We continue with this horrible scenario...

We have had a series of peculiar "incidents" while trying to complete and post the previous submission and this one.  Sudden disappearances of text, words being re-misspelled, or if written in Spanish, being converted into other words of English origen.  We appreciate the attention of our readers, and as always appreciate your comments and suggestions.  I equally appreciate your willingness to put up with my lack of diagnostic ability in terms of disciplining an old computer.

We return to the battleground…

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     Those who are not in the fifth column of the marxists, frequently are members of hideously violent organised young men between the ages of 13 to 25, and who are well-trained in the art of torture, killing by knife and/or firearms, theft of both large and small scale, and especially assaults on girls and women.  With certainty they scoff at and despise everything about the peculiar institution of Americanism and the American Way.

From the 1990s, the "Ejercito Zapatista de la Liberation
Nacional (EZLN).You all will remember"Sub-comandante
 Marcos"a white Mexican from the North of Mexico,
 with two University degrees and a hatred for his
 horribly upper middle class, white Mexican family.
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     Twenty or thirty years ago, or seventy years  ago, or run it up to 100 or more years ago and then some, we did have Mexican ruffians who would come across illegally and begin or maintain a life of crime.   They were not the "noble wetback" or a legal temporary-labour person.   This first named grouping of "bad" Mexicans were something of a parallel to Bonnie and Clyde, the James and Donaldson Boys, and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. is now laughably dwarfed by the several hundreds of thousands of miscreants and gang-members who have come up from certain parts of northern South America, and the Central American nations of Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala.   These people are a menace to the society and the culture of the Republic.

Please be certain.  I was born on a farm north of McAllen, as we have written many times.  We have stated in our various letters, editorial comments, and in this blog that my parents employed hundreds upon hundreds of temporary agricultural workers, especially from the State of Guanajuato, followed by Michoacan, Vera Cruz, Tamaulipas, and Nuevo Leon.

Rafael Sebastian Guile Vicente

aka: Sub-Comandante Marcos, who styled
 himself as a communist liberator of the
 enslaved Mayan Indians of the Mexican
 State of Chiapas.
He was active as a "marxist revolutionary"
during the 1990s.   He finally left in the
 early 2000s to Nicaragua.  He now
 circulates in whatever marxist kitchen
 will feed him.
_________________________

     Our old farmstead (it was new back then) had a good amount of acreage, a relatively huge orchard of Valencia orange, and the centre of operations, repairs, and storage for my parent's Grove Care business.   Our rambling 16 room three-piece homestead, with a really nice interior patio and elegant carpet grass and floral and forever blooming bushes were almost always present.

     But after all those years, and all those different men my father would point out that we never missed a watch, a fifty cent piece, or anything.   And our rambling house had no locks on the doors (except the bathrooms).   It is just the way it was; no PollyAnna, no false "defending the poor". It was just the way it was.
   My parents had the same men, or children and brothers of the same men, who came and went  as it was convenient for them and my parents.  In all those years, according to my parents and brothers, and as I saw the men while I was growing up mixed among them, never did I witness any dishonesty or depravity.

     As an aside, I frequently point out that our men did not want their pay to carry home.   They would leave, take a bus from Reynosa, and bounce and bump and grind all the way to Guanajuato, and from there disperse to their hamlets…where frequently there were more citizenry that spoke Purepecha (also known as Tarascan) than Spanish. My mother and  I (as  a very young child 4 or 5 years old), and at times my eldest brother and I would go to the Telegrafos y Telefonos de Mexico in downtown Reynosa with two or three thousand dollars in cash.
   There my "elder" official (brother Milton) would present the Mexican telegrapher with a stack of Mexican names and data, along with that citizen's official "numero calificado del portador" (qualified number of the bearer).   Then there were the most flourishing elegant signatures of authorisation (frequently by a retired Mexican Army General) and the telegrapher would begin sending the remittances to "Jose Garcia y/o Maria Cisneros de Garcia" et. al.
    The men preferred to send their money to the real boss of the house, thereby leaving behind the urge to liven up a cantina or play cards or dice in the back of the bus…jeopardising their hard earned lucre meant for Maria and the children.  Our men were decidedly void of impulses that would cost money uselessly.



    We are leaving the two above paragraphs as a vignette to illustrate to our readers the nature of things back then.   Now we have almost constant war,  constant invasion, and constant concern about who will be the next among us…we ourselves…our readers…our relatives…our workaday associates…the folks in general…to be involved as victims of violent crime?
     I am old and unnecessary, but the civilisation needs its onward march of people being born,  training themselves up, producing, and birthing out and raising their progeny, so that they continue the march into the future.   

     What sincerely concerns me is that we have a return to catechism…a re-establishment of a standard code of predictable conduct…a willingness to require compliance and concurrence with realistic social values and codes of financial and cultural interaction.   As spoiled and soiled as I was as a pre-adult, it would be certain that much, very much, of the conduct we see in public to-day would never have passed muster by any reasonable person's standard during those times.

Irene Garza

1936  -  1960

May she forever rest in peace
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     And yes, times back then and before were never perfect…those times were made by human personalities as well.   We had a Roman Catholic priest in our McAllen community had trouble with women, back in the "sainted 1950s and early 1960s.  Finally, one night, at services commonly offered and attended by a large congregation of a highly respected and admired parish…by almost everyone in the City and County.   Confessions were also heard during the late afternoon until around 8:00 pm at  that particular large and well run Church.

