El Ojo del Lago - December2014

Saw you in the Ojo

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El Ojo del Lago / December 2014

Saw you in the Ojo

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PUBLISHER

Richard Tingen

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Alejandro Grattan-Domínguez Tel: (01376) 765 3676, 765 2877 Fax: (01376) 765 3528 Associate Publisher David Tingen Graphic Design Roberto C. Rojas Sandra Hernandez Special Events Editor Sandy Olson Associate Editor Jim Tipton Contributing Editor Mark Sconce Drama Critic Michael Warren Art Critic Rob Mohr Roving Correspondent Dr. Lorin Swinehart Sales Managers Omar Medina Bruce Fraser 2I¿FH 6HFUHWDU\ Rocio Madrigal ADVERTISING OFFICE Av. Hidalgo # 223, Chapala Mon. thru Fri. 9am - 5pm Sat. 9am - 1pm Tel. 01 (376) 765 2877, 765 3676 Fax 01 (376) 765 3528 Send all correspondence, subscriptions or advertising to: El Ojo del Lago http://www.chapala.com ojodellago@prodigy.net.mx Ave. Hidalgo 223 (or Apartado 279), 45900 Chapala, Jalisco Tels.: (376) 765 3676, Fax 765 3528 PRINTING: El Debate El Ojo del Lago aparece los primeros cinco días de cada mes. (Distributed over WKH ¿UVW ¿YH GD\V RI HDFK PRQWK) &HUWL¿FDGR GH /LFLWXG GH 7tWXOR &HUWL¿FDGR GH /LFLWXG GH &RQWHQLGR

Index...

FEATURE ARTICLES

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COVER STORY

Dr. Lorin Swinehart celebrates the Christmas Season by rememEHULQJ WKH OLIH DQG WLPHV RI RQH RI WKH PRVW EHORYHG ¿JXUHV LQ DOO of religious history.

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18 TRUE MATURITY

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Janice Kimball spins a holiday story that gently illustrates that with maturity can come forgiveness and acceptance.

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Editor’s Page

29 POETRY

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Anita’s Animals

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Front Row Center

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Imprints

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Uncommon Sense

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Conservative Corner

John Thomas Dodds waxes poetic about one of the greatest Christmas gifts any of us can give to . . . ourselves.

34 STRANGER THAN FICTION Tom Eck, while practicing law in Nevada, took on a case versus the man they called “The King” and lived to write about it!

38 TRAVEL (sort of) Harriet Hart’s visit to the Mennonite colony near Copper Canyon in Northern 0H[LFR WULJJHUHG D WKRXJKWIXO ÀDVKEDFN to her childhood up in Manitoba.

66 FICTION Bonnie Phillips spins a Christmas story unlike any you’re ever likely to read, with an ending that’s almost guaranteed to provoke a sharp intake of breath.

68 MEXICAN HISTORY Herbert Piekow writes about the 1810 Mexican War of Independence, and one of the most unlikely heroes in all of history.

Reserva al Título de Derechos de Autor 04-2011-103110024300-102 Control 14301.

Permisos otorgados por la Secretaría de Gobernación (EXP. 1/432 “88”/5651 de 2 de junio de 1993) y SEP (Reserva 171.94 control 14301) del 15 de enero de 1994.

Distribución: Hidalgo 223 Chapala, Jalisco, México.

All contents are fully protected by copyright and may not be reproduced without the written consent of El Ojo del Lago. Opinions expressed E\ WKH DXWKRUV GR QRW QHFHVVDULO\ UHÀHFW WKH views of the Publisher or the Editor, nor are we responsible for the claims made by our advertisers. We welcome letters, which should include name, address and telephone number.

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COVER STORY

z DIRECTORY z

El Ojo del Lago / December 2014

26 Hearts at Work 48 Lakeside Living 70 Bridge by the Lake

LAKESIDE LIVING

VOLUME 31 NUMBER 4

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75 Child of Month 78 Internet Mail Box 83 Welcome to Mexico 88 LCS Newsletter

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Editor’s Page %\ $OHMDQGUR *UDWWDQ 'RPLQJXH] For more editorials, visit: http://thedarksideofthedream.com

(Note: Given President Obama’s recent historic Executive Order regarding immigration, the following might be of more than passing interest to our readers.)

A BRIEF HISTORY OF MEXICAN MIGRATION During the early part of the 20th century, Mexico underwent a tumultuous social and economic revolution that was to have a deep and longlasting effect on the United States. In the wake of that revolution’s shattered dreams, the first of the Mexican migrations began, driven by the mythical promise of EI Norte.

The United States was on the brink of the First World War, and the song its citizens would soon be singing was called “Over There.” Before that war was won, more than four million Americans had indeed been sent “over there,” thus leaving the country with a desperate need for domestic manpower.

Heeding the call, Mexico sent north some half-million workers to help make the world, in President Woodrow Wilson’s unforgettable words, “safe for democracy.” This initial migration was unique in two ways: first, it was greatly welcomed by the American people and their government; further, it gravitated to that section of the United States that had once belonged to the ancestors of those Mexicans now returning to it.

Mexican labor began to help mine the ore, till the soil, maintain the railroads and make the guns, all vital to the war effort. Yet this labor force was consistently mistreated—and almost always by the same type of people who over the course of the next halfcentury were to most fervently court cheap Mexican labor during times of national crisis.

Unlike other laboring minorities, however, the Mexican, his fighting nature recently forged in the crucible of the Mexican Revolution, now came forward to demand his share of that democracy being won on the blood-

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El Ojo del Lago / December 2014

soaked fields of France. In New Mexico and Colorado, viciously exploited mine workers went on strike. Within hours, the mine owners brought about what they called a “negotiated settlement,” leaving twenty-two Mexican men, women and children dead.

With the First World War finally won, the United States ushered in the era of “The Golden 20s.” Yet for Mexican-Americans—who had worked, fought and died to make the 20s so golden—it became a period of benign neglect. Prosperity was in. Those of Mexican ancestry were out.

Then came the Wall Street Crash of 1929, and suddenly benign neglect seemed a blessing by comparison— and nowhere were the after-shocks of the Crash more severely felt than in Mexico, with the peso so fatally tied to the dollar. What followed was the most disastrous economic period in Mexican history, thus setting the stage for the next monumental migration.

With nearly a quarter of its population in a state of slow starvation, the eyes of the Mexican people again turned northward. Within one year after the Great Crash, more than a million and a half of them would venture across the border. This time, however, they came not by invitation, or even in search of a better life, but simply in the hope of staying alive. But soon realizing that conditions were little better in the fabled El Norte than in their own country, many returned to Mexico. If they were fated to starve to death, many felt it best to die on their own soil.

Those who left voluntarily returned to Mexico with their dignity intact— for many opportunistic politicians in the U.S. now were blaming this last wave of immigrants for the Depres-

sion, conveniently ignoring that the migration had not even begun until after the Wall Street Crash. Xenophobia spread across the United States like a virulent disease.

Massive deportation measures were established, and tens of thousands of Mexicans were rounded up like common criminals to be entrained south in cattle cars. Thousands of American citizens of Mexican ancestry, some with roots in the U. S. that dated back for a full century, were likewise deported. Many of them had fought as “Dough Boys” in France, but they were also shoved into the cattle cars, despite having been promised that naturalization would be their ultimate reward for serving in the U.S. military.

The Depression deepened, and for several years the border was unusually quiet, as Mexico began to pick up the pieces of its own shattered economy.

That recovery would gain speed with a federal decree, the full import of which would remain unknown for another forty years.

Nationalizing its oil industry, the Mexican government quickly sent packing the foreign oil cartels as if they were the illegal aliens. Surprisingly, the American response was quite restrained, made so perhaps by alarming events around the world that soon would set the stage for the next great Mexican migration.

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor came just as the United States was emerging from the worst economic depression in its history, only to hurl the country into another world war that would eventually cost more, in terms of men, money and materiel, than any other in all of recorded history.

Yet as with every previous war, fighting men would have to be fed and supplied. Hence, the call went out once again to America’s neighbor to the south. But this time, Mexico was not so interested in chancing yet another humiliation, or even worse, a

military defeat at the hands of a foreign enemy of the United States’ own choosing.

The U. S., growing desperate for farming and factory labor, soon developed an enlightened and humane program for the importation of Mexican workers. Swayed by the stirring words and progressive programs of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Mexican people felt for the first time a common bond with the United States.

Responding to the president’s plea, they returned by the hundreds of thousands to help settle an issue that the U.S. thought had been determined with the winning of the First World War. The period 1941-1945 is considered as one of the finest in all of U.S. history, and an American president later would give some credit for it to the Mexican immigrants of that famous epoch; and justifiably so, for on the home-front, Mexican labor helped till the soil in a manner which astonished our allies and confounded our enemies, while overseas, men of Mexican blood would become, in ratio to their numbers, one of the ethnic groups most highly decorated for valor under fire.

The United States is, as it is so proud of reminding the world, a country that has been continuously replenished by those who were, in the immortal phrase on the Statue of Liberty, “yearning to breathe free”—and therein lies part of what has helped make it one of the great nations of the world.

Postscript: One thing sure: For some 4 ½ million undocumented Hispanics currently up in the United States, this coming Christmas will be much merrier than it was last year.

Alejandro GrattanDominguez

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THE LIFE AND LESSONS OF ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI %\ 'U /RULQ 6ZLQHKDUW

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t was a bitterly cold Christmas Eve in 1223, in the tiny Italian mountain town of Greccio. The peasants trooped off to a nearby stable to see what the eccentric holy man Francis had planned for them. Within, they were amazed to find a baby nestled in a manger, the air of the stable heated by the breath of a small herd of sheep and cows. Thus did Francis teach about the Nativity to an unsophisticated audience.

This first known manger scene more accurately captures the spirit of the season than the frenzied commercialism that has come to characterize the holiday in our time.

On March 13, 2013, the Roman Catholic Church elected the first pope from the Americas, who immediately took the name Francis, in honor of the 13th century holy man from the Italian town of Assisi, the first person in recorded history to bear the Stigmata. Francis may be the most beloved of Christian saints. Underlying the popular image of a kindly man who preached to the birds, we find a man of peace and compassion, who challenged the status quo of his day by living the kind of life preached by Jesus.

Francis, patron of the poor, of animals and nature, was born around 1181, the son of a wealthy cloth merchant who insisted that he pursue a career in business. As a youth, Francis was a playboy, aspiring to become a knight and do great deeds in battle. Yet, he was kind and generous, giving money to every beggar he met. He sometimes gave away his own clothes, and smuggled food to the poor.

Riding out to do battle with a German king, Francis fell ill and was forced to return home. One day, he met a leper.

Terrified of being infected, Francis nevertheless, embraced the man and gave him a sack of coins. Filled with joy, he recognized that his purpose was to help others, and he spent long periods ministering to victims in a leper colony.

While praying at the Church of San Damiano, a voice ordered him, “Francis, do you see that my house is in ruins? Go and restore it for me.”

Concluding that he was to rebuild that crumbling structure, Francis sold his

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father’s best cloth to purchase mortar and stone for the project. His father, angered by what he regarded as his son’s irresponsible, even delusional, behavior, sued to force him to return the money.

At court, the bishop advised Frances to repay his father.

Francis responded by giving away all his possessions, including the clothing he was wearing, shouting that from then on only God was his father. He fled into the woods, where he lived a life of poverty, prayer and charity to others.

At the time, many clergy were focused more upon materialism than upon their vocations. Francis opposed greedy, gluttonous behavior. Jesus had advised a wealthy young merchant to sell all he had, give the proceeds to the poor and come and follow him. Francis took that passage literally, adopting the simplest of lifestyles. Francis advised, “Blessed is he who has nothing, for he will enjoy everything.”

Thousands followed his example, men joining the Order of Friars Minor, women joining the Poor Clares, living in huts and giving the proceeds of their labors to the poor.

Francis is perhaps best known for his close relationship with nature and animals. He believed that the Creator communicates his joy through his creation.

He took great joy in birds and other animals and always treated them with kindness. Francis believed in the sanctity of all life at a time when even human life was regarded cheaply. He considered God as an artist who is known through his art, the majesty and variety of his creation. His words and actions seem to anticipate the pane theistic teachings of Meister Eckert a century later, the view that the Divine interpenetrates all of creation. His Medieval Catholic outlook is evident in his famous Sermon to the Birds, but he expands that concept, addressing the birds as Little Sisters.

Francis took great joy in all creatures, singing with a cicada, freeing a rabbit from a trap, taking warm wine and honey to the bees in the winter, purchasing lambs to save them from the slaughter.

His “Canticle to Brother Sun”, pays homage to the glories of creation.

The most famous story about Francis involves the Wolf of Gubbio, who had been preying upon the peasants’ livestock. Francis convinced the wolf to cease his evil ways. Afterwards, the wolf followed Francis docilely through town.

From then on, the people fed the wolf and he lived peacefully among them.

This story is cloaked in myth but not so unbelievable when we remember that animals often respond positively to acts of kindness, as the experiences of Dr. Lynn Rogers with wild black bears affirm.

Francis would be saddened by vivisection, bull fighting, trophy hunting, poaching, and the destruction of God’s creation by mountaintop removal mining, clear-cutting and fracking, the corruption of nature by the introduction of genetically modified organisms, the inhumane practices of factory farms, the heavy handed attitudes of energy companies and polluters.

During the Fifth Crusade, Francis journeyed to Egypt in an attempt to bring peace and convert Sultan Al-Kamil.

He was welcomed warmly and the two developed mutual understanding centered on monotheism, prayer and kindness to the poor.

Francis turned no one away, always attempting to erase the boundaries between individuals and ideologies. He avoided language that blocks the poetic flow of Christianity and encases its living spirit within the iron cage of literalism and legalism.

Anyone can begin applying Franciscan principles to their lives by cultivating a vegetable garden, feeding birds, treating animals with kindness, practicing the Leave No Trace doctrine as we walk the beach, the woodland path, the mountain trail. Sharing our wealth with victims of poverty, disease and injustice could go a long way toward eradicating many of the ailments that trouble mankind.

Francis asks even more of us, urging us to put aside the vanity of earthly goods and transcend the twin evils of success and failure. He urges downward mobility, a life of poverty and service to

others.

Francis prescribes a life of solitude, necessary for silencing noisy souls, creating a space where we can experience the Ultimate.

He insists that we turn off the outward dialogue and the inward monologue, shut off the constant noise to which so many are addicted in their panic to escape themselves. He cautions that happiness cannot be successfully sought by means of fleeting emotional highs, pharmaceutically induced avoidance of normal emotions, the acquisition of this or that vehicle or technological bauble, but only through the cultivation of solitude, silence, stillness.

When Francis passed away in 1226, it is said that myriads of birds and animals appeared to mourn the passing of their friend.

In our time, his likeness stands watch over lawns, gardens and birdbaths around the world. Each year on October 4, the Roman Catholic and Anglican Communions honor Francis with the Blessing of the Animals. My grand-dog Kodi, a precocious Labrador retriever, is always in attendance.

Lorin Swinehart

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e are coming to the end of this year and preparing for the next. This might be a good time to reflect on those happy memories that we have shared with our long-time friends and hopefully friends we have recently made. Also it’s a time to think about our pets, especially those who have left us and remember the good memories and happy times they brought to our hearts. This is also a perfect time to re-affirm our commitment to our living pets by preparing for their care in the event that we as their ‘parents’ are no longer able to care for them. Anita’s Animals website, has a tab called: Pet Godparents. The purpose of this tab is to utilize a form that can be filled out online, printed and posted in a prominent place within your house. This form details info about each pet, their individual care, where and who is to take care of them in case of an emergency.

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Do not leave this responsibility to others to make decisions about your loving trusting pet companion.

There are many “unseen” people in our community who quietly, without fanfare or pictures in the newspapers, go about their business and do kind things. Some help organizations in a variety of ways, such as paying for schooling, volunteering with charitable fund raisers, making food donations ,while others help individual persons or families they have gotten to know.

These ‘givers’ in our community take charity to it’s finest conclusion – doing a good thing without expecting or requiring heaps of praise… they do it for the “right reason”. Obviously animals

El Ojo del Lago / December 2014

are Anita’s focus. There are many who regularly feed hungry animals as they see them, support feral cat colonies, volunteer time and money to spayneuter community events, volunteer at shelters, etc. Anita and her volunteers, would like to thank all those who help others, both human and animal in our community. Many famous people have spoken about the relationship of animals and humanity, this is a good example: If you have men who will exclude any of God’s creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men. – St. Francis of Assisi .

If you are going to have a celebration gathering or party, please consider asking your guests to bring a donation for an animal shelter, in lieu of a hostess’ gift. This donation can be in the form of money or a food donation. With the holidays fast approaching many people are already starting to worry about finding the ideal gift for that special person.

You can eliminate that concern. Think about making a donation to a charity you like or prefer, and make a donation to that organization in the name of that special person. You will have honored that person, and done a good thing as well. Please consider Anita’s Animals as one of those donation choices. If a cat or dog arrives without proof of vaccina-

tion, it costs 200 pesos for each new animal. If they have not been spayedneutered, that is an added 500 pesos.

Plus, it costs 26.4 pesos per animal, per day , to care for each cat/dog until a forever home has been found.

Anita’s website - www.anitasanimals.com - has a PayPal account for donations. You can also stop by the Wednesday Ajijic open-market and make a donation of kitten/cat or puppy/dog food, or cash at Anita’s booth to help her continue her rescue work that she has been doing for over twenty years. Happy Holidays and wishing you a Healthy and Joyous New Year !

FRONT ROW CENTER %\ 0LFKDHO :DUUHQ Betrayal %\ +DUROG 3LQWHU 'LUHFWHG E\ 1HDO &KHFNRZD\

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his semi-autobiographical play is about the lies and evasions that inevitably accompany an extra-marital affair.

Ultimately, all trust is destroyed and what once was love and friendship becomes anger and sadness. Pinter’s handling of the play is interesting as he goes back in time – he begins with bitterness and ends with hope – which of course we know will end in unhappiness and mutual discord.

Neal Checkoway’s use of a revolving stage is extraordinarily effective, as there are nine scenes which would have been difficult to handle on a normal stage. The sets were simply wonderful. Before I saw the play I thought the time and place might be confusing, but actually there was no problem – I always knew where we were and what year it was.

In the program notes, Checkoway says that the play is “about stereotypical Englishness: politeness, repression, small talk and conversational camouflage.” And this is certainly a part of Pinter’s style, but there is also an edge beneath the camouflage, and a bitterness beneath the politeness.

These elements are skillfully delivered by a strong cast. Dave McIntosh was believable as “Robert,” the deceived husband – there was plenty of cynicism in his portrayal of Robert, who also deceives his wife “Emma” and his best friend “Jerry.”

There were dramatic moments in the play – for example in the scene between Robert and Emma in Venice – which had the audience holding their breath because of the underlying intensity. The two lovers – Jerry and Emma – were both played by newcomers to the LLT stage. Richard Varney performed well as Jerry, and was clearly English from the moment he stepped on stage – I hope we will see him again in a more sympathetic role. Jacinta Stringer played Emma effectively with minimal expression, and this was probably Pinter’s intention in the way that the play was written.

There’s a scene in which Emma and Robert are giving up their little “flat” where I thought there could have

been more emotion from both actors.

And I found the final scene (which is the earliest in time) to be mysterious – why does Robert walk out and leave the would-be lovers alone? I would have preferred to see him put his arm affectionately around Jerry’s shoulder.

Finally, Geoff Long was excellent in a cameo part as an Italian waiter. On the whole, it was an unusual and very interesting play, well paced and brilliantly staged.

A major highlight of the play was the revolving stage and the set. I congratulate the entire construction crew headed by Dave Hutchinson, and also Beth Cathcart and Neal Checkoway for the stunning set designs. I hope the revolving stage can now be used for future plays, and this will greatly expand the opportunities for multiscene productions. Shellie Checkoway was the very busy Producer, Margo Eberly was Stage Manager and Gale Bildfell was Assistant Stage Manager.

Next up is Sinderella, a musical comedy created by Dave McIntosh and directed by Paul Kloegman. It’s a pantomime for adults, opening on December 5 and running through December 16.

Michael Warren

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Tantalizing Tlaquepaque

I’ve been traveling around Mexico since the mid-’70’s, when the local arts and crafts market was a lot like shopping in the former Soviet Union: All of stores carried much of the same, mundane merchandise, and selection was limited.

In the years since, Mexican artisans have responded to cheaply-made foreign knockoffs of their work with new and original designs, materials, and fabrication techniques.

Their efforts have taken Mexican artisanship and artistry to a new level and made it highly sought after in the global market place.

San Pedro Tlaquepaque – known to most simply as Tlaquepaque – is one of five munic- $ ERRNZRUP PHWDO VFXOSWXUH ipalities (think NYC boroughs) that make up DZDLWV WKH UDLQ\ VHDVRQ Metropolitan Guadalajara.

It’s long been the home of talented artists and craftsmen, and today their work is sold here in boutiques that would fit in nicely among the shops on Fifth Avenue, Rodeo Drive, or Magnificent Mile.

It’s not surprising that Tlaquepaque is best known for its fine pottery, since the town takes its name from indigenous Nahuatl words meaning “place above clay land”, but its artisans also produce elegant blown glass.

Shops here also sell work from all over Mexico including ceramics, wood and bronze sculpture, wood furniture, papermâché art, and embroidered cloth.

Tlaquepaque was a vil- 7KH YDULHW\ RI PDWHULDOV XVHG WR FUHDWH WKHVH ZRUNV LV DPD]LQJ lage in its own right long before the Spanish Conquest, but today retains its Spanish colonial character, and much of its architecture dates back to the 19th century.

It holds a special place in Mexican history, for it was here in a house on the corner of Independencia and Contreras Medellin Streets that the Plan de Iguala, which granted Mexico independence from Spain, was signed.

A statue of Miguel Hidalgo, father of Mexican independence, towers over the central El Jardín Hidalgo plaza.

During the San Pedro patron saint festivities in June, many street stalls and art sellers set up their wares in the plaza.

El Santuario de NuesAdjoining the Jardin are the Santuario de Nuestra Señora de la Soletra Señora de la Soledad (The Sanctuary of Our Lady dad, Tlaquepaque

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of Solitude), and the Templo de San Pedro Tlaquepaque, which dates from the 1600’s.

Several of the main streets are closed to all but pedestrian traffic, which makes for unhurried strolls through cobblestone streets and alleyways, and plazas and gardens.

One of my favorite galleries is that of Sergio Bustamente, a Mexican artist and sculptor and a Guadalajara area resident since childhood.

First exhibited in Mexico City in 1966, his early work was done in paint and paper maché, but by the mid-1970s he was creating works – many reflecting animal themes – in wood and bronze.

He began designing furniture in 1979, and creating ceramic sculptures into the ’80’s. Latest among his creations is a line of limited edition jewelry in which each piece :RUN RI *XDGDODMDUD DUWLVW 6HU- is hand crafted and bears a certificate of augio Bustamante thenticity.

Photography is prohibited in the gallery, but you can browse the full catalogue of Bustamante’s work at www.coleccionsergiobustamante.com.mx.

Just down the block from the Bustament gallery you’ll find the Museo Regional de la Cerámica (Regional Ceramic Museum), which gives a great historical overview of this craft.

There are plenty of great dining choices here. Catty-cornered from the Jardin, the El Parián pa- )XUQLWXUH DQG GHFRUDWLYH LWHPV LQ ZRRG vilion is home to a number of resare abundant in Tlaquepaque taurants and bars.

