment of this writing,
 because there is no joy to-night in Mudville,
 mighty New York City has struck out.
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     We have seen it in the north, extending even to the once admired small towns and cities where everyone pulled together.  Now the rot is setting in, and senseless laws, rules, and regulations are overloading  the ability for medium and even small cities and other entities to do much about catching up.

    My lineage, with many generations buried in the middle ranges of the Hudson, or the other line in Pennsylvania, at the doll house town of Montrose in Susquehanna County, the people are strong…but Pennsylvania in these times chooses to succumb to perverse games of social "gotcha" and the ridiculing of normalcy.

    My grandfather lost two brothers of the Pennsylvania 96th Regiment of Infantry…one about 30 days before Gettysburg and the second one about 30 days after Gettysburg.   It is said that their father Hubbard  Newton (my great-grandfather) became an inert personality after losing his eldest sons.  He would speak only rarely.  He died, sitting in his chair on the porch, looking wistfully down the road to see who might be coming.  He had opposed the War in the beginning and never changed his position.

Downtown Montrose around 1902
The Newton place was about six blocks facing
the other way.

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      Last we heard, in New York City and the surrounding area there have been 15,500 schools, decent saloons, restaurants large and small, movie houses, and attractions simply closed by order of some grand poobah bureaucrat or potentate Democrat office-holder.  Similar actions have been taken in hundreds of cities and towns throughout the old Blue Union.

     Chicago Land, with Paul Harvey speaking at noon about the Korean War and us listening by radio all the way down on the Mexican border, seemed like magic.  It was  something that, as a child, fascinated me.

     He came to McAllen, Texas one time on a speaking tour. I think it was 1955, held at our High School Football Stadium.  There were over 2,500 people who turned out for one of his famous patriotic lectures.   Of course, McAllen was not quite a city of 30,000.   Those were the times.

     But finally, we would like for all the people up north and over on the west coast to consider well before deciding to go to Texas because it's cheap and the people are so poor that they have to wait on the incoming people.

     You might have to hear old jacklegs such as me say things like,"You know….there's a fact, that Texas has a bigger Gross National Product than all of Russia, and we only have thirty million folks and the Russians have 200,000,000."

     Before the wanderer in a person begins to take to strong a hold, please consider a few things.   First and foremost, Texas has many dimensions.  Lamentably we have a segment of our population that believes like the politicians up north have come to think.  If you, as a place shopper, want to find comfort and adjustment and peculiar interesting things it is best to not become a citizen of Austin…Dallas, to a degree nowadays…Houston…and lamentably El Paso.

     My urging, without qualification of any kind, is to find yourself in the big city, and take your road map or geohydrogenating -distancometer or whatever works for you and drive out-a-ways, say between ten and forty miles.   You will find yourself before long in semi-remote Nowheresville so full of pick-ups and rifle-racks that your hand-held abacus could never count them all.

     You will encounter old-timers, busy housewives, beat-up old cars, normalcy, churches, nice little stores.   You will then look for a bier hall or a tavern or a nice little eating-place and go in and act nonchalant.   DON'T ASK NOTHIN'  'BOUT PROPERTY FUR SAIL.  If you speak to the waitress or the cook or the owner, you can say, "I sure appreciate the chance find a place where I can clear my thinking…this is a really nice little corner of the world." 

     Remember that you are just arriving.  Some of the people you might be sharing conversation with might be third or fifth generation.  If you "let things happen", it will not be long before people might be telling you, "Remember, turn right on Baker Street, just two blocks down from here, and go about six blocks, and you'll see our 'Town Lake' so to speak…it's real pretty and full of all kinds of birds!"

     Do this routine four or five times, leaving out from Austin proper.  Obviously, try and go in different cardinal directions to the extent possible.  Try your very best to avoid talking about political anything.  Your new acquaintances might well be embroiled in pointless rants that really do not need you for a punching bag.

     The passage of three to four months of this reconnoitering while comparing the places you visit to the downtown Austin, Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio to a degree, you might like many others say…"You know, we can buy a place out here, fix it up a little, when we really, really have to go into Houston…well, we can go and come back to this little place."

     It is only fair that I advise that Texas is a huge place.  In Amarillo, temperatures can bust zero degrees Fahrenheit in January.  It can snow in San Antonio, and hit 90 degrees a month later.   In the Lower Rio Grande Valley we have hurricanes, but little or no freezing temperatures or freezing precipitation.

 

     Perhaps my "flow of consciousness and conscience" is a bit heavy handed.   But we have tired of people coming from the north and saying, "Boy, everything is cheap down here.   Too bad everything is so crummy."  Or the forever favourite,"Back up in New Jersey things are a lot more better.  Youse guys are behind the eight ball down here."

     We await the future.  But for this old geezer, it does not include living in a Democrat - controlled State.  I genuinely would go to our little place in Mexico and stay there en lieu of suffering the likes of the governors of New York and California, etc. and the messes they have made of places that were quite survivable before.

