A baseball Story?

                       

Another baseball season is upon us, so I thought I would tell you a sort of baseball story.  It goes back to when I was seventeen and if the first part of the story seems a little heavy on the braggadocio, don’t worry, debauchery, degradation and humiliation are soon to follow.

When I was seventeen, I was pitching for Green Bay West, one of two American Legion teams in the city.  American Legion baseball was for 16 through 18 year olds.  As the season wore on, I began a series of games where I would give up two to three hits while striking out 15-16-17 batters over 9 innings.  During these games I was able to throw all of my pitches for strikes, something I struggledwith at times, and felt as strong in the 9th inning as I did in the 1^st.  Later I would hear athletes, who were performing at peak levels, talk about being in the “zone.”  It is a somewhat mysterious state of being that will show up for a period of time and then, just as inexplicably, disappear.  While you are in the “zone” everything is easier and you get teased with a small dose of your full potential.  Looking back at it now, I think I was in the “zone” for the last weeks of that season and our post-season tournament run.

Our tournament almost ended in our first game.  I had pitched another “in the zone” type game, striking out 16 and giving up 3 hits over nine innings.  Unfortunately, the other team bunched two of the hits, along with a walk and an error to score 2 runs in the third inning and went into the bottom of the ninth leading 2 to 0.  The opposing pitcher had thrown a no hitter at us through 8 innings, when I lead off the bottom of the ninth.

The first pitch was low and outside for a ball.  The next pitch was on the inside corner and I lined it over second base for our first hit of the game and a breath of hope.  Our shortstop smashed the first pitch he saw over the left field wall and the game was tied at 2.  Our first baseman drove the next pitch over the right field wall and we won the game and advanced to the next round of the tournament.  I remember empathizing with the other pitcher who had gone into the ninth with a no hitter and four pitches later had lost his no hitter, his team had lost the game, and they had been eliminated from the tournament.  What a difference four pitches can make.  We won our next two games and earned a spot in the eight-team state tournament.

The tournament was held in Wausau, Wisconsin.  Wausau is a town of about 30 thousand located on the Wisconsin River in north central Wisconsin.  We were scheduled to play the opening game of the tournament.  The game was to start at noon so the plan was to travel to Wausau the night before the game and stay at a motel.  All went well the first night and we woke up the next morning ready to go.  Unfortunately, it began to rain at 10:00am and eventually all the opening day games were postponed till the following day.  Suddenly, we had time to kill and kill it we did.

Not long after the game was officially postponed, decks of cards, cigars and beer magically appeared in several of the player’s motel rooms.  Our coach was a very nice guy who devoted a whole lot of time to the team but was either incredibly naïve or chose to turn a blind eye to how his group of stellar young men was spending their downtime.  Although the night’s activities were probably not what the various advocates of youth sports had in mind, the night was relatively quiet, nobody got hurt and the motel rooms went undamaged.

Actual team photo.  I'm the one with the ace under the table.

The next day the rain continued and all the games were called off by 1:00pm. Once again we found ourselves looking at several hours of down time.  Once again, our coach decided to pursue his own course and left us to find our own way to pass the time.  Hindsight is 20/20, but this was probably a mistake.

By mid afternoon the card games were reconstituted and my teammates fake ID’s did their magic.  The older brother of one of our players bought his way into one of the card games with a bottle of Wild Turkey.

As early evening approached things got a little out of control.  Our center fielder, one of the nicest people you would ever want to meet, and under usual circumstances, pretty much a teetotaler, pranced out of a bathroom with shaving cream piled on the top of his head about 15 inches high.  He was singing a then popular commercial jingle the chorus of which went, “smells so good you won’t want to shave it off.”  At some point in his dance he lowered his head and plowed right into our second baseman’s belly resulting in a shaving cream explosion that covered card players, spectators and the room.  This stunt was met with widespread approval and a couple of more shaving cream experiments were attempted.  In another room someone threw a baseball through a mirror.

Around 9:00pm the rain stopped.  A couple of our advance scouts discovered that the Marathon County Fair was in town and all the pent up energy and consumed alcohol demanded we check it out.

Once we got to the fair, we split up and wandered the fair grounds in groups of two and three.  As time went on, I began to get bored and began to think about arranging a ride back to the motel.  At this point in time, if you put aside the drinking, gambling, smoking, and cussing, I was an innocent as the driven snow.  I was unaware that just a few minutes before one of our outfielders had gotten into a fight and knocked a local guy to the ground with a well-placed uppercut.  More importantly, a rumor had gone through the carnival workers that two guys had either assaulted or tried to assault a co-worker’s daughter, sister, or wife.  So it was in this heated atmosphere I found myself talking with our right fielder about calling it a night.

Suddenly, I heard a commotion around us and I saw what I believed to be other fair goers pointing at the two of us.  Just as I began to become aware that we had become people of interest, I looked down the midway to see about a half of dozen carnies running full steam toward us with blood in their eyes.  Somehow, the rumored assault was communicated and with the posse about 25 yards away our minds chose the flee option, and we took off down the midway.  Was I scared?  Let’s put it this way.  The situation I found myself in scared the beer out of me, both figuratively and literally (oof, that was a hard line to write).

Soon we ran out of midway and headed into the woods at the end of the fairgrounds.  The combination of fear and the fact we were 17 years old, kept us in front of our pursuers.  Once we were in the woods, we soon came to a fork in the path we were on, and our right fielder went to the left and I went to the right.  By then some of our pursuers were running out of gas.  Of the three that were keeping up with us, two went to the left and the other one came after me.