You’ll also find a number of cafes and restaurants – many with patio seating – scattered throughout the district.

Among these, I recommend Casa Fuerte.

El Abajeno, which has another location in Guadalajara on the Glorieta Minerva and had been serving locals for almost 50 years, is also popular.

Be advised, though, that breakfast offerings are limited, and restaurants here are most crowded on Sundays, when many of the shops are closed.

Expect at any of these to be serenaded by one the mariachi bands for which Tlaquepaque is well known.

Since many cultural activities here are scheduled in the evenings, it’s worth making your visit an overnight stay here.

6FXOSWHG PHWDO PDULDFKLV VLOHQWO\ The area’s hotels are a short drive serenade from Guadalajara’s city center, and there are a number of delightful B&B’s (click each for TripAdvisor ratings and photos ) including: Casa de Las Flores, Quinta Don Jose, La Casa del Retorno, Rosa Morada The new Plaza Forum Rio Nilo mall is located about 3 kilometers from El Jardin Hidalgo at the intersection of Avenidas Rio Nilo and García Barragán.

Stores there include the Liverpool and Suburbia department stores, Best Buy, Office Max and a Cineplex. Nearby you’ll also find Home Depot, WalMart, Auto Zone, Radio Shack.

Antonio Ramblés

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UUNCOMMON N C OM MM MON CCOMMON OM MM MON SSENSE ENSE %\ %LOO )UD\HU ELOOIUD\HU#JPDLO FRP Distrust of the Intellectual

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have been struck by the irrational panic which has accompanied the Ebola outbreak in West Africa as individuals with the disease have arrived in the West. In a small town in my home state of Maine, for example, a teacher at a public school was put on a twenty-one day paid suspension. Why? Because she had attended a conference in Dallas, Texas shortly after a nurse was infected by an Ebola patient.

The conference was ten miles from the hospital! She was at zero risk of becoming infected. I suspect the school officials in Maine understood this, but they were reacting to the fears of parents in the community.

The science is clear on the transmission of Ebola. It can only be contracted by direct contact with the bodily fluids of a patient who is exhibiting symptoms.

This fact would make it impossible for that Maine teacher to contract Ebola. So how can we explain this hysteria?

In many ways, this example is not unique. The science suggesting that the earth climate is changing as a result of carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels is another. Many simply refuse to believe that the science is correct. Many parents are no longer vaccinating their children for childhood diseases. This is, predictably, leading to a resurgence of these diseases. Similarly, patients are insisting that they be given antibiotics for viral illnesses. Fortunately, fewer doctors are complying with this request.

I suspect that this skepticism about science is partly the result of a general

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%LOO )UD\HU disdain of intellectualism. Many people simply don’t connect with the intellectual class. Perhaps it goes back to being in class with the nerdy, smart kid who always had her homework done and seemed to predictably know the correct answer to the teacher’s question. Smart people are stereotyped as arrogant and aloof.

As a result, politicians often cast themselves as coming from “regular, common-sense, working-class” roots.

This is why many American voters disliked John Kerry and Al Gore. To them, George W. Bush, with his mangled words and folksy manner, was someone they could relate to.

Alexis de Tocqueville expressed concern about the Americans’ tendencies to be overly materialistic, individualistic and anti-intellectual in his Democracy in America published179 years ago. In some ways, little has changed.

After all, basing one’s beliefs on cold science is not always easy. Science is often seen as anti-religious because, in many ways, it is. The laws of gravity, physics, and thermodynamics are not always comforting. Many would rather believe that we are overseen by a benevolent God and that everything, good or bad, happens for a reason decipherable through faith.

Faith in the irrational and supernatural is not harmless. By eschewing intellect and science, we are blinding ourselves to the very real dangers we face as humans. As Jarrod Diamond points out in Collapse, ignoring rather obvious existential problems can lead to catastrophic outcomes.

Of course, life would be rather dull and meaningless without poetry, art, literature, and other non-rational diversions. As a poet myself, I see no contradiction between enjoying the arts and believing in science. It’s just that when facing a pandemic, an energy shortage, or an environmental threat, I’d rather consult a scientist than an astrologist.

Pervasive anti-intellectualism is a threat to our democratic values and perhaps even to our survival. The antidote to ignorance is, of course, a liberal education. We do not need to be taught what to think but how to think. That’s the difference between religion and science.

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THE CONSERVATIVE CORNER %\ 5REHUW / 1LSSHU

What a Disappointment!

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am truly disappointed at the letters to the editor of “Ojo Del Lago” responding to my articles. I was hoping for a lively debate of the issues, and have found instead that the Liberals in this area are incapable of a cogent repartee.

What we’re discovering is their propensity to simply call names instead of offering anything of value. What a shame.

Perhaps a class in Debate 101 is necessary? It works like this: I say, “There are US immigration laws which need to be adhered to.” You say, “I am opposed to the current US immigration policies and here’s why.”

Get it?

I say, “There are ample laws protecting every citizen of the United States, be they Black, homosexual, Muslim, or Inuit. You say, “Oh no… we must give special privilege to gays and the like because…”

Calling someone a “bigoted racist”, which by the way is steeped in redundancy, is name-calling less educated low information people resort to. Why? It’s because they haven’t had an original thought floating amongst the Liberal Coolaid in their brain for decades. They have become brainwashed by Liberal catch phrases, antiquated talking points, and snippets of another’s warped perspective of how things should be.

Let’s look back at the first letter, allegedly written by a Mexican, Caesar Cisneros. The entire letter was simply name-calling. Nothing in terms of any substantive content existed in that letter. He called me a “racist”, an “ugly American”, and not welcome in Mexico. Another responder the following month wrote in thanking him for saying the things he himself could not say! I laughed as I read Cisneros’s contrived letter probably written by a disgruntled Canadian.

One responder’s letter, Ed Knudsen, claimed I have no knowledge of American history, and then went off on this tirade about Plymouth Rock, Columbus and Jamestown being myths. The problem there… I hadn’t mentioned those historical subjects in anything I wrote! My heavens, is that the best you can do? BTW- I was going to be a History Teacher at one

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El Ojo del Lago / December 2014

point, Ed, and scored the highest recorded score on the State issued final exam in California in 1968. You ever want to debate history…you let me know where and when…and I’ll be there. He also said what I wrote broke Mexican Law. Really? Cite the law I broke…don’t just make unsubstantiated claims. You evidently learned that from Harry Reid, who is gifted with the ability to lie every time he opens his mouth. We all remember, “I have it from a reliable source that Mitt Romney has not paid a dime of taxes in ten years.” It turned out to be a blatant lie.

The top of the heap was the most recent letter from Steven Karker.

I am, according to him, “hateful”. I supposedly hate Hispanics….ah….I reside in Mexico, Dude. I worked for many years in East Los Angeles, the Lincoln Heights community to be precise. I supposedly hate African/ Americans??? Where, in anything I wrote do you find that? I have many, many, Black friends…ones you Liberals call “Uncle Toms.” That sort of sounds hateful to me. In fact, I wrote that Planned Parenthood has an organized genocide of Black fetuses. It sounds to me like I am trying to support Blacks. I spoke of that organization being founded by a known hater of Blacks. Refute it, if it isn’t true. But, cite your source. And, I will bury you!

I am categorically opposed to the treatment Muslims have for women. Where do we read, in anything I’ve written, that I am anti-women?

Why are Liberals overlooking the treatment of women by Muslims?

Hmmm?

All delusional people…proving yet again…Liberalism is a mental disorder. If you can’t debate, attack personally! If you can’t refute a statistic, call names! James Carvel would be proud!

Saw you in the Ojo 17

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T

here are times when I doubt my decision to become an artist. What have I done to myself? I wonder. I could be eating fine food, and buy any book I wanted, if I had made different choices early on.

The answers came when I visited a nearby nursing home one Christmas Eve. I brought along a cake and roll of garlands. I was greeted by a nurse in the courtyard. The patients sat around a table watching her and an aide play checkers, or listlessly watched from their wheelchairs.

A woman sat alone in her wheelchair in the courtyard. Her hair was tied on each side by colorful scarves that waved in the breeze. She was watching a pair of blue jays twittering on a eucalyptus branch.

“Her name is Miriam. She was an artist.” The nurse volunteered. I walked over.

“The nurse told me you were an artist,” I said.

“I still am. An artist is who you are and not what you do.”

“Of course, how silly of me … you see, I am an artist, too.”

“Have you always been an artist?”

Miriam asked.

“Why yes, I guess I have.”

“I always knew what an artist was.

You see, my older sister was one.” Miriam confided. “She studied ballet, recited poetry, drew perfect pictures, was emotional and had Shirley Temple hair. I, on the other hand, had none of these attributes.

“From the time I clamped on my first pair of roller skates and taped the key to my

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El Ojo del Lago / December 2014

forehead I was the antithesis of what my family felt an artist was… I sure overcame that handicap!” She laughed. “But it took me thirty years…Want to know how?”

“You see, I have always been creative, designed gardens, clothes, and rebuilt houses, projects that were expected of a mother and a woman who served two terms as housewife. Then one day my creative side could no longer be contained and just’ ‘spilled over’ changing my life forever.”

“How?” I inquired.

“It’s not so much how, as why. I needed to be me… I needed to express who that was; to myself, as well as to others.

One may look at my situation and think I am alone. But I am never alone, as my mind creates the company I want to keep; how I want to perceive my life. The artist in my soul keeps me company . . .What do you see on that wall?” Miriam suddenly hollered out to the other old timers at the checkers table.

“Nothing!” A bleak voice shouted back.

“You see? Can you imagine a life filled with blank walls when there is so much that can be created on them?” she said with a swoosh of her arm. “I see a figure dancing, perhaps you,” Miriam said, as I put my hand on her shoulder. “Your face is a garland of hues, your energy, like Christmas lights from which tinsel falls.

How wonderful.…no, wait! Maybe that’s me! You could have made that wall come alive with your own visions too, couldn’t you?” She cupped her hand over mine.

Its warmth felt bonding.

“I see a sky swathed in blue,” I began, “a bird lost in it somewhere…and the sky is raining tears. I am on the ground dancing…a jig… to avoid them. Their shards pierce my feet as they hit the ground and shatter.”

“Life isn’t a piece of cake…for any of us, is it?” she said sadly, her eyes shifting toward the checker table. “But I can tell you this, being an artist only comes in second to having wings. The others lead such a dull life.”

“Speaking of cake, would you like some?” I asked.

Janice Kimball

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THE DARWIN NOMINEES FOR 2014 —And the Winner is . . .!

N

ominee No. 1: [San Jose Mercury News]: An unidentified man, using a shotgun like a club to break a former girlfriend’s windshield, accidentally shot himself to death when the gun discharged, blowing a hole in his gut.

Nominee No. 2: [Kalamazoo Gazette]: James Burns, 34, (a mechanic) of Alamo, MI, was killed in March as he was trying to repair what police describe as a “farm-type truck.” Burns got a friend to drive the truck on a highway while Burns hung underneath, so that he could ascertain the source of a troubling noise. Burns’ clothes caught on something, however, and the other man found Burns “wrapped in the drive shaft.”

Nominee No. 3: [Hickory Daily Record]: Ken Charles Barger, 47, accidentally shot himself to death in December in

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Newton, NC. Awakening to the sound of a ringing telephone beside his bed, he reached for the phone but grabbed instead a Smith & Wesson .38 Special, which discharged when he drew it to his ear.

Nominee No. 4: [UPI, Toronto]: Police said a lawyer demonstrating

El Ojo del Lago / December 2014

the safety of windows in a downtown Toronto skyscraper crashed through a pane with his shoulder and plunged 24 floors to his death. A police spokesman said Garry Hoy, 39, fell into the courtyard of the Toronto Dominion Bank Tower early Friday evening as he was explaining the strength of the building’s windows to visiting law students.

Hoy had previously conducted demonstrations of window strength, according to police reports. Peter Lawson, managing partner of the firm Holden Day Wilson, told the Toronto Sun newspaper that Hoy was “one of the best and brightest” members of the 200-man association.

Nominee No. 5: [News of the Weird]: Michael Anderson Godwin had spent several years awaiting South Carolina’s electric chair on a murder conviction before having his sentence reduced to life in prison. While sitting on a metal toilet in his cell, attempting to fix his small TV set, he bit into a wire and was electrocuted.

Nominee No. 6: [The Indianapolis Star]: A Dunkirk, Indiana, man, using a cigarette lighter to check the barrel of a muzzleloader, was killed Monday night when the weapon discharged in his face, sheriff’s investigators said. Gregory David Pryor, 19, died in his parents’ rural Dunkirk home at about 11:30 p.m.

Investigators said Pryor was cleaning a .54 caliber muzzleloader that had not been firing properly. He was using the lighter to look into the barrel when the gunpowder ignited.

Nominee No. 7: [Reuters, Mississauga, Ontario]: A man cleaning a birdfeeder on the balcony of his condominium apartment in this Toronto suburb slipped and fell 23 stories to his death. “Stefan Macko, 55, was standing on a wheeled chair when the accident occurred,” said Inspector Darcy Honer of the Peel Regional Police. “It appears that the chair moved, and he went over the balcony,” Honer said.

Finally, THE WINNER IS! [Arkansas Democrat Gazette]: Two local men were injured when their pickup truck left the road and struck a tree near Cotton Patch [Arkansas] on State Highway 38 early Monday.

Woodruff County Deputy Dovey Snyder reported the accident shortly after midnight Monday. Thurston Poole, 33, of Des Arc, and Billy Ray Wallis, 38, of Little Rock, were returning to Des Arc after a frog-catching trip. On an overcast Sunday night, Poole’s pickup truck headlights malfunctioned.

The two men concluded that the headlight fuse on the older-model truck had burned out. As a replacement fuse was not available, Wallis noticed that the .22 caliber bullet from his pistol fit perfectly into the fuse box next to the steering-wheel column. Upon inserting the bullet, the headlights again began to operate properly, and the two men proceeded toward the White River Bridge.

After traveling approximately 20 miles, and just before crossing the river, the bullet apparently overheated, discharged, and struck Poole in the testicles. The vehicle swerved sharply right, exited the pavement, and struck a tree. Poole suffered only minor cuts and abrasions from the accident but will require extensive surgery to repair the damage to his testicles, which will never operate as intended.

Wallis sustained a broken clavicle and was treated and released. “Thank God we weren’t on that bridge when Thurston shot his balls off, or we might be dead,” stated Wallis.

“I’ve been a trooper for 10 years in this part of the world, but this is a first for me. I can’t believe that those two would admit how this accident happened,” said Snyder.

Though Poole and Wallis did not die as a result of their misadventure as normally required by Darwin Award official rules, it can be argued that Poole did in fact effectively remove himself from the gene pool.

Saw you in the Ojo 21

OADS O ADS THE ROADS %\ 7HUL 6D\D D\ \D

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e had removed the back seats and loaded up our Toyota RAV with everything important to us that would fit, inside and on top. Heading for the border of Mexico past San Diego, I bid my home state and country goodbye.

The first thing I noticed once we passed the border, were the road signs.

Different from California in design, they were much bolder and larger. Also, as we approached towns, there were “speed” bumps. Not the little wimpy ones California has that you can pretty much fly over, but huge ones the size of half a basketball! The placement of the warning signs for these bumps is different as well. Usually, you would have at least 100 feet of warning before coming to the bumps. Here there was less than 10 feet! So, when we hit our first set of speed bumps, it was epic! We had to pull over to re-adjust our load and check our axels for cracks.

We had many miles of desert driving, and we learned quickly that no one adheres to the posted speed limits (which are in kilometers), especially the truck drivers! Everyone drives VERY fast! We had some narrow escapes with semi’s travelling side by side coming toward us on a single lane. Thank goodness, there was usually a large “shoulder” to pull into out of the way, as they barreled through without slowing down. I had my camera ready by

the third time this happened and later, posted it on You Tube… http://www. youtube.com/watch?v=4iDCqn0rwlU Before we left on our road trip, we bought a brand new Tom-Tom. This is a GPS (Global Positioning System) which touted that it had all of the United States and Mexico roads mapped out, so we figured there was no way to get lost with this device on our dashboard telling us turn by turn where to go…… we were wrong!

Driving around in the larger cities of Mexico, I found that being hyper alert is the safest way to go. The intersections and “roundabouts,” or as the locals call them, “glorietas,” are maddening! I never liked the ones in California either. I learned by watching the flow of traffic, that if you stay at the same speed and keep no less than an eight-inch distance between your car and the vehicles around you, you’ll be ok, because everyone else seems to be doing the same thing which doesn’t leave much room for mistakes.

We arrived in Monterey after dark and spent the night at the first hotel we saw. The next morning it was pouring rain. We went in circles for two hours ( I’m not kidding) trying to get back on the highway. There was an enormous amount of new construction and TomTom was useless. Finally, after seeing the same landmark go by for the fifth time, we stopped at an OXXO where a taxi driver was sitting in his cab eating a sandwich. His name was Juan.

My husband hired him to get us out of the city and back on the right highway.

He led us around, under, and over the road constructions, through rain and heavy traffic.

We never would have made it out of there without Juan. We decided then, that taxi drivers were our best friends.

Tom-Tom= NO! Juan-Juan= YES!

Teri Saya 22

El Ojo del Lago / December 2014

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EL DORADO—EL DORADO; Bilingual Edition, 242 pages EL ÚLTIMO TOQUE DE RETRETA—THE LAST TATTOO; Bilingual Ed Edition, diti d itti 251 1 pages %RWK ZULWWHQ E\ 5REHUW %UXFH 'U\QDQ 7UDQVODWLRQ E\ <RODQGD 5DPtUH] 0tFKHO 5HYLHZHG E\ &DURO / %RZPDQ

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ny author who has written and published a book knows what an accomplishment it is to launch just one book in one language. Ajijic writer, Robert Bruce Drynan has doubled the stakes. With the roll-out of two collections of historical accounts, short stories and anecdotes, in two languages, alternating paragraph by paragraph in English and Spanish, Bob has achieved this feat and has released both volumes at the same time. Each anthology, El Dorado, Bilingual Edition and El Último Toque de Retreta—The Last Tattoo, Bilingual Edition, was translated by Yolanda Ramírez Míchel.

The genius of these works comes with Bob’s ambitious goal to tell his well-crafted stories in both English and Spanish, and the clever format of translation of every paragraph provides an effective educational tool for the student studying either language. “Because the translation can’t be literal and each paragraph expresses a coherent theme, having the two close together makes it easier for the reader (student) to comprehend its meaning,” Bob said.

In a painstaking effort, Yolanda Ramírez Míchel worked side by side with Bob to make sure that the translation in Spanish reflected the nuances and accurate mood portrayed in Bob’s English language stories.

The difficulties of literal translation are explored by Señora Ramírez in the introduction. Bob recalls a funny anecdote that demonstrates this problem.

“The title of one story is The Last Tattoo. I chose the Spanish title myself, La Última Retreta. My translator and my book designer both insisted on changing the title to El Último Retrete, which means the “latest toilet.” It might have been great as a lead line for an ad in a late 19th century Sears Catalog, but not a book title.”

El Dorado includes four sections depicting the actual historical search for the City of Gold by the conquistadors in the Amazon Basin of South America.

The following stories in this volume capture the underlying metaphor of El Dorado: the search for true love, happi-

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&DURO / %RZPDQ ness and man’s desire for new adventures. As a teaching tool, Bob suggests that stories of El Dorado are shorter and uncomplicated. “They better hold the interest of the student and are easier to comprehend, while offering a wider range of vocabulary and conceptual nuance.”

The Last Tattoo involves longer and more intricate tales, capturing the themes of international intrigue and personal ravages of war and other conflicts. Both volumes provide excellent tools for a Spanish speaker studying English or an English speaker learning Spanish and where better for these books to be available than in the bilingual environment in which we live. Local ESL students are shouting praises for El Dorado, as they can test their knowledge of English through the immediate Spanish translation and enjoy the context of the stories at the same time.

“Much better than a textbook,” say the students.

Bob utilizes his extensive international experiences from a lifetime of living and doing business in South America, Soviet-occupied Eastern Europe and Germany. He weaves threads of truth in and out of his stories and draws from these encounters to enhance exceptional descriptions of places and times.

Both of these books serve a dual purpose: entertainment and education.

Available for purchase at Diane Pearl Collection and Yves Restaurant, Ajijic or directly from the author.

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Hearts at Work $ &ROXPQ E\ -LP 7LSWRQ

“Charmed back to a forgotten World”

S

ome years back while I was wandering around Peru, early one early morning I stepped onto a bus and began a journey down the coast. As the bus maneuvered south through the grey city of Lima, made even greyer by the fog that wrapped around the city like a sad skirt, I looked toward the ocean and toward what seemed to be miles of drab, one-room concrete houses standing side by side, near the grey beach, homes built by the Peruvian government to house some of the poor.

A sewage ditch ran between the houses and the highway. I watched fascinated as hundreds of young women flowed out from those grey doorways.

It was time to catch the buses that would take them to el centro, to downtown Lima, to their jobs as secretaries and receptionists, sales clerks and assistants, where they often earned less than $50 a week. They were dressed fashionably, elegantly even, in stylish skirts and colorful blouses, with hair groomed perfectly, as if they were headed to tea with the king.

They held tightly to their clean high-heeled shoes as they carefully stepped bare-footed over that sewage trench to climb up to the highway and the waiting buses. They carried themselves as if they were young upper-class women stepping out of their homes in Miraflores to head toward some secret rendezvous or simply to meet each other for coffee at some fashionable city café.

I had done a lot of volunteer work with a community library in western Colorado, and one of our commitments was a literacy project: teaching people to read. Regularly I delivered brochures about literacy programs to the local welfare office where I would study the young women, generally obese, slouched in their chairs, often smoking, impatient with a dirty infant or two, waiting for their government checks—which of course were many times larger than the checks those poor Peruvian women were receiving each week for their many hours of conscientious work.

What a contrast to those poor young Peruvian women!

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El Ojo del Lago / December 2014

Here in Mexico young women often model themselves after the stylish women in the fashion magazines. They appear in public wearing lovely jeans, embroidered and bejeweled, topped with blouses or shirts carefully selected. They are invariably clean, and their hair is almost always well groomed.

Much of the clothing these women purchase is used clothing in good condition brought in in giant bales from the United States…things tossed away

by Americans, often after a single use.

A few years ago a dear (and beautiful) Colombian friend was visiting me in Colorado. Gloria was struck by how no one in the US dressed up to go shopping, or to work, or to church, or to restaurants, or to parties. Gloria’s culture still believes that one does not leave the house without “looking good.”

A dear old friend, Kermit Turley (who passed away a few months ago), was putting together a dinner party (“come as you are”) for Gloria and me and for several other couples. I mentioned to Kermit that Gloria was frustrated that she had not been able to wear her stylish black cocktail party dress and her black high heels with cords that coiled in lovely fashion around her shapely calves. Kermit said, “Let’s all dress up like the old days” (meaning for Kermit and most of us here at Lakeside the days that ended around the mid-sixties in the United States). Well, we all did just that. We all “dressed up like the old days.”

That night we looked at each other through renewed eyes, and sweet Gloria, whose every gesture was filled with some ancient feminine strength, smiled at us through her own dark Colombian eyes. She was fully aware of the powerful sensuality that lurks just inside of grace and elegance, and that evening she charmed all of us back to a forgotten world.