We beg your permission as I take my leave due to the number of chores my wife has prescribed for me this pleasant evening.

Thanks for your attention.   We will respond to individuals who would like further commentary about the pros and cons of the Republic of Texas.

EL GRINGO VIEJO

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To be, or not to be, that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

And by opposing end them.

Passing of an Intellectual Giant - Walter Williams, quiet genius and a loud impact

 

Dr. Walter Edward Williams

 Que en Paz Descanses

     As all followers of this blog know, the writer has a proclivity to expound and drone on.

This entry into this on-going body of commentary will be brief.   We require nothing more from our following that each search the words of certainly one of the five leading economists in the world.   Wise economists in some cases have declared him to be one of the top ten since the year 1700.  

    Therefore, El Gringo Viejo requests and requires that readers delve into the works and history of this man.   All true Conservatives and all Libertarians who are on the right side of the centre line will be rewarded by studying this man's 84 years on Earth.

Thank you all for your kind attention.

El Gringo Viejo

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Sociological Indigestion - Is there no cure?

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     My fellow father-in-law chastised me recently…but only slightly…wondering why I had not published something of critical insistence from the body politic.   El Gringo Viejo pleads guilty.  It would be my preference to publish three or four brilliant broadsides per week in my on-going effort to bring redemption to the culture, but the mundane rushes in with trivial matters such as life and death, and of course, rich or broke.

     These are truly the times that try men's souls.  Women are having a bit of a tussle as well.   We are enduring at this time a profound plague that it harvesting souls from the American and the Planet's population without much discrimination.  We lament each passing.   But it should be pointed out, for instance, that your humble servant survived the hideous poliomyelitis (polio) that burdened so many during the late 1940s through the first part of the decade of the 1950s.

    During those times a sullen, somewhat frightened, population had to deal with a silent, secret epidemic that was killing  and crippling children, seemingly at every other home.   The good Doctors Salk and Sabin each developed a cure in the 1950s…both of which were effective, and those injections were provided all around the nation fairly quickly.   My records were lost somehow, so I had to have two extra shots…or what turned out to be five, total.  Yes, I did survive.

      To put things into proper perspective, it should be noted that the Spanish Flu affected approximately one-third of the population of Planet Earth during the period 1917 - 1920.   It was devastating.  The planet had approximately 1,900,000,000 souls (one billion, nine hundred thousand), and almost one of every 32 people died.   The death toll was 675,000 in the United States alone, when the United States of America's population was 106,000,000 (one hundred and six million)…or one of every 150 Americans citizens died from the Spanish flu alone, all during a little less than three years.

     The toll was greater than the combined losses of Union and Confederate soldiers during the War Between the States.  Both sides uselessly lost a total of 400,000 men at arms.

     In my cold-hearted, but quite reasonable way, it should be pointed out that, at present, we are hovering around 320,000,000 people who call the USA home.   That is three times the number of people we had among us one hundred years ago in the United States.   We are fortunate, in spite of the numerous losses, to have had a total of 220,000 (4 Dec 2020) deaths by the coronavirus contagion because the old Spanish Flu, if it were killing at the same rate as it did back in 1920…would have taken almost 700,000 casualties by this point.

     These are salient points about the realities of life.  Another salient point is the quagmire of duplicity and mendacity when the Governor of the State of New York begged for help from President Trump, citing the overload of patients in the Metropolis and the State in general.  The President allocated two ships…one an advanced United States Coast Guard rapid transfer and attack craft, and the other a United States Navy Hospital Ship…old and totally renovated, and fully outfitted.   The Navy ship docked in New York's harbour and was used somewhat sporadically, and after a few days, was essentially unused.

The good ship "COMFORT USN"
Medical and surgical…1,000 beds…top flight personnel
but almost no patients.  Gov. Cuomo decided to send 
the afflicted to Old Folks Homes…and then he just
kind of forgot about them…and blamed Trump.
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     The great medical and naval authority, Governor Cuomo, pretty much either forgot about the huge asset sitting a stone's throw away, or he decided that he did not need the ship.   And besides, he hated Donald Trump.   First things first.   And a famous, highly decorated Ship by the name of Comfort with 1,000 beds for the injured and ill marks time…because of the indifference and incompetence of the Governor and his lapdogs Mayor De Blasio and brother Chris Cuomo.

     The Governor and the Mayor are two peas in the pod who have presided over the steady collapse of the World's Greatest Metropolis.  As in many areas such as northeastern-most Illinois State, including the area known as Chicagoland a similar downgrading in "life-style amenities" has been underway for a generation.  Racial disharmony, infrastructural degradation, and general quality of life issues have set in the once beckoning jewel.