As I was running deeper into the woods, it occurred to me that I might escape but then find myself hopelessly lost in the pitch-black woods.  I noticed that only one carnie was coming after me, and I made the decision to engage this fine fellow in a reasonable discussion of the situation.  As he ran up to me, he initially showed little interest in discussing the matter.  He wound up and took a roundhouse punch aimed at my head.  I jumped back just in time and threw out a half-hearted punch that grazed his forehead.  This slowed him down for an instant, and I held up my hands, palms up and told the guy, that I didn’t do anything and I didn’t want to fight.  When he hesitated a bit more, I told him that I would let him take me back to the fair where he could turn me into cops, who maintained a presence on the fairgrounds.  As I was talking with him, I noticed he wasn’t much older than I was, and I thought he wasn’t all that interested in an all out fistfight.  So he agreed to my suggestion and we started back the way we had come.

When we reached the spot where I had split up with our right fielder, we heard a commotion off in the direction he had gone and my carnie insisted we go find out what was happening.  I later found out, that when we split up, the path my friend took lead right into the area where the fair workers had set up their camp for the duration of the fair.  Finding himself in the middle of the enemy camp, he had run into the first open tent he found and in the darkness of the tent found a cot and sat down.  Unfortunately, the cot he sat down on was occupied by a fellow that didn’t take kindly to being sat upon.  They had piled outside and were in the middle of a ring of spectators, squaring off getting ready to come to blows, as we approached the scene.  Just then a burly cop burst through the ring of spectators and threw himself on my teammate's back and they went down in the dust.  Once the cop had nabbed my friend, my carnie brought me to the cop and he took custody of the two of us.

As we walked back to the fairgrounds cop shop, we took the opportunity to profess our innocence, or at least our innocence with respect to any assault that may have taken place.  The police were using a trailer as a temporary headquarters and we were taken inside the trailer and told to sit down as they arranged for us to get a ride down to the real headquarters in downtown Wausau.  In addition to my relief from escaping any vigilante justice, I somehow was able to somehow surmise the police didn’t believe anything had really happened or at the very least, if something had happened, we were not the guilty parties.  So my concern went to the things we were guilty of and how to explain being in the police station at two in the morning the day before the opening game of the State Tournament.

Once we got to the station, we were brought before the desk sergeant, who was looking over our driver’s licenses, which had been confiscated by the cop at the fairgrounds.  The sergeant looked at the two of us, and noting we were from Green Bay, growled, “What the hell are you doing here?”  My friend, who was tougher than me and taking this situation a little more in stride, pointed at me and said, “He’s pitching the opening game of the State Tournament tomorrow.”  The sergeant shook his head and asked if our parents were in town.  We told him they wouldn’t be in Wausau until shortly before game time and humbly suggested he call our coach.  Seeing little alternative, he agreed and called the motel and summoned our coach to the station to pick up a couple of his players.

When the coach arrived and saw us sitting there, he gave us a disgusted look and went into a room to talk with an officer about our fate.  After a while, he emerged and signaled for us to follow him out to his car.  Nobody said anything the first few minutes of the ride back to the motel when the coach turned to us and said, “I won’t tell anybody about this if you don’t.”  A great wave of relief rolled over me as we readily agreed to the terms of the deal.  The coach had wisely decided that nobody was going to come out of this smelling like a rose and choose the route of least pain.

The next day we finally played the opening game at noon.   I pitched poorly; the “zone” had moved on to someone who wasn’t taking it for granted, and we lost.

What did I learn from the experience, beside the obvious fact that drinking and carousing for two days before the big game probably isn’t such a hot idea?  I did get a little dose of what terror feels like when I looked up and saw those carnies coming full speed, looking to put a big hurt on us.  Over the years I have told this story a few times almost always for its comic effect, and it does have some funny twists.  But when I sat down to write it, I found there was just a tinge of regret that has always been there, I guess, that I hadn’t been smart enough to just go to bed and get a good night’s rest the night before the big game.

A Stroll Around Zihuatanejo

I have often been asked what I do when I am in Mexico and what is it like.  Well, I have been asked that at least once, anyway.  So I thought I would take my seven regular readers on a stroll through this beautiful town and try and capture a little of its soul.

Let’s start our journey in bed where we are peacefully sleeping until a man yells “bolillos” outside the window at 7:15am.  Bolillos are a type of roll you can eat with your first cup of coffee in the morning.  This vendor walks through your neighborhood calling out his wares and you just need to stick your head out your door for home delivery.  Random home delivery still exists in Zihuatanejo.  Later in the afternoon a man will call out “agua” and once again you need only stick your head out and indicate how much you want.  He will carry  5 gallon jugs of bottled water up your stairs and to your door.  The garbage men ring a bell and yell “basura” when they are nearby so you remember to take your garbage out.  A man plays a few notes on a wooden pan flute to indicate he is around if you need anything sharpened.  Then there is the tamale lady and finally the gas company that plays a recording that sounds like the seventh cavalry coming to the rescue followed by an elongated “gaaaaassss.”  I have taken to announcing gas this way, but Pat feels it is inappropriate.  I say forearmed is forewarned.

After breakfast we head out into the bright sunlight and crisp, clean air.  We walk past the man who sells fresh juice in a vacant lot on the corner.  Here, we cross the street and head down Calle Los Cocos.

I think I need to pause here and talk a little bit about the art of walking around Zihuatanejo.  There are a few rules and precautions the smart pedestrian should heed to prevent injury and/or embarrassment.  If you are walking in the part of town that caters to tourists, you can disregard most, but not all of these rules.  For the last several years the town has done a good job of repaving both streets and sidewalks with red bricks in these areas and have just began to start doing the same in the neighborhoods.