Jim Tipton

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Dear Sir: Robert Nipper says that green movements “are not a bad thing,” but that anything related to “sustainability” is “a Communist front bent on con-

28

trol.” A child of a Nebraska farm family, solidly Republican, I was raised to believe that the Bible taught us to care for the land and water. My grandfather, who homesteaded 2300 acres

El Ojo del Lago / December 2014

in the late 19th century, would never use chemicals. He said they “spoil” the land and make it “unsustainable” for future crops. There’s that pesky word, used by a Cheyenne County, Nebraska, Commissioner, back in the ‘50’s.

As an adult, I earned a reputation for creating energy-efficient housing that took advantage of the sun in its design – dubbed “passive solar design.” In 1994, this led to an invitation from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory to gather individuals to consider how we could move toward the use of solar energy faster. I decided it would be sensible to include creative people who had done something significant for the world for the first time, one each from a variety of fields related to how the society works - an anthropologist, an architect, a developer, a scientist, a social worker, an engineer (Time Magazine’s Engineer of the Century, Paul MacCready), and 12 others. At no time did I consider anybody’s political beliefs, only the proven results of their creative energy.

Our final report announced the necessity to become “sustainable” before we could fully implement solar energy. We had to ensure all systems were energy efficient and could be sustained over the long term by making choices that conserved resources future generations would need.

Out of our conference came The Sanborn Principles for Sustainability, now being used in many countries around the world to determine whether a project uses sustainable methods. Example: draining all the underground water in an area can cause a farm economy to dry up.

That is not sustainable. Instead, the Sanborn Principles suggest rainwater collection, conservation of water by using drip irrigation as they do in the desert in Israel, instead of wasteful flooding of fields (as in Mexico) or pivot irrigation in which more water evaporates than reaches the ground.

We hoped these Principles and the goal of making our planet “sustainable” over the long term would allow our children and grandchildren to have a better future. If we use all the resources they will need, they will not be able to sustain themselves and their families. None of this has anything to do with Communism, theoretical or political. The Communist system has collapsed everywhere in the world except North Korea and Cuba.

Nipper suggested that inquiring about “sustainable environment” would yield some unexpected horrors. I googled it. This statement summarized the results: “Achieving sustainability will enable the Earth to continue supporting human life.” The basic bottom line of my goals. I’m not having difficulty imagining, however, who, and for what purpose, decided to create a fear scenario around sustainability. Those who make money from exploiting resources like oil, coal, gas, water, and forests do not want the world to focus on sustainability and conserving resources. Despite their moniker, Conservatives are not about conservation of the world’s resources.

So, although it seems I am at least partly responsible for the blooming of the word “sustainability,” I have no intention of bequeathing to my grandchildren a world that looks like North Korea. The opposite.I want them to have an earth that sustains the wonderful life we live here in Ajijic in our all-solar house, our organic garden and fruit orchard with drip irrigation, all sustainable forever, generation after generation.

Barbara Harwood Ajijic (Ed. Note: Ms. Harwood won the Solar 2014 Woman of the Year from the American Solar Energy Society in honor of a lifetime of work to promote renewable energy.)

Free To Be Me I wish for you the perfect gift under the perfect tree not locked in a box, ribboned or tucked in a sock, but open for all to see as visible as the brightest star, this gift, hopefully received most festively, would simply, and mindfully be “a present me” In this season of your making I wish for you garlands of friendships in waiting, a thousand lights of joy, harmony, and fullness for the taking.

I wish for you a time of believing in a Pandora of possibilities set free.

A time to walk through the door that has truly opened in your mind, and imagine you are as unique as an individual snowflake caught in a flicker of candlelight, destined to brilliantly adorn the wonderful tree of life where your light shines and others see it where your life matters and others feel it the gift I have faith you will accept most festively, would be the peace of mind that comes from believing in yourself and finding the way, to finally say, “I’m free to be me” —John Thomas Dodds—

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HERE’S TO THE GAP YEAR: Opening Eyes and Hearts %\ 5LWD *ROGHQ *HOPDQ

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’ve been popping in and out of countries around the world for 28 years. I have no home and no possessions; I’m a citizen of the world. My recent visit to Ajijic reaffirmed the fact that we are all enriched when we cross borders and interact.

No matter where I’ve gone, I’ve always felt welcome. My smiles are returned, and I’m endlessly accepting invitations to sit on someone’s porch, join a family for a meal, and participate in events and ceremonies. I’ve learned much more than I’ve taught....and my Western preconceptions have been frequently blown away by on-theground reality.

Here’s one example: I was hanging out with a group of teen-age boys who lived in a slum in New Delhi, India. One day I asked them what they thought it would be like if someone gave their family a house...one with running water, a toilet, a kitchen, even a bedroom or two. Five of them responded that they wouldn’t take it! And when they explained why, the other two changed their minds. “Here in the jhuggie where our houses are packed together, we all have many mothers. If our mother isn’t home to help us, there’s always a mother who is!”

A culture can’t be taught in a classroom. It has to be absorbed.

The world can’t be understood from books. Though I have no permanent

home anywhere, I return at least once a year to the U.S. to visit family, friends, and publishers. (I write books to support my habit and share my joy.) I am always horrified, hurt, and ashamed to hear and read the comments of the U.S. population about foreigners, immigrants, other ways of life...comments filled with ignorance, prejudice, and intolerance.

After many years of frustration, I’ve decided to do something about it! I am determined to create a U.S. population that has experienced the warmth, the welcome, the beauty ...and the common humanity of the world. So, I’m promoting...speaking, writing, meeting, shouting from rooftops...the idea that after sitting in classrooms for thirteen years, our young people need to get out into the world for a year of “experiential” education...a Gap Year.

They need to cross some borders, live in other parts of the world, connect with fellow humans in other cultures, especially in the developing countries.

A Gap Year changes lives, opens eyes.

I want to create a “Gap Year Movement” in the U.S.....with need-based scholarships and partial funding for those who need it. A Gap Year (it can even be a few months) is a time to travel and connect in other cultures.

Here are some facts: The Gap Year is popular in England, Germany, the Scandinavian countries,

Australia, and Israel (after the army).

Many Canadians do a Gap Year, as well.

In New Zealand they call it the big OE (Overseas Experience)....and, like us, the KIWI’s have to cross oceans too!

Families and youths save their giftmoney and work for the funds. If they can do it, why can’t we?

90% of returned Gappers are in college within a year of their return.

The American Gap Association recommends that high school seniors apply to college in their senior year... and when they are accepted, ask for a deferral. More and more colleges are recommending it. Those returned gappers are much more focused, they know what they want, and they have a higher GPA than their stay-at-home peers. Some colleges (Princeton and Tufts among others) are even paying students to do a Gap Year before they begin their college experience.

An out-of-the country experience is a dynamite item on a resumé in today’s global economy.

There are a ton of programs out there that meet a list of standards set

by AGA (www.AmericanGap.org) ... everything from working with elephants in India to teaching English in Ghana.

Many gappers finish college in four years (they know who they are!). So many young people who go to college from high school need five and six years to decide on a major! A Gap Year actually saves money!

If you’re a parent or grandparent, start a “Gapaccount” when the kids are still young. It will be the best gift you will ever give them. Returned Gappers are the leaders of the future. You will see the glow and joy in their eyes when they return, eyes that see the world with new understanding and respect. For many, that Gap Year is the beginning of a joyous lifetime addiction to “connect across cultures.”

A Gap Year movement changes the participants. It will also change the country...and create a more peaceful world. If you are with me, you might want to Back-a-Gapper. For $5,000 you can choose a high school, and a program; you can even help choose the recipient. Have a look at the AGA site.

What a glorious legacy!

(Ed. Note: Ms. Golden is a best-selling author, best known for her TALES OF A FEMALE NOMAD—Living at Large in the World.

She is also a Guest Speaker, and recently was a huge hit at Open Circle.)

Rita Golden Gelman

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El Ojo del Lago / December 2014

Dear Sir: There are 2 ads in your Nov. magazine about someone downsizing & wanting to get rid of their dogs. I was appalled that they consider a dog a part of their stuff that they can just discard! We have 2 cats, one 14 & one 17 years of age & we brought them from Canada to Mexico with us. They are our Fur Children & we would never have considered giving them away or coming here without them. We have downsized & they are a part of our family... not a part of our furniture or stuff!

Dogs & Cats have a heart & they feel...they feel abandonment & love & hate, etc. Would you give a child who could not look after themselves to someone else because you were downsizing? These animals are our fur children to love & to cherish for their entire lives. Shame on these

people for getting dogs in the first place if they had no intentions of keeping them into their senior years!

This is such a major problem among some dog & cat owners. A dog or cat is for life. If a person is not prepared to give approx. 12-15 years of their life looking after an animal they have no business adopting one in the first place!!! (This of course does not pertain to someone who gets to a point in their life where they cannot care for the animal due to illness or age.)

Please think carefully before adopting a pet...you spend 17 years raising a child...please give this consideration to your pet as well.

Regards, Catherine McGrath Ajijic catmcg50@yahoo.ca

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he ev an n, Sir. Sir. Si Sir r. tep out off th the van, Put your hands han nds on on your head d and a d tell tellll te me who you are and d what wha at you are doing.”

“Clyde T. Cruller’ss the name. “T” is for Tra-mo.. vis, hero of the Alamo. od d Born in West-by-God Virginia and now live in far-from-God Arizona. What d’ya want from me?”

Clyde was 6 feet two, 165 pounds.

He wore faded jeans and white, hightop tennis shoes with self-cut bunion holes. His washed-out T- shirt had “P-I-N-K” printed on the front and a pack of Camels was tucked into the left sleeve. A dirty, brown, Purina feed hat was pulled down to Andy Rooney eyebrows that hung over sparkling blue eyes and a hawked nose shadowed lips that smiled whenever he spoke.

“It’s like this, officer. Had to save my mail-order cactus business. It was go’nna be big given time but needed some income ‘till then. Feller said, ‘Need a driver for my van. Pick it up in Tucson, take it to Detroit. Stay overnight and bring it back. No loading or unloading. You pay all expenses. We’ll pay you in cash, very, very, well.’ And they did.”

“So I did. Drove right through.

Ate in the van, food from 7/11’s and drive-thru’s. Had a problem with all the cash I got. ‘Fraid to take it to a bank. Might bring in the I R S, so buried it in my hot house with my plants. I think it hurt the cactuses.

You boys sure surprised me! Come through here regular. Don’t speed or swerve. What’s up? Why so many of you? You need to draw guns for a traffic stop?”

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El Ojo del Lago / December 2014

“Never mind, old man. Keep your hands where I can see them and don’t ask so many questions. What you carrying in the van?”

“Don’t know. Not mine. I just drive. Hear its stuff for sick people.”

“We better check out your load.

Got a key for the back?”

“No, I just drive to the warehouse.”

“Chuck, get the crowbar and open the back door.”

“Owners aren’t gonna like that.

New truck.”

“Jesus! Mack, this guy’s got a major load of snow.”

“Mister Cruller, you better come with us and we’re impounding your van and what appears to be its illegal cargo.”

“Say, fellows, I’ve got to get on with this run. Can’t we postpone any inspection?”

“Your Honor, the defendant knew or should have known he was carrying cocaine, about 1100 Kilos to date and has been paid one million dollars this year alone to do so. His value to the DEA is only if it leads to the arrests of the cartel’s big boys. He’s a Vet with no priors or any record. He will be ninety by the time his case comes up and will cost the government a bundle to prosecute and incarcerate.”

“I’ll certainly consider what you have said, counselor, and my decision at the time of sentencing will reflect what you have told me.”

“Mister Cruller, as you stand here before me in my court it is my duty as a Federal Judge to sentence you for the offences for which you have been determined guilty. Three years in federal prison and a fine of $700,000. Do you have anything to say?”

“Well, Judge, you do what you have to. Seems to me if you think about it the Guvment is out of money, the jails overflowing. The lawyers got all my money but if you let me make two more runs, then I can pay the fine to help out… Will you at least think about it?”

Saw you in the Ojo 33

THE “DEATH” OF ELVIS —Another Perspective %\ 7RP (FN

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he most notorious case I undertook was a lawsuit against Elvis Presley—the “King of Rock and Roll.” After the last show of his appearance, Elvis would have a party in his room for all the unmarried women.

Ralph Warner and his girlfriend, Gina De Marco, attended that last show, at the Sahara-Tahoe Hotel, and Elvis announced his invitation. Gina begged Ralph to let her go, and Ralph, not wanting to appear jealous or needy, agreed. About an hour later, Ralph had second thoughts. He collared the maître’d, paid him $100.00, and was given directions to Elvis’ room through the back stairwell.

34

When Ralph arrived at Elvis’ floor, he knocked. No answer. He knocked harder, started banging louder. No answer. Finally, he saw an electrical breaker box and began flipping the switches on and off. That got results.

Bad results for Ralph. Suddenly the door burst open and two burly men grabbed him and wrestled him to the ground.

“I am just here to get my girlfriend,” Ralph shouted.

The men ignored him and punched him in the ribs. They then called hotel

El Ojo del Lago / December 2014

security. Security arrived, handcuffed him and told him he was under arrest for trespassing and disturbing the peace. Ralph again tried to explain, but was told to “shut up.” As he was being led to the elevator leading from and into Elvis’ suite, Presley suddenly burst across the room and yelled at Ralph, “I’m going to kill you, you son of a bitch.”

While the security guards stood by, Elvis beat the handcuffed Ralph for about five minutes. When Elvis was finally pulled off by his own bodyguards, Ralph slumped to the floor bleeding from the mouth, eyes, nose and ears.

He was barely conscious. The Douglas County sheriff deputies arrived on the scene, spirited Ralph to jail, and denied him any medical attention. The next morning Gina secured his release and took him to a local hospital. His injuries, included a broken jaw, two ruptured ear drums, a crushed cheekbone, and cracked ribs. His whole face looked like a giant red cabbage. His medical bills exceeded $49,000.00—a significant sum in 1975. His damaged ears prevented him from ever again flying in a plane or driving over 4,000 feet in elevation.

We filed suit in Washoe County (Reno) Federal Court against not only Elvis, but also the Sahara Tahoe Hotel and the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office. Elvis hired the best, well-connected lawyers. My law partner and I were just looked upon as a couple of country bumpkins from Carson City, Nevada. But it really didn’t matter. We had an ace in the hole to prove that Elvis, his bodyguards and the deputies were lying under oath in their depositions.

Elvis’ deposition created a fanfare in Carson City. On the day of his scheduled deposition, the entire parking lot was surrounded by reporters—some from as far away as London. Elvis refused to leave his limo, and we settled on taking the deposition at his suite at the Sahara Tahoe. At his deposition, Elvis sat, bloated and pasty, arms on the conference table and head down. He

never made eye contact with me and slurred his responses, generally with a “No sir” or “Yessir.” I marveled that his manager Tom Parker had managed to mold this pathetic blob of humanity into the superstar he had once been.

After the depositions of the witnesses on behalf of Elvis, we produced our trump card. Elvis had rented only half of the floor and the whole incident had been witnessed by the other guest on the floor: Bob Raypole. Bob gave his deposition and confirmed our client’s version of the facts, contradicting Elvis’ claim that Ralph had started the fight and they were just defending themselves from a crazy man who was going to kidnap Elvis for ransom. Bob also gave his opinion that Elvis was under the influence of cocaine at the time.

“How do you know what someone under the influence of cocaine acts like?” the lawyer sneered.

“I am a drug counselor and have been for fifteen years,” he calmly replied.

At that point, the deposition ended.

Less than two weeks before his scheduled trial in Reno, we learned of Elvis’ “death.” Perhaps no one was sorrier to see him pass on than I. With his death, the bulk of our lawsuit also died. An estimated $5 million was lost to our client through our inability to claim punitive damages—those damages awarded by juries when a person commits an intentional act. A punitive damages claim allows a litigant to probe into a defendant’s financial affairs to measure what the proper amount of punishment (10-20% of net worth) should be. But, back then, if a defendant died, then he could no longer be punished.

Years later, this legal principle was changed when Rock Hudson’s estate was sued for punitive damages.

But, in 1977, we could not collect the big bucks, and settled for about $750,000.00.

It was only in recent times that I wondered whether there was any truth to the claim that Elvis faked his death. His supposed quest for privacy, along with avoiding the embarrassment and financial loss of a trial, would have proved a powerful incentive.

Author’s Note: The actual names of the litigant and witnesses have been changed.

(Ed. Note: Our readers are strongly advised to make note of our standard disclaimer at the bottom of our Directory on page four of this publication.)

Tom Eck

Saw you in the Ojo 35

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any people have awakened from the American Dream, and sorry to say, they have “morning breath.”

Mostly, because we wonder what happened to our country, no matter which side of the body politic you are on, left or right. It’s not about the left or right anymore, it’s perhaps deeper than that.

As ex-pats, I think that most of us have heard and read about the end of the American Economy, or just felt it was all some big mistake, this America that got handed to us from our parents’ parents who came to the America where everyone had a chance, but you had to scramble

36

El Ojo del Lago / December 2014

like a maniac to become something better (note: wealthier, that’s the fundamental battle call of Capitalism) than our poor, working immigrant parents. Interesting is that our poor, working immigrant parents and the descendants before them were rich in story, love, matters of the soul and heart, spirit, humor... and community.

So we leave America, and hope to find something richer, in other ways.

In many ways, we decide that in being tired of America, we do leave it.

Love it or Leave It. Okay. Thanks. I got the T-Shirt. You’ve given me a choice.

I’m doing what you’ve advised. I’m leaving it. Okay? Oh, now you tell me I’m a bad guy, because I quit and left.

Some people stay in touch. Skype is great for that.

If we are trying to leave America, the thing is: America has expanded.

It is everywhere now. Whether it’s the IRS and the U.S. Feds having closed all loop-holes and non-reporting from all foreign or offshore banks, regardless of prior privacy policies or tax haven secrecy locales, successfully demanding fully compliant reporting from all international banks accounts, even from retirement incomes and collecting penalties of up to 30% for non-reports, to even having the U.S. military parked off the coast in Costa Rica. The globe really is the United States’ oyster.

And wherever you go, whatever you are escaping, keep in mind that other Americans who have also left, follow you, or are before you. When Rush Limbaugh claimed he was so mad at Obamacare, he threatened that he was leaving for Costa Rica.

One half of the media watching populace said “Yes. Good riddance.” I know another half of us that exclaimed, “Oh no! Well, that takes Costa Rica off my map!”

When I was in Vallarta years ago during the Obama-Hillary playoffs, I was sitting with people who said “Damn, if Obama gets elected, I’m

moving here full time to Mexico!” and others who said “Damn it, if Hillary gets elected, I’m moving here full time to Mexico!” and “Damn! If McCain gets elected, I’m moving here full time to Mexico!” So guess what?

No matter where you move to, if it’s still too damn close, no matter who gets elected, you’re still living with the people you want to get away from!

That can be an issue when opting to move next door, just one country away.

Most people here and elsewhere think of America North as being a massive, gargantuan conglomerate, an impenetrable infrastructure; in comparative relation, you feel, like a tiniest dust off the back of a little gnat, where if you do make a statement or accomplishment, it comes off as a small puff of a miniscule dent in the machine. In the grander scheme of things. Yes, as the credo says, you can do it.

But at the end of the day, you ask yourself if it was worth it.

From the Kindle Book Escape from the American Scheme Ron Knight

Saw you in the Ojo 37

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hen I learned that our itinerary of Mexico’s Copper Canyon included visiting a Mennonite colony, I was apathetic; unenthusiastic, I couldn’t have cared less. I grew up among Mennonites in Southern Manitoba which has communities with names like Plum Coulee, Rosenort, Grunthal and Steinbach, all populated by the followers of Menno Simons.

When I attended Silver Plains School, a one-room schoolhouse that had once been a church, the student body consisted of five Holdeman Mennonites (very conservative), three Métis (the result of French and aboriginal pairings) and two WASPS. I was in the minority.

In grade one I shared a two-seater wooden desk with Lorraine Rempel who was slightly slow intellectually and wore shapeless home-made cotton dresses, but sported a set of blonde braids so thick and intriguing that my six- year- old self was overcome by temptation. One recess I let down Lorraine’s hair just so I could see what it looked like. Mrs. Rempel, her own braids coiled beneath a black skull cap, descended on our school the next day and to my astonishment, it was Miss Murray, our teacher, who was in trouble while I went unpunished.

My contact with Mennonites went beyond elementary school. In Morris Collegiate my first love was Kenny Kehler, whose poor overworked mother had eight children. The Kehlers attended one of the seven churches the town boasted; at least three of them were Mennonite sects. As social convener of Morris Collegiate, I was told that the school graduation dance had to be held off- site in the Legion Hall, so the Mennonite parents would not be offended. Our high school principal, Peter Dyck, convinced the school board that he couldn’t find a French teacher (despite the close proximity of the Francophone villages of Ste. Jean Baptise, Ste. Pierre and Ste. Agathe), forcing us all to study German

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El Ojo del Lago / December 2014

as our second language.

Our modest home library was filled with titles like Forever Amber and Brief Gaudy Hour but surprisingly included a hard cover edition of a history of the Mennonites titled In Search of Utopia which my father read so he could understand our nearest neighbors better. My mother’s kitchen shelf had a copy of the Mennonite Treasury of Recipes with cookies called Dattelkuchen and Berliner Pfaster. It is one of the few mementos of her I still possess.

Steinbach is a prosperous Manitoba town known for its car dealerships: Penner Dodge and J.R. Friesen & Sons Ford were the pioneers when it came to car sales. My Grandpa bought one of the first cars ever sold by the Dodge dealership back in 1927; 25 years later I rode with him in a parade celebrating their success and honoring their early patrons. This seems ironic since the traditional Mennonites, like their Amish cousins, eschew motorized vehicles and travel by horse and buggy.

By the time I got my driver’s license, Steinbach had earned the nick-name car city; even local Winnipeggers drove out to purchase their cars from the town’s honest, hard-working and prosperous merchants.

And now, here I was in northern Mexico, riding a tour bus approaching the small city of Cuauhtémoc. When I heard Martin, our guide saying: “Here’s the best place to buy an SUV or a pick-up truck,” I paid attention.

The wide highway leading into town was lined with car dealerships and businesses selling farm implements, John Deere Tractors and combines.

How peculiar yet familiar, I thought.

Businesses had names like Manitoba Ventanas y Puertas.

Where am I? I wondered. Is this a bad dream?

We stopped at the Museo y Centro Cultural Menonita.

“My name is Tony and I come from Altona, Manitoba” a fresh faced, virginal young man said by way of introduction.

“My name is Harriet and I come from Morris (30 miles away),” I piped up. Tony was thrilled to meet someone from so close to his birthplace.

“This colony is called Manitoba,” Tony continued, “because the original 5,000 settlers came from there back in 1922.” He explained why those Mennonites left Canada and settled over 2,000 miles to the south. The government had passed legislation forcing Mennonite children to attend public school which the elders feared would corrupt them. Their schools taught the Bible in German and little else.

The original 5000 immigrants to Mexico obeyed the Biblical injunction to go forth and multiply and without intermarrying with their Mexican neighbors swelled their numbers to over 50,000 in just 8 decades. The colony’s museum held familiar objects: a wood stove and cream separator, iron bedsteads and tin canisters. Marcel Proust bit into a Madeleine cookie and wrote In Remembrance of Things Past and here I stood in the museum’s gift shop, eating a ginger cookie and experiencing a flood of memories flowing as fast as the Red River in spring.

The Manitoba Mennonite colony in the state of Chihuahua is like Steinbach South with its wide streets, its ostentatious homes, its flower beds and John Deere tractors. A woman in a shapeless cotton dress was planting red geraniums in a wooden wheelbarrow outside the museum as we left. Blond men in denim overalls carrying black tin lunch buckets were leaving the cheese factory as their shift ended.