    For the working class, middle class, and lower-range of the wealthy, they know that they  are looked upon as criminals who have made money by doing nothing more than work 40 to 90 hours per week.   Chicago land has a large plurality of people who believe they deserve full-subsidy housing, free or nearly free medical services, schools that essentially serve as social / gang gathering and staging areas along with free food…after all, who needs reedin', ritin', an' rithmetic?

 A USCG Cutter
Ready for service to transport the
 injured or to attack, if need be. This
 ship, above, is stationed in San
 Diego, California.

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   Los Angeles and San Francisco…Hey!! What could go wrong, man? Texas is considering the prohibition of industrial and intellectual property being transferred to the Lone Star State because of the  tendency of incoming folks from California to say,"Everything in Texas would be even better if you people would just…blah, blah, blah …like we do in California.'

   For instance, a close friend of the family had a nephew who was born and raised in California, somewhere between Ontario and Los Angeles.  He and his wife came over to Texas to "escape" the horrid place his home area had become…puttered around here for about a year and a half, and then returned to his beloved area because Texas was too dull and conservative.

     We felt genuinely sorry to see them go, but after their departure, no one seemed to speak them again.   Texians have that characteristic of being overly talkative and open or quiet and reserved…as if studying a situation or a group of folks.  We also tend to overinflate the sights, sounds, and everything else about Texas, so one needs to become accustomed to those quirks.

     The reader should…or actually must…understand that Dallas, Austin, and Houston have fallen into the abyss of dull arrogance and pathological political correctness. Austin considers defunding the police, so as to be "with-it" with the likes of George Soros and Ocasio - Cortez.   For a long while my disposition was that, before long, a melting pot effect would finally absorb the Texian out-of-date approach to life and culture.

 The Family of Ralph Yarborough in front of their
"Sears Home" newly installed in Chandler, Texas.
Ralph is the second child from the right.  He was
born in Chandler in 1903.

__________________________________

      People like Ann Richards and "Beto" O'rourck had set a good example so as to lead the masses into the orbit of people of such as Nancy Pelosi, Lloyd Doggett, and other such luminaries.   Ralph Yarborough, the ancient United States Senator and a true "happy warrior" (his nickname), was tolerable in his day as a "liberal" with a really weird East Texas accent.  I had the non-unpleasant encounter with Uncle Ralph on two or three occasions, he knowing my brother's and my GOP records, but he was always extremely genteel and open.  I learned that he had been born in 1903 and his daddy had told him every day to study, study, study…and, "…well, I studied and studied, and when I was done the only thing I could do was to be a lawyer!" It was a favoured ice-breaker.  He was proud that I had just finished at Southwest Texas State University, because he was a graduate of the Sam Houston State Teacher's College and both he and I shared the knowledge that the seven Texas State regional Universities were better than either the University of Texas or Texas Agricultural and Mechanical University, the two "premier Texas State universities".  As an aside I still believe that to be absolutely true.

     His words to me in the lobby of the County of Hidalgo Court House were nice, but he had to go back into the auditorium where he was going to urge the County Commissioners to vote to approve
the Children's Nutrition Programme bill that was working its way through the labyrinth of the Texas House and Senate.  His oratory was a real giggle for the Latin folks who had never heard a truly eloquent blowhard speak with a deep East Texas accent.   But, in truth, he was a great, homey elocutionist.    We leave those fond moments to the final point of this screed.

     As an erstwhile sociologist and historian, my certainty about a certain cobweb of interests has become ever more certain.  Beginning with the "Great Society" bilge that was slopped out on the American populace and continuing to this time we have borne witness to the subtle removal of sound social structure by always assuming that this or that person or family…"needs help".   It is true that almost every person and/or family at some point or another "needs help".   The point here is that the help when needed should come directly from a friend or assembly of friends, fellow churchmen, workmates, or whatever positive combination can conveniently unite and solve the given problem.

     But NO!!! shout the reformers.  The ones who truly care about the poor!! They can solve all the problems.   The first solution is food stamps.   With food stamps people can eat whatever they want and wherever they wish.   And they are free and accepted as currency in food store places. 

     Next, because of the stinginess of the people who have things, the people need low-cost housing operated by housing projects and spires of brick and mortar with thousands of little boxes inside where people who "need" can receive essentially free or extremely low rent arrangements.   Most frequently a cycle develops.   In a "neighbourhood" of 12,000 apartments in the same area, formed by 20 or more high buildings, extensive parking lots, sometimes even with a "community hall" or some rudiment of a tennis or basketball court area, we find one of the main industries of the "Great Society".

     Various of the younger women wind up without a husband (or facsimile).  The apartment is "free" because the Housing Commission or whatever pays the rent by allocations from some government funding source.   The young women frequently wind up with a pumpkin in the belly.    They go down to the emergency room with some kind of cramps in the belly and are taken in.  In a few days they're back home…in the cubicle provided by the Housing Administration.   Each girl has little money, but suddenly a big stud appears and says he heard about the new arrival.