We will be walking in the less tourist-travelled areas and you have to pay close attention to where you are going.  The sidewalks will dip unexpectedly, or a curb will show up between two lots, or the sidewalk will end and you will be on dirt or gravel, or there will be a hole in the center of the sidewalk, or the sidewalk will narrow to a single human lane, or a tree will be growing in the middle of the narrow sidewalk or rebar (the metal bars that hold concrete together in a building) will be sticking up through the sidewalk.  You get the picture.  So, the first rule is if you are going to gawk at something, stop and gawk.  And you will see thinks that make you take a second look.  A couple of days ago, I saw a motorbike go by with a driver and three passengers.  It was a wonder they could all get on it, let alone ride around in traffic like that.  On that same day, I saw a motorist, who apparently missed his turn in a busy traffic circle, throw it in reverse and back up into oncoming traffic to where he could make his turn.  Of course, he could have gone around the circle one more time to where he could have made the turn without backing up, but that must have seemed like a waste of gas or something to him. Which brings me to the other bit of cautionary advice I have for you.

Pedestrians should assume they never have the right of way.  There are crosswalks where I’ve been told, if they run you over, they are in the wrong.  Of course you will be run over, so I suggest avoiding testing that out.  The rules of the road are different here and they seem to work for the local drivers.  Mexicans have to be the greatest defensive drivers on the planet.  I have seen some pretty outrageous moves and the other drivers make room, change lanes, break just in time and everything seems to work out fine.  I’ve never witnessed any road rage, even when the maneuver in question was incredibly dumb.  So, as a pedestrian, you need to become a defensive walker.

Another factor playing a part in walking around is how the streets are laid out.  Minnesota’s famous wrassling governor once observed that drunken Irishmen must have designed the streets of Saint Paul.  Well, it appears the city engineers of Zihuatanejo brought these very same Irishmen to town and got them lit up on tequila to help plan the streets of the city.  It is hard to get from point A to point B.  What concerns us most, as pedestrians, is making the mistake of assuming a street is one way just because it looks like it should be.  Look both ways, children, and you will live to go on another field trip.

There, now that is out of the way, we are ready to make our way down Calle Los Cocos.  Los Cocos is a street full of vegetable and fruit markets.  There are also places that sell tortillas, chicken, eggs and fresh fish.  If we go in the morning, when the fresh stuff is delivered, we will find a narrow street packed with delivery trucks, buses, taxis, delivery bicycles, pick-up trucks, cars and tons of shoppers looking to buy the food they will cook that day.  There are little carts parked on the sidewalk selling strawberries, blackberries, peanuts, pistachios and things I haven’t been able to identify.  Walking the sidewalk requires constant adjustments, going from the sidewalk to the road and back again.  The scene looks like the movies you’ve seen where they show a New York City street circa 1915.  It is very colorful, vibrant and alive.  If you are out shopping, you can fill bags with bananas, melons, strawberries, onions, potatoes, mushrooms, green peppers, avocados, and any number of other foodstuffs till your arms are breaking and only spend somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 to $15 bucks.

Having navigated Calle Los Cocos, let’s head over to Calle Jose Morales for a glance at a slice of the local business community.  Here, in the U.S., we like to pay homage to small business and the entrepreneurial spirit. But in reality, the ascendance of corporate America has made those two ideals seem like anachronisms.  Not so in Mexico.  The large box stores are just beginning to show up in Zihuatanejo and there remains a tremendous variety of small-scale business activity.

Jose Morales is a commercial street about a half mile from the tourist area.  As we walk down the street we will pass a store that sells paper, a store that makes keys, a flower shop, a store that sells bootleg movies, a pharmacy, a unisex beauty parlor, a hardware store, a store that sells plastic pails, plates, cups etc., a store that sells stuffed animals, a car wash, a shop specializing in repairing car air conditioning systems, a men’s clothing store, a woman’s clothing store, a pet shop, a motorcycle repair yard, a shoe store, several small grocery stores, a bakery, several street vendors, several small restaurants, a furniture store, a paint store, and an Internet café.  And this is on one side of the street in a little less than a mile.  In addition, Jose Morales is just one of several of these commercial streets in town.  You also find a variety of small businesses sprinkled throughout the neighborhoods.

This stunning array of small businesses makes you wonder, how do they survive?  Everybody seems to be in the process of opening a small specialty business.  I think their survival is probably linked to several factors.  One is the purpose of  many of these businesses is to put food on the table of the owner and his family.  There are chains in Mexico but far fewer than you will find here in the U.S..  The owners of these small businesses are not looking to keep a bevy of shareholders and stakeholders well fed, but rather looking to provide for their families.  The local economy has not been consolidated into Best Buy’s, Home Depots, McDonalds’, and other mega businesses that undercut the profit margins of the smaller guys and eventually drive them out of business.  What you see in Zihuatanejo is similar to what you saw in the U.S. in thousands of small towns across the country 50 years ago.

Pako practicing with "Las Gringas"

Now that we have been walking for a while we should stop at El Pueblito for lunch.  As we are walking down the street we see a small sign that says, “El Pueblito and a single door is open to the street.  As you go through the door you will find an open courtyard with several tables arranged under an open-air tile roof designed to provide shade.  There are interesting antique ranch tools, guns, saddles, children’s toys and even a hangman’s noose decorating the place.  There are a variety of cacti growing along one wall.  Another wall, that abuts a church bell tower, is where you often see iguanas scurry across the tile roof and sometimes settle down for a sunbath.  It is Thursday, so one of Zihuatanejo’s best guitar players will be playing while you eat.  The food is Mexican and good.  One note.  If you see a man come in and lay a three-foot machete, also known as a gringa, across his table, don’t get worried.  He is not some madman who is about to start chopping his way through the patrons of the restaurant.  He’s just someone stopping for lunch that was working a job clearing brush or he took a walk up into the mountains perhaps to chop some ginger root and used the machete to clear the way and chop the root.