     A young, very attractive and very accomplished and well-known member of the community went to mass at the Sacred Heart Catholic Church one evening, and even with 200 parishioners clanking beads, clicking out in high heels after the service, calling some over to others about going out for a bite, etc…one of the most accomplished and attractive single young women in South Texas…just did not come home that night.  She had been seen, she had spoken with several of the parishioners.   It was a distance of four blocks, twixt Church and Home.
     Lamentably, several days later, her body was recovered, bobbing in the large irrigation canal known as the Second Street Main.   There was a grate over the undertake running under Highway 83, McAllen's central east-west thoroughfare, and that had stopped her northward drift from where she had been discarded about five blocks to the South on 2nd Street.
      To shorten the story, the entire City of McAllen all but stopped.   Parents who could kept their children home or near did so.   Police from all over converged, including Department of Public Safety from Austin, along with the Texas Rangers…and, of course, lawyers and ranking diocesan ecclesiastics from the Diocese…to assure everyone that the priest at mass that night had nothing to do with nuttin'.

Just a nice picture of our place down in
NoWhere, Mexico where we have a little
adobe hut at a very nice setting.

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    He, unfortunately, had had a bit of an episode because of manhandling another young woman over in nearly adjacent Edinburg (the County Seat), where this particular priest also was on staff.   That episode was an afternoon matter, and was quickly swept under all available rugs.   Before two days had gone by the entire southern third of South Texas new all about the matter (there are no real secrets in the 'Magic Valley').  It preceded the previously mentioned incident by about two months.

     For everyone who was alive and there, anyone over the age of 10 or so, they have never forgotten that episode in their lives.   McAllen had about 30,000 people…a busy place…and growing.  Hidalgo County had about 165,000 folks, and a lively business and farming member of the 254 county membership of the Republic of Texas.   Back then it was the 9th largest in population in the State.   Now, approaching 1,000,000 people it ranks sixth with that count. 
     During these times, the main newspaper of record, the McAllen Monitor, will report from 25 to 40 homicides, attempted homicides, armed robberies, and felony assaults per week for the County of Hidalgo.  That means, being generous, our home county will have had over 1,500 serious felonies committed…not including burglary, embezzlements, and other non-violent crimes.   For the four county "Lower Rio Grande Valley" community…we are looking at almost 3,000 per year now.
     In 1960, there might have been three or 150 such "serious violent crimes", with one fifth the population.   That means a per capita increase in violent crime of twenty times the rate per capita now from sixty years ago.  Twenty times more violent crimes per capita than before.  And mind well, this does not include the weekly publication of some great embezzlement by some major entity and/or personality.

    Things are not "just like they always were".

While this photo was taken in 1916 in Rio Grande City's Fort
Ringgold, it was also a principal place of service by my father
from 1929 to just before 1934.  And, yes Virginia, this photo
was colourised.  I'm sorry.

   At times…a long time ago…things really were worse than in the 1950s and early 1960s.   Cross border banditry from the 1912 - 1926 period was like a plague.   Inter-ethnic friction led to various types of regrets as well as loss of life and/or property.  But things kept improving, in spite of the foibles and weaknesses of the soul of various personalities.   Below the reader can take in a "muster" of heavy cavalry at Fort Ringgold in 1916 moving out to feign a dash at the nearby border (the Rio Grande is only about 1/2 mile from the muster) before making a flanking to the right (upstream) to cut off a group of Mexican bandits who were primarily deserters from Venustiano Carranza's exhausted army, mixed with Gringo rustler/gunslinger types.

     Long, long, long interethnic business friendships, intermarriage entanglements forged a "race" of people…primarily Spanish, Hebraic Spanish, Anglo, and Germanic people formed up what was the backbone of what was good about the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas.  Goodly numbers of Jewish merchants and Czech and Polish farmers blended into the mix as well.
   But people of lesser degree tormented the area off and on, for a long time.  Some were bandits, others were "businessmen" of shallow commitment to the "win - win" code of commerce, and there were always the drifters and shysters.  

     El Gringo Viejo does not see our situation here improving, and much is because of the lack of catechism, of Sunday School attendance, of pursuits involving self-improvement, and of family bonding.   With the much larger population, certainly we have numerous folks who "live the old-fashioned way".   But with the "immigration reform" of the late 1980s and the near open-borders we had during the 1990s through President Bush and then the ghastly record of the O'bama years, we were literally inundated with scores of thousands of people unprepared to meet the complexities of life in Texas and / or the United States of America.
     The main theme of a broad majority of people who came up were, in fact, of Mexican origin and were about 50 / 50 in their orientation towards being self-sufficient.   Currently slightly less than all juveniles in Hidalgo County are supported by food stamps…and slightly more than 40% of all families are in those ranks.  Years ago, there was a thing called the surplus commodities distribution programme.  The percentage of the population taking advantage of that programme, from 1961 and before, was around 7.5%…mainly older people or handicapped in some manner.