     Comments are exchanged, and the girl asks the man if there is any way he could loan her a little money for the baby's food.  The man says everything will be all-right and that he will try to help her out a little when he can.   This is repeated over the months, and the man takes certain advantages of the girl who now has three babies…three babies in less than three years.  But she can almost make ends meet because the AFDC pays for a lot.   There's a "free kindergarten" in the Projects.  And the food stamps help, and there's other ways to make a little scratch.   She also has to pay 10% of her "public assistance" to the Nice Man who helped her in the beginning.  He turns out to be one of those types who maintains a covey of ten or twenty women who seem to have no trouble producing babies to gain the increase in allocations in Aid to Families with Dependent Children - AFDC  (titles and variable allocations are different depending upon the State and region).

     Many of us have heard of or seen the effects of this horrid socio/cultural oozing steadily into the gutter filled with drugs, violence, robbery, and death.   These projects have gangs that patrol and defend their corners.  Sometimes the gangs with elaborate codes, gestures, outlandish dress, leave their zones and invade other zones.

     Sometimes there are "manifestations" and outcries about the oppression brought on by White people who already "have theirs".   Whole blocks in noble cities are reduced to rubble, ruin, and charred remains.   The "looters" see their actions as a form of retribution and restitution, while leftist officials snicker and declare that it is all the fault of Conservatives and Republicans who want to keep people down who are poor and black…or purple…or green or whatever.

     It is truly a form of Sociological Indigestion.  It has become a situation from which there is no escape.  The suggestion that any woman who is on welfare or other form of public assistance who has birthed two children without benefit of clergy will have to consent to be spayed.   The only solution for the males, once proven by DNA analysis to the paternal partner in the birth of the baby with no father, should be neutered.

     Roars of laughter can be made as the commonly responsible people read this analysis and account of the socio / cultural disaster that is looming.   But the facts are…..the facts.  The Central Government taxes us…and gives the money to billionaires and women who produce miracle babies.    The babies grow up and in far, far, far too many cases turn into monsters with gang tats, semi-automatic firearms, and no sense of social responsibility.

Sociological Indigestion:   Is there no cure?

EL GRINGO VIEJO

__________________________________ 

Two Arguments…one makes sense, the other does not…Almost everyone will know my position...

    We sincerely regret having to subject our readership to this transmission.  It was meant for the McAllen Monitor newspaper.  The problem is that a cap of 300 words is placed upon those who wish to opine concerning various interesting topics.  We generally send a certain number of folks a first look so as to help in quality control, both in the typing and the argumentation.   My "eloquence" is wasted upon the masses, but my fellow father-in-law (he is the father-in-law of my daughter, and I am the father-in-law of his son) reminded me of the Truth, when he declared in response to his early review, "Sorry, but you never spoke 300 words on any subject, ever!!"

He apparently knows me well.

 __________________________________________

       Two different writers arrived on the 19th of November with submission for my attention, each writing to the McAllen Monitor's opinion page. One, sent by Jake Longoria, one of my very favourite contributors...wove a lamentable but accurate account of the damage being done to the Republic.  The pointless snarking being done by the leftist Democrat Congressional bloc and continuous cascade of charges against President Trump has done them no credit.   Mr. Longoria pointed out some of many of Trump's accomplishments in spite of the bitter resistance of the leftwing Democrat element in the Lower House of Congress.

     I am puzzled by the other contributor who points out that Caucasian people came into what would become the "New World".  He also declares that Negroid people came into that area.   Most of  those arrivals came beginning in the early half of the 1600s from many places and for many purposes.   The Negro element, lamently, normally arrived  under terms of slave labour. Many of the Caucasian people came in looking for fame, fortune, or perhaps just an opportunity.

     But of those white-folks who came there were a large percentage who came in under a rule of slavery known as Bonded Indenture.   Perhaps 20% of British subjects who went to the "New World" went essentially as slaves for a period of up to seven years.   Stipulations were firm, payment for work done was retained until the end of the Indenture, and emoluments were very small...a few copper coins per month, two meals, a very common room, frequently in a barn, and rigorous punishment for attempting to flee.   This applied to male and female alike.

The inimitable
Antonio
 Orindain
_____________

Mr. Rosales-Rosales, the writer of  "Colors missing from our media" wishes us to forget that the White Folks who came into the New World beginning in the 1500's were  "White  Folks" who essentially enslaved a majority of the native population's various nations and tribes.  While Mr. Rosales-Rosales might like to regard only the mite in his neighbour's eye, it is clear that he knoweth naught how very much of the mote might dwell in his own eye.

  True, Dr. Hector P. Garcia was a worthy friend, ally, opponent, and investor in the community…(by the way, much more, in my very humble opinion, than Cesar Chavez).   My preference among folks involved in those events and during those times was the exceedingly brilliant Antonio Orindain, a labour and community activist of the 1960s more or less up to 2016 when he died on my birthday on 12 April 2016.   I disagreed with him quite a bit, but he was a true one-of-a-kind, and he always treated me with humour and civility.