After we leave the restaurant, we pass the hall where the Teacher’s wedding reception was held and eventually come to a large open field where a kiddy carnival has been set up.  The carnival will stick around for a couple of weeks and will then be replaced by a circus or a concert.  The kiddy carnival is remarkable for the rides that are set up.  There is every ride, those of you over 50 will remember, from the church picnics and county fairs of your youth.  Some Mexican carnival owner must have traveled the U.S. and bought up every one of these ancient rides he or she could find.  People who are fans of these amusement park relics (I’m pretty sure there is a subculture dedicated to these things) would think they died and went to heaven.

Continuing on past the kiddy carnival and past a large home goods tent sale we eventually come to a soccer field.  If we are lucky, a game will be in progress.  Among the first things you will notice, if a game is being played, is that there is a layer of dust that hovers about a foot and half above the field.  There are hints of where grass might live during the rainy season but those areas have long ago been churned to dust.  You will also probably notice the skill of the players.  Soccer, or Fútbol, is Mexico’s favorite sport and you can see that its best athletes gravitate toward ‘the beautiful game.’

As we move along, we will come to a shady grove of trees where the fisherman hang out before and after they go out to sea.  They will be lounging in hammocks, eating meals that are sometimes cooked over an open fire, or mending their nets.  Almost always there will be an active conversation going on.  As we walk past the fisherman, we cross a bridge across a channel and find ourselves in the tourist area.

But we aren’t interested in the tourist area of El Centro today and it feels like it is time to walk to the nicest beach within walking distance of the central part of town.  We are off to La Ropa.

Descent to La Ropa

The trip from El Centro to La Ropa is an exercise of going from sea level up a series of hills and then a steep descent back to sea level and the beach.  Don’t worry, once you have walked up these hills four or five times a week for a couple of months, the huffing and puffing becomes much less noticeable.  The pay off for this walk is the several places you can stop and look out at the beautiful vistas from high above the bay.  Bursts of cascading bougainvillea decorate our route and if we are really lucky, we might look out and see whales playing in the bay.  We might also come upon a three foot black iguana, sunning himself on the sidewalk (I have been told the black ones make for the best eating).  If you are a bit squeamish about three foot lizards, the lizards are more squeamish about you and will skitter away, amazingly fast, when you get anywhere close.

Once we make the descent to the sea, you will find a wide sand beach scattered with restaurants, hotels, and public areas.  The heat of the day will be relieved as the ocean breezes cool everything down.   As we walk the beach, we will see an amazing array of human forms, some alluring and some not.  Now it is getting to be late afternoon and we deserve to treat ourselves to drinks and a bit to eat while we watch the sun go down.  So we will walk the length of the beach to a restaurant named Rossi’s and go upstairs and claim a roof top table overlooking the bay where we can watch the sun sink into the ocean and light up the sky.  For very little dinero, we can drink beer, margaritas, pina coladas, or just about anything else while munching on fresh guacamole or shrimp tacos.  The sun will eventually go down, the sky will turn pink and we will need to think about heading home.

There are two options for getting back to town.  We can walk the way we came, but if you been on the roof for a while, and enjoyed a beverage or two, it will be getting dark, making the walk back more difficult.  Another factor we might want to consider before walking back is that, occasionally, a big old crocodile decides to visit the beach and take an evening stroll.  This doesn’t happen often, but it does happen and the local firemen come out and wrangle the monster and send him back to a swamp far removed from tourists and casual strollers.   The other alternative is to walk thirty yards to where a bus will pick us up and take us to town for 85 cents.  If we linger too long and the last bus leaves, we can take a taxi for around $3.

Try not to take a walk with this guy

After you get back to the apartment and clean up and rest, you might want to walk into town for an ice cream cone or just to see what is happening.  There are always basketball or volleyball games to watch and, often, public entertainment to take in.  When you have had your fill, it is time to walk home and go to bed.

You might think this is the end of your experience, but you might be wrong.  As you lay dreaming of beautiful vistas around 3:00 in the morning, a car alarm will go off.  This will key the 15 neighborhood dogs to start snarling, barking and howling.  Not to be out done, the roosters begin crowing (yes, you live with roosters in town and no, they don’t just crow at dawn).  Finally, to top off the symphony, your neighbor, who figures he would rather listen to his music, turns his sound system to 11 and the strains of a Mexican polka join the cacophony.  This, too, is Mexico.  Luckily, it all will usually die down in 10 or 15 minutes and you can just sleep a little later in the morning or at least till you hear the bolillo man calling.

The Greatest Shows on Earth

I was never much of a circus fan when I was a kid.  The Ringling Bros., Barnum and Bailey three-ring circus would come to the Brown County Veterans Memorial Arena in Green Bay and my parents or one of the other neighborhood parents would take a group of kids to see it.

I think, part of the reason, I never really connected with the circus was because I never aspired to become a circus performer.  I read Claude Bottom’s fabulous autobiography, “Life of a Lion Tamer” but I never considered taking up the profession.  It wasn’t like when I walked into County Stadium in Milwaukee to see the Braves play and pictured myself on the mound in the seventh game of the World Series.  I just never saw myself as circus material.

Another reason I wasn’t a big fan was, at a relatively young age, I was offended by the hype and over the top exploitation of kids the circus people employed to separate parents from their money.  They would turn off the lights in the arena and walk down the aisles with all kinds of junk that lit up and sparkled driving the little consumers wild with desire for this over priced crap.  They didn’t just do this once, but over and over until the kids were crazy and the parents gave up. The stuff almost always broke on the way home in the car and ended up thrown in a toy box where it was eventually thrown out years later.  After all, Barnum was right in the circus’s title.