My fellow travelers were asking Tony what Mennonites believe.

“It’s pretty straightforward. We believe in adult baptism, and we don’t believe in going to war,” explained Tony.

“Why are there so many different churches?”

“Some of us are more liberal than others. It’s more about how to live

than what to believe. Here in Chihuahua we can drive cars, dress in modern clothes. The really traditional folks have moved away…some into South America.”

I had recently read Irma Voth by Steinbach native Miriam Toews, a novel about a young Mexican Mennonite whose patriarchal father drove her out the door, down the road and onto the nearest bus to Mexico City and freedom. I had many questions myself like: What goes on behind these fancy doors? How are women treated? Why are Manitoba Mennonites much more assimilated into mainstream culture than Mexican ones? Were the elders right—does integration into the public educational system blur cultural and religious differences?

But most of all, I wonder whatever happened to Lorraine Rempel Did she escape like the heroine in Irma Voth, or did she spend her life sewing and mending, baking ginger cookies, planting geraniums and bearing children?

I hope she got to let her hair down one more time, but somehow I doubt Harriet Hart it.

Saw you in the Ojo 39

AN AIRPLANE STORY (all true more-or-less)

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n these days of missing airplanes I reminded myself of this story of the Alaskan Airliner that fell from the sky into the Pacific Ocean right outside my house. Unseen by me, for I was writing and drinking and drinking and writing and it had been a long day so when I heard all this cacophony outside my house, I chose to ignore it and eat something and pass out.

The next day I woke up to find out what all the fuss was about. An airplane had fallen from the sky. And I missed it! So, what to do? Nothing, of course, and so I went for a walk on the beach as usual, expecting nothing spectacular. How wrong I was. For here’s what I found.

As I walked the beach I came across a line of seagulls standing at the water’s edge. They don’t usually and perhaps never do this. They usually group themselves up shore in the dunes but here they were lined up at the water’s edge—by the hundreds.

But why? And that’s when I looked closely to see what it is that had so caught their attention. And then I saw it. Small brown-purple worm like things. Except they weren’t worms.

They’re something else. And that’s when I realized they weren’t worms at all. They were blood vessels! Brownpurple tubular blood vessels. You would think the seagulls would be eating these, but they weren’t. Instead, as I watched them, they were waiting for

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El Ojo del Lago / December 2014

flecks of flesh to wash up on shore. My god, what’s happened?

And that’s when I began to piece the story together. As near as I tell, this is what happened. Picture a flight out of Mexico, Mazatlan, I think, and as it flies over LA at thirty-five thousand feet to get its latest coordinates and such, the plane suddenly drops like a stone to eleven thousand feet.

Inside the plane here’s what’s happening. If you don’t have a seat belt on you’re now floating, pressed, banged, tussled and tossed about along with all the overhead luggage and food service carts. It’s a mishmash of humanity and detritus and screaming and yelling and wailing. But the pilots save all and the plane levels out at the coast.

For a minute or two the plane flies.

People and things and stuff all fall to the floor. People wail and whimper and cry and try to gather themselves. But at least they’re alive. When suddenly, just as they pass from land to fly over the ocean, the plane violently turns upside down and flies nose down toward the ocean floor at a speed that has to be somewhere in the range of seven, eight, or nine-hundred miles per hour.

Once again the passengers are weightless. Only this time, they and all the baggage and stuff are forced, pressed, and compacted to the back of the plane. More yelling and screaming and shrieking.

When the plane hits the ocean, it compacts. You might think it dives into the ocean, clean and swift, but that’s not the way it happens. It compacts!

And in physics when this happens, it’s not when too many atoms are stuffed together that causes the problem, for they are mostly empty, but the repulsion of electrical charges that creates the explosion. A repulsion of electrical charges in a magnitude that causes us to say, “Blown to smithereens”!

Days after the event, fisherman and boaters are patrolling the waters looking for survivors. But none were found, as you can see.

But a fisherman friend of mine did find this. A finger floating with a ring on it. The family was most grateful.

Saw you in the Ojo 41

Dear Sir: The November Issue of “Ojo Del Lago” has a letter to the editor from Chad Olsen, Chairman of the Lakeside Progressives, which I wish to respond to.

Olsen evidently had a great deal of problem with “The Conservative Corner” article Mr. Nipper wrote for the October issue. In Mr. Nipper’s article he was critical of Maurice Strong, a former UN Envoy and current billionaire. Olsen likened Strong to Gandhi who, as we all remember, attempted to gain independence for India from the British Empire. He went on to list a lengthy number of awards Strong had received as proof of Strong’s character and integrity. A side note--Isn’t it interesting that people with Olsen’s ideology scream about the Koch Brothers because they are 1%ers and their money supports Conservative causes? Yet, that same mindset has no problem with billionaires Strong or Soros…because their money goes to Liberalist/Communist/Progressive causes.

Not knowing who Strong really was, other than his occasional ties to “Earth Day”, I decided to do a little research. I watched speeches on YouTube that Strong gave at environmentalist functions, interviews he granted to Liberal Media outlets, etc. Mr. Nipper had claimed Strong was part of the UN corruption known as “oil for food”. So, I Googled: “UN Corruption” and I’ll give you two guesses whose name popped up. You got it! Maurice Strong.

Mr. Nipper claimed Strong was a communist disguising himself as an environmentalist. Olsen ranted that Nipper was bordering on “defamation of character”! But, reading the articles about Strong…it said he flew to Beijing, avoiding potential litigation. It said he went to work for the Red Chinese Government. Olsen cannot deny these facts. In fact, I noticed Olsen didn’t deny any of the points Mr. Nipper made regarding Agenda 21 in his article. I found that interesting.

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El Ojo del Lago / December 2014

Strong and Soros have publicly denounced capitalism in America as evil.

Both have often times commented about the importance of indoctrinating children to a “progressive” agenda.

That rhetoric sounds patently “communist” to me.

And, that brings me to the term “communist”. Olsen tries to portray that word as antiquated, “a throwback to the 1950’s”. Representative Peter De Fazio of Oregon formed the “Progressive Coalition” in Washington DC many years ago. De Fazio was and still is a card carrying Communist. You want to call yourself “progressive”?

Let’s look at that for a second. Progressives have verbalized their intent to make private property ownership non-existent. Unlike Gandhi, who sought Independence, Progressives want to control what you drink, what you eat, what you breathe and what you think or say. And, that is straight out of the Communist Manifesto. Why do they do this? Simple! Because they are smarter than you and they know better how you should be running your life. Progressive? Not! We just witnessed an arrogant MIT professor who helped author Obamacare. On video, he said they utilized non-transparency as a tool to get the legislation passed the “stupid American voter” including House and Senate Democrats.

Remember not one Republican voted for passage. We all remember Nancy Pelosi’s “We’ll have to pass it to see what’s in it.” Now we know why she said that.

So, Mr. Olsen, a person who ties a ribbon around the neck of a pig and applies lipstick to make it seem more presentable, still can’t hide a pig, it’s just a pig. You called Mr. Nipper a liar, but your deception, half-truths, and overt efforts to mislead the reader are basic precepts of “Communism”, Chairman Olsen.

Don Daniel A 1960 John F. Kennedy Democrat Today a Conservative Republican

Saw you in the Ojo 43

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fter the start of the great depression of 1929, unemployment reached an all time high of 25% in 1933, the highest in U.S history. In order to improve labor’s hostile attitude, President Hoover used Mexican immigrants as scapegoats. The Repatriation Effort was born, under the guise that Mexicans were either on relief or public charges, and were taking the few jobs available from ‘real’ Americans. Some Mexicans rounded up were legal and second generation Americans. They were offered money to go back to Mexico or they were forced to go back. According to Balderrama’s account, 500,000 Mexicans were deported. Secretary of Labor

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William N. Doak’s endeavors to rid the country of Mexicans was unscrupulous.

In 1942, America was heading for war with the fascist powers of Europe. Labor was siphoned from all areas of American industry to support the war effort. That same year America signed the ‘Bracero Treaty,” which re-opened the flood gates for legal immigration from Mexico to the U.S. for

El Ojo del Lago / December 2014

laborers. Between 1942 and 1964, millions of Mexicans were imported into the United States as “Braceros,” working on contract to growers and ranchers. “It was the Mexican hand that made America the lush agricultural center of the world.” (Wikipedia).

At the end of World War II, Mexicans were once again ousted from their jobs to accommodate factory workers and servicemen ‘coming home’.

By 1960 the overflow of legal immigrants, invention of mechanical cotton pickers, and a high unemployment rate forced the ‘Braceros Program’ to an end.

Illegal immigrants continued to cross the border, however, and produced some quiet heroes. One such hero is Gustavo Gomez. Born in Veracruz 1933, he crossed the border at twelve years of age and worked any job he could find to help the family back home. Living in deplorable places with a dozen others, he managed to survive, until at the age of eighteen, he was caught by immigration and deported.

With the money he had saved, Gustavo bought an old truck and started his own trucking company, delivering beer around his old neighborhood. He married a girl from his home town of Veracruz, Rosa Maria Alvarez, and raised five children. Believing in the education he didn’t have, his children were well schooled, but he also taught them humility and the common bond of man. He practiced what he preached and helped those he could.

Two of his sons walk in his footsteps. Miguel Gomez Alvarez runs the family’s transportation company, Supertrack SA De CV, in Puebla, and Fernando Gomez Alvarez runs the B&B Casa de las Flores in Ajijic. Both men are ‘giving back’.

They chose to support the Tepehua

Centro Comunitario by donating money for the Education Program, sending the bright stars of Tepehua on to university...creating a new generation of doctors, dentists and teachers. Their contributions are also putting some of the very young into the school system, who could not afford to go before.

Gustavo raised his sons to be quiet heroes too.

Not too many people choose to be illegal immigrants. A desperate situation in their family chooses it for them. They do not want to leave Mexico for the slums of the States and be treated like second class citizens...the needs of their families push them to go.

A large part of the American economy rests on the backs of cheap Mexican labor, labor that Americans do not want to do.

Undocumented immigrants work hard to be invisible, therefore they are taken advantage of. Illegal immigrants cannot demand the right to justice or report crimes against them. The same is true for illegals tricked into sweat shops or the sex trade in a modern day form of slavery, especially those who do not speak the language of the host country.

When Mexico has a stronger middle class, that need to search for work over the border, will dissipate, that energy will remain here in Mexico where it belongs.

Tepehua Barrio is a pilot program that proves when people of all nations work together against poverty, miracles can happen and do happen. If this barrio, sprawled on an arid mountainside can do it, all barrios can do it. It just takes leaders to step forward and be counted.

Like Fernando and Miguel...led by their father Gustavo—Mexican Heroes.

Saw you in the Ojo 45

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rapped with a feeling I may never be allowed to go home just about summarizes a recent border crossing experience I had travelling into the US from Canada. When I approached the immigration booth, bells went off, a flashing amber beacon whirled in my eyes and a security boom came down inches from my car’s hood. Three immigration officers, each the size of a Mack truck surrounded the car. I stared at the reverse gear of my car looking for answers. There weren’t any. My heart was pounding in my lower right

46

abdomen and my inner plumbing was hissing and gurgling. A dog’s breakfast came to mind.

Several minutes passed before the security boom went up and I was given the signal to proceed forward by one of the unsmiling beefy border agents. Before even asking what my citizenship was or where I was headed today, the shiny faced, crew cut border agent barked. “How much nuclear material are you carrying in the car sir?”

“What?” I managed to squeak out.

“No, not what, how much?” He bellowed back.

El Ojo del Lago / December 2014

Several denials and loud counter accusations later I was asked whether I had had any medical procedures performed recently. Nasty is as nasty does.

“That is between me and my doctor and nothing to do with immigration and a little personal I might add.”

Wrong answer. My wife and I were escorted to the “Big Hole,” a room full of aliens waiting to be processed and others to be escorted out of the country. We were toast. I have never been to purgatory but this place felt like the purification state my excommunicated priest used to go on about. After scanning the room of 40 plus souls I realized my wife was the only blonde, blued eyed person in the room. I asked a nice couple from Sri Lanka how long they had been waiting. After trying to decipher their heavy accent, they wrote on a piece of paper, “only one hour.” I snuffled a big sigh and expletive. Luckily, within five minutes we were called to the front desk. Apparently nuclear materials have a shelf life.

The agent explained that they were going to scan my car in search of the glowing green stuff. They found nothing. Then they scanned my body and the arrow on the Geiger counter they used nearly fell off. Not a good sign. A strip search produced nothing. Please don’t look up my sphincter muscle I thought to myself. It turns out I was loaded with nuclear isotope material from a cardiovascular stress test I had undergone three days before.

Those results were negative. But my true stress level in the “Big Hole” was in the positive stratosphere zone. Where is all the valium in the world when you need it most? This Purgatory holding cell could have made a fortune dispensing it from their vending machines.

I was given the all clear to leave but was warned that if I was planning to re-enter the US within six weeks the nuclear sensor would likely pick up my signals again. I suggested that since I was in the system I shouldn’t

be stopped and subjected to another search. Wrong again, bureaupathic systems don’t work that way. Perhaps Joseph A. Banks Menswear in Buffalo, NY would make me a lead suit for my next crossing.

Two weeks later we took a trip to Canada. We didn’t know what to expect as we approached the Canadian border – more bells and whistles and radar systems to detect my nuclear veins? My heart started it’s decent to my bowels. Imagine our surprise and relief when the polite border agent handed back our passports and said, “Have a nice day, eh.”

On the return to the US there was a horrific car accident some 30 miles on the highway ahead. The road was closed and all traffic was diverted to another border crossing to the east of the accident, resulting in a two hour backlog. As we inched towards the customs/immigration booth the bells went off, the beacon danced in my eyes and the boom came down. The only thing missing from this déjà vu were the beefy officers. Since I had become an experienced nuclear material courier, I said to my wife, “Don’t sweat this crossing, I know what to say.” We waited for the boom to rise.

It remained motionless and it looked like a new shift was starting as another guard entered the booth and the original guy exited. Either it was a shift change or it was tea time.

The replaced agent motioned us forward. “What the heck is going on?” she croaked, peering down the sea of lined up cars for miles and reaching for our passports.

“Well, you see I had this nuclear stress test and .....” I tried to explain.

“I can’t believe all the traffic, what’s going on? She inquired.

“Well, you see there was an acc.....”

“I’ll never get home in time to pick up my kids from school,” she interrupted.

“Wait here.” She commanded and jumped over the guard rail and spoke to another agent.

Several minutes later she came back, gave our passports back and raised the boom and said we were clear to leave.

As I pulled away, I looked back. The beacon was still flashing. In the corner of my eye I saw an agent jump over the guard rail and stormed into the booth where the agent had cleared us to leave. He appeared agitated as he pointed in our direction and the flashing beacon. On the radio, Johnny Cash was singing the Folsom Prison Blues.

Chuck Pattinian

Saw you in the Ojo 47

Sandy Olson

Phone: 331-283-8529 Email: sandyzihua@hotmail.com

PAST EVENTS ONE MORE BIRTHDAY Members of the Ajijic Writers Group were pleased to honor Ojo del Lago Editor-in-Chief Alejandro Grattan on his recent birthday. Many happy returns, Alex, and thanks for your leadership in our writing community.

The celebration/roast was held at the writersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; regular Friday morning meeting at La Nueva Posada. The cake was courtesy of Michael Eager.

COMING EVENTS

68&+ $ '($/²-$== :,7+ 12 COVER CHARGE Juan Castaùòn, jazz guitarist, is presenting concerts in local venues this month.

December 5 Contemporary jazz trio, Casa de la Cultura de Jocotepec, 7 pm December 6 Blue Velvet Jazz Quartet, CafĂŠ Lago, Ajijic, 8 pm December 7 Sarodya. Classical music from India. Jasmine Restaurant, Ajijic, 2 pm December 13 Blue Velvet, CafĂŠ

Lago, 8 pm December 19 Blue Velvet plays Funk, La Sangrita Bar, Ajijic, 9 pm December 20 Blue Velvet, CafĂŠ Lago, 8 pm AN ADULT MUSICAL COMEDY? /DNHVLGH /LWWOH 7KHDWUH is presenting Sinderella, billed as â&#x20AC;&#x153;an adult musical comedyâ&#x20AC;? (I can hardly wait to see it) this month. The dates are December 5-16.

Lakeside Little Theatre The next presentation in LLTâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 50th Jubilee season is a IXQ ÂżOOHG IULYRORXV DQG FRORUIXO DGXOW PXVLFDO FRPHG\ Sinderella. The script has been

created by Dave McIntosh, based--with some license--on Grimmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s original fairy tale.

Sinderella is directed by 3DXO .ORHJPDQ with musical direction by $QQ 6ZLVWRQ and choreography by Heather Hunter.

The show opens on Friday, December 5 and runs through December 16. Tickets DUH SHVRV DQG FDQ EH REWDLQHG E\ FDOOLQJ WKH %R[ 2IÂżFH DW RU E\ ( PDLOLQJ WLFNHWV#ODNHVLGHOLWWOHWKHDWUH FRP 7KH %R[ 2IÂżFH ZLOO EH RSHQ IURP DP WR noon on December 3 and 4, and at the same time each day except Sundays during the run of the show. /$.(6,'( )25 7+( +2/,'$<6 The Los Cantantes del Lago holiday concert â&#x20AC;&#x153;Lakeside for the Holidaysâ&#x20AC;? will be presented at the Auditorio de la Ribera on Tuesday, December 9 at 7 pm and Wednesday, December 10 at 4 pm.

The concert will feature a wide variety of holiday music, including a selection of classic carols arranged by Hermann Schroeder, Hanukkah songs and two arrangements by Mark Hayes - â&#x20AC;&#x153;Gloriaâ&#x20AC;? and â&#x20AC;&#x153;Variations on Jingle Bells.â&#x20AC;? Accompaniment will be piano, oboe, cello and violin.

Tickets reservations can now be made on their new website, www.loscantantesdellago.com or you can purchase them directly from Diane Pearl Colecciones, Miaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Boutique or any Cantantes member. The ticket price is 250 pesos.

Director Timothy G. MUSIC HATH CHARMS Ruff Welch We heard from -RKQ .HHOLQJ 9LYD 0XVLFD 3UHVLGHQW, about exciting musical offerings from now to the end of the year.

7KXUVGD\ 'HFHPEHU , at 7.00 p.m. Christmas Concert with the Hermosillo family singers and their friends Hector Lopez and Paty Hernandez , back by popular demand.

This concert will be in the Auditorium at 4.00 p.m. Tickets are 200 pesos and will be on sale at the Auditorium, Diane Pearl Colecciones, and LCS ticket booth Thursdays & Fridays 10-12.

Viva will also be running a bus trip to the December concert of the Jalisco Philharmonic Orchestra. The bus leaves at 4:30 pm. )ULGD\ 'HFHPEHU Homage to Richard Strauss, Marco Parisotto, Conductor; 6WUDXVV 6DORPH RS 'DQFH RI WKH 6HYHQ 9HLOV &RQFHUWR IRU +RUQ 1R LQ ( Ă&#x20AC;DW 0Djor (Horn: Stefan Dohr of the BerlĂ­n Philharmonic); Ein Heldenleben, op.40 Another bus trip will take opera goers to the Teatro Diana for â&#x20AC;&#x153;Live at the Metâ&#x20AC;? Opera in HD 6DWXUGD\ 'HFHPEHU 'LH 0HLVWHUVLQJHU, by Wagner, bus leaves at 9.30 am.

Symphony and Met bus tickets are $300 pesos, $400 for non-members, available at the LCS Thursday and Friday, 10 to noon, or phone Marshall Krantz at 766-2834 or Ingrid Goodridge, cel. 331.443.6837, to make other arrangements.

-$1,&( .,0%$//Âś6 -2< 2) $57 Local weaver -DQLFH .LPEDOO has published The Joy of Art--An Introduction to Fine Art. The book is launching on Tuesday December 16 at noon with a wine reception at her home and studio, $]WHF $UW DQG :HDYLQJ 6WXGLRV, 232 Carretera Jocotepec-Ajijic, west of Rio Bravo. Janice will have a book signing at Yves Restaurant at 1:00 (call Yves for lunch reservations).

Her book is written for every artist, seasoned and new, and for those who want to learn more about art and the world of artists. Janice will also discuss the book at Open Circle on December 28. '(&. 7+26( +$//6 -,1*/( 7+26( %(//6 Six or eight years ago a group of friends were discussing their pre-Ajijic lives and HDFK DJUHHG WKDW FDUROLQJ DW &KULVWPDV WLPH KDG EHHQ VLJQLÂżFDQW HYHQWV ERWK IRU WKHP and for the homes where they caroled.

The Cast. Back Row: Catherine Gonzales, Peter Luciano, Garry Peerless, Catherine Huff, Paul Kloegman, Jutta McAdam, Patricia Guy, Judy McKinnon, Graham Miller, Margaret Presutti, Allyson de Jong, Fred Koesling Front Row: Greg Clarke, Ann Loebach, Amy Friend, Abril Iniguez, Gabriel Casillas (with baby Luna), Kathleen Morris, Wendy Petersen.

Missing: Amaranta Santos, Heather Hunter, Angel Gonzalez, Connie Davis, Dana Douin

Thus /DNHVLGH &DUROHUV were born. The group decided to carol at some of the Lakeside convalescent/independent living homes and has continued to do so one day each December. Each year a few more people have joined in as people spread the word. The La Ola Orphanage girlsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; bell choir also plays several numbers under the

continued on page 52

48

El Ojo del Lago / December 2014

Saw you in the Ojo 49

50

El Ojo del Lago / December 2014

Saw you in the Ojo 51

direction of %HOYD 9HOD]TXH].

Lakeside Carolers have no rehearsals, no membership fees and no auditions, and D Ă&#x20AC;H[LEOH FDUROLQJ VFKHGXOH 7KH FDUROLQJ GDWH LV 'HFHPEHU ,I \RX DUH LQWHUested in joining in, please contact Kay Borkowski at kaybork@yahoo.com.

LOVE THAT ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM The dynamic and exciting work of local artist -XOLH (OL]DEHWK 0LJQDUG will be on display in a one-woman show at the Cultural Center in Ajijic Plaza from December 20 to January 3. Julie will be showing her own unique version of Abstract Expressionist mixed media paintings, large and small, from her 2014 works. /(7Âś6 *(7 :$50 $1' )811< The 1DNHG 6WDJH show for December is Ethan Claymore by Norm Foster. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s directed by Don Chaloner. The dates are December 26-28. Here is a quote from reviews: â&#x20AC;&#x153;This is a warm and funny play, and a delightful way to celebrate the Christmas season.â&#x20AC;? Since this is Naked Stageâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Christmas show they celebrate by offering the audience a glass of wine or a soft drink with nibbles after each performance.

PATSY CLINE ALERT! 0\ 0\ +RZ 1LFH Productions will be reprising Always! Patsy Cline in January. This was the inaugural show of My, My, How Nice! four years ago and was a huge hit. The original cast will perform--3DWWH\H 6LPSVRQ as Patsy Cline, -D\PH /LWWOHMRKQ as Louise and 7LPRWK\ * 5XII :HOFK as Tim Bob (he is also the musical director).

The dates are January 1-4 and 8-11. Shows are at 7:30 Thursday through Saturday and at 3 pm on Sundays.