   There were many occasions when we exchanged calls for no particular purpose except to chat.  He was one of the truly organically concerned.

   But I diverge.

     The Texas Rangers of those times had to encounter extremely violent miscreants.  Rustling of cattle,  horses, and anything not tied down was a nearly continuous threat to be stolen.  During the nineteen-teens, especially when the East Texas Ranger companies were sent down, some of the companies had officers who were base, ruthless, and frankly, arrogant.  While all of this was going on, sociologically a funny thing happened.

  During the years, as the Texas Rangers gained more and more esteem and mystique  (the confrontation of "Bonnie and Clyde", whitetrash murdering robbers) a funny thing was happening.   The Rangers had Mexicanised socially  and in cultural ways, etc.   To-day, a Texas Ranger who is a Latin or a Black African of heritage…produces a big yawn, among the people waiting to pay out at McDonald's.

       We bring to mind, also the "social work" done by a Texas Ranger in Sabinal, Texas back in the early 1970s as an example.   To wit:

        Incarcerated at age 18 for a minor offense, Rodriguez was overheard singing in his cell by Texas Ranger Joaquin Jackson. Impressed, Jackson told the owner of Alamo Village, Happy Shahan, about the young man’s talent.   Shahan hired Rodriguez, became his manager, and changed his name from “Juan Rodriguez” to “Johnny”.     It was under that name, performing at Alamo Village, that "Johnny Rodriguez" was discovered by Bobby Bare and Tom T. Hall.  From there it was on to Nashville. (We note as well, that Joaquin Jackson advised "Johnny" to write and sing in Spanish, but in the style of Texas and the Southwest…which he did in the most pleasing and fascinating manner.)

     And finally.   The issue of the Balli properties on Padre Island are far more complex than to simply lump it into the category land being "taken away".  There were lawsuits that endured for generations.  The issue of the King Ranch iscertainly not one of being purloined by the Gringos.  The owner sold his tracts at two cents per acre for what amounted to 180,000 acres.  This would mean around 3,600.oo American dollars, which at that time was a very considerable amount.

    Richard Henry King and his wife also managed to recruit Mexican workers for the ranch who were extremely competent in matters  of livestock breeding, horse care, farming and pasturing, etc.   Those folks became known as "Los Kinen~os" and their descendants are still found at the Ranch complex.  Some are highly placed professionals in the administration as well as in education and the business world, others are loyal to their "vaquero" abilities and traditions.   The "Kinen~os" are revered people in that area, and are considered treasures of the Southern Texas and the entirety of the Republic of Texas to this day.

     The oversimplifications of those times cause folks lose sight of other profound facts that are now largely disregarded. Remember, there was only one Mexican American who obtained the rank of General in the Confederate Army…that person being Santos Benavides.  He and his brothers were famous for their incredible service as they passed literally tonnes and tonnes of Southern cotton around to the port at Baghdad.  They had to fight bandits as well as elements of the forces who were fighting against French allies of Emperor Maximillian von Hapsburg…Emperor of Mexico briefly during that time.

  They were also heavily decorated in the War along with over 800 of their soldiers.   Santos Benavides was a leading figure after the War Between the States. Later, when the smoke had cleared in the political realm, Benavides became Speaker of the House of Representatives of Texas, while also establishing his own businesses in the Laredo and South Texas area.

     Mr. Rosales is a vigorous supporter of his positions, but his facts are shallow.  The complexion of the people of Spanish background is essentially impossible to identify since their range is from indigenous to Mestizo (mixed blood) to Mexicans and Mexican Americans who are whiter than the British and Germanic Americans.   The Census and the Law in Texas formally identified those of Mexican / Spanish background racially as "White" from the beginning as a Republic.

    The Latin element of the Texas social makeup is steadily gaining thousands of people of  Latin American ancestry being attracted to the policies of positions  of the Republican Party, and it shows in the number and quality of our GOP's members.  A great surge that will bring much  better days for all...

Thanks for your time and interest.

David Christian Newton

EL GRINGO VIEJO

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TRAGEDY OF ERRORS - With much experience and prowess two old men solve all the problems, or whatever…

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        The time came and the time went.  Three hundred and thirty some-odd humans, all members of a club known as the United States of America, managed to put on a great show for all who cared to witness it.   One is an old mendacious fool who has played the role of being a barnacle worm for several score years.  He resides in a basement when he is not doing "nothing"…and like me…he dearly loves riding passenger trains.

     He can deliver a speech that would astound any listener or observer.   The incoherence of his speeches are usually worth the tragi-comic entertainment value put forth.  It would be more justifiable if the speaker could speak coherently and not suddenly slide into a prepositional phrase tying trade negotiations with South America to the need to provide new types of parrot food during this period of coronavirus threats.