So it came as a surprise to me that when I was in my early 20’s and traveling around Latin America that I would become a big fan of the little circuses that would travel from small town to small town and entertain the local populace.

I think there were two reasons these circuses appealed to me.  First, and this remains true to this day, this is purely local entertainment.  It is seldom you run into tourists at these venues.  They are all single ring, small tent affairs and I find it interesting to see what the people enjoy on their nights out.

The second reason I became a fan was that you never knew what you were going to see and sometimes the acts were truly whacked-out crazy.  The larger first world circuses were pretty predictable stuff but these small budget Latin American circuses had to get creative in the entertainment they presented and it was practically guaranteed that you would see something unexpected before the night was over.

In the early and mid seventies the circuses didn’t travel with much in the way of animals.  There may be a dog act that consisted of a couple of dogs doing the same tricks your cousin taught his dog to do when you were a kid.  There might be a pony thrown in once in a while but animals were expensive and these were shoestring operations.  So they had to rely on humans to carry the show.  The tents were small and the bleachers were often skinny boards lashed together with rope.  If there was a trapeze artist, his back would literally hit the top of the tent on the backswing and his feet would hit it as he swung forward.  Every seat was right on top of the action.

To give you a flavor of what these shows were like let me (try to stop me) describe a circus I saw in Ecuador in the mid seventies.  The first act was perhaps my favorite.  A middle-aged woman came out and paraded around the ring wearing what can best be described as a drum majorette’s costume from the 50”s.  It had been washed so often that the colors were just a hint of what they had once been.  She was also wearing a pair of tattered fishnet stockings.

While she walked around the ring throwing here arms in the air, an assistant brought out a wooden table and placed it in the center of the ring.  While the assistant waited, the woman finished her circuit and laid belly down on the table.  The artist brought her legs up like a teenage girl lying on her bed, and the assistant lit a cigarette and placed it between the artist’s big and second toes.  She then proceeded to arch her leg in such a way that she was able to smoke the cigarette with her foot.  She calmly smoked the heater and when she was done, so was her act.  Spectacular!

For years now, I have speculated about her act.  How was it developed?  Was she from a branch of the famous Wallenda family that disputed what specialty the family should pursue resulting in one branch flying and the other foot smoking?  Or, was this woman identified at an early age as someone, who had the God given talent to some day, if she worked hard, become a foot smoker?  Unfortunately, these questions will never be answered and I am left to wonder.

The next performer, admittedly, had a tough act to follow.  As he entered the ring wearing what can only described as an old pair of Festus Hagen’s long handles, the assistant brought two wooden straight back chairs into the ring.  Furniture played a big part in this circus.  The artist then placed his heels on the edge of one chair and the back of his head on the other chair.  The assistant placed a big rock on the performer’s stomach and brought out a sledgehammer.  He proceeded to whack the rock with the hammer until it finally broke.  Ta Da!  It was a noble effort, but I still had to give the nod to the foot smoker for pure entertainment.

The final act was an acrobat who used all of the furniture that had been used in the previous two acts.  I bet they ate their post show meal on that very same furniture.  This guy’s specialty was balancing on top of a combination of beer bottles and furniture.  At that time in Ecuador, they sold beer in 22 oz. bottles.  The deposit on the bottles was actually worth more than the beer in the bottles.  It was these 22 ouncers he was using in his act.  As it turned out, it was a pretty amazing act as he balanced one leg of a chair on one beer bottle and then balanced himself on the back of the chair.  In this way he built a pyramid of sorts consisting of chairs and beer bottles, and eventually the foot smoker’s table, all the while balancing on the top of the pile.  This guy had talent and deserved a lot of credit for putting together an act out of next to nothing.  His act was the finale and fitting finish to a great show.

All of this cost about 30 cents.  Where else could you get that type of entertainment value?  The crowd had cheered throughout and left happy.  I was hooked.

Through the years, we have seldom passed up the opportunity to see one of these circuses.  And so it was, Pat and I found ourselves in line to get into “The Circus of Peking China” the other night in Zihuatanejo.  These guys must have been on the road so long that they were unaware that Peking was now called Beijing.  Once again, we were the sole gringos in attendance.  But the entertainment bar has been raised in Mexico.

Through the years the circus has slowly but surely followed the same path as TV and become more sophisticated.  I remember watching a game show in a small tienda in Mexico nearly 40 years ago.  At the end of the telecast, the winner was established and her prize was a metal cooking pot -- just a pot.  The winner hugged that pot like Honey Boo Boo’s mother hugs a pork chop.  She was genuinely excited to have won a cooking pot.  Those days are long gone.  Watching Mexican TV isn’t all that much different now than watching U.S. TV.  The soaps are more dramatic and romantic but the production values have pretty much caught up with the U.S.  And the most important part of TV, the advertising, is as slick as the stuff that bombards us every hour of every day.  Also, those Mexicans who have cable get a lot of programming from the U.S.  As a result, people’s tastes and expectations have changed.

The Circus of Peking China reflected these changes.  There was still one ring but the tent was larger and the seats were molded plastic with backs.  The show featured a troop of actual Chinese acrobats who were very talented and professional.  There was a Mexican juggler who was also very good.  He finished his act by getting on his back and having a metal cylinder placed on his feet.  His young son and daughter attached them selves to either end of the cylinder and he proceeded to spin them around at crazy speeds.  His kids are either going to be the first Mexican astronauts or have their brains turned to jelly by the time they reach the age of twelve.

The biggest change was probably the animals.  This circus was travelling around with ten Bengal tigers, camels (one and two humpers), zebras, horses, a Clydesdale, a miniature horse, and giraffes.  Putting aside the whole issue of animals in the circus, I have to say that these animals looked as if they were well taken care of and those that performed were lively and well trained.