Performances are at the old Sol y Luna, Rio Bravo #10 in west Ajijic.Tickets are 250 pesos and can be purchased through Diane Pearl Colecciones, Miaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Boutique or by emailing mymytickets @gmail.com.

NICE AND EASY Our Mac Morisonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s next show is scheduled to kick off the New Year on January 7 at 7 pm and January 8 at 3 pm at the Club Exotica on the Ajijic Plaza.

Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s an evening of music, romance, dance and laughter. Mac will be singing a new set of jazz standards and romantic songs. Featured is the fabulous vocalist -XG\ +HQGULFN and, new this year, the multi-talented 3DWULFN 'XPRXFKHO Also, straight from Los Angeles, a favorite on cruise ships and USO tours, is special guest comedienne /DXUD +D\GHQ who will open for Mac. The â&#x20AC;&#x153;Makettesâ&#x20AC;? ($OH[LV +RII +HDWKHU +XQWHU $OO\VRQ 'HMRQJ and 9DO -RQHV) will entertain with some engaging dance numbers. This will be a great show to start off the year.

7KH HYHQW ZLOO EHQHÂżW WKH /DNHVLGH /LWWOH 7KHDWUH VIVA MUSICA SPRING SEASON Viva plans a full line up of 14 events â&#x20AC;&#x201C; three concerts, ÂżYH EXVHV WR WKH 0HW /LYH DQG VL[ EXVHV WR WKH V\PSKRQ\ Mac Morison in the spring season.

Viva Concerts in the Auditorium 7KXUVGD\ -DQXDU\ %DURTXH )OXWH 7ULR (GXDUGR $UDPEXOD Ă&#x20AC;XWH $UHOL 0Hdeles, cello; Hans Peter Aull, clavichord playing music by Bach, Telemann, Fischer and Marcello. Auditorium, 7:00 p.m.

7KXUVGD\ )HEUXDU\ 3LDQR 7ULR Âł&DWDUVLV ´ Pianist Julieta Azalea Beltran, violinist Diego Rojas and cellist Yalissa Cruz playing Schubert Piano Trio No. 1, Rachmaninoff Piano Trio â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Elegaicâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, and Ilan Rechtman Jazz pieces. Auditorium, 7:00 p.m.

7KXUVGD\ 0DUFK 7KUHH 6RSUDQRV Berenice Barragan, Patricia Hernandez and Viviana Baez, with piano accompanist Gaby Zepeda singing a selection of operatic areas and classic Mexican songs. Back by popular demand. Auditorium, 7:00 p.m.

Bus trips to the Metropolitan Opera Live in HD 6DWXUGD\ -DQXDU\ 7KH 0HUU\ :LGRZ by Lehar, featuring the great soprano RenĂŠe Fleming as the femme fatale who captivates Paris. Bus departs at 10:30.

6DWXUGD\ )HEUXDU\ 7KH 7DOHV RI +RIIPDQQ by Offenbach, with the magnetic

52

El Ojo del Lago / December 2014

tenor Vittorio Grigolo as the tortured poet in the title role of Offenbachâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s operatic masterpiece. Bus departs at 10:30.

6DWXUGD\ )HEUXDU\ 'RXEOH %LOO ,RODQWD by Tchaikovsky and %OXHEHDUGÂśV Castle by Barto, featuring breathtaking soprano Anna Netrebko as the beautiful blind JLUO ZKR H[SHULHQFHV ORYH IRU WKH ÂżUVW WLPH IROORZHG E\ 1DGMD 0LFKDHO DV WKH XQZLWWLQJ victim of the diabolical Duke Bluebeard. Bus departs at 10:00.

6DWXUGD\ 0DUFK 7KH /DG\ RI WKH /DNH by Rossini with superstars Joyce DiDonato as the â&#x20AC;&#x153;lady of the lakeâ&#x20AC;? and Juan Diego FlĂłrez as the king who relentlessly pursues her. Bus departs at 9:30.

6DWXUGD\ $SULO 'RXEOH %LOO &DYDOOHULD 5XVWLFDQD by Mascagni and Pagliacci

by Leoncavallo.

Tenor Marcelo Ă lvarez rises to the challenge of playing the leading roles in operaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most enduring tragic double bill. Bus departs at 10:00.

PAELLA ON THE TERRACE &UX] 5RMD will host a Mediterranean dinner on January 17, at the Hotel Montecarlo, from 6 to 9 pm. Dr. 7RQ\ 3LQWR, well known chef, will serve his classic paella on the hotelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s beautiful terrace. This will be an evening to remember and supports the activities of Cruz Roja. Tickets are 300 pesos, and are available from &KDUOLH .OHVWDGW or at the Cruz Roja table at LCS. :5,7(56 6$9( 7+(6( '$7(6 The 11th $QQXDO /DNH &KDSDOD :ULWHUVÂś &RQIHUHQFH is scheduled for March 11-13.

The venue will be Danza del Sol in West Ajijic.

Six speakers/workshop presenters have been invited. Topics range from â&#x20AC;&#x153;Writing %DVLFV´ WR Âł3XEOLVKLQJ 'HP\VWLÂżHG ´ (DUO\ UHJLVWUDWLRQ EHIRUH )HEUXDU\ LV SHsos. From March 1 on the cost is 1500 pesos. Two lunches and beverages during breaks are included.

For further information, check on Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/Lake-Chapala-Writers-Conference/, or email Victoria Schmidt at victoriaAschmidt@gmail.com.

7+( )(5,$ :$6 +(5 '5($0 Marianne Carlson has had a love affair with Mexico for forty years. After she moved here full time in 1998, she began to travel all over the country. Inspiration for the Feria Maestros de Arte occurred in 2001, when she bought a folk art book, Great Masters of Mexico, and decided to take a trip to meet the artists. When she did, and asked where they sold their goods, she found they didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t really have any outlets.

Marianne had experience in the US putting on events, VR GHFLGHG WR KROG WKH ÂżUVW )HULD LQ WKH +RWHO 5HDO GH &KDSDOD LQ 7KHUH ZHUH DUWLVWV SDUWLFLSDWLQJ WKDW ÂżUVW year. In the fourth year an organization and board of directors were created. Marianne still spends 75% of her time, year round, on the Feria.

She is concerned that art in Mexico is disappearing, particularly textile art, and does what she can to support the arts. Her effort is supported by volunteers, over 150 this Marianne Carlson year. In 2014 there were 80 artists participating. The Feria has gained worldwide attention; 17 visitors came from Australia this year for the show.

ONGOING EVENTS

*52: <285 2:1 ÂŤ â&#x20AC;Ś..vegetables, that is. The $MLMLF 2UJDQLF 9HJHWDEOH *URZHUV was started six months ago and has now grown to sixty members. The club meets on the second Wednesday of the month at 10. The new meeting place is the gazebo on the grounds of Tabarka Restaurant, Rio Zula #7 (turn left at the next street west of Azul Frida restaurant).

The next meeting will be on December 10. New members are welcome. They can contact John at mcwilliamsmx@gmail.com or by phone at 376-766-0620.

COME AND SEE THE FUNNY DOG The Funny Dog Art Studio in Ajijic is holding open houses on Saturdays through December, from 12-2. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s located in the â&#x20AC;&#x153;comedic sculptured gardensâ&#x20AC;? of San Juan de Las Colinas #38, three blocks up the hill on Calle Revolucion. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a studio for music, art and theater. Tel. 766-4442. $57 6+2:6 21 7+( 3/$=$ There is an art show every third Sunday of the month on the Ajijic Plaza, hosted by $MLMLF 6RFLHW\ RI WKH $UWV. The next show will be on December 21.

648($.< :+((/ 5($',1*6 La Rueda (The Wheel), a coffee gallery in San Juan Cosala, stages monthly readLQJV LQ (QJOLVK 7KH\ DUH KHOG RQ WKH ÂżUVW :HGQHVGD\ RI HDFK PRQWK DW 7KH QH[W reading will be on December 3. There will be no readings in January. They will resume in February.

Readers in November were +DUULHW +DUW %RE 'U\QDQ 0DUJLH .HDQH /DUU\ .ROF]DN -XG\ '\NVWUD %URZQ 5DFKHO 0F0LOOHQ (reading for Patricia HemingZD\ and 0HO *ROGEHUJ

Saw you in the Ojo 53

“CLEANLINESS IS NEXT TO GODLIN NESS” %\ %HYHUO\ +DPE\

I

ndia is not a “clean” country but they do have something to offer. People, mostly old ladies, walk around with a pointed stick, picking up paper on the streets. I was waiting on a bus in northern India when an old lady came aboard, found a gum wrapper on the floor and poked it with her stick. Got it. She carried a cloth bag, nearly filled with paper. (She also asked for money.) In India, the forests are nearly gone so nothing is wasted, including paper scraps.

The entrepreneurial ladies are paid for the paper which is recycled.

Another product recycled in India is cow manure. The “sacred” cows roam everywhere, unmolested. They do make a mess but not for long. Men with wheelbarrows collect the manure and take it away.

Piles are built, mixed with water to obtain the proper consistency and made, by hand, into patties the size of a dinner plate. These manure patties are then leaned against a fence to dry in the sun. This makes excellent fuel for cooking.

Isn’t this disgusting! But there is no paper and only temporary manure on the streets of India.

The one thing remaining is mango seeds which someone will, no doubt, soon find a use for. The entrepreneurs of India would be ecstatic in Mexico. All this public waste would disappear in the twinkling of an eye. It has also given me some ideas on how I could make my own fortune, living here and all.

It’s also relevant to mention Singapore. Clean, clean, clean, in a word, three words. Anything that might detract from the beauty of the place is illegal. Even chewing gum. Have you ever stepped in any? I was living in Taiwan during the great “caning” fiasco a few years ago which was heavily covered by the press. An American teenager, living in Singapore, had sprayed graffiti and was sentenced to be whipped with a bamboo stick.

Lawyers and an appeal to the President of the U.S. couldn’t stop the punishment. He got it, welts and all, on the derriére, requiring medical attention. He returned to Ohio, wiser, I hope.

To say that this is extreme is debatable. The Taiwanese government has called in experts from Singapore to help clean up Taiwan.

READER ADVISORY! Our new feature, Mid-Month Literary Offerings, just had its debut. In mid-November, we published one of the best short stories ever written by a Lakeside writer. Jim Tipton’s The Rainbow Kid is a nostalgic look at the Old West, and can be found at http:// chapala.com/elojo/index.php/midmonth-articles Each mid-month, we will be offering superb articles that while a bit too long for our print version are perfect for our new format. Check it out!

54

El Ojo del Lago / December 2014

Saw you in the Ojo 55

Dear Editor: Martita Noon has attempted to defend ideology against empirical facts (“The Conservative Corner,” November, 2014). She could have also defended the night against the rising sun. She based her article on the claim that global warming caused by the use of fossil fuels is a “discredited theory.”

The Scientific American reported that of 4,014 abstracts published by scientists in professional journals, 97.2% of the papers say that humans play a role in global warming. Ms. Noon can only be engaging in what might be called “fact speak.” If she speaks it, then it must be fact.

56

No matter how odious truth may be to ideology, facts are facts, and we must not allow conservatives to invent their own fantasy world and force the rational among us into their whacky creation.

Global warming is not a discredited theory. The big polluters, such as coal and oil, pay a tiny number of corrupt scientists to cast doubt on man-made climate change. Shamefully, some of them have good credentials, which makes their corruption even more valuable to the polluters. The big polluters give contributions to conservative politicians, who then trumpet the findings of the unprincipled scientists, who have sold their academic souls.

El Ojo del Lago / December 2014

The tobacco companies did the same thing several years ago. They paid a few scientists to claim there was no health danger from smoking cigarettes. That was the “fact speak” in those days.

Ms. Noon’s premise is false; therefore, her entire article is without foundation. She exploits fear when she says, “The proposed EPA plan will seriously threaten America’s electric reliability and this could result in “freezing deaths.” Sounds like the Republican “death panels” scare. There have always been blackouts in the northeast, years before anybody was talking about green energy. And there was no shortage of coal. The problem was in the grid, not in a shortage of fossil fuels.

Ms. Noon needs to do a little investigation into the Smart Grid European Technology Platform. President Obama has been a champion of developing a smart grid in America, so that power can be sent where it is needed, with no break in service to customers. We don’t need more fossil fuels; we need modernization.

The remaining points of the Noon article are equally fallacious and devoid of science.

What seems incomprehensible in human terms is that conservatives

have families, too. They have grandchildren, and other generations of descendants will follow. Even the Koch brothers have grandchildren.

How can it be that conservatives talk about family values, but care not one iota about the calamitous environment they will leave for their posterity? This ideology does not seem much different from faith-healing parents whose children die for lack of scientific medical care. Conservative ideology is no different from faithhealing, except it’s more genocidal.

Fred Mittag San Pablo

Saw you in the Ojo 57

Put Him Back Together, Please %\ %RE 7HQQLVRQ

T

me gr roup up of o ccolollo he same group lege girls att th their giir irlss ssat att a hei eirr reserved att the ved d ttable able ab l a th he beach-front restaurant esstau aura ant daily daily aiily y except on weekends. ek ken e ds. Th TThe he food fo ood od was excellent, b but u tthey ut he ey ca came me e tto o see their usual waiter, Brett, hoping wait iter er,, Br B ettt, h ett, opin op ing g that someday on one e of them would d be lucky enough h to be asked for a date. So far, justt wishing wishing, i hi and d that th t did not make it so. Without a doubt, he was the most handsome man any of them had ever seen, and that was not only their opinion; anybody who had ever seen him would agree. He belonged in the movies or on the cover of Time magazine as Mister America His black slightly wavy hair graying at the temples. The brightest green eyes most women would spend a fortune to have, and his enchanting smile showing pearly white perfect teeth

wo w oul u d br brig ig ghtten n anybodyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s day would brighten for ffo or sure. sure su re. And An A nd o on n days off when he appeared he app peaare red d on on tthe beach in his briefs, sskin-tight sk kin n-tig ight ig ght ht b rief iefs fss,, all women and ssome so me men men n would wou ulld d ogle him with open op e mouths en mou outh thss for fo or as long as he was within wa as wi with thiin theirr sight. It was as though Greek god had returned thou th gh haG reekk g go t earth just to be seen and adto all. mired i d by b all ll His perfect physique, soft black hairs in all the right places brought out even more masculinity, and his tight briefs left nothing to the imagination.

The owner of the restaurant was well aware of his good fortune having him as a waiter and at one time had even considered having his staff wear swim suits but decided things were already perfect with shorts and tee shirts in bright colors. His was the busiest of all the beach-front restaurants and no changes were necessary.

Before retiring at night, Brett would carefully take off his ultra-expensive hairpiece. Next he would remove the bright green contacts, place his perfect teeth in a glass of water and cleanser. Finally, he would look into the mirror above the sink and watch the tears form in his eyes and slowly run down his cheeks, then with a look of despair, shake his head and retire.

Always alone.

Bob Tennison

58

El Ojo del Lago / December 2014

EXPLAINING EVOLUTION TO MY DOG %\ (G 7DVFD

E

veryone’s dogs are cute or smart or sensitive or loving or psychic, some even seem almost human. Sometimes I feel one or two of these wonders about my dog, S’koocha. She can anthropomorphize like the best of them.

Occasionally though, she can also get uppity and take this anthropomorphizing business beyond cute. For example, when she insists we’re going for a walk, and I have to straighten her out by explaining that she is not my superior. In fact, in most cases, I’m her superior. Well, in some cases.

At any rate, I found myself one day trying to explain to her why she is still on four feet, while I am on two feet in the more superior position of looking down on her. “If you’re on four feet,” I said, “that means you can’t stand up and do evolutionary things like comb your hair or make meatballs.” Regrettably I had to add, “And no, hopping around on your hind legs at “dance for cheese time” isn’t the same thing. “If you could decide “dance for cheese time” on your own and then go and get cheese in the refrigerator and eat it over a plate with possibly some pate, that would make me stop and take notice. However, that’s never going to happen, unless you’re in a Disney movie.”

Of course, she had nothing to say to this, although she did get excited and raise her ears at the sound of the words “cheese time.” But she remained there sitting on the floor staring at me, resembling a man trying to guess my weight.

My next argument was to point out that I don’t have a tail. “See, a few million years ago, we came down from the trees where we swung on tails, and realized we didn’t need tails anymore, so ask yourself the question, “Why the hell do I still have a tail?” “The answer? You didn’t get the message that we mammals were all moving on.”

Her expression seemed to indicate that she was puzzled, because her ears flopped. So I leaped to the next obvious thing: intelligence. “Humans have come a long way since we climbed out of the trees.” I wanted to be fair to the animal

I loved so much, so I admitted that we too weren’t very smart a couple hundred thousands years ago when we had the intelligence of a condo board committee. Yet, we began inventing things, like wheels and fire and weapons, and of course, a little later, guitars.

“Okay,” I then added when I still saw no response, “let’s look at it this way: when you want something, look what you have to do. You have to run around, roll on your back, chase your tail, lick my shoe, and stare at something that’s not there. Now, if I want something, all I have to do is say, ‘I want to take a walk.’

And then I take a walk. That’s all there is to it. I don’t need to lick anything or anybody. That’s evolution, get it?” She was an attentive student, but hopelessly into herself. I’d wished that some of this would have taught her things about a more sophisticated lifestyle, over and above dancing for cheese.

There was one final tack. Explaining that the things dogs can do aren’t really evolutionary. “Okay,” I said, “I understand that you can smell something a hundred meters away. But really, who cares? And what value is there in that?

Nothing I can think of, unless you’re in the waste management business.”

And yes, generally speaking, you’re gentle, loving creatures, but that’s how you got yourselves domesticated and subservient in the first place. So, there’s little honor in that.” And based on the science of ultrasonics,” I felt obligated to add, “I know that you can hear sounds at very high pitches. But doesn’t that get on your nerves? Don’t get me wrong I’m not trying to discredit this power you have, but you’ve never lived across from an eventos.”

“So, do you understand now why you can’t come barging into my den and insisting on going for a walk?”

She waggled her tail a few times in response, then went over and tore out the bottom of our screen door.

Ed Tasca

Saw you in the Ojo 59

A DIFFERENCE IN PERSPECTIVE %\ .DWK\ .RFKHV

R

emember the Monty Python song, “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life?”

I love that song. It always makes me laugh, but it also expresses my philosophy. Some of you know that my friends call me the “FBBOH” (the “freakin’ blue bird of happiness.”) But I’m all right with that – in fact I kind of like it.

I recently got into a discussion, OK argument, with a long time friend of mine. She said I do not look at life realistically, that I “bury my head in the sand” and look at the world through “rose colored glasses.” This really ticked me off! I think that she is always negative and looks for the worst in every possible situation, and says her cup is half-empty. I call her “Eeyore” after the donkey in “Winnie the Pooh” who always says, “Oh dear, oh my!” In fact when she is in one of her “black periods” even my children used to say, “Mom, quit hanging out with her; you are starting to pick up her negativity.”

What different perspectives we have of each other! She believes that she is not negative, pessimistic, or selfish but says that she is a “stark realist” and thinks I am a fool to look at life the way I do.

I explained to her, as I have done many times before, that I choose to be optimistic, to look at the bright side, to be positive, rather than nega-

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tive, and that my cup is more than half full. It is a choice, and it is the choice I consciously make. I know that life has its travails; believe me I did learn that at an early age and did not appreciate her comment that I have not dealt with my parents’ death completely nor the abuse I suffered at the hands of my ex-husband. I have dealt with it - it was horrible, but I moved on. I choose to be as happy as I can be, not to let the past ruin my present or future.

So, the debate continues, as it has for the forty plus years that I have known this woman. I don’t think we will ever truly resolve it, nor change each other’s mind or perspective. How can we remain friends, with this vast difference in the way we view life? I’m not really sure. Sometimes we go for long periods of time with little or no contact. But then one of us reaches out to the other and we reconnect. We have shared a lot over the years, both good and bad and we know we can count on each other. Besides, we have to remain friends forever; she knows where all the bodies are buried…but so do I. Kathy Koches

Saw you in the Ojo 61

And To Think That Only Yesterday SWRQ S WRQ WR %\ -DPHV 7LSWRQ

I

mo on n in in t was common for or EnEnrecent yearss for edina de Loss Angeles Angeles to to doze off sitting up. Sometimes it happened in the plaza in Magdalena, as she sat near the bones of Father Kino. Sometimes it happened in the Church of San Francisco, where God fell through the high window, making patterns on her ancient face. Sometimes it happened in the stable, as she watched her son grooming the dark horses, and where as she was falling asleep, she often heard other horses far away, snorting, like they were clearing their noses.

Wherever she was, almost always, while sleeping lightly, Enedina would wander through old memories. She would once again see her mother’s old black shoes, waiting by the door or her father’s pack of Farolitos, leaning against a bottle of El Jimador; or she would remember her First Communion, over seventy years ago, the day she had been the most beautiful girl in the world.

But today, when Enedina woke, she was sitting on a long bench that barely looked familiar. She saw her traveling bag at her feet and as her head jerked up she saw she was just outside the ruins of a large adobe house. She was covered with dust as if she had been on a long journey.

Already night was beginning to

fallllll,, and fa and the t e sky th k was w s very wa fall, clos cl ose. e. But Butt Enedina Ene nedi dina felt she close. co d it it back back ack a few few more could hold minutes by reaching up and pressing her palms against it.

“Where are you?” she called out, hoping Rafael, her husband, would come running to her. That was something to laugh about, she thought, since Rafael had died twenty years earlier, stretched out on the dirt floor of their simple home, while almost crushing her hands in his bony fingers.

She should, Enedina thought, be more worried than she was. She shook the dust off her faded bag and reached in. The tamales were still warm. She had forgotten she packed them. She would have a good story to tell when she got back to town.

But while she was eating, she had also forgotten about the night and by now it had dropped down to her shoulders. It took all of her strength to place her palms firmly to lift the sky back up, but she needed to do this so that she could think clearly about what had happened.

Then Enedina began to hear the distant bell. The sound got closer and closer, until it was almost inside of her. In the little light remaining she clutched her chest and looked up at that house in ruins. It reminded her of the chapel she had loved when she was a child.

Enedina got up. She realized the sky had now fallen around her knees. She waded through the cool sky to the door. She could hear familiar voices inside. Her father and mother. Talking about their little girl.

She would surprise them, all right. They had never seen her so grown up. And to think that only yesterday the doctors in the government hospital in Hermosillo told Enedina de Los Angeles that she was dying.

James Tipton

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El Ojo del Lago / December 2014

Saw you in the Ojo 63

The Joy Of Art: An Introduction to Fine Art

%\ -DQLFH .LPEDOO 5HYLHZHG %\ .HOO\ +D\HV 5DLWW

T

he Joy of Art inspires like The Joy of Sex: It’s sensual, motivational, mind-expanding and soul-enriching, but with better pictures!

This book is not a paintby-number instructional. Rather, it’s visual poetry that covers both the basics and the intricacies of a variety of art forms from assemblage art to weavings. Ninety images of paintings, sculptures, murals, photographs, prints, collages, quilts, weavings and drawings by 54 artists enliven each section, making The Joy of Art as suitable for coffee tables as drawing tables.

Award-winning artist and author Janice Kimball earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Illinois, Chicago, and taught fine arts as an Assistant Professor at Columbia College and as an instructor at Marygrove College (Detroit), Columbia College (Chicago) and Henry Ford Community College (Dearborn). Both her love of art and her love of teaching are reflected in The Joy of Art. After moving to Chapala in 1999, Kimball opened Aztec Studio to create and display her weavings and collages depicting Aztec culture. As her health deteriorated and she was no longer able to hold a paintbrush for lengths of time, she learned to write. The Joy of Art is peppered with sidebars of her chatty and informative columns from the Lake Chapala Review that bring

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El Ojo del Lago / December 2014

the practicalities of working in the art world down-to-earth: Tidbits about Critics, Contests, How to Exhibit, etc.