     Enthralled, I deepen my interest when the television screen begins to reveal the reality that this candidate giving pretence to the Presidency of the United States by speaking to a crowd in some forsaken, unkempt meadow, with nine or so "reporters" standing in chalk delineated circles, easily separated by 15 feet of vacancy.   Another large pod of onlookers numbering perhaps 300 souls lent tepid applause every now and then when the visiting speaker paused to prepare another incomprehensible salvo of blabber.   This poor writer actually feels sorry for all…the presenters, the supporters, the reporters…and even myself for having wasted some of life's time on the display.

Wonder Boy, famed for
the quote,"…tell
Vladimir that after
my election I'll have
more flexibility about
the arms thing…"
_______________

     Red Chinese entrepeneurs and politicians seem unnaturally drawn to our friend and his children for no real reason beyond just plain friendship or perhaps hobnobbing.  Of course there are those who say that our star, previously having served Barak Hussein O'bama as Vice-President of the United States, has taken advantage of certain important interrelationships with overseas despots, crooks, and cronies.   After reviewing the works of (Sir Edmund)Hillary and Barry Soetoro, our new leader, Uncle Joe, views himself as a Gift to Delaware from Planet Earth.

     He and his sons have been in a position to take advantage of foreign industrialists' desire to have quick and solid access to American manufacturing and business big-shots.   It's a good seat in the stadium when you can sit on the 49 yard line, near the action on and off the field, and hone the details of a multimillion dollar linkage between industrial strong men, while harvesting generous commissions from the industrial strong men.   Sometimes, being a Vice-President can be a pretty cool hand, Luke.

     Now that our old Vice-President is a newly elected President to be,  and he has selected a blisteringly Red, angry, oppressed victim who will have her turn at lecturing the masses  that a New Day has come to a country that will have its name freed from the title set by a white person…Amerigo Vespucci…who was the formost authority on the land mass that far to the west and who did much of the mapping about that huge territory of great interest to the scientific community in Europe.   For some reason, this writer feels that there will be considerable effort, especially on the part of Madame  Kamala  Harris,  to forward the policies of marxists, and to strike a new offensive against the  free enterprise, common law way of social and economic arrangement that has made the United States the wealthiest and most innovative nation in the world.

Amerigo Vespucci
(b. 1454 - d. 1512) 

Not a bad looking fellow and
 he was quite well to do.
________________

     There is much available to study about Amerigo, and he truly was a thinker and scientist perhaps even superior to my great-grand Uncle Sir Isaac of English origin. What is truly amazing is the Cristobal Colon, another Italiano did all of his floating about from the precinct of Spain to the little known reaches of what would become known as the New World…in the 1490s when Amerigo was still wearing short britches.

      One watches with incredulity while a veritable nincompoop defeats a Cecil B. DeMille size pool of candidates, each dumber than the previous one until, finally and mercifully, the Wise Ones of  Progressivity choose good ole' Uncle Joe.  And his Replacement, should he become, how does one say…incapacitated during his service…will be  that wondrous intellectual Kamamalalala.  Her Badge of Honour is that she came in 16th place during the Democrat Primary.   There were 16 registered candidate, ranging from "everything should be free" proponents to "…feed all Republicans and Conservatives into the sausage grinder and let'er rip!!" proponents.

     Really an upper drawer show.  At least we have Justin Trudeau up in Canada to help the Americans learn the art of running a nation into bankruptcy.  And Justin is just the guy because he hates America and Americans, mainly because they are not all socialists yet.   Perhaps we could train him how to say,"…if you're not socialist, you're not black, man". 

 

    We now face the reality of 1984…the book.   George Orwell, it is certain was a person disposed to ridicule the American concept, with all of the hypocrisy, pointless religious bilge, and other flotsam and jetsam of the Scientific Culture thrown in.  Or was George simply trying to display the pointlessness of socialism of any kind?   The arguments in the Student Union over  of cups of coffee…with other upper level students…with the professorial class and so forth, Saints preserve us! I thought, during the middle 1960s.  This even before the full flowering of the idiot hippies, nihilists,  the "movement people"if the reader can imagine.     

    My time at Southwest Texas State University was truly wondrous.  It became the 2nd largest public university in Texas, and its Graduate Record Examination score was higher than any Bachelor Degree'd Ivy League or prestige "pay for your grade" school.  It was the time when George Bush the Son was flying interceptors after graduating from his Daddy's Ivy League University, and all the while ALGore was managing to master the in's and out's of Global Warming during the Global Kooling epoch.

  Not long afterwards, he dumped his wife…it is said because he felt like she was kinda dumpy.   We add that George the Son did not make the highest grades at the two universities he attended but he did graduate, unlike Gore's spotty record.

__________________________

    

Eric Arthur Blair
aka / George Orwell
(b. 1903 - d. 1950) 

 Amerigo Vespucci was more
 handsome, and was more
 wealthy than George, but
George was a "cool hand
 Luke".
And he made a lot of money
  with his typewriter and reams
of paper. 
__________________

   George Orwell, pictured left, was a short-lived event unto itself.  He wrote considerably about the true socialism.  He spoke about it.  His moral and academic impulse was to use the word "socialism" in the correct way and not as a mindless War Against Rich and Heavy Industry-type people.