One of the best moments of the circus was when three young women led three giraffes into the ring.  Kids were recruited from the audience and were formed into three lines, one in front of each giraffe.  The kids had a rectangular cracker of some sort put into their mouths and then one by one were brought forth to stand in front of the huge beasts.  The giraffe would bend its long graceful neck down to the kid’s face and snatch the cracker.  Sometimes the kid got his face washed and their reactions ranged from excited to appalled. In case you were wondering, giraffes eating crackers generate a lot of saliva. During the intermission, families, for a price, could come down and have their pictures taken with a giraffe.  I guess the cracker trick was about the only thing you could train a giraffe to do in a circus but that seemed to be enough for the crowd.

All in all, it was a very different circus from the ones we used to see years ago.  The talent was better and the show was grander.  The price was also higher ($7.75) to support the larger tent, the more expensive human talent and the travelling menagerie.  It was a fun night, but I can’t tell you I enjoyed it quite as much as I did years ago when anything could be and was marched out into the ring for our amazement and entertainment.  I am holding out hope that foot smoking will once again become in vogue, but I guess I’m just being nostalgic.

What a Pair of DINKs!

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It’s happened again.  I meant to write, I swear.  Really, I did mean to write, but now, so much time has past that I literally cannot remember the last time I wrote or what I wrote about.  Which means that I don’t know where to start this blog.  Huh.

Ok, well… work. Work is good.  Pako and I are both quite enjoying our kids this year.  And by our kids, I definitely mean our 150 seventh graders, not our biological kids.  I’m teaching 2 ESL classes, to English Language Arts classes (ELA) and one Spanish Language Arts class (SLA).  Pako works in 7^th grade Humanities (our fancy, very IB way of saying social studies), 7^th grade Math, 7^th grade AVID (Achievement Via Individual Determination – a college prep class), 7/8 Spanish Language Humanities and my 6^th grade SLA class.

Pako is mentoring two kids officially and a whole slew of other kids, unofficially.  They.love.him.  Love him.  It’s fairly adorable to tell the truth.  Teachers love him, too.  It turns out, he hasn’t forgotten all that stuff he learned when he was getting his teaching license.

Oh.  I just went back and checked just how long ago it was the last time I wrote.  It was August 6^th.  That means that you might not know that Pako is working at the middle school with me.  He is a Bilingual Assistant Educator and works with the 7^th grade.  His first day at work was his one year anniversary in the US.  We’re now officially DINKs.  Dual income with no kids.  Rolls right off the tongue.  DINKs.  It’s like music to my ears.

We won’t be DINKs for that too much longer, though.  That’s right, you guessed it, we’re adopting... a puppy!  We left our beloved, deranged Chihuahua in Zihua with Pako’s family and we really, really miss having a dog.  Pako thinks it is ludicrous to live in such a chilly (ahem) place without a dog to hug.  I agree, but the grouch gave us one rule to live by: no dogs or babies in the basement.  Sheesh.  What a grouch.

BUT, we are going to adopt a pup because we bought a house.  That’s right, we bought a house so that we could have a dog.  I mean, there were some other reasons involved, but we really, really want a dog!  The whole business happened SUPER fast.  We did not expect to buy a house, but here we are, homeowners.  We looked at 3 houses and bought the 2^nd one we looked at.  It’s a 1951 rambler on a parkway in North Minneapolis.  We love it.  3 bedrooms, 1.5 baths and a rocking sun porch.  We have lots and lots of plans for it and no furniture.  Seriously, we have nothing.  Do you have a couch that we could have?  We need two.

Just kidding.  Except, we really don’t have any furniture.  Which is ok, because I can’t, for the life of me, decide on a color scheme.  Seriously.  It’s getting stressful.  One minute I think I’ve got it, the next, I’m going in a completely different direction and headed to Home Depot to buy a new sample jar.  Speaking of Home Depot, I love that place!  Who knew that T-shaped transition boards could be so fascinating?

Tomorrow, I’m going to set up auto-pay for all of our new house bills.  It’s giving me anxiety.  Like, it’s Friday and I’m exhausted from a crazy week of school, but I don’t think I’ll sleep because our new budget is CRAZY kind of anxiety.  I mean, I know absolutely positively that it’s fine and all homeowners take the leap and everything, but DANG.  HOLY SMOKES.  Ok, I’m done now.  AAAAAHHH.  Sorry.  For real, though.  We do have pretty, new hardwood floors now, so that’s nice.

What else has happened since we last talked?  Oh yeah, almost all of football season.  The Packers started out not so great and then had a great record and then lost to San Francisco in the 2^nd round of the playoffs.  If you don’t like football, that’s all you really need to know.  If you do like football, you already know about home much I love me some Aaron Rodgers, Clay Matthews and Charles Woodsoon, so no need to go on.  The playoffs this year have been pretty great and come down to the last seconds and I’m excited for the Superbowl, but it’s always sad when the Packers’ season is over.  Ask the grouch, he feels the same way.  It’s how he signs his emails these days.

Christmas was nice, but I don’t have any photographic evidence to prove it.  We had fondue on Christmas Eve and it was delish.  We all ate more than we should have and then we sat down to unwrap gifts.  Pako and I got a crockpot and a roasting pan.  Pako was overjoyed, let me tell you.  Ok, maybe that was me, but he’ll benefit from it, too!  Christmas day we had some friends over for a ham dinner that featured my Grandma Claire’s rolls, which are delicious and merit a mention on the blog.  They’re that good.  I dressed up, too.  I always see people’s Christmas photos and they’re always nice, so I thought, I’m going to get dressed and not wear sweats so that we can have nice Christmas pictures, too.  My mom has two digital cameras, Pako and I both have our own and all 4 of us have camera phones.  No pictures.  None.  Should have worn my sweats.  Elastic waistbands are always the way to go, especially if there’s no photographic proof.