Beginning with “You as an Artist,” Kimball paints a broad definition of art and artists – just broad enough to make one believe one might, ahem, create art. She teaches the basics of composition, color perception and perspective and suggests methods for unlocking one’s muse.

In the 14 succeeding sections that each correlate with a specific art form, she offers theory and a bit of history, materials needed and tips for success – often by using examples of other artists’ work.

From the joyous cover to the generous listing of artists’ contact info, the book is a luscious 11” x 8.5” spiralbound, polyethaline softcover that features a clean layout and readable fonts. Several of the art reprints are in full color. A higher quality paper and an increased number of full-color reprints would have enhanced the book even further, but might have pushed the price beyond the affordable 300 pesos.

Sprinkled throughout The Joy of Art are anecdotes of Kimball’s own growth as an artist. One endearing encounter she recounts was with an elderly artist in a retirement home who kindly advised, “An artist is who you are, not what you do.” Kimball’s joy of, for and about art spill from every page and will inspire even those who never considered themselves “artists” to pick up a paintbrush, pencil, camera or clay and explore who they are.

“Let ideas find you,” Kimball gently prods in the section titled, “Now You Can Begin.” Let this book find you – available at Diane Pearl Collecciones Janice Kimball and Aztec Studios.

Saw you in the Ojo 65

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r. Wooten moved the heavy draperies aside and looked out the window past his naked elm surrounded by accumulated snow. He hated when it got dark early. And he hated Christmas Eve. He watched his neighbor adjust Christmas lights; they softened the glow of the nativity scene covered in snow. Santa and his reindeer were perched along the peak of the house hidden beneath a coat of clear, thick ice. In front of the man’s porch, a snow-shrouded elf, the size of a man, offered gifts to Dr. Suess-like children.

Mr. Wooten grunted, pulled the drapes closed and sat in his overstuffed chair. He stared at flickering shadows created by the flames in the hearth, blinked away unshed tears, scowled and curled his lip in a snarl.

It was the 20th anniversary of his wife and son’s death. They were killed by a drunk driver.

Most everyone in town knew Mr. Wooten was a recluse, but not the Christmas carolers. The rarely used doorbell chimed again and again, demanded to be answered. Mr. Wooten yanked open the door, looked at each of the young people, and screamed, “Go away!” He saw surprise on their faces; their eyes were full of fear, with the exception of one unflappable, frail-looking boy who wore a rainbow-colored scarf. He stared at Mr. Wooten. The kid reminded him of thirteen-year-old George, his dead son.

“Get off my porch,” he slammed the door in their faces. Mr. Wooten heard them stampede down the steps. He opened the door a crack and listened.

“Geez,” a girl said, while she kicked chunks of icy snow down the walkway, “What a grumpy old fart.”

“Don’t let him get to you. He probably doesn’t care about anybody,” said the leader. “Okay guys, let’s split up. We’ll meet back here in forty-five minutes. Have fun.”

Mr. Wooten closed the door. He started down the hallway, stopped

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El Ojo del Lago / December 2014

and stared at the family photo hanging above the wainscoting. Tears slid beneath his bifocals and down his cheeks. He remembered when he’d cared about people. When he’d decorated Christmas trees, sang songs with his family, and laughed. ‘But that was a long time ago,’ he thought. He let loose a string of curses under his breath. “That damn boy reminds me of George—it’s his fault.”

Mr. Wooten opened the closet door, slipped on his parka, scarf and wool mittens and went outside to the porch swing. He thought the snow seemed heavier than usual and was out of breath by the time he’d cleared it away. He sat down, inhaled warm air through his scarf and gazed at shadows that stood out against the bluish-white of night-time snow. He heard intermittent footfalls plunging through the icy-crust; someone was in his yard. The frail-looking boy stood in deep drifts beneath the elm tree’s branches. “Get out of my yard,” Mr. Wooten said.

“Why? It’s not like there’s grass growing here.” The boy walked up to the porch, climbed the stairs and sat down on the top step. He put his chin in his bare hand and stared at Mr. Wooten.

“Think you’re pretty smart, huh, young feller?”

“Nope. And my name’s not ‘young feller.’ It’s Nathan.”

Mr. Wooten thought, ‘Nathan. Nice name. But he’s trespassing.’ “What are you here for? Did someone bet you you’d be too afraid to come back?” He scanned the street through tangled bushes, but saw no one.

“Nope.”

“Then why are you bothering me?”

“I’m not bothering you. Just looking at you, that’s all.”

‘Damned if that boy doesn’t act just like George,’ Mr. Wooten thought.

Nathan cocked his head. He said, “You remind me of someone.”

Mr. Wooten didn’t want to ask, but he did. “Who?” “My grandfather. You don’t look

like him, but you sure do act like he used to.”

“How’s that?”

“He used to be a lot of fun. Grandpa joked and laughed a lot, with everybody—until my Grandma died.

Then he acted like he didn’t care about anyone—just like you. ” Mr. Wooten didn’t want to hear anymore. He wanted to yell at Nathan about the absurdity of the conversation, but he couldn’t. Instead, he shifted his body and spoke from a soft place somewhere deep inside.

“You said I act like he used to. What happened to him?”

“He was a heavy equipment contractor and worked in Iraq until he disappeared three weeks ago. My family doesn’t know if he’s alive or dead.”

“Oh, my God, I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to be sorry, you didn’t kidnap him.”

Before the boy looked away, Mr. Wooten thought he’d seen a glint of tears sliding down Nathan’s face.

“I’ve got to go now,” Nathan said.

He stood, turned, and made his way down the slippery steps.

Mr. Wooten raised his arm. “Wait a minute.” The boy ignored him and slogged through the snow toward the ancient elm. Mr. Wooten saw groups of returning carolers talking

animatedly when they converged at the van. He heard a sharp crack and a whoosh of snow and ice; it fell from the tree’s highest branches. In a movie-kind-of-slow-motion he saw heavy snow cascade from one branch to the next and to the next, until an avalanche of it knocked the boy down and covered him.

Mr. Wooten hurried down the steps. He waded into the snow. “Help me,” he called to the group of young people. “A boy is buried beneath the snow.”

The group plunged into the yard and dug through several mounds of icy debris. Mr. Wooten’s heart battered against his chest, but he kept digging. “Faster, faster,” he said. “It’s Nathan, the boy with the rainbowcolored scarf.”

The carolers stopped, almost at the same moment, and stared at the man. The leader said, “How did you know his name?”

“Because he told me—what the hell do you think? Keep digging, God damn it.”

“Sir,” the leader said. “Last year after we went caroling, Nathan’s mother picked him up in front of your house.

On the way home a drunk driver struck their car. The mother survived, but Nathan was killed.”

THE OLD GRINGA %\ 0HO *ROGEHUJ

She enters the old hotel followed by the teenage boy hauling her suitcase filled with clothes she will never wear and books she will never read up three flights of tiled stairs to her room looking over the terra cotta rooftops alive with cactus in the winter warmth.

She inhales the scent of last night’s wood fire and lavender through the open window surprised at the boy’s smile sweet as a first kiss and towels stiff from drying in the sun.

But when the whistle of the knife sharpener pierces her ears and the iron bell of the church shatters the air and the street vendors fill great vats with frying pork for chicharónes and the women call “Tamales, elotes, cacahuates,” she knows she is like a street dog longing for somewhere to belong in this country that is not hers.

Saw you in the Ojo 67

EL PIP PILLA—An Unlikely He ero

By Herbert W. Piekow

D

espite a large red sandstone statue of El Pipila in Guanajuato, there is little written about this unlikely hero of the 1810 Mexican War of Independence; in my opinion he is Mexico’s first veteran for civil justice and independence. Juan José de los Reyes Martinez Amaro was born in 1782, and at the age of 28, this young miner became one of the war’s first heroes.

Not all heroes die in battle. El Pipila lived to the age of 81, but during the insurgents’ battle to take Guanajuato he was willing to give his life for the cause. Juan José was born with both mental and physical defects and earned the nick name of El Pipila be-

68

cause of the peculiar gate when he walked; the term El Pipila refers to the way a hen turkey walks, sort of like an old sailor’s peculiar lop-sided gait.

Like most people who do not entirely fit into society´s mold, Juan José was often ridiculed and made fun of. Juan José or El Pipila was a miner from San Miguel, now San Miguel de Allende. He worked in the Mellado Mine; founded in 1558 it was one of the first mines in Guanajuato. In 1810, at the time of the revolution, Guanajuato was the largest exporter of silver in the world. Today silver and other minerals are still exported.

The War for Independence began on September 16, 1810 when Father

El Ojo del Lago / December 2014

Miguel Hidalgo, a creole priest, from the nearby town of Dolores, gave his famous midnight speech calling for independence from nearly three hundred years of Spanish rule. The speech, although no one knows the exact words, is repeated at midnight each September 15th and is known as “Grito de la Dolores” or “Shout of Dolores.” Today the reenacted speech is usually given by the town´s mayor. El Grito starts the beginning of the yearly Independence Day celebrations and every Mexican listening shouts the response, “Viva Mexico!”

Less than two weeks after Hidalgo´s call for freedom, and the sacking of nearby San Miguel and Celaya, Father Hidalgo found himself the leader of an angry and unruly mob, a rebel army that neither he nor his compatriot and fellow leader, Ignacio Allende, who had some military training, could control. Father Hidalgo´s rebel “army” descended on Guanajuato and eyewitness accounts said the “army” numbered between 20,000 and 50,000 angry people. Most were peasants and Indians armed with machetes and clubs.

These were people who had suffered generations of neglect, abuse and high taxes by Spanish authorities; the people of Mexico were ready for blood. The unruly peasants were allowed to loot every Spanish and Creole home from San Miguel to Guanajuato, and this attracted more would-be looters. When the rebels passed through Celaya, the local regiment, composed mostly of Creole officers and soldiers, switched sides and joined the rebels, bringing with them some guns and munitions; however, they did not have cannon. When Hidalgo´s hordes arrived in Guanajuato they were soon joined by the local miners and other poor workers.

Juan Antonio Riaño, the Royalist leader of Guanajuato, was a personal friend of Hidalgo´s. Hidalgo sent his friend a letter offering to protect his family. Riaño and some 400 royalist

forces decided to fight. They chose to fortify the large public granary (Alhóndiga de Granaditas); the two story granary had three foot thick stone walls, was surrounded by a water filled moat with a long causeway the only access. All of the Spaniards moved their families and wealth inside the fortified building.

Hidalgo´s people were incited by the prospect of so much wealth in one location and laid siege to the granary where the Royalists forces and Spaniards fought for their lives and the lives of their families. Hidalgo ordered some of his men to the nearby rooftops, where they hurled stones onto the granary roof, eventually collapsing the roof under the weight of the accumulated stones. While directing his men, Riaño was killed. His secondin-command, the town assessor, ordered the men to run up a white flag of surrender.

As the attackers moved in to take prisoners, the ranking military officer in the compound, Major Diego Berzábal, countermanded the order and the soldiers opened fire on the advancing mob. The furious attackers thought the “surrender” a ruse and furiously redoubled their efforts. However, the granary, even with its roof caved in, was well fortified, and the Spaniards were better equipped.

The intense battle raged for five hours with nearly 3,000 of Hidalgo´s followers giving their lives for the cause, or for the possibility of riches.

As dusk began to claim the daylight, young Pipila, along with his compatriots, sat in the local cantina drinking pulque and discussing the length of the siege when one realized that the Achilles heel of the stone fortress was its wooden gate.

However, with the Spanish musketeers above the causeway leading to the entrance, it was impossible to advance towards the door. There were already hundreds dead along the route leading to the fortification. Pipila asked his comrades to strap a large

flat rock to his back, to protect against musket balls and fire from above.

Grabbing a torch and carrying a jug of tar around his neck he began to slowly make his way across dead bodies to the wooden gate of the granary.

Getting to the wooden gate, he spread the tar he had been carrying over the structure; then with trembling hand she put the torch to the tarred gate. As soon as it was breached the slaughter of soldiers, Spaniards, women and children began. The wanton taking of defenseless lives and the unbridled looting disgusted Allende and caused the dissolution of his friendship with Hidalgo. The town of San Miguel has preserved Allende´s family hacienda as a museum and added Allende to the end of its name to reflect Mexico´s national hero.

Pipila was the first, and most unlikely, hero of Mexico´s War for Independence. Today he is remembered not for his deformities but for his strength and courage. Because no one really knows what Pipila truly looked like, Guanajuato’s stone monument is of a muscular man, holding aloft a flaming torch high over the city.

The statue is at the top of a hill overlooking Guanajuato; one can climb up a rugged winding pathway, or take a funicular railway which runs

up the hill from behind the church of San Diego. From here one gets the best vantage of Guanajuato for photographs. The entire city unfolds below, a great view in every direction. Besides the view, take time to appreciate a great man, a man whom some ridiculed because of his limitations, but one who saw an opportunity and had the strength and courage to help make a change.

Herbert W. Piekow

Saw you in the Ojo 69

BRIDGE BY THE LAKE %\ .HQ 0DVVRQ

Do you and your favourite partner have a clear understanding of the meaning of all bids made against your opponents’ pre-emptive calls?

Herself and I believed we did until this hand popped up during a team game played in October at the Lake Chapala Duplicate Bridge Club in Riberas.

Our opponents at the table were Dona and Skip Johnson who had been teammates of ours in another event earlier in the week. Dona dealt and with her 9-card suit headed by the ace and king and nothing outside, she had a perfect 4 spade opening.

Herself and Skip passed in tempo and it was left to me in the pass-out seat, with 15-high card points and a void in spades, to keep the bidding alive which I did by placing the “Double” card on the table.

My justification was that I had pretty decent hand and reasonable support for any of the suits my partner might bid. What I didn’t take into consideration was that my partner would take my bid to be primarily for penalties and would pass at her first opportunity! Needless to say this was not a success as Dona promptly drew trumps and took all nine of her spades plus the diamond ace to wrap up her doubled contract for a score of 590. Indeed, she could have made an overtrick by arranging to ruff a diamond in the dummy but perhaps she didn’t want to overdo the punishment she was meting out to her former teammates!

To add insult to injury, the players sitting North-South at the other table, Maggie Pye and Keith Coates, bid and made 5 diamonds for a score of 600 giving their side an advantage that was insurmountable in a short team game and we were well and

70

El Ojo del Lago / December 2014

truly beaten.

Naturally this disaster led to a long post-game discussion between Herself and me on how we should cope with similar situations in the future.

I had been reading a number of articles by Larry Cohen on bidding over pre-empts. He insists that first doubles of opposition bidding at any level should essentially be for takeout but that the partner could pass with the right holding. For example in the diagrammed hand, if herself had held QJxx in spades and little else she would be justified in passing as that would be the most likely chance for a good result for our side. I believed we had discussed the Cohen philosophy and were basically on the same page.

Not for the first time, it appears I was wrong, Cohen’s premise is quite sound.

When the opponents jump the bidding to a very high level, it is unlikely that you will have a holding with a trump stack that would justify making a penalty double. It is much more probable that you would be short in that opponent’s suit and holding high card strength elsewhere. You can read all of Cohen’s articles on takeout doubles by visiting: http://larryco. com/BridgeArticles/ArticleDetails. aspx?articleID=553 So, my advice to all and sundry is to have a serious discussion with your partners about the meaning of doubles in similar situations. In may prevent you from having to eat a plateful of humble pie during the post mortems!

Questions or comments: email: masson.ken@gmail. com Ken Masson

D

ear Sir: The little piece by Martita Noon in your publication of November last, about the EPA Clean Power Plan, makes misleading assertions. She writes: The (clean power plan) CPP “is based on the discredited theory that climate change is a crisis caused by the use of fossil fuels emitting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.” Then she asks (rhetorically) “What will the forced, premature elimination of America’s electric capacity do?” She continues to state that (EPA Administrator Gina) McCarthy stated: “Nothing we do can threaten reliability.” These statements are in the first three paragraphs.

I’ll answer these first: Climate change is not a ‘discredited theory’, but a fact. It has been determined by 97% of all climate scientists around the world as reported by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The only people that discredit this fact are non-scientific, hyper religious and/or corrupt politicians. The five IPCC reports identify CO2 and a few other greenhouse gasses as the cause. EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said: “Continuing climate change, fueled by carbon pollution, supercharges risks to our health, our economy, and our way of life. EPA is delivering on a vital piece of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan by proposing a Clean Power Plan that will cut harmful carbon pollution from our largest source--power plants, by leveraging cleaner energy sources and cutting energy waste, this plan will clean the air we breathe while helping slow climate change so we can leave a safe and healthy future for our kids. We don’t have to choose between a healthy economy and a healthy environment--our action will sharpen America’s competitive edge, spur innovation, and create jobs.”

She then asserts that the EPA plan will chase away more American industry, killing hundreds of thousands of jobs, and causing harsh economic

consequences without having an impact on climate change. She gives the impression that there are no alternative sources for energy, but creating these alternatives will provide hundreds of thousands jobs while greenhouse gas emissions are reduced by roughly one-third in the United States. The proposal follows through on the common-sense steps laid out in President Obama’s Climate Action Plan and the June 2013 Presidential Memorandum. It is expected to: Cut carbon emission from the power sector by 30 percent nationwide below 2005 levels, which is equal to the emissions from powering more than half the homes in the United States for one year; Cut particle pollution, nitrogen oxides, and sulfur dioxide by more than 25 percent as a co-benefit; Avoid up to 6,600 premature deaths, up to 150,000 asthma attacks in children, and up to 490,000 missed work or school days—providing up to $93 billion in climate and public health benefits; and shrink electricity bills roughly 8 percent by increasing energy efficiency and reducing demand in the electricity system.

Allowing fear mongering does not do much for the reputation of the Ojo. John DeWaal

Saw you in the Ojo 71

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rom the time I was eight and read Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, I wanted to see Hannibal, Missouri. Off we drove, tent, sleeping bags, and cooking gear in the back of our station wagon.

After camping out a few nights in the beautiful Missouri countryside, we drove into Hannibal, a charming little town with wood frame houses that, from their single-story, prairie style, appeared to have existed since Mark Twain’s boyhood. Our first stop was his childhood home with its famous fence and a small bronze sign:“Tom Sawyer’s Fence. Here stood the board fence which Tom Sawyer persuaded his gang to pay him for the privilege of whitewashing. Tom sat by and saw that it was well done.” The house looked very much like the one on our farm in Nebraska, wood floors, simple wood cupboards, a plank table with four simple chairs . . . precisely what I expected Tom Sawyer’s house to have been. I’m not sure if it was just because of my personal frame of reference, or because I remembered details from the book.

“Is this exactly how the house looked when Samuel Clemens lived here?” I asked the tour guide whomever referred to him as Mark Twain.

“Uh, well, I’m not really sure.

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El Ojo del Lago / December 2014

I’m pretty new at this tour,” she answered. Her idea of a tour was saying almost nothing but appearing miraculously if anyone touched any small objects to make sure nobody lifted anything like the old white metal cups with red edges. She needn’t have worried. I have those exact cups that Grandpa used to hang on the water pump for us to drink out of at the farm.

Because the day was getting hotter, we headed for Tom and Becky’s Cave. Descending 250 feet into its depths brought sweet, cool relief from the heat and humidity outside.

During the tour, I could clearly envision all kinds of mischief Sam Clemens, alias Tom Sawyer, might have dreamed up down there with his buddies even though it’s now being used for, among other things, aging cheese. After an hour in the cave, I was actually getting chilly. This time, the heat outside was welcome.

Next, some lunch, and a walk down to the Mississippi River - Old Muddy - to see from whence Huck and Jim had sailed off on a raft. As we passed the local bank, the temperature on their sign silently blared 104o F. There was no dock on the riverbank, just another bronze marker in the center of a concrete circle. The whole area was strangely vacant, perhaps because no one else was crazy enough to be running around in the heat looking to mentally reenact Huck Finn’s great adventures.

My husband stood looking at the water, then got that mischievous look in his eyes.

“I’m goin’ in,” he announced.

“In your clothes?” I asked, astonished. It looked so dirty!

“No, they’re going on that tree branch over there.”

I was so hot and I was dying to jump in that cool water, too, except I’m terrified of huge bodies of water where my feet can’t touch the bottom. Instant visions of my drowned body floating up downstream in Memphis flashed before me. Plus

I’m a bit squeamish about immersing myself in dirty water intentionally. It’s not called The Big Muddy for nothing.

Before I could say anything else, he was in, swimming joyfully out toward the center of the river. Before he had taken 30 strokes, a tour boat filled with passengers sailed into view. No problem, except that, at the same moment, I saw a muskrat swimming fast his direction.

Muskrats seek things that dangle in the water, usually indicating edible goodies like fish. Perhaps this would include things that dangle off men when they swim naked.

He headed back. The muskrat followed in hot pursuit. Luckily, my husband swam faster. The boat, however, had now stopped, the loudspeaker on board blaring the tour talk . . . “Huck Finn probably stepped onto the raft here blah blah blah . . .”

Muskrat approaching fast. . . husband wanting to escape onto shore, but that would risk total exposure to a hoard of tourists.

A few meters down river, large tree branches dipped into the river.

He swam past me, yelling, “Bring my clothes. I’m getting out under the tree.” I grabbed the clothes and

headed for the overhanging branches. The muskrat, a bit put off by his shouting, laughter and pointing coming from the boat, had slowed and changed direction. Husband emerged safe but muddy, and reclothed himself, grinning at the laughter still coming from the boat. They had seen something!

We spent that night in a motel with a shower.

Pia Kraus Aitken

Saw you in the Ojo 73

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hether you know it or not, stress from self judging, blaming, and condemning activates your sympathetic nervous system. It initiates your fight or flight response by producing stress hormones, shifting blood flow, and redirecting energy from your digestive system. Your parasympathetic nervous system is prevented from doing its rest, digest, and repair job. Without this vital function your health declines without your knowledge. Â With your parasympathetic nervous system suppressed developing leaky gut is likely. This weakens your immune system, 80% of which is in

74

your gut. Toxin overload adds more stress making leaky gut worse. And, you feel awful because it makes you feel good hormones decline. Â The research literature indicates that leaky gut is a rampant modern health problem. Many researchers believe itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the source of Autoimmune Disease and most other human ailments. They found that leaky gut stifles nutrient absorption, causing deficiency, and lets toxins escape into the bloodstream. Deficiency and toxicity are the two main sources of most diseases and disorders that plague us today. Your subconscious mind doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t differentiate between stress from a life threatening situ-

El Ojo del Lago / December 2014

ation and stress from self imposed anxiety. Developing personal protocols to protect yourself from your own unconscious tendencies will improve your experience of life.

So, how do you transform your subconscious reaction habit into a conscious response habit. Well, as I learned from my wise daughter, Lacy, you have to replace a bad habit with a good habit or you leave an empty space that the bad habit can slide back into.  The good habit of self compassion provides more benefits than are immediately apparent. It reduces anxiety, increases courage, and makes you less judgmental and more accepting. These reset your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. Compassionately perceiving your thoughts, feelings, and emotions enables you to: â&#x20AC;˘ keep from playing the shame / blame game with yourself â&#x20AC;˘ be okay with being human and all it entails â&#x20AC;˘ respond consciously instead of react unconsciously â&#x20AC;˘ enjoy calm and peace instead of struggling with angst and agitation â&#x20AC;˘ promote the health of your body, mind, emotions, and spirit â&#x20AC;˘ improve your experience of life Your self-perceptions have incredible power to affect your experience of life. By focusing your attention to this one personal change you can save yourself mental and emotional turmoil, and physical suffering. Self compassion improves your relationship with others, because the way you see, relate to, and feel about them is a reflection of how you see, relate to, and feel about yourself.