     The biggest problem we have now…and now we circle back to the previous issue, the previous posting…is the fact that this area as well a scores, and scores of neighbourhoods, smalls towns, cities of all sizes, and even rural areas have become the stomping grounds of the Mara Salvatrucha  13 (MS - 13) of Honduras and the Callejon 18 based in Guatemala.   To a lesser extent, fellow Central American countries and neighbours El Salvador and Nicaragua are very involved with the trafficking of people to the United States, essentially to birth babies and obtain AFDC, stamps, etc. as they settle into incomprehensible quarters and pay the "tax" to the gang-member for the "stamps and apartment" his group provided.
     One need only to think about every dark alley, every dingy overcrowded, noisy, dangerous place in some backwater corner of some run-down city that has more people on welfare than on the productive workers' payrolls.

We shall take a bit of a breather and resume to-morrow, trying to make a little sense and to explain things the way I have come to understand them.   Keep the emails and comments coming in, we always respond…sometimes slowly…but we respond.

EL GRINGO VIEJO

_____________________________________

So that all will understand…Why am I here? Or there? I am so confused…

Please forgive:   This submission has been assaulted by unknown
computer responses and unpredictable computer actions.
We shall have it corrected by this time to-morrow.
______________________________

S0 THAT ALL WILL UNDERSTAND….

_____________________________

     The past few weeks have been…shall we say…interesting.  Being set in my ways, and having a large cadre of people who seem to take pleasure in waiting on me and tolerating my uselessness,  I had been balancing an international theatre of performance for the past twenty years or so.   My main business, one could say, has been directly or indirectly related to doing things in and around the Republic of Mexico for nearly the past fifty years…or so.

     Travelling around in Mexico actually began, for me, when I was about five years ago, when my mother and father went looking for men to work in our grove care business…back in 1952.  That is a whole 'nuther trip into Fantasyland…one as good or better than Mr. Disney had.  But here, and at this moment our attention is turned to some of the various experiences and contributions I enjoyed during those times past.

     The times continue, on a constant thread, and on similar topics, more or less…mostly more…but sometimes less.  Presently, for instance, we are mired in a great War that has drug ten or twelve more or less democratic and liberal (in the broadest of definitions) nations facing an assembly of decrepit  and very totalitarian nations.   The theatre of this world-wide confrontation is mainly passive, depending upon the manoeuvres made by our side and their side, and depending upon who thinks whom can control the industry and a commerce in such a way so as to determine who will set the clocks and who will establish the rules of order as well as the rules of engagement.

     The abovementioned situation is one reality.

_________________

     Then we have the situation wherein we established, somewhat as an extension of our days in the "Grand Touring" company that we owned and successfully operated for many years.   My compulsiveness brought us to the point of building a little adobe cottage in the middle of NoWhere Mexico.   The setting was idyllic and we had a thin layer of "friends" who had been ever-willing to assist me during various times back in the Excursion days.

     The geography and climate and closeness to Gringolandia seemed to justify the effort to build, maintain, and finally employ our little adobe place.   Spates of sometimes violent confrontations between this group and that group, or this snow storm or that thunder and lightning storm seemed to steadily wind down.   We advanced two steps forward and one step back, even as the agricultural operations of our zone began to really launch into full scale citrus (and certain other seasonal crops) on first-world quality and terms.  The citrus production of the Santa Engracia area most highly regarded by the market.

     Now, we are dealing with a Presidential term whose last two years of Pena-Nieto's term and the first year and a half of Lopez Obrador's term that have steadily moved into a quagmire…for want of a better word.   While Mexico has…finally…gained prestige among the Top Fifteen economic powerhouses in the world, the people (and yes I shall place this a the feet of the citizen populace) have slid back into the notion that 'The Government' can provide free this and that, lots of money, and generally defective direction from the Presidency, especially at these moments.

     Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) gathered around himself a peculiar cadre of National Action Party (PAN - Mexico's 'conservative' party), some mossbacks from the old Revolutionary Institutional (centrist) party, the PRI.   He won the nation-wide General Elections by a majority of the vote…a first Mexico for several elections…six or seven.  He heads the "Partido Movemiento de la Renovacion Nacional" also known as MORENA ).
    Almost all the nuts and bolts of the party is ultra-leftist, unapologetically.   At the beginning of his term "AMLO" had about twenty non-MORENA high-power, well-positioned political leaders from several parties, including the conservative PAN party (the largest contingent)…and all thought that Mexico was going to continue its maturation as a first-world nation.

     Before six months were out however, the Ship of State had hit a fairly large iceberg.   People were muttering about how AMLO spoke like a mentally retarded drunk (he really does have a halting and at time seemingly incoherent assembly of his words and phrases).   The old-timers remember that after the Revolucion de 1910 - 1917 Mexico essentially ran its government as a one-party state. It was corrupt and cumbersome, but the successions were, in great majority…in the great totality…in such a position in power that from the end of the "Revolucion" to the ascension to the Presidency by a non-government candidate, over 70 years elapsed.   It was quite a run for the old Partido de la Revolucion Institutional.

     But now, after two relatively successful terms by the conservative PAN, a ''Pretty boy" Pena-Nieto brought the presidential trophy back to the nominally centrist PRI.   After that lacklustre episode,  "The People" clamoured for "change" and actually voted AMLO into the presidency, late in 2018 for his six year term.   Now they are saying, "Who voted for that guy anyway? ...certainly not me."