Um, I guess that’s all for now.  The grouch will be back soon with something scintillating, I’m sure.  I am actually sure because I know what his next blog is about, but I’m not telling you because that would ruin the surprise.  Pako and I aren’t going to Mexico this year because, well, because we bought a house.  We’re going to spend the summer playing with our newest addition (due to arrive in May or June) and teaching summer school and being homeowners.  Seeing as how I don’t write for months at a time, the next time you read, we’ll be proud pup parents! Yay!

A Heartwarming Xmas Tale

Once upon a time there was a man who lived in a small town who made his living repairing shoes.  The town was not wealthy and people still had their shoes repaired rather than buying new ones and the man was able to make a modest living from his business.

The man rented a small cubby hole, not much larger than a walk in closet, in the town’s downtown, and there he sat all day surrounded by pairs of broken down shoes.

The man was not particularly good looking or bright but was a good soul whose one unfulfilled wish was to meet a woman, marry and have a large family.  The man truly loved children and wanted to surround himself with happy kids.  His problem in fulfilling his dream was his innate shyness and social ineptitude made it difficult for him to meet and woo a mate.

At around this time there was a woman who made her living walking all over town, with a small grinding wheel, sharpening knives, scissors and just about anything that needed sharpening.  As she walked through the various sections of the town she would whistle a sweet tune that would signal the housewives and business owners that she was in their vicinity in case they needed something sharpened.

The first time the shoe repairman saw the woman he was immediately smitten.  Every time he heard her whistle, he would frantically search for something for her to sharpen.  There interactions were very polite and formal and appeared on the surface to be nothing more than business transactions.

One day, when the man had everything he owned with an edge already sharpened, he, out of desperation, presented the woman with a spoon.  The woman smiled and realized the man admired her for more than her sharpening prowess. Gently, she led their conversation around to Saturday night and the man managed to mumble an invitation to the woman to go with him to a movie.  Thus began their yearlong courtship that ended with a small ceremony before the town Justice of the Peace.

The woman was soon pregnant, as the man, while not being overly bright or good looking, was blessed with highly potent swimmers.  Nine months later, a baby boy was born.  They named the baby Juan.  The man and woman lived in a small one-bedroom apartment over a hardware store and Juan slept in a dresser drawer.   As soon as it was humanly possible the woman became pregnant again and nine months later another child was born.  Neither the man nor the woman could agree on a name for the new baby so eventually they decided to name the child Two.

The man and woman were running out of available dresser drawers so alternative housing became a necessity.  Around this time the man’s only living relative, a bachelor farmer, named Eddie died and left the man a large, if somewhat rundown, farmhouse about three miles outside of town.  Uncle Eddie had lived in the farmhouse the last 25 years with his best friend Larry, who rented one of the many bedrooms in the old house.  Larry had died three months before Uncle Eddie and their misfortune solved the man and woman’s housing problem.  They moved to the farmhouse and before long the woman was pregnant again.   When the baby was born the same naming inertia happened and they decided to name the baby Three.

Life proceeded in kind, and over the next ten to fifteen years Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven and Twelve were born.  They were a poor family but generally happy as the man and the woman were kind and loving parents.  As time went on the man and woman noticed that their twelve offspring were taking different life paths.  Two, Four, Six, Eight, Ten, and Twelve were studious highly focused achievers while Juan, Three, Five, Seven, Nine, and Eleven lacked direction and, frankly, were a little odd.

Time rolled on and one by one the children left home to pursue their fortunes.  Two, Four, Six, Eight, Ten and Twelve embarked on successful careers as doctors, lawyers, stockbrokers and college professors.  They married like-minded professionals and moved to all four corners of the country.

The other children, I will call them “the odd children” not in judgment but in order to facilitate the story, had tougher, if not more colorful, paths to adulthood.

Juan had several scrapes with the law over petty thievery and had spent a few months in the county lockup on various theft misdemeanors.  His passion was taxidermy.  He specialized in recreating famous scenes from history by posing various vermin and critters he found in the woods behind his house or along the side of the road.  His best-known piece was a recreation of Lee’s surrender to Grant at the Appomattox Courthouse marking the end of the civil war. He considered a recreation of Bart Starr’s quarterback sneak at the end of the Ice Bowl to be his masterpiece.  He agonized over how to recreate Chuck Mercein, a Packer running back, who had tumbled into the end zone behind Starr, with his arms raised giving the signal for a touchdown because the critters he had used to represent the 22 players on the field all had short forelegs and were incapable of raising them over their heads convincingly.  Juan lost sleep trying to figure out how to solve this problem and complete the piece he felt would rocket him to preeminence in the world of taxidermy.

Three was an extremely shy and socially inept child who only really felt comfortable in the presence of chickens.  Every birthday and holiday he asked for chickens and before long he was selling eggs out of the shoe repair shop.  When he turned eighteen he left home and used his egg money to buy a small piece of land in the country away from humans and started a poultry farm.

Five’s only distinguishing characteristic was his uncanny resemblance to Popeye the Sailor Man.  He briefly cashed in on his appearance when a local movie theatre ran a Robert Altman film retrospective that included his Popeye movie.  Five would stand in the lobby dressed as the famous sailor and spin a corncob pipe in the corner of his mouth.  This employment was short lived and he worked several menial jobs before settling in as a short order cook in a 24-hour greasy spoon.