Making peace with yourself enables you to make peace with others, benefiting your family, friends, and co workers. Â Using a trigger recognition strategy when self judging, blaming, or condemning first appear brings

the unconscious reaction into your awareness where you can replace it with a self compassion response.

Remind yourself that, â&#x20AC;&#x153;This reaction makes you feel bad and ruins your health.â&#x20AC;?

This phrase gives you a bit of time to apply self compassion and self acceptance. Self-acceptance meaning that you are okay with being human, and even though you are not perfect you can still develop a life thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s perfect for you. Keep in mind that you are proactively improving your experience of life. Talk to yourself as you would talk to a friend to help them feel better. Tell yourself things like: â&#x20AC;&#x153;give yourself a break, we all make mistakesâ&#x20AC;?; â&#x20AC;&#x153;itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s okay that it didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t turn out the way you wanted, it isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t stealing your life away and you are fineâ&#x20AC;?; â&#x20AC;&#x153;youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re doing your best and thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s all any of us can doâ&#x20AC;?.  Most importantly ask, â&#x20AC;&#x153;What are you supposed to be learning about yourself from this experience?â&#x20AC;?  Then gently remind yourself to be patient, especially with you. Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t push for understanding; the wisdom of your learning will filter up into your conscious mind, as Albert Einstein says, in between your thoughts. Lifelong brain plasticity makes this transformation possible. A new neural pathway is forged by consciously repeating your new good habit at the first sign of your old bad habit. Each time you repeat it the new neural pathway gets more established. After a while no conscious response is needed.

The old habitâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s neural pathway will fade away leaving the new habit in charge.

Improving self-perception is ultimately about having your best experience of life. There are many books available to help you overcome your specific self limiting emotional and mental challenges. Self-knowledge is the best knowledge and self help is the best help. Both lead to selfevolvement.

CHILD

of the month

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mbar now 11 was diagnosed with Polyarticular Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis (PJRA) at the age of seven.

Arthritis is a complex family of musculoskeletal disorders consisting of more than 100 different diseases or condition that destroy joints, bones, muscles, cartilage and other connective tissues hampering and even halting physical movement. Juvenile arthritis (JA) is an umbrella term used to describe the many autoimmune and inflammatory conditions that can develop in children ages 16 and younger.

The polyarticular type, more common in girls than in boys, affects five or more joints. The small joints such as those in the hands and feet are most likely to be affected. This type is identical to adult type Rheumatoid Arthritis.

Although the exact cause is still unclear, arthritis is believed to be a disease of the immune system. The immune system protects the body from infections and certain diseases.

In PJRA, the body’s immune system attacks its own cells and tissues. It’s not known why this happens but it is believed that heredity and environment play a major role.

Ambar became a client of Niños Incapacitados last July 2013 having just moved to the area with her family. Thanks to Mom’s tenacity they have been relocated to a brand new housing development subsidized by the government. Mom said this is much better for Ambar as they now have a proper home with tiled flooring and indoor plumbing.

For the next six months, Ambar appeared to be managing well on the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. She continued her therapy program at Fundacion Teleton, which is a government funded therapy program in Guadalajara. She was able to attend school on a part time basis. Ambar was fitted with special arm and leg splints and used a motorized wheelchair loaned to her by Fundacion Teleton.

Niños Incapacitados have reimbursed the family 6000 pesos for medicines and transportation.

In February of this year, Mom informed us that Ambar’s condition had

death. Needless to say we were all devastated by this news.

Unfortunately Mom did not return to the clinic leaving us to assume the worst. We asked the DIF social worker to try and locate the family. In September, Ambar and Mom showed up at the clinic and it was an emotional reunion for all.

Ambar was asked to be part of a clinical trial using biologics treatment for her arthritis. As she said “What have I got to lose?” Well, for Ambar the news is all good. Her life has turned around, she looks great, her body is reacting positively to the new treatment. She

says she has had to change her diet, no more processed food, only fresh fruits and vegetables. She smiles when she tells us that she is back in school with her friends and so far, life is great. Oh and by the way, she doesn’t need to use a wheelchair and the pain is almost gone.

As Director of the Jocotopec Clinic, thank you again for the opportunity of presenting some of our children to you. If you would like to learn more about Niños Incapacitados, please visit our website at www.programaniños. com or call Rich Petersen (376-7655511) or Barb Corol (376-766-5452).

deteriorated and she was dying. Her internal organs were shutting down.

The family was receiving grief counselling through Fundacion Teleton in order to prepare for her impending

Saw you in the Ojo 75

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I

t’s that time of year again. ‘Tis the season when the Right Wing media launches its crusade against the War on Christmas.

And so, they have started their annual witch hunt, scouring the country for examples of people trying to put the X into Xmas.

The War on Christmas has not been a war of bullets and smart bombs. It has been a war of lawsuits and dumb words. Lawsuits over nativity scenes on city property. And dumb words like “Season’s Greetings,” and “Happy Holidays.” You know -- all those mamby-pamby, politically correct, gluten-free ways to wish people a Merry Christmas without actually saying the “C” word.

To the Fox News crowd, these things are a direct assault on the Christian values of our Christian forefathers whose Christian work ethic built the greatest Christian nation on Earth. You get the picture? These guys are big on Christianity. Up to a point. That business about “turning the other cheek” kind of goes against their grain. They tend to be more the “Stand Your Ground” kind of Christians. And one stand they have taken is that Christmas should be celebrated the way our Christian forefathers intended.

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El Ojo del Lago / December 2014

Whoa, Rupert. You’d better think twice before sending that Christmas wish off to the North Pole. Let’s dust off our old history book and look at how the War on Christmas began.

Flip back to the very beginning -chapter one, page one. To Plymouth Rock, where the Pilgrims landed in 1620. That’s where the real War on Christmas started -- with the Pilgrims.

You know – those guys who gave witch hunting a bad name. It was the Pilgrims who put the kybosh on Christmas. Big time.

To them, December 25th was just another 16-hour work day. Merchants and schools remained open.

There were no Christmas church services. No nativity scenes. No Christmas trees. No holly. No ivy. No lords a leaping. Christmas was, in a word – “No.” The Grinch had nothing on these guys. From the very beginning, they didn’t like Christmas, or the reindeer it rode in on.

They considered it blasphemy because it had no basis in scripture.

The bible never said “Keep holy Jesus’ birthday.” And, besides, nobody actually knew when Jesus was born.

Where was His birth certificate? The Puritans considered December 25th a pagan holiday because that date had been chosen by church fathers back in the third century to replace the Roman winter solstice festival.

The Puritans didn’t just refrain from celebrating Christmas. In 1659, they passed a law against it. Christmas was illegal in Massachusetts for more than 20 years. If you put up a nativity scene in early New England, it wasn’t the ACLU you had to worry about. It was thy holier-than-thou neighbors who were likely to come after thee --with torches and pitchforks.

And it wasn’t just the Puritans. It was that whole patchwork quilt of Protestant religions that settled in the New England colonies. Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Quakers, Baptists, Methodists – they were all

loyal soldiers in the Bah Humbug Brigade. In early New England, the Moral Majority wasn’t fighting to put Christ back into Christmas. They were fighting to extinguish any glimmer of Christmas from their shining city on a hill. And they succeeded for nearly 200 years.

It wasn’t until the early 1800’s that Christmas began to sneak back into New England thanks primarily to popular literature. In 1822, the poem “Twas the Night before Christmas,” introduced people to Jolly Old Saint Nick and his flying circus. With all those reindeer prancing and sugar plums dancing, the Christmas juggernaut began to snowball.

About the same time, Washington Irving published five charming Christmas stories in a book that included “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” And so, Christmas got carried out of the shadows on the coat tails of the Headless Horseman.

And in 1843, Charles Dickens put the frosting on the fruitcake. His blockbuster story about the transformation of Ebenezer Scrooge took the nation by storm. Once New Englanders got a taste of Christmas dinner with Tiny Tim’s family, the Puritans’ goose was cooked. Finally, in 1870, the U.S. Congress declared Christmas

a national holiday. So, the puritanical War on Christmas finally ended. You are now free to smother your front lawn with nativity scenes. You can play Perry Como Christmas Albums on your ghetto blaster till your neighbors go nuts.

So, to all the talking heads at Fox News, I offer this holiday advice. Chill out. The real War on Christmas is over.

It ended 150 years ago. But if you can’t resist preaching about how we should celebrate Christmas, don’t use a Pilgrim as your poster boy. Ebenezer Scrooge would be a better choice.

Saw you in the Ojo 77

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wo days before Christmas and bedlam reigns throughout the house.

The oven door creaking like arthritic knees, is tired from the myriad trays of cookies, cakes and breads that Grandma has been popping in and out of the oven for the past week.

Upstairs giggles and whispers blend with the rustle of paper and the snick of ribbon being curled as the last of the presents are wrapped.

In the parlor the “annual tree fight” is going on, my husband yelling “next year we’re getting a fake tree!”

“Aw Dad, says the daughter, “you

love real trees, okay turn it around.

There’s a bare spot, wait, now it’s leaning, pull it to the right, no, now left, wait a minute, it’s leaning backwards…” And on and on.

In back of me a door slams and the clunk of boots stomping across the kitchen like a Russian Cossack invading. It’s the six year old, ice chunks slithering off his jacket making little puddles on the newly waxed floor.

Grandpa’s practicing his “Ho, ho, ho’s for his big part in the church Christmas program, and me? I’m taking time out for a quiet activity.

I’m listening to the snow fall.

THE OJO INTERNET MAILBOX (Wherein we publish some comments about our previous issues.)

FATCA F ATC TCA A AND FBAR – WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL? DEAL AL??

Miguel Very good Thanks!

V d insights. i i h Th k!

THE COWBELL TRASH TRUCK Cande Mae I wish we could see more writing like hers. Teri always says things that I think of but can’t ever seem to put into words. Her insights are always a pleasure to read. Thank You for putting her here.

Dale Oliver I love the stories Teri Saya writes.

She does a great job describing as the tale unfolds!

Vicki Routh This cute little story made me smile and shows humor in everyday life, with comparative insight from two different countries, refreshing!

Al Sanchez Teri always paints such a vivid pic-

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El Ojo del Lago / December 2014

ture with her words, s, very enjoyable. yable.

Dorise orise Ford Hope ope to see more of Teri’s work in your zine. A new and fresh view of life in Mexico with words and charm she paints a vivid picture of life for a gringa.

LA ORQUESTA TIPICA DE CHAPALA Laurie Vonderahe We watched them perform at the 450 anniversary of Barra de Navidad on a beautiful evening with views of the lagoon and the sea. The music was incredible and interesting-the musicians passionate and talented. One of my favorite orchestral performances ever!

THE GIF T OF GIVING %\ 0DUJLH +DUUHOO A Letter to My Grandchildren

D

earest Children, I have befriended a Mexican family that lives on the shores of Lake Chapala. We visit each day as I take my walks.

They are a family of seven, five children and Momma and Poppa. Their home is a tarpaper shack just inches from the water’s edge. When it rains, the papers are rolled up so that the rain can run through the shack over the dirt floors. There are no windows and the only light comes through a lopsided wooden door. Each day as I walk by, the children run to greet me.

We laugh together and skip along the shore. Words are not necessary as they speak no English and my Spanish is malo. I carry a few candies in my pockets and the children play a game trying to find them.

To go to school in Mexico you need two things, a pair of shoes and one clean outfit. Only one of the five children is able to go to school at the present time. There is barely money for food most days for this family.

Twenty U.S. dollars to my grandchild up in the States equals about two or three movies and popcorn or a few CDs and a Coke, am I right? Twenty U.S. dollars to a Mexican child is the WORLD! A pair of shoes, a pretty dress and tortillas on the table for three days. So I go shopping for my Mexican friends. Tiny canvas shoes WITH socks, clips for the girl’s hair, belts to keep the boys pants up, tortillas for a week and just enough left over for Hershey Kisses. Guess what they liked the most? As I am about to take my leave of this happy scene the children begin to say, “Nada para usted?” which I knew meant “Nothing for you?”

I smiled and said gracias but they pulled me towards the lakeshore. Immediately they scattered and started to search the shallow waters. It wasn’t long before they had what they were looking for, bright shiny white shells especially for me. I was thrilled and

they were happy they had repaid me for the kindness. The shells were beautiful but the smiles on their faces were payment enough for me.

The Spanish word for grandchildren is nietos and that is who I told the children had given them the gifts this holiday season. Of course they wanted to meet you both but I told them you lived far, far away. Mexico is a Third World country and what that means is it is a poor underprivileged country, but what they don’t tell you about Mexico is, they are happy, proud, friendly people who are content with the life God has given them.

We from such a prosperous country as America could learn from our neighbors south of the border. We will have many more Christmases, more birthday parties and more of everything I am sure—but this year, know in your hearts, my children, that your gift went to a worthy cause. I feel good inside for doing this, as I know you do too. As we say here in Mexico, “Que le vaya bien,” which, loosely translated means, “May everything go well for you.”

Love, Your Grandmother Margie Harrell

Saw you in the Ojo 79

TEQUILA

—The Unofficial National Anthem of Mexico %\ -RDQ :DUUHQ

I

n the winter of 1957 a group of young studio musicians, at the urging of Challenge Records in L.A., wrote and recorded a song “Train to Nowhere.” The company owner was in dire need of a hit, but the guys, Danny Flores, Dave Dupree, Cliff Hills, Buddy Bruce and Gene Alden had no song for side B. Some of the guys had jammed a few times with a young Mexican kid from Jalisco, who was new in town, and was introducing them to Latin sounds which were becoming the rage in American music. He had a wailing, jazzy sax and a catchy, soulful tune and they asked him to help them out. His name was Rogelio Raygoza, a gifted musician, who needed a break and was stuck playing one-nighters in L.A. Trying to stay one step ahead of immigration, he was performing under the name of Chad Rios.

The group was mildly impressed with his tune; it was okay but it needed a little work. They all sat around the studio tweaking the arrangement, jamming and drinking. A few hours later the group began recording, drunk on Tequila. After all, this was only for side B, not a lot of effort was put into a song that no one was going to hear anyway. In only 3 takes it was a cut. The song needed a name and “Tequila” seemed to fit the occasion with Flores injecting the word into the song. They also chose a name for their group, The Champs, after the studio owner, Gene Autry’s, horse.

Rogelio was paid $35.00, the usual daily rate for a studio musician, and went back to Mexico. This was real good money back then for a “wetback” and he was glad to get it. No one knew that Rock and Roll history was made that day.

The record was released on January 15, 1958. Air play was given to side A until a Cleveland DJ decided to flip the record and give his listeners something different. The calls started pouring in and other radio stations

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El Ojo del Lago / December 2014

followed suit. “Tequila” shot to number 1 on the Billboard chart and won a Grammy in 1959 for best rhythm and blues song. This song was making “Big Bucks.”

This sound was different, not the usual Rock and Roll material. A Latin flavor with a Cha-Cha beat appealed to teenage dancers. Listen carefully and you will hear the subtle, haunting sophistication of the melody. It begins with an acoustic guitar accompanied with hand claps. Every four bars another instrument is added, bass, drums then electric guitar. The middle of the song features the sax entering with a riff then cutting loose with a jazz-inspired solo. The end of the song is the reverse of the beginning with instruments dropping out until only the acoustic guitar and clapping remain.

Things were pretty loose back in the early days of Rock and Roll. This new music was considered a “flash in the pan”, here today, gone tomorrow.

Few songs were copyrighted, recordings were made in garages, songs were written on the spot and musicians recorded under several different names to avoid violating what few written contracts there were. It’s at this point that recollections begin getting a little fuzzy.

On the early label Chad Rios is listed as the composer. Due to the high volume of sales, more records were pressed and these later labels show Dave Burgess (aka Dave Dupree) as the composer. No mention is made of the illegal Mexican who snuck across the border to ply his tunes. If you listen to both songs, Train to Nowhere, an undisputed composition of Burgess, then “Tequila”, you will notice an unmistakable difference in style. The first

lacks the soul and complexity of the latter. Conflicting stories abound over the details of that day, but Rogelio always insisted he was the composer.

Da Dah Da Da Dah Da Da Daaa….

There isn’t a baby boomer in the world who doesn’t react to those 8 notes.

It seems that they are genetically imprinted into Homo Sapiens from Australia to Alaska and all points in between. Those 8 notes are a primal command for all present to jump up and dance. We all know the words to that song better than our own National Anthems. Pope Francis, who was a night club bouncer in his younger days, certainly knows the words. I’m not so sure about the Dalai Lama though.

It’s been 55 years since Tequila was recorded and it has since been heard in many commercials and was featured in the movie Pee Wee’s Big Adventure. It’s on every jukebox in every bar in the world. Billboard lists it among the best instrumental music ever recorded. Tequila the song is as well known throughout the world as Tequila the drink. Mexico pours out of every note.

Rogelio never received a dime in royalties. Whatever happened to The Champs? They released a few records after Tequila but they were modestly

received and the group faded into obscurity.

What about Rogelio? After returning to Mexico he did get his day in the sun. In 1960 he started the first Rock and Roll band - The Gibson Boys - in Guadalajara, bringing the American sound and words to Mexican audiences. Later, he played with the big bands of Perez Prado and Ramon Marquez just to name a few. He did back-up sax for many of the big named Mexican singers of the time. His “hot jazz” burned up Mexico and everybody who was anybody in the music scene knew his name.

A few years ago, Rogelio (Roy), much older and tired of the grueling life of a musician always on the road, moved back to Chapala to spend his golden years with his son, musician Noe Raygoza, and his grandchildren.

He played a few gigs around town with Noe until his health took a turn for the worse. Sadly, Roy died of a heart attack on Sept. 25, one month before he was scheduled for heart surgery.

The next time you hear Tequila raise a glass to Roy and don’t wish him “Rest In Peace,” wish him a “Wailing Good Time” in the after-life basking in the knowledge that his song has become the unofficial National Anthem of Mexico.

Saw you in the Ojo 81

A SONG OF THE SOUTH %\ -RKQ :DUG

I

n the southernmost state of Mexico lies a gem of jungle and “primitive” cultures called the state of Chiapas. TuxtlaGutierrez is the recognized capital of this state, but there is a beautiful mountain retreat about an hour from Tuxtla by car. Uphill, almost all the way, the charming city of “San Cristobal de las Casas” sprawls in a valley surrounded by hills. At 6,800 feet this Shangri-La captures the imagination like no other magical city in this great country.

Having moved to Mexico permanently ten years ago, my wife and I decided to explore our new home by car. The car ended up looking like something the “Road Warrior” would reject, but it was on this trip that we ran into San Cristobal and fell in love with it. Apparently it used to be a part of Guatemala until the residents voted to be a part of Mexico in 1824.

We were on our way to Lagos de Montebello on the border with Guatemala, when we found San Cristobal. We weren’t the only ones.

A Canadian banker/gourmet cook found it and saw the immense open air food market and, just on the strength of that, decided this was to be his home. The market is an island of trade, barter and selling with bins of 50 different types of beans, a myriad of produce as well as live animals and birds for sale. It’s a bit sad to see little piglets tied to a lamppost waiting to be bought for food.

In addition to this amazing food market there is a huge artisan market with leather goods, beading and clothing, blankets, puppets, belts, dolls and many other items at ridiculously low prices. I bought a leather case for a laptop for $10 US! It was carved and decorated!

There are numerous horse renters all over the countryside and there is an astounding amount of countryside. From Chamula to Zinacantan, pueblos indigenas surround

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El Ojo del Lago / December 2014

San Cristobal and are the source of all the artisan treasures. Like opal in Australia, amber is the stone most mined in Chiapas. I was told the amber here is only 23 million years old, whereas the Russian amber can get up to 27 million years. I figure 3 or 4 million years, give or take, my wife is not going to know the difference.

We immediately bought a little 90 square-meter “pied-a-terre” here and have been renovating it to suit our needs. Labor is cheaper than in Jalisco and we have been able to make our place extremely comfortable. Luckily we have a great fireplace, a necessity October through February, and we are close enough to walk to the centre and enjoy both the long andadores where no cars can drive or park. All pedestrian traffic.

Coffee shops, chocolatiers, real French bakeries, pastelerias and restaurants of every persuasion dot the quaint little streets. Most of the foreign population, which is small, is European and they have brought their skills and tastes to San Cristobal. There are far fewer Americans and Canadians here than the Chapala area and the mix of foreigners is of all ages. Everything is cheaper in San Cristobal and the living truly is easy.

Marcos, history teacher turned Zapatista freedom fighter, makes appearances every now and again in a couple of SUVs, giving speeches and collecting money, but the brutality of the nineties is past and the area has settled into the comfortable political mishmosh that is peculiar to Mexico.

This is a section of Mexico that must definitely be experiJohn Ward enced.

%\ 9LFWRULD 6FKPLGW

Mexican Holidays

T

he Holidays have arrived at Lakeside and there are differences in the way we celebrate. Halloween as celebrated in the United States is not the Mexican way. Instead; November 1st is the dia de los muertos for the infants who passed away. While November 2nd is dia de los muertos for the adults. Many north of the border cringe at the thought of this holiday thinking it is ghoulish.

Yet I have found it much more meaningful as Mexicans prepare the alters in their home or at gravesites to honor their dead. The cemeteries are full of people decorating graves, and sharing the favorite food and stories of their dead surrounded by photos, or objects representing the loves of those who passed. I’ve seen jewelry, tequila, cigars, books, or other personal objects. We walk through these beautiful symbols and peek into the lives of not only those who have passed, but those who remain to carry on their traditions.

There is no equivalent to Thanksgiving in the Mexican culture. Yet I don’t find that strange, as each day I see Mexicans giving thanks for what they have. Perhaps you have been in a local tienda, and have seen someone making the sign of the cross after your transaction.

They are giving thanks for the first money received that day.

Christmas, however, shows the most divergence between the Mexican culture and those of ex-pats.

Instead of the rampant commercialism and the buy, buy, buy of our culture, the Mexican celebration is steeped in traditions of religious significance. The Posada’s lead off the season. This is where the journey of Joseph and Mary is recreated. Schools, churches and communities all join in posadas where the couple representing Joseph and Mary go from door to door looking for shelter. The story of the birth of Jesus is retold. If you have never

been witness to a posada, you are denying yourself a wonderful experience.

Christmas eve is meant for church and family. There is the evening service or mass. Then it is back home for traditional games and favorite foods and the exchange of gifts. Part of the delight is exchanging gag gifts.

But Santa does make calls during Christmas eve, and in preparation the family will leave a single shoe or boot by the fireplace or outside a door to receive a gift. No stockings allowed. Christmas day is for friends of the family. A time of celebrating the value of their friends is sharing the wealth of friendship.

New Year’s follows next, with the celebration of the grapes at midnight. 12 grapes at midnight as they celebrate and plan for the new year.

We are usually done with the Holidays after New Year and while our culture is busy breaking New Year’s resolutions and losing holiday pounds, Mexicans are gearing up for Three Kings Day on January 6, where children who have reached the age of three are presented to God in a ceremony at church.

On this day, Mexicans also share bread known as Rosca de Reyes.