     There is some jolly talk about how Mr. AMLO and "Uncle Joe" Biden took their declamation training from the same instructor.  Both would give the impression to any reasonable observer that they were either sharing a table at the Cantina Tres Botellas or suffering from nuerological speech disorder (or both).
   In any regard, while the situation where we have our little adobe house has become quite pacified during the past two or three years, we can point to various areas in Mexico that have much better social environments than most folks from the United States might ever imagine.  Such is our little jidey-hole.
    I always pointed out to potential clients who wanted a bird-watching, do-nothing respite along with an excellent scenery and setting, that our place made and continues to make a positive impression.   All who have come…either for a day in the country…or several days and nights with the nearby mountains, forests, noble crops, and the air of a century past (really good grub, too) have been ebullient in their praise for our little adobe place and its setting.

     Normally, during these past many months, we entertain and have "parrilladas" (outdoor grilling among friends and friends of friends).   Then suddenly, we began to hear that the United States was going to have to consider closing down the border bridge crossings either totally or substantially "in the near future".  

     Please be assured that we were aware that the border was being violated terribly by people coming up,  especially from El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Guatemala.   The present President of the United States has committed to controlling the border in a realistic way, although some people think there will be an aesthetic cost. There are others who choose to present themselves as though they are pure and therefore superior to "everyone else" because they think people should be allowed to come into the United States with or without permits and other compliance requirements.

   These people of supposed higher values oppose such permits and permissions they "feel" it is "racist" and unfair.   They are mainly pseudo - religious members and groups who are quite active in the business of "legitimising" people who arrive "indocumentado" (without papers or permits).   Almost all are semi-skilled at best or unskilled in much beyond human propagation and mediocre day labour,  which is normally far below the quality of work done by Mexicans and Texians.

     The objective of at very least 85% of those who arrive at the Texas frontier is to whelp a baby on American soil…because our laws still suggest that a baby born on American soil is an American baby, and so the mother gets to stay with the baby and pick up the AFDC, housing, free medical, etc. etc.   It has gone on for years…especially worsening again in the early 1990's up until the present time.

     But we digress.   We do in fact have a "multi-cultural swirl" here in South Texas.   The demographic swirl, mix, conditions, and complexity is easy to explain if a person wants to listen to a three hour lecture on the "History of Settlement of Nuevo Santander and the Lands Associated with Coahuila and Texas".   It can be done in two or three weeks.   That there is sanity and insanity associated with any and/or all of it is certain.   The Spanish failed here and there, but in the main their works were marvels not only of surviving but also establishing estates and business ventures of great import and success.
     But now, because of the White House's idea that the border must be under some kind of reasonable control, we are being subjected to a new reality.   That reality is that the international crossings and immigration normalisation papers for Americans trying to go to Mexico, and for those same Americans attempting to return to the United States has become fraught with unantici-patable scenarios.
     For a Texian who is a native of Texas, the passing from Texas into interior of Mexico has been and still remains a fairly innocuous event…twenty minutes…a huge deposit for secure return of one's auto back to Texas (always refunded in full), a valid passport, and evidence of a valid Certificate of Title of the motorcar being taken to Mexico.   The papers are en force for 6 months, and the Gringo must turn in those papers (the temporary vehicular entry permit and tourist / proprietor entry permit) on or before the date indicated.

     The Mexican goes through quite a bit more, and the cost is higher, and he has to show liability insurance for his auto, but the Mexican with his papers drawn on the American Embassy or one of the many places now where there is a functional Mexican Consular facility.   One plus, however,  the term of validity is longer for the Mexican.   Similar rules, with variations, apply to Central Americans.

     But starting about 6 weeks ago, steadily and then more quickly, the White House declared a closure to all terrestrial crossing points in Texas with Mexico…with certain provisos for certain people.   My problem, for instance, would be to try to come back into the United States.   Normally we have had to wait in line for 30 minutes on up to two hours, mired in lines that would total 250 or so on up to a total of 2,500 in various wait lines.   Now, there are little or no lines…crossing can require as little as though we were in a small town with one traffic light.

     There are twelve crossings including:

                   Laredo / Nuevo Laredo (3 bridges)

                  Falcon Dam / Presa Falcon

                   Roma / Miguel Aleman,

                  Rio Grande City / Camargo,

                  Los Ebanos Ferry / Feria de Gustavo Diaz Ordaz

                  Anzalduas / Reynosa (west), 

                  McAllen-Hidalgo / Reynosa (central),

                  Pharr International / Reynosa (east),

                  Donna International / Rio Bravo
Weslaco / Progresso

                  Los Indios International / Valle Hermosa

                 Gateway Brownsville / Gateway Matamoros

                 Brownsville / Matamoros

These folks are not, in their broad, broad majority,
"immigrants" looking for  opportunity in America.
Usually 30 to 40 percent of the males are fleeing
judicial process or are members of cartels. 

   It is the human variation of a locust invasion.
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    These bridge connections have had literally thousands of autos going both ways and scores of thousands each day as pedestrians who have their "documents" in order, etc.  This is both ways.  I, for instance, guard my Mexican promissory papers zealously, as do the Mexicans with their American promissory paperwork.

     During the past two weeks, the only bridge declaring crossing time in excess of 15 minutes was Gateway Brownsville.   The remainder were crossing mainly after waiting for five (5) minutes up to (10) minutes.   It is the nature of things on the Frontier at this time.   I have never dealt with such a phenomena going and/or coming twixt Mexico and Texas…or Arizona and Mexico…etc.   We have just learned that…during these moments…that an extension to the border crossing closure (with certain exceptions) between Canada and the United States has been put in place, for another 30 days.   It is almost dead level certain that Mexico and the United States will put another extension in place as well…wishin the next few hours or days.

     It is all a miserable mess.   We have worked fairly well with the Mexicans over the past century, not perfectly, but fairly well, both ways…South to north, and north to South.   We warn anyone who is "kinder and gentler" to please research this matter carefully.  The "caravanas" that come up to the American frontier are sham-shows…organised carefully by communist agitators with considerable training in Cuba, Venezuela, and certain places in Europe.   Pseudo religious persons, lamentably posing as Roman Catholic nuns and priests and assistants of such persons help in the charade, but make no mistake, they are wild-eyed marxist 5th Column types.

    In the above picture, the reader can see people, especially very young males trooping northward…by my estimation...in the above photo, 70 percent are males ages 13 to 20.  The females are about the same age and frequently have two or three babies and/or a two to six year old child to lug along.
     It was, and it remains, common for these women to present children to authorities with two or three different colourations, who speak in different accents, and who have been "loaned" to those heading north to be traded out, or perhaps even delivered to a waiting Mexican or even American who is buying little ones to sell elsewhere.  Very, very few have "papers" of any kind.

Immediately after the posting of this amended and updated and repaired submission, we shall be finishing the "brother" of this one.    We fully intend to have the "brother" posted before sunrise to-morrow.

EL GRINGO VIEJO

________________________________

Watching It Happen, and no way to intervene...

________________________

    During the past weekend and a bit more, we had to worry about my daughter and her two children and her husband…my son who has a wife and three girls and the wife, and my fellow Father-in-Law (consuegro in Spanish) and his wife (consuegra) were essentially broadsided by a large, complex thunderstorm line.   It covered the area that includes the area that I refer to as Austin - Round Rock - Dripping Springs and Oatmeal.
      There was considerable lightning, episodes of heavy to moderate bands of driving  rain, and dime-sized to orange-sized hail stones.   There were four lengthy tornado warnings and our peoples' neighbourhoods managed, miraculously, to make it through with limited damage only.

     Yesterday we learned from all that everything was good.  My son declared that he did not have much damage at all, except maybe for the big limb in the middle of the street.   That was apparently his main contribution to the mess.

     Shortly after my peoples' storms, I noticed that the squall line was truly complex and very lively, if anything, gainly a peculiar resilience and intensity as it moved essentially to the due east…sometimes slower…sometimes faster.   But it went…Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee, Alabama and Eastern Tennessee, then the Appalachian Chain after escaping Georgia, and finally a bit of a northward jog, along with re-instensification over South Carolina, North Carolina, and eastern Virginia.
     It was a meteorological event for the records.  Over 1,300 miles, heavy rain, grapefruit-sized hail, tornadoes too numerous to tally, and finally the analyses begins with first 12 then 14, and a little later 19 lives lost, including a combat veteran who threw himself over his wife just short seconds before the house collapsed and killed him…the wife survived with minimal physical injury.

     The oddity of sorts was that the intense part of this very vigorous and powerful storm system was that the Austin - Round Rock - Dripping Springs - Oatmeal area was the serious beginning the well developed squall line, and it left and went northeast up the Atlantic coast, only after going over the top of the Appalachians and then lighting up the east-facing wall of that beautiful and fabled area removed from the coasts of the Carolinas and nestled in the hills and mountains of the western parts of South Carolina.

     Thence, the following missive from a life-friend since our families crossed paths not long ago:

We are fine here.  Thankful that our grounds and homes are safe and yards refurbished after wee small limbs offered themselves as chores for wee tots.  The tots being close to the ground, could grab the small limbs and place them in a wagon.

They became part of the familial team when storms call for as much.  All chipped in.  All that was left was my running over the mass of leaf clumps to be mulched with the mower. 

Homes were destroyed to the left of us three miles distance where the line of storms when done there crossed the Cooper River and did its dirty deeds to more homes, mostly trailers, on the other side.

One elderly man of 85 had his room sink in on him, but he will be okay.  

My sister and brother in law caught the virus and are over it.  It was serious enough to where my father was inconsolable with tears for fear of their well being.  If they hadn't had Hydrochlorinique to fight it with, they may have perished.

The Leftist media and DNC must be disbanded and a start from scratch is called for.  They are, most assuredly America's enemy.  

God's peace to all in your homes.  Thank you for thinking of us.

I am yours, in Christ

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     Please note that Hydrochlorinique was involved in the matter of the coronavirus that was going around a week or a bit more before the storm came.   I took the same stuff back in the 1950s with my malaria, as did my eldest brother and my father.   Some years later accidental encounters in the lab demonstrated that the Hydrochlorinique seemed to beat back against the pneumonia.

     Note, the value of Hydrochlorinique is very well understood, and can be demanded by a patient for intervention against pneumonia, especially that kind that is associated with coronavirus.

     The images are from last weekend…the tree, a strong one, was snapped at the base, while the trucker with the box…well…he kind of lost the box on his trailer, about two minutes before this picture was taken.

We lament the loss of life and the injuries and loss of value of cherished possession of so many.   We were gladdened to learn that our friends and the family of said friends had small losses but nothing catastrophic.

EL GRINGO VIEJO
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A Few Points about the biggest espionage operation ever and the place of the Great Leap Forward

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        There are several loose ends floating around about all of this "shelter in place" business.  In my way of thinking, it seems strange that somehow or another there is a huge outcry about a terribly communicable illness that can clear the streets in less than the time it takes to snap one's finger.
     It seems strange that in a nation of 320,000,000 people, many of whom are citizens, we can quake and shake and quiver in fear, hiding in a corner or under a bed somewhere that cannot be disclosed.   This came upon us after some really bad dance-steps performed by the Red Chinese over in their favourite place to develop chemical and biological weapons.

     Of course we know that the Red Chinese all have a thorough Protestant or Catholic catechism, and are well versed in the ways of honesty and deference to humanity and civility.   Just think, during the past year, only a few million of their own "citizens" were trundled off to huge corrals where the detainees are given the opportunity to work until the either die of starvation or from brutality on the part of the "caretakers" at the human storage facilities.   Many of those who are suspected of having been "disposed of" came from the area of Wuhan…one of Red China's centres of chemical and radioactive weapons development.
     It is generally supposed that beginning late last year, a quiet exodus began from Wuhan…amounting, finally, to as many as 8,000,000 individuals.   This movement was composed of single males, as well as a significant minority of single females, and interestingly whole families were involved in this significant movement of humanity.   Most were seeking a way out to refuge in another country…or losing themselves in another part of China in order to make it to Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, or even Viet Nam or Cambodia.

Old Sniffer, and one more victim upon
whom to paw
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     There was an Associated Press report that declared 400,000 Chinese persons came into the United States starting in October of last year, by air.  A smaller number landed in Canada, and a smaller number yet, landed in Mexico and/or came in by land or some kind of watercraft, via human traffickers.

     How many of these folks were coming to find their great-great-greatgrandparents who worked on the construction projects  of the transcontinental railway back in the 1860s, it's hard to say.   Joe Biden thinks there might have been an overripe eggplant on some of those planes…especially the plane with tennis courts for women who have nice smelling hair-do's.

     But Uncle Joe certainly knew that there were big problems in Wuhan, and that there was an urgency in terms of national security for the Gringos and our allies.  Trump, who supposedly is a dolt, had a good grasp on the matter in January of this year.  On the one hand, Trump declared that he and Comrade Xi were and are good buddies…that Xi is an easy guy to talk to.  On the other hand, Trump persistently and consistently challenges and continues  to challenge, the Red Chinese about their high-handedness, their continuous aggressive actions at sea, land, and air, their crooked dealings in terms of financing, electronic reconnaissance, and wire-tapping, etc.

     Their general brutality with the Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities has been impossible to cover up as the most recent years have gone by.  "Re-education Centres" which are nothing more nor less than brutalisation factories, designed to destroy the minorities, their languages, cultures, and aspirations.

     We are learning now, for instance, that the Red Chinese think that they will be able to skate around conditions and "silly financing rules".  If they continue with their "financial strip-tease" routine, Trump and his gaggle of reality sharp operators will arrange that most feared diplomatic message:   
       
      "We regret to inform you, that due to your nation's failure to abide by the commitment to previously agreed upon conditions of cash transfers, payments, and compliances The United States of America has determined that the previously agreed upon transfer of $2,000,000,000,000 USD (two trillion dollars) to the Treasury of the Peoples' Republic of China, has been cancelled, and will not be made.   This measure is final and effective immediately    These actions are taken  due to Red China's failure to comply on many outstanding financial commitments and contracts.  Thank you for your kind attention."

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     Next, instead of yielding on any point, we must wake up to the reality that there are extremely wealthy Americans and Europeans who think,  since they are so powerful,  rich, and left with nothing to do, they can set up  new empires in Red China.  The Wall Street PooBahs are certain that they can control the Red Chinese with a huge new Walmart and/or a snazzy StarBucks on every third corner in every middlesex, village, and farm…and burg, and town, and city, and metropolis.
     But sometimes the Big Boys (and Girls) back in New York forget that while they play kinda-like, more-or-less, by the rules…the Red Chinese commies have no business rules except to keep American and European and Latin American children on the shelf to serve as organ donors for the children of the Commie Princelings who live at a level similar or beyond the Queen of England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.

The Red Chinese don't bother with letting a neighbourhood
 "run-down".  First they build the ruin, show it to a lot of
 foreigners to impress them. The children of the foreigners
 come two or three years later, and find a totally collapsed
 junk heap of scrap and broken cement, but...no people.

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     True enough, for certain investors and magnates there has been some success in placing factories and retail operations in lucrative markets in Red China.  Then, almost always, problems develop that just…suddenly…appear.  And they, the Red Chinese, begin to haggle about this, and about that until finally they have figured out the foreigners. and their "engineering attack" and "design format".
  The new Red Chinese is in the business sending ready to break junk to the Gringos and other unsuspecting victims.  They truly specialise in the building or manufacturing the same products with a slightly different colour and a slightly shorter electric cable.

Folks, this is not a joke.  Over
  one-third of the Great Wall
(the hood-ornament of China)
 has deteriorated beyond repair
 since the establishment of the
 Red Chinese government.
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     All the while, a strange little man comes by the American place or the German metal finishing factory, or the British sterling design operation and gives the foreign business their walking papers, and 48 hours to leave town.
     But don't worry about it all that much, because the Red Chinese also build complete cities…apparently about 80 of them so far that are actually rotting.  Yes, rotting, atrophying, becoming one with the nothing…nobody lives in them, no Starbucks on the corner.   It defies understanding.

