One Day in Mexico....

Actually, this may have been Baja, not Mexico, but I was very young. I don't remember everything. We lived in California, on Vandenberg AFB, my parents my brother & I. My grandmother must have been visiting, but I remember that she was there. This was back before, or at the beginning of the 'hippie' movement, right about the time when "Hell's Angels" by Hunter S. Thompson was first published, before animal rights activists. Bull fights where spectacles of color & sound, events of interest, if not wonder, exotic & otherworldly. We drove South to the border, then took a taxi ride to the stadium. The city seemed big & filled with movement. The taxi was uncomfortable & the ride, through the streets of Tijuana was fast. There seemed to be no rules, when it came to driving, streetlights more guidelines than absolutes. Scary & exhilarating, it was difficult to know whether to keep your eyes open, so you might know if you where about to die or whether it was best to shut your eyes as tightly as possible, better off not knowing of your inevitable fate. I think I did both, one moment eyes shut & the next open, off & on until the ride was over. What I saw when my eyes where open was truly frightening & I tried to focus on the city, but my eyes would be drawn back to what was going on in the car & on the road, as if I could will it to stop. The stadium was, to me, more like a Roman coliseum, than a sports stadium. It wasn't finished & dust was everywhere. It was open & the surface was dirt, seats where wood. The bullfighters where all in traditional garb, those with more status wore fancier clothes & their bulls had fancier coverings.The bulls where covered in fancy garb, as well. The people yelled & cheered for their favorites, some even cheered for the bulls, if the fighter was not popular. Capes where flourished, fighters avoided being speared by bullhorns & bulls avoided being speared by the fighters, for the most part. I remember asking, when I saw a bull actually speared by a fighter, why they would do this. I thought that the object was just to avoid the bull, but there was more to it than that. Bulls weren't just covered for show, but to keep the crowd from seeing any blood caused by the spears.The more a fighter was able to get past the bulls defenses & score a blow, the higher in the rankings he would go. The day that we where there, no bulls died, though that did occasionally happen & no fighters died, though that, also, on occasion happens. I'm sure that I don't remember everything perfectly, I was very young. The traditions  & spectacle was fascinating to see, but my family & I left feeling bad for the animals. No, I didn't necessarily feel hatred for the bullfighters, this was their tradition, their job, they didn't see it in the same way as we did. This was something that had been carried through possibly centuries of tradition, from yet another time & continues, though not exactly in the same way, to today. I did feel a little odd about the crowd watching this event, the reason for spectacle to continue. This, though was their tradition. It would take a societal change to make a difference & that change, whether you might see it as good, bad or indifferent was, as they would say, "blowing in the wind..."

* The photo is my grandmother wearing a mantilla. I believe she is in front of a Catholic church in Tucson, AZ, though it's possible that this is in California. I'm not sure of the year. It doesn't say on the back. You can kind of get an idea of the time period from the cars.

Short Story #4

Not much is going on right now, so I drift back to past memories. I wonder what has happened to people out of my past. What became of them? How have they changed as people? Inside & out.
Donna was my best friend in Junior High. She was two years older than I was & quite a bit thinner, skinny even. She's probably become a model or at least, as they say, looks like one, while I feel fatter every year. One of her ambitions was to become a model, mine too. I'm too old & fat now, too fat for modeling, anyway, something that's not hard to do. Models are not exactly the norm, when it comes to weight & size. I suppose that if I wanted to suffer enough, I could do something about the fat part. Not much can be done about the old part.
I'm at an age now where a lot of careers are out. I could no longer be a ballerina, for instance, something that I wanted to be when I was about 10 (also too old to be a ballerina, to be honest).
Another of Donna's ambitions was to drive a race car. I don't know if she ever did something along those lines, though one of her brother's may have: a famous driver, with the same last name, was in the news, a while back, after a bad wreck on the track. It would be interesting to find that he was one of her brothers, she had four: Danny, Paul, David & an older brother that I rarely saw, who's name I don't remember.
Donna & I went a lot of places together, as many places as two kids could go, when neither one is old enough to drive. We lived next door to each other & would often walk together to our brother's baseball games or to the BX (base exchange, we lived on an Air Force Base) to shop. We where quite fashion conscious, even at our young ages &  would often make little booklets of the latest styles in clothing, hair & make up (even though neither of us actually wore make up) that where cut from the latest British & American magazines. Her mother was British & this is where, I suppose, we got the magazines, I don't remember anymore. The walks that we took where long. It was quite a distance from the housing area to the BX & I would always forget  just how far we needed to walk, until we where already about halfway to our goal. Sometimes we could get one of our mother's to drive us, but usually, as we where often reminded, they had other things to do...
We eventually moved apart, as kids whose parents are in the Air Force do.I wonder where she is now. SAM