Inside of the frosted and fruited bread, are small symbols of the baby Jesus and sometimes even the Three Kings. Representing the visitation and gifts of the three Kings.

If you happen to receive the hidden piece, you have received a blessing.

This blessing means that on Día de la Candelaria on February 2, you will share your blessing by providing tamales to all those you broke bread with on Three Kings Day. In the years I have spent in Mexico, I have come to cherish their traditions and I hold them dear.

Victoria Schmidt

Saw you in the Ojo 83

D

ear Sir: When I read that Lakeside Little Theater (LLT) was going to put on Harold Pinter’s Betrayal, I thought it might be a bridge too far. This play is difficult even for professional actors under seasoned directors; witness the 2013 Mike Nichols production on Broadway, starring Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz and Rafe Spall, which was roundly panned by the critics.

It was not so much the acting but the way the director put it all together. Since 1978 it has been produced many times with “names,” and all over the world, often to great approval, but sometimes not.

It is about betrayal on many levels; between lovers, between friends, and their families. It should have an undercurrent of sadism, emotional brutality and confused memories. It needs actors who are masters of their craft to pull it off. The 1983 film starring Jeremy Irons, Ben Kingsley and Patricia Hodge managed this in the easier movie setting. So why on earth did the LLT think they should try it?

One answer is that they found a couple of English people about the right age who were willing to try it: Richard Varney as “Jerry” and Jacinta Stringer as “Emma.” But try as they undoubtedly did, these parts

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El Ojo del Lago / December 2014

were a few grades above their skill levels. The result being that the audience was left wondering how such a terrible play could ever have been so successful.

Pinter is famous for his pauses between dialogue, but when these actors did the pauses, the audience was left wondering, not about what must be going through the characters’ minds, but rather, did they forget their lines. And therein is the rub. The biggest hardship for most amateur actors is learning the lines. This often overwhelms the ability to truly inhabit the part.

A further problem for amateurs is a love scene with someone they are not particularly attracted to.

The final scene (which in this complicated play that runs backwards is actually the beginning of the affair) is embarrassingly false.

There is no passion between Varney and Stringer. Ms. Stringer has an attractive face but she always seems to be trying to hide her body beneath bulky and unattractive clothes. This is made even more difficult for her by having her wearing flat shoes, perhaps because of a height difference with Varney.

Dave McIntosh as Emma’s cuckolded husband “Robert” is obviously a more experienced actor and manages to present a more believable character, but alas he is 20+ years older than Stringer and Varney and it works against the believability of the overall production.

Advice to LLT - stick to lighter stuff!

Name Withheld By Request (Ed. Note: Ordinarily, the Ojo does not publish unsigned letters, but this one, written by either a seasoned playgoer or perhaps even a theater professional, was temperate enough in tone for us to make an exception. Besides, it will undoubtedly elicit a lively response from our creative community—and that is always a good thing.)

A GUIDE TO POLIT TICAL NEWS &RXUWHV\ RI %DUEDUD &OLSSLQJHU

1

The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.

2. The Washington Post is read by people who think they run the country.

3. The New York Times is read by people who think they should run the country, and who are very good at crossword puzzles 4. USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don’t really understand The New York Times.

5. The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn’t mind running the country, if they could find the time -- and if they didn’t have to leave Southern California to do it.

6. The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country and did a poor job of it.

7. The New York Daily News is read by people who aren’t too sure who’s running the country and don’t really care as long as they can get a seat on the train.

8. The New York Post is read by people who don’t care who is running the country as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated.

9. The Chicago Tribune is read by people that are in prison that used to run the state, & would like

to do so again, as would their constituents that are currently free on bail.

10. The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country, but need the baseball scores.

11.

The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren’t sure if there is a country or that anyone is running it; but if so, they oppose all that they stand for.

There are occasional exceptions if the leaders are gay, handicapped, minority, feminist, atheist dwarfs who also happen to be illegal aliens from any other country or galaxy, provided of course, that they are not Republicans.

12. The National Enquirer is read by people trapped in line at the grocery store.

13. The Seattle Times is read by people who have recently caught a fish and need something to wrap it in.

(Ed. Note:) El Ojo del Lago is read by people who ________?

Those who care to fill in the blank should send their replies to ojodellago@prodigy. net.mx Thanks!

Saw you in the Ojo 85

The Ojo Crossword

ACROSS 1 Use 6 Pat lightly 9 Bird´s home 13 Hay 14 Alien´s spaceship 15 Computer memory units 16 Furious 17 Feline 18 Capital of Ghana 19 Northeast by east 8QUH¿QHG 22 Possessive pronoun 23 Hair stuff 24 Alternative (abbr.)

25 Fibbed 27 Speaks 29 Plural of index 33 Stretch to make do 34 Explosive 35 Tropical bird 36 Spiky 39 Greedy person 40 Held the deed 41 Clip 42 Spelling contest 43 Winter sport 44 Watch someone 46 Salaam 49 Italian currency 50 Lingerie 51 Elver 53 Ref

86

El Ojo del Lago / December 2014

56 Gospel 58 Lazy 59 Saudi Arabian citizen 61 Pain unit 62 Wilted 63 Asian country 64 Estimated time of arrival 65 Mummer 66 Portrayed character 67 Part of a week 68 Sticky DOWN 1 Mistreating 2 Avenue 3 Crop land 4 Fence opening 5 Female sheep 6 Ticket to a performance 7 Far away 8 Canning 9 Big Apple (abbr.)

10 Engrave 11 Dried-up 12 Tyrant 15 Howled 20 Otherwise 21 Suggest 24 Alcoholic 26 Dolt 28 Soup legume 30 Able 31 Ogle 32 Melancholy 34 Digit 36 Short-term memory 37 For 38 Charged particle 39 Foretold 40 Gumbo 42 Drill a hole 43 Ride the waves 45 Shin 47 Solemn 48 Lemon color 50 Tie with a rope 52 Wary 53 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics 54 Bread spread 55 Knitting stitch 57 Small particle 58 What a mosquito bite does 60 Mold 62 Pocket

%\ -XG\ '\NVWUD %URZQ 5HYLHZHG E\ $QWRQLR 5DPEOpV

J

udy Dykstra-Brown’s latest effort, Sock Talk, is a big departure from her earlier works, which include a contribution to the short story collection Agave Maria, and her non-fiction work Lessons From A Grief Diary.

Sock Talk is a children’s book,written for ages 6 to 10, and is illustrated by San Juan Cosalá artist Isidro Xilonzóchitl. Most of the sixteen illustrations are colorful full pages. Any child or former child will find the theme of the book familiar, but Judy tells the story quite engagingly with the clear fingerprint of her own childhood experience always clear and present.

In this iteration of the tale, an aged maiden aunt gives the mundane gift of socks to the book’s young protagonist year after year, and the child at last resolves to confront her about the practice. The result is predictably unpredictable, and at one point both

emblazoned on their toes and heels.”

While the book is subtitled “A Christmas Story,” its related messages - that there’s more to things than meets the eye, and that a gift horse is not to be looked in the mouth - has an evergreen relevance. Written in rhyming verse, this book runs about 1,500 words. The writing style is reminiscent of Dr. Suess, and although it lacks the good doctor’s edginess and fanciful villains, it begs to be read aloud.

The illustrations harken back to a time before computer animation.

Their composition seems often al-

most Rockwell-esque, and the style evokes illustrations from children’s books of the ‘50’s and ‘60’s. The author has dedicated the book to her niece, with the clear implication that the author herself has a history of sock-giving. The book is available on Amazon as a Kindle e-book for $6.99, and as a large-print paperback for $12.99, and is the first in a planned series.

Antonio Ramblés

the child and the reader are resigned to the inevitability of yet another Christmas with no gift but socks: “Why don’t you try them on, my dear?” my Aunt Knox asked with awful cheer.

And she was grinning ear-to-ear as she held out some sox with seals

Saw you in the Ojo 87

â&#x20AC;&#x153;People Helping Peopleâ&#x20AC;?

The

Lŕľşŕś&#x201E;ŕľž Cŕś ŕľşŕś&#x2030;ŕľşŕś&#x2026;ŕľş Sŕś&#x2C6;ŕľźŕś&#x201A;ŕľžŕś?ŕś&#x2019;

News

www.lakechapalasociety.com

December 2014

Sign Up Time is Here!

To be included in the 2015 Membership Directory you must sign-up or renew your membership by December 15. LCS has developed new RSSRUWXQLWLHV DQG EHQHÂżWV IRU PHPEHUV IRU WKH QHZ \HDU :H KDYH QHZ HYHQWV PRUH GLYHUVLÂżHG EXV WULSV D QHZ ZHEVLWH DQG VRPH H[citing new partnerships like a new group car insurance program with Qualities Auto Insurance, which can save members 25% discount on Mexican and foreign plated cars. Arriva Hospitality Group will be selling to members discount and special hotel packages. Santo Coyote will be hosting trips to exciting cultural and special events in Guadalajara.

2015 will be a banner new year for all of LCS members.

LCS membership dues: single--$550 pesos, family of two--$950 pesos, family of Three---$1340 pesos, family of Four---$1750 pesos.

Please note: on-line sign-up is now available. If you have problems or special circumstances, please contact Executive Director Terry Vidal, at executivedirector@lakechapalasociety.com.

/&6 GLUHFWRU\ &RYHU Winner: Aaron Castillo age 17, 1st place.

&HOHEUDWH WKH +ROLGD\V ZLWK /&6

(YHU\RQH LV ZHOFRPH WR WKH ÂżQDO HYHQW RI WKH \HDU WKH Third Annual LCS Holiday Bash sponsored by the LCS 6LQJOHV EXW HYHU\RQH LV ZHOFRPH 2XU ÂżHVWD RQ WKH %DFN Patio at LCS features a wonderful dinner from Salvadorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s including roast turkey with dressing and gravy, baked ham, mashed potatoes, garden salad, vegetables, rolls, apple pie, chocolate cake and pumpkin pie. Dance to live music

by Ricardo and Blanca.

Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll party from 3 to 7 p.m. on Sunday, December 21.

Tickets are $200 pesos in advance and $240 pesos at the door available at LCS and Diane Pearlâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s. Contact Sue at 331-405-4911 or Tinker at 331-531-1464 for more information.

24, 25 and 31 December LCS is closed.

88

El Ojo del Lago / December 2014

/&6 LV SRZHUHG E\ H6XQ

&DVL 1XHYR :H :DQW <RXU 6WXII

Donations of stuff--furniture, household goods, childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s items, appliances, etc, to Casi Nuevo allows us to use the proceeds to support our three important charities: â&#x20AC;˘ School for Special Children â&#x20AC;˘ Have Hammerâ&#x20AC;ŚWill Travel â&#x20AC;˘ LCS Community Education Program Not only do we want your stuff to turn into cash for these charities, we want to help change your stuff into cash for you. Casi Nuevo Consignment Shop offers you 70%* of the price you set for your stuff. The rest goes to our charities.

Our team will display your stuff, and weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll sit with your stuff all the hours weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re open (10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Mon-Sat), so you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have to. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll sell your stuff for you!

(Be aware that we donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t accept or sell electronic stuff.)

We want your stuff and we want you! Yes, we want volunteers to work at our shop because without you we canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t do anything with the stuff we get. We have no paid staff, so volunteers are the very lifeblood of our ability to do the good work we do. Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d be surprised how much fun you can KDYH VHOOLQJ RWKHU SHRSOHÂśV VWXII 2XU KRXUV DUH Ă&#x20AC;H[LEOH DQG we can train you if you have no retail experience.

We want your money, too. Sorry to be so direct, but weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re in business to support our charities. We have such a wonderful range of great stuff youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll want you to come by and shop with us. Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll be surprised at the great stuff you can get to replace the stuff you donate.

By the way, we can even handle whole house estate sales when you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want any more of your stuff! Our skilled staff will handle all the details. Contact us for more information on pick-up, display, and pricing of all your stuff.

For more information about any and all of our services, Contact us at 106-2121 or at CasiNuevoAjijic@gmail.com.

Thank you.

Subject to consignment terms. Ask in the shop for details.

LCS Spanish Classes :DUUHQ +DUG\ 6SDQLVK &ODVVHV

7KH ÂżUVW WHUP RI WKH :DUUHQ +DUG\ 6SDQLVK /DQJXDJH Classes will run from Monday, January 5 through February 21. The LCS Spanish program uses the Warren Hardy fourlevel language course designed for adult students.

You may sign-up the week of December 29 (except New Yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Day) from 11a.m. to 1p.m. at LCS at the Blue Umbrella Patio. The instructor will be available to evaluate the level of instruction appropriate for you.

Classes are $750 pesos. The required text and additional support materials are also available. Check in the Service 2IÂżFH IRU VDOHV DQG PRUH LQIRUPDWLRQ Introduction to Spanish This is a casual class offered for the beginner that covers the Spanish alphabet, simple vocabulary, phrases to use about town, and other useful information about Lakeside and Mexican culture. &ODVVHV DUH KHOG WKH ÂżUVW 7XHVGD\ RI WKH PRQWK DQG UXQ IRU three weeks at the LCS campus from noon until 1:30 p.m.

Materials are provided and tuition is $175 pesos. Sign up DW WKH /&6 RIÂżFH IURP D P WR S P 0RQGD\ WKURXJK Saturday.

For more information, contact us at 766-1140, lakechapalasociety.com. or you may contact email coordinator Peter Donaldson spanishprogram@lakechapalasociety.com.

1HZ DQG 5HWXUQLQJ $FWLYLWLHV IRU 'HFHPEHU

Costco returns to LCS on Tuesday and Wednesday, December 9 and 10 for membership, renewals, and sales information at the Blue Umbrella Patio.

Blood pressure screenings Mondays and Fridays-Back Patio.

All three computer discussion groups (Windows, iPad, iPod, iPhone, and Android) have merged into All Things Tech and will meet in the Sala Fridays from 9:30 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 11:30 a.m.

Sign up for the December iPad classes lcsipadclasses@gmail. Member number is required. Classes meet Thursdays 10-11:45 a.m. in the Sala.

Balance and Core, low-impact stretch, balance, and core exercises will be held on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9-9:50 a.m. in the Gazebo.

Contact Jackie Webb at JackieWebb2020@gmail for more information.

Bring a mat and have fun!

7LPH FKDQJH )LOP $ÂżFLRQDGRV HYHU\ 7KXUVGD\ IURP S P The continuing education Neill James Lecture Series returns to LCS on Tuesdays from 2-4 p.m in the Sala.

The Lake Chapala History Club meets Tuesday, December 16 at 1:30 p.m. Part one of a two-part series on the life of legendary diva Maria Calles, including some marvelous performances.

Important note: Information and arrangements for bus trips, sales of books, and donations to the kitty fund can now be made in the service RIÂżFH <RX FDQ SXUFKDVH RXU ZRQGHUIXO FKLOGUHQÂśV DUW FDUGV DW WKH /&6 Patio Cafe.

Have You Noticed?

Our rear garden pond has been drained, cleaned, sealed and reÂżOOHG 7KH NRL QRZ VZLPPLQJ LQ WKHLU WHPSRUDU\ KRPH LQ WKH %OXH 8Pbrella Patio pond, will return soon. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll add some new plants so we can have a clean, beautiful water feature once again.

/&6 %XV 7ULSV IRU 'HFHPEHU +ROLGD\ 6KRSSLQJ

7XHVGD\ 'HFHPEHU Galerias Mall Visit Liverpool, Sears, Best Buy, specialty stores, and food including Chiliâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s, Krispy Kreme, Outback, and the new PF Chang and Cheesecake Factory. Also nearby are WalMart, Sams, Costco and Mega. Depart from the sculpture in La Floresta at 9:30 a.m. $250 pesos. :HGQHVGD\ 'HFHPEHU 3OD]D $QGDUHV Includes Liverpool, Puerta GH +LHUUR %HVW %X\ &DOYLQ .OHLQ 7RPP\ +LOÂżJHU DQG VSHFLDOW\ VWRUHV such as The Body Shop, Birkenstock and a wonderful selection of restaurants.

Lots of trips are being planned for next year, including some of the favorites and a few new outings to be announced later.

,WÂśV WKDW WLPH RI \HDU DJDLQ

Every year the Childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Art Program produces a holiday catalog. Buy your Holiday Cards now in time to mail up north, to add to your collection. The kidsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; share of the proceeds helps our children and their families at this time of year.

Our Holiday Card catalog is on the website. Select a new card or a classic from years gone by. Holiday Cards will also be available for sale a few days each week at the LCS Patio CafĂŠ.

The Ajijic Society of the Arts wants you to save the date for the annual Open Studio Event, February 7 and 8, 2015 the proceeds of which go to the LCS Childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Art Program.

Saw you in the Ojo 89

DECEMBER ACTIVITIES *Open to the Public ** US Citizens (S) Sign in required (C) Membership card required &58= 52-$ Cruz Roja Sales Table Mon-Fri 10-1 CRIV Monthly Meeting 2nd Wed 2-5 +($/7+ ,1685$1&( IMSS & Immigration Services Mon+Tues 10-1 Met Life Health Insurance Tues+Thur 11-2 San Javier December 18 10-2 +($/7+ /(*$/ 6(59,&(6 Becerra Immigration Fri 10:30-1 Blood Pressure Mon+Fri 10-12 Diabetes Screening (no sign up) 2nd+3rd Fri 10-12 Hearing Aid Services (S) Mon+2nd+4th, Sat 11-4 Loridans Legal Tues 10-12 Ministerio Publico December 3 +17 10-12 Optometrist (S) Thur 9-5 Pharmaceutical Consultations 2nd+4th Mon 10-12 Skin Cancer Screening (S) 2nd + 4th Wed 10-12 US Consulate** December 10 Wed 10-12 LESSONS Balance and Core Exercise Tues-Thur 9-9:50 Childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Art Sat 10-12* Childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Reading Program Sat 9-10* Exercise Mon+Wed+Fri 9-10 HH Workshop Demo Wed 10-12* Intermediate Hatha Yoga Tue+ Thur 2-3:30, Sat 1-2:30 Line Dancing Tues+Thur 10-11:15 LIBRARIES Audio Thur 10-12 Book & Video Mon-Sat 10-2 Library of Congress Books**/ Talking Books Thur 10-12 Wilkes Mon-Fri 9:30-7, Sat 9:30-1 SOCIAL ACTIVITIES All Things Tech Beginnerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Android Classes Bridge 4 Fun Conversaciones en EspaĂąol English/Spanish Conversation )LOP $ÂżFLRQDGRV Genealogy Forum History Club iPad Classes (Sign up in Nov.) Mac OS Mac User Group Needle Pushers Neill James Lecture Series Open Gaming (open to the public from 2) Scottish Country Dancing Scrabble TED Learning Seminars Tournament Scrabble Windows Discussion Group

Fri 9:30-11:30 Tue 9:30-11:30 Mon+Wed 1-5 Mon 10-12 Sat 11-12 7KXU Last Mon 2-4 Wed 1:30-4 Thur 10-11:45 1st Mon 12-1 3rd Wed 1-2 Tues 10-12 Tues 2-4 Mon 1-3:45* Thur 11:30-1:30 Mon+Fri 12-2 Tues 12-1:20 Tues 12-2 Fri 10:30-11:45

6(59,&( 6833257 *52836 Gamblers Anonymous Wed 11-1 Information Desk Mon-Sat 10-2 Lakeside AA Mon +Thur 4-6 Open Circle Sun 10-12:30 SMART Recovery Wed 2:30-4:30 7,&.(7 6$/(6 0RQGD\ )ULGD\

Report Crime!

0LQLVWHULR 3XEOLFR LV KHUH WKH ÂżUVW DQG WKLUG :HGQHVGD\ RI the month with a bi-lingual attorney present to assist you LQ ÂżOLQJ GHQXQFLDV FULPLQDO FRPSODLQWV

90

El Ojo del Lago / December 2014

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1HZ IRU 'HFHPEHU See the Video Library bulletin board and the binders on WKH FRXQWHU WR ÂżQG ÂżOPV RI LQWHUHVW This is a partial list of the new additions. Space considerations limit us to this abbreviated format. Please see the LCS web page or the green catalogs outside the Video Library to get full review of 20+ new additions.

The Best Offer #6735 Geoffrey Rush and Jim Sturgess Crime Blood Diamond #6743 Leonardo Di Caprio and Jennifer Connelly Adventure 7KH *UHDW %HDXW\ #6731 Toni Servillo and Carlo Verdone Foreign Comedy :RUGV DQG 3LFWXUHV #6734 Clive Owen and Juliette Binoche Comedy Dolphin Tale #6732 Harry Connick Jr. and Ashley Judd Drama *RQH %DE\ *RQH #6744 &DVH\ $IĂ&#x20AC;HFN DQG (G +DUULV Crime Open Range #6741 Robert Duvall and Kevin Costner Action :H FDQ KHOS \RX VHOHFW D ÂżOP IURP WKH PRUH WKDQ YLGHRV ZH KDYH LQ inventory. If you have old tapes youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d like transferred to compact durable DVD discs, we can do that for $50 pesos per tape. ,I WKHUHÂśV D ÂżOP \RX KDYHQÂśW VHHQ RU ZRXOG OLNH WR VHH DJDLQ DVN WKH YROXQteer on duty if we have it. If we donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t, jot down the title, your name and email address and weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll let your know if and when we might add it to our library. We have many VHS tapes and some DVDs for sale at only $5 pesos each.

Charros Baseball in December

The remaining Thursday game has been cancelled, but plenty of action remains. Catch the Charros game hosted by Santo Coyote on Sunday, November 30 when they play against Caneros de Mochis. On Sunday December 7, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Charros vs Aguilas de Mexicali. On Sunday December 28, Charros will oppose Venados de Mazatlan.

Game time is 12 noon, so weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll depart at 10 a.m. from the sculpture in La)ORUHVWD 3ULFH LQFOXGHV WUDQVSRUWDWLRQ DQG 9,3 2XWÂżHOG WLFNHW Members pay $250 pesos and non-members $275 pesos. Get your tickets early. We need a minimum of 10 people and a maximum 45 to book this trip. iPad Classes for December The next four weekly iPad classes starts on Thursday, December 4. For more information and to sign up email lcsipadclasses@gmail.com. Be sure to include your member number when contacting us. :HÂśUH /RRNLQJ IRU 6SHFLDO (YHQW 9ROXQWHHUV We need volunteers who like to work with their hands to assist coordinator Karla Boentgen with decorations for our special events. If you have a bit of FUHDWLYH Ă&#x20AC;DLU ZHÂśG ORYH WR KDYH \RX ZRUN ZLWK XV )RU PRUH LQIRUPDWLRQ FDOO Karla at 766-0461 or 331-264-0483.

IT Position Open :H QHHG D TXDOLÂżHG FDQGLGDWH ZKR KDV H[SHULHQFH LQ EXLOGLQJ FRPSXWHUV installing software, and working with networks, including overall troubleshooting. Position requires climbing stairs several times a day. Contact IT manager at lcsitmgr@gmail.com.

Post-Life Volunteers Needed

We need computer literate volunteers to assist members who want to participate in the LCS Post-Life program. If are computer savvy, enjoy working with the public, and can enter data with accuracy, we need your help. Visit the 6HUYLFH 2IÂżFH RU FDOO XV DW IRU PRUH LQIRUPDWLRQ

)ROORZ 8V RQ )DFHERRN

Now you can follow us on Facebook. You can keep up on all things LCS - programs, activities, upcoming special events, updates and news. Like us at www.facebook.com