Not exactly a well-presented archeological site

      
This is not capitalist propaganda designed to denigrate the common Chinese person.   The facts are that much of the construction and infra-structure of China is terribly shabby and in poor repair.
   There is a lot that is in excellent condition, of course, but that is on the main tour and in the major, significant cities.  Shang Hai is a nice enough place, according to the folks who have been there and stayed for a while, although it is said that everything has a bit of flaw or a lot.   The much vaunted rapid rail service has been plagued over and over by serious crack-ups, and tourists now report that a visit to the "Great Wall" is a little depressing because of the unsanitary odors and generally decrepit pedestrian paving and lack of wall repairs.

More later….thanks for your attention!!!
EL GRINGO VIEJO

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A Potpourri of Observations and indirect contributions...

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     It was my intention to make a few salient remarks about the mixture of air, Joe Biden, Democrat / Leftist  hubris, the arrogance of supposed grandeur and superior intellectual and pertinence held by the Leftist Cabal.

  

     My laziness and sense of not really being able to force the rudder of the ship of state to maintain a straight and forward motion, without veering of into the New Deals, the New Compacts, the New Frontiers, the Great Societies, and all the Great Plans formulated by the Internationalist Leftist Progressive "Dreamers" sometimes causes me to remember that there is little I can do to save the Planet.

    The array of Utopian Socialists wandering around, pushing candles into the darkness in order to bring light and goodness to the common people…without burden or concern of how to pay for such things without destroying a nation continues to confound.

      We seem to cleave unto false leaders, frequently, seeming disposed to erect what becomes essentially a totalitarian State, controlled by a few dunderhead dictators who wind up transferring their own personal wealth, finally, to some back alley bank in Central Europe or wherever.

     The wealth, of course, is derived from the abolition of most of the upper-middle class and the "hoi polloi".    Oddly, that term now includes the poor slobs who sweep the streets for Chairman Mao and, over the years, the slobs who feign high position and import while looking down at all the little people wearing rags who will never taste 100 year old French wine.  Perhaps democracy does have a levelling effect, after all.

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A FEW POINTS OF INTEREST:

     (1)    A Special Message to Donald John Trump, President, United States  of America - 
     
     To begin…please, oh! please! refrain from railing against the obstreperous Communist Chinese machine and then turn to the camera and say, "Premier Xi  and I have excellent relations…he's really a great guy."  Our Faithful Leader lauds another faithful leader from the other side of the world when it is patently evident that Xi Jinping (the "elected" Czar of China) wishes to use American children as organ donors for the ruling class of Commies who rather effectively are standing on the necks of 1,350,000,000 "citizens" of that massive country.

     It would be so much more pleasant to refer to the current "duly elected" tyrant and his apparatchiks as bloodthirsty, brutal, and corrupt  ghouls.   They would not mind, there would be no offence, because they perceive that such a description is a complement.

     We take this time and space to remind our the OROGs Community (Order of Readers of the Old Gringo) that Red China is not the "biggest" economy in the World.  It is thus, as published in a reputable economics and political journal -

The “trade war” has been one of the most important influencers of markets this year and will likely continue to be in 2020.

An agreement could greatly benefit both countries, but it’s not surprising a deal hasn’t been reached, as both sides want more than the other side is willing to give.

There is much at stake, as the two countries have the world’s largest economies.

“The U.S. has retained its position of being the world’s largest economy since 1871,” according to Investopedia. “The size of the U.S. economy was at $20.49 trillion in 2018 in nominal terms and is expected to reach $21.35 trillion in 2019.”

China’s nominal gross domestic product (GDP) is $13.41 trillion, making it second to the United States.

     The Red Chinese Dragon's only true desire is to eat the American Great Bald Eagle for breakfast.  For many years they tried subversion, illegal invasion, flocking to American universities where they learned little beyond the same marxist bilge preached in Red Chinese "universities".  The "education" provided by American colleges and universities has been degraded after a couple of generations of obtuse marxist-oriented indoctrination…coupled with a huge dose of racial/ethnic "payback" propaganda from the lectures of America's finest professors…80 per cent of whom are dedicated marxists.

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(2)  A CITIZEN ADVISES THE POPULACE…WITH WISE WORDS:

    Almost all of the aforementioned "prestigious" collegiate and university operations are absolutely committed to graduating folks who believe in "a liberal and modern understanding" of human and collective social organisation.   A certain Roberto Luna apparently did not go to Harvard or Columbia…perhaps he went to Texas Lutheran College, or Texas State University (previously known as Southwest Texas State University as did El Gringo Viejo) or some other not-so-pretentious campus.

     Mr. Luna launches forth on the Letters to the Editor's page of the daily, McAllen Monitor;
     
     "There are many people here who protect illegals because they are married to illegals.   They probably get a share of things like food stamps.

     "It is just like the stupid man who had been deported five times in California who killed a girl.  A family man who used to work for the Border Patrol to protect us , who on his day off was killed in front of his family in Monte Alto (Texas).  One of the guys mentioned at the trial said he wanted to be famous.  He should have killed his partner and himself instead?
     
     "One officer was shot here with his own gun by an illegal he had been chasing.

    "I don't want to talk about George Washington or Columbus discovering America.  If we go into that subject, I was one year old when my dad died.  I was picking cotton at the age of 7 and we used to eat for supper jackrabbit and crow.  You don't mention about the people who are eating T-bone steaks and have their taco stands to make cash money with the food stamps.

      "There are a lot of people who have been living here for twenty or more years.  Their parents brought them here (as) illegals when they were small.  They had their chance to become American citizens and they never did apply to become legal, and now they are crying because they are being deported.
    
     "Again, let's not talk about things that were done before you and I were born.
     
    "One thing I forgot to mention.   An illegal lady on the bridge in Laredo had her baby.  There is no hate in the part of me.  I am just trying to let them know the reality.

     "One thing for sure:  They can get in line for hours for benefits, but they can't spend 10 minutes to vote.  If you want to eat…WORK!!

       "I just mentioned a  few crimes, not the thousands that illegals do.  Again, Mr. President, Donald Trump, please take the food stamps away right now!!"

Robert Luna 
Edinburg (Texas)

(El Gringo Viejo celebrates the words of a cowboy-type, using simple and complex words and phrases to formulate simple and complex thoughts and truths that are worthy of all men…and women…to be received.  dcn - 12 April 2020)

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(3)    SENSELESS PROJECTIONS - POOR DIAGNOSIS:

     We have been hanging around here in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, oddly enough, playing the roll of "The Man Without a Country".   At my last return from Mexico, I was fumbling around with the radio trying to find some information about the status of the bridge lines…in order to find a quicker path to the Gringo Side of the Rio Grande.  

     It was also weighing in on other matters, especially the suspension of people coming into the United States from Mexico…the White House had invoked a suspension of people coming into the United States from the southern areas of the Western Hemisphere.  That included Mexico and Canada.   I learned that Canada had sealed the border with the United States some days before.

       Crossing over and waiting in line for two hours was fun…at least Rush was on.  The crossing guard actually had his inspector's cubicle radio…tuned really low…also on Rush's programme.

     There has been several modifications to the new rules…and we find newer new rules coming through about every day concerning how to cross the Rio Grande in either direction.   It is something we have never seen.  The assassination of John Kennedy resulted in a total shutdown for between three and four days back in November of 1963.
    We had a bit of a hoot that day because several of the more thuggish bully-boys had skipped classes at McAllen High School (aka - McHI) and gone to Reynosa to drink beer and make other people miserable.  They got to "sleep on the sidewalk" for three nights.  

     In any regard, we are now watching some of the most serious matters to have faced the American Nation, and we have watched the demagoguery and hysterical, deranged blather flushing up from the Democrat Leadership and from the oh! so professional! mainstream press.  Their well tooled, convoluted 

explanations about any issue…major or minor…was always turned into an attack on Donald John Trump.   It ranged from the hilariously ridiculous to the infuriatingly insulting.

  I was intending to write about all the errors committed by the combined outlets on the left, and our travails and misery during the almost complete stand-down of human activity (or so it seems).   We are in almost totally complete dry-dock.  We cannot drive around aimlessly, we can only enter the HEB as a single person or two at the most.
     Diana normally works…in her 40 hour workweek…about 60 to 80 hours per week.  That is about what she is putting in her at the apartment.  She had to jerry-rig a computer battery in our bedroom   (our main computer, tied in to with a lap-top from the school district, a new and independent WiFi, etc.) and from  here she handles literally tonnes of accounting and procedural matters…all very full of fine print, rules, time limits, etc.  She also has to "check on Mom", no complaint…just necessary.  The good thing is that we are about 10 blocks apart.   But, howsoever, Diana is still putting in 60 to 80 hours per week, and this should continue for the remain part of the academic year…late May.   That will mean almost two and a half months with the school district essentially shut down and the students receiving their instruction via computer…and returning their required work via computer email, etc.)
     The only people at the schools are a skeleton technical group and a cleaning crew at each school…no teachers, no coaches, no band, no debate, choir, etc. etc.  Everyone is working at home and electronically posting the appropriate entities.

    Moving into the matter at hand, it was my certain conviction that the estimates being made by the "experts" concerning how many people would succumb to the coronavirus were wildly off.

     Another point is that we shall never really know or understand who died from what.   Just during the preceding 36 hours, it began to be leaked out by the drop that Geezers were the ones who were having the worst of the count.   Problems with that group, of which I am one, there are complications such as weight, cardiac involvements, pulmonary difficulties, renal and digestive problems.         All of those things make a bit of pollen from a contaminated Communist Chinese "accidental" release of radioactive material  at Wuhan slightly more lethal…but the fact is that older people and people with serious health compromises (as mentioned above) make up 96 per cent of the body of people who have succumbed.

     Without the radioactive, strange bee pollen that made it around the world, literally, the rate of mortality would have been lower, but most of the damaged to the people is as I have described in the preceding paragraph.   There is every probability that the more virile characteristics of this episode will fall off relatively quickly, perhaps even in time to allow people to return to their normal rounds and affairs.

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     We, personally, lament the huge cascades of possible thunderstorms and even some hail but due to a Tornadic and hail-bearing storm arriving to us in the next hour, I shall have to retire from the field of battle!!    More later!!

EL GRINGO VIEJO

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