     To which I respond, "But, really George…stop and think.  Step back and look at what most socialists think socialism is." Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels used the word "socialism" as a "hand sanitiser" very frequently.  They actually were very committed to violent Revolution by the Common Man.   Forced equality was much better than the "hope for a miracle" equality.   Truth be known, 1984 and Animal Farm were books that revealed a man very similar to Thomas Jefferson in terms of the construct of his thought, beliefs, and aspirations.

     Conservatives, who were unsuspecting, and thinking that being British and all, Eric Arthur would enjoy his intelligence and comfortable social position, and all actually stemmed from a politically conservative viewpoint.  Truth be known, your humble servant, back at University did, in fact, actually read a couple, perhaps three, of George Orwell's books, and assumed that Orwell had begun to develop a more conservative philosophy.   Sometimes I wonder about that matter even up into these times.    And that is why this brief set of impressions, experiences, and thoughts is being put down for the keeping.

      We have been through a political campaign that certainly has raised more questions than answers or solutions.   I withdraw from the this rambling because of serious problems concerning a health issue of a very close family member, and my task now is to be at least a non-negative factor in what is required during these days.   But I shall think quite a bit about a guy who thought he was a socialist, when he was defending (Homage to Catalonia) the Soviet backed communist ranks who were fighting Franco's forces backed by the Germans and the Italians back in the mid-1930s.

     George Orwell's beat-up old Mauser rifle served little purpose where there was so little ammunition to start with.   He was also blithely ignorant of the fact that the duplicitous Russian communists were trying to arrange for an "accidental" incident wherein the Russians would slaughter a bunch of foreign lefties because they thought the lefties were actually trying to mislead the Russians who were in the area of Catalonia and the Basque country.  Truly…what a mess.   One of Orwell's books, of course is the war story named "Homage to Catalonia". 

We withdraw for a while.  Back when the smoke clears and we take a new look at life.

EL GRINGO VIEJO

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A Wistful Look at the Past…and a bit of humour (31 October 2020)

A gentle word to our readers:      

    This very simple message is made due to the recent dust up concerning a collusion involving the Girl Scouts of America, an entity known as Planned Parenthood, and the presence of a newly named woman onto the impressive position of Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of America.  In the mode of the day, Planned Parenthood people…names…who cares?…apparently messaged the Girl Scouts of America that it was not appropriate for the new, improved Girl Scout organisation to send congratulations to a woman who gained her appointment to that High Bench by the act of a man.  Planned Parenthood deigned that this newly appointed woman was dangerous to the rights of women to "choose".   The Girl Scouts of America's administration immediately retracted their congratulations to Amy Coney Barrett because they had failed to remember that Justice is and apparently has always been an anathema…a reprobate…a backwards step in the effort to finally achieve a Brave New World for the good people who know that abortion is a fundamental right.   According to them all civilisation should stop and celebrate and defend that belief.  These people, of course, have either knowingly or through ignorance chosen a path of attempting to control civilisations, societies, and cultures so as to become a form of Regency…an assembly of intellectuals, marxists, and compulsive destroyers of any order that does not please them…or which does not serve their need or whim.  Jane Fonda, Barbara Streisand, and Cher…and Michael Moore of course, really are not the best barometers for guiding a civilisation, society, or culture.

David Christian Newton, Sr. 

______________________________________  

From a long time ago, back in 1960, your humble servant was tasked with the duty of travelling with a pack of senior Girl Scouts from a club in Mission, Texas, drawn from the High School where my father was a professor. There were fourteen girls, all senior high level. Six of them were Latinoid and eight were Angloid, and they all looked the same. Especially in uniform. A Mrs. Val Verde, (an Angloid married to a Latinoid) a sacred cow do-gooderoid in Mission (her husband was a med-tech, highly regarded) was the "Head Brownie". She had asked the girls who else should accompany the troop for their two-week Summer excursion to the International Encampment of the Girl Scouts, International in Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico. To a person they jumped up and down, demanding that it be "Mr. Newton!! Mr. Newton!!" (that, according to Mrs. Val Verde.) 

 Above is the massive Catedral Metropolitano

said to be the heaviest building compound in 

the world.   Around the "Zocalo" (Central Plaza)

there is a daily circulation of 300,000 autos and

other such conveyance.

_______________________________________

     As things developed it was also determined that Mrs. Newton and their son David should come along as well, as "indirect chaperones". Your humble servant, at that point in the life line, had just turned 14, heading to be a sophomore in September, and full of reasons why he had better things to do than to wander around in Mexico with a gaggle of Green Brownies. But my Father solved that problem by giving me the famous "one-choice choice". My mother was somewhat reluctant…but we had travelled elsewhere in Mexico and it had always resulted something positive. The three of us tagalong people were also fluent in Spanish, and that would help on the way down. So, the time arrived. Departing from Brownsville on a Transportes del Norte bus (quite a nice ride, actually) with it two drivers and impeccable appointments, we considered ourselves ordained with the proper luxuries due a fine group such as ours.