W hat kinds of things did you & your friends want to do, when you where young? Did you get to do any of them? Did they? Do you know where they are now?

Aunt Katherine...

My great aunt Katherine (my mother's aunt, is that a great aunt? I used to know these things. Wow, the things you forget, as an adult!) passed away a few days ago & I feel a bit sad. I haven't seen her in many years, but I still remember summer trips to visit her, my aunt Dorothy, Uncle Pete & Peter & how much I liked their home in Illinois. My brother & I would go out into their backyard & catch fireflies. Most of the time they made us set them free, but we where usually allowed to observe them for awhile first. Of course, we always had to put holes in the jar, so the fireflies could 'breathe.' This was fun for us, since where we lived, California & Arizona, there weren't any fireflies, so these where unusual & maybe even exotic creatures. They where beautiful, when they lit up, at least from a distance & the science geek in me loved seeing the process up close.
One of the best things about their home was a full sized world map that covered one entire wall. I loved looking at all the different countries & thinking about what it would be like to visit, what the different cultures & lands where like. I don't think my brother was quite as fascinated with this, as I was, but we where about as opposite as two kids can get. I found a lot of things in their home interesting. I guess it was a simple home, but they had many unusual knick knacks & features that made it beautiful, to me at least.
Their home was in Illinois & I found the fields beautiful. When we visited Chicago, even though I had seen large cities before (LA, San Diego, San Francisco...) it had a feel all it's own & truly earned it's "Windy City" nickname. I loved the artwork in Chicago & this was my first taste of modern outdoor art.
I loved visiting my aunts, uncle & cousin, even if they weren't exactly aunts, uncles or cousins, because they where kind & interesting people. They had a home & not just a house. A couple of weeks ago my mother called me to tell me that they had moved Aunt Katherine into a nursing home & they didn't expect her to live much longer. The other day, my mother called again to say that Aunt Katherine had passed away. Now that she's gone, there's only one member of their little group left & that makes me a little sad. SAM

About my lists...

Shop news:
new listing- D is for... Vintage letter D pin
renewals- What Direction? Messenger bag
Red Esprit jacket

So, today I first wanted to explain a little about the list I started a couple of days ago. These are all people that I 'miss' in one way or another. At some point in my life, they have had an effect. Some have made me laugh (a lot), some made me cry, at least once or twice, but all have good memories attached, even if they eventually made me sad, whatever the reasons might of been. A few aren't even people, though they may have liked to think they where! All are people that I would be interested to know where they've been or what they've been up to. Most I don't know, anymore. They may be totally different than they once where. That's ok, it would still be interesting to find out where they are now. Most, if not all, where good people, so I doubt that they've become the opposite. You never know. Time changes us all & circumstances can take the best or the worst out of us & change they way we are, not necessarily forever, but for a time. sometimes, like in one of my stories, our perceptions weren't completely right in the first place. That's what makes us complex beings. Don't we all have people we remember, fondly (or not so fondly) that we are curious about, that pop into our memory, from time to time? The photo, by the way, is of one of the 'people' I miss most, my dog Sam. I miss my dog.
I think the next list will be of my favorite book/films, on a totally different note.
I hope all is well with everyone, until next time.
samsstuff