Seven had problems with drugs and alcohol during her late teens and twenties.  She rocketed from one shaky relationship to another, always ending badly.  At one point in her late twenties she married Homer Swans, who she believed was the heir to the Swan’s ice cream fortune. When she sobered up, after a week or two, she discovered Homer was the heir to a dilapidated house trailer and nothing else.  The marriage lasted 39 days ending in a no fault divorce.  Seven’s marriage experience represented rock bottom for her and she resolved to change her life.  She took up endurance sports beginning with mountain bike racing and expanding to marathon running, triathlons, speed walking, mountain climbing, bungee jumping, steeplechase, and giant wave surfing.  Her latest sport was long distance swimming and she hoped to swim from Florida to Cuba by the end of the year.

Nine was a joiner.  Unfortunately, she most often joined cults.  Her extreme devotion to principle and rigid adherence to every rule soon alienated everyone in the cult and she would soon be asked to leave.  Her latest obsession was linked to a rogue priest in Green Bay, Wisconsin, who advocated dancing as the cure all for the world’s problems.  Utilizing Nine as his chief disciple, the priest instituted the Mash Potato Mass during which the flock would get up and dance for an hour straight.  Any dance was acceptable and it was not uncommon to see the mash potato, boogalou, fox trot, polka, and all manner of free style twitching going on at the same time.  The local bishop was threatening to have the priest defrocked if he didn’t stop his dance ministry but Nine assured him that if he was defrocked she would continue ministering to the religiously funky.

Eleven became the world’s worst daredevil.  He never failed to clear five of the six cars he was attempting to jump on his motorcycle. He always managed to blow himself up or set himself on fire when he performed standard daredevil stunts.  He worked a regional circuit of stock car races, small county fairs and church picnics and became a local legend.  He never failed to entertain and had broken nearly every bone in his body at one time or another.  He also held the record for walking away from small aircraft crashes and had attracted a small following at the local airport where he hung out.  His latest endeavor was to form a Piper Cub (a small prop airplane) precision flying team.  They perfected one trick, which consisted of two columns of five planes in parallel lines nose to tail.  Eleven lead the other fliers in this formation, which he called “the pipe.”   They were in great demand satisfying America’s curious desire to see planes fly over sporting events and had flown over high school football games in three different states.

Time passed and the shoe repairman passed away peacefully at home.  The woman continued to live in the old farmhouse, now alone, and grew to be old and fat.  The even keeled children slowly stopped visiting home citing busy schedules, deadlines, travel distance and various other career pressures for their absences.  Unspoken, but none-the-less real, were their feelings of embarrassment at their humble beginnings, the run down farmhouse and their overweight mother.  So it was left to the odd children to make sure that their mother was not alone on holidays and birthdays.

So it was on a December 25^th morning, Juan was busy strapping a fruit tree he had dug out of his neighbor’s yard the night before to the roof of his van.  Just as he was tightening the last strap, Juan looked up and saw Three coming up the street.  Three was carrying a small cage containing two Crevecoeur chickens.  Under his other arm he carried a large Tupperware tub.  Three had contacted Juan a couple of nights before to see if he could get a ride to their mother’s house.

Although they hadn’t seen each other in over two years, Juan and Three greeted each other as if they had been hanging around together the night before.  Juan knew that Three wasn’t much of a conversationalist and the four hour drive would be done mostly in silence.

Juan took the cage from Three and put Three’s French chickens in the back of his van.  Juan asked Three what was in the Tupperware tub.  Three told him he had been contacted by Five who told him he had to work at the diner on the 25^th and wouldn’t be able to go with his brothers to visit their mother.  Five, knowing his mother’s love of onion rings, had made up a batch to send to her as a present.  Three popped off the Tupperware lid and showed Juan Five’s golden rings.

Juan and Three got in the van and were backing out of the driveway when Juan suddenly hit the breaks, put the van in park and ran back in the house.  A minute later Juan came back out carrying a stuffed bird.  He told Three he was going to attach the bird to the branches of the tree when he transplanted it in his mother’s side yard.  He thought she would get a kick out of seeing the bird in the fruit tree.

They rode in silence until they cleared the outskirts of the town.  Once out in the country, Three turned to Juan and asked him if Seven was going to be there this year.  Juan told him she wouldn’t be there because Seven Swans a’swimming to Cuba as they spoke. Three then told Juan that Nine’s laity was dancing and she couldn’t get away this year, either.  Juan told Three he had heard from Eleven and was told he would meet them at the farmhouse and he was planning something special for their mother.  Thus the conversation ended until they were about a quarter mile from the farmhouse.

As they approached their mother’s house, Juan heard a faint droning sound and spotted a series of small specs in the sky.  He pulled the van over and he and Three got out and looked up in time to see Eleven’s pipers piping over their mother’s house.

Three and Juan stood transfixed, as they were not immune to America’s strange love of flyovers, until the pipers had disappeared from view.  Juan then looked at the farmhouse itself and saw what looked like flames shooting out the upstairs windows and smoke billowing from a section of the roof. The boys jumped back in the van and raced the last quarter mile skidding to a stop some 25 feet from the front door.  Juan and Three burst from the van and charged up the front steps and into the house.  The first floor was beginning to fill with smoke and Three went from room to room calling his mother’s name.  Juan dashed upstairs and ran down a very smoky hallway where he found his dazed and disoriented mother sitting in a heap.  Juan called to Three and the two of them struggled to get their rather large mother to her feet.  Once she was standing each of the boys took one of her arms and guided her down the hallway, down the stairs, through the living room and out into the front yard where the three of them gulped in the most delicious air they had ever breathed.

The moral of the story:  Appreciate your odd children because they may someday pull your fat out of the fire.

HO HO HO!    Merry Xmas, Everyone.

P.S. Coming next, the Teacher returns.