      Our fourteen day journey reached Valles, San Luis Potosi in the tropical lowlands for the first day's drive. Beautiful tropical settings for a hotel, great grub. Then the next morning we were off to Mexico City…another long drive…a change in elevation from near sea-level to 7,200 fasl, and a conglomeration of people, history, cars, busses, trolleys, trains, presenting an intensity that this farm boy had never seen, for real. Monterrey was big, Houston and San Antonio were big, we had been around a bit…but Mexico City was BIG. We were dropped off in the very centermost part of the city at the Hotel Regis…a very nice place, adjacent essentially to the Grand Central Plaza. One could not help but to be impressed. We were going to be in "downtown" Mexico City for three nights, with a touring service that would take us to the major sites. It was arduous but worth it.

         My restoration of sense of self was improved a bit when I went for a walk in the that "Centro" that teemed with humanity of every possible sort, it seemed. I passed through the magnificent "Central Park" and continued to the Great Plaza that marked the political centre of Mexico City. One side the huge and majestic Palace of Government brooded over its bureaucrats, workers, and  children. And to the right, exiting that building, the "heaviest Cathedral in Christendom", with "more altars than the Pope's Basilica" and so forth, it was truly amazing. That building on the Great Plaza brooded over its children, as well.   Most of the time they were all the same children.

   But my adventure started with my ambling about with my fancy boots, and slacks like a civilised gorilla, matching jacket…all very 1960ish…along with my 5X Stetson to ward off the quickly penetrating Solar menace that could sizzle the skin, no matter the ambient temperature (7,200 fasl will do that to a white-skinned Saxon).

Perhaps there is a 
resemblance…what
do you all think?
__________________

       Then suddenly I heard giggling and shriek-like sounds coming up from behind me. Turning, it was quickly noticed that there were about 10 or 12 female Mexican "rich kids" all in their school uniforms, and looking very impressive (and rich). It dawned on me that they were rushing at me of all ridiculous things.  One girl asked "Es Ud. relacionado con el Señor John Wayne", "Usted puede hablar el Castillano?" "Ay, Señor, un foto, un foto!!"…it was all absurd. Firstly because I was in no wise a "Señor"…such a title in Mexican Spanish was/is reserved for people of at least 24 or so years…especially then, and of course I was not related to John Wayne, and photographs were going to be few, because of a coming menace...

      In the near distance, walking briskly, came a grim faced, grumpy looking, 'Penguina' (a term reserved by Mexican children for "nun"). She was vigorously tapping the sidewalk with her dowel rod and upon reaching the girls, she began whacking them, a little more than gently on their calves, shouting, "Sin verguenzas!!! Voy a informar a la Madre Superior!!! Formanse!!! Haz fila!!! (girls without shame!! I'm going to tell Mother Superior!!! Group up!! Make a line!!).

      The girls largely complied, some handling the hat briefly so as to see the gold lettering "David Christian Newton" inside…before they would run off joining the ranks, in step, with the sister-in-charge banging her dowel rod as if she were trying to break up the concrete. I wound up with a picture or two (one with her Reverence the Sister, and the girls filled up their fancy little cameras, but whatever for?). And, of course, my parents had caught it all…giving me stern looks as they came closer. 

     Some relief came from the store workers and owners who were still laughing, some coming out to shake hands with me. One of the older men advised me, laughingly, …"Be careful with the shepherdess, she is very jealous about her little sheep!!" My mother glowered at me a bit, and advised,"We'll have to talk at supper."

     This event was followed a bit, the next day, when one of our uniformed Girl Scouts somehow got stopped at the intersection, a traffic officer pointing the girl back to the curb. She looked like a model in her uniform etc, but we were over on this side of a huge, wide Paseo de la Reforma (10 lanes) and, of course, the girl was on the other. My mother demanded and ordered me, "David, bring that silly girl over here, now!" and I began to follow orders, when suddenly a soldier, a lieutenant, took the arm of our Girl Scout and literally walked her formally across the boulevard detaining massive flows of traffic, but only briefly. Once again, the "audience" cheered and applauded, but this time for the Mexican officer. Some of our girls had pictures of him.

     There were thousands of incidents, encounters, pleasantries, that could fill a thick book just on this one excursion. But this time, the story is about and for the Girl Scouts of America, especially from Mission, Texas who gathered the greatest number of awards and citations of the encampment of several thousand attendees.    And that was the way it was, 18 August 1960, in a place called Mexico.

Thanks for the attention…and look both ways before crossing  the street!

EL GRINGO VIEJO

_______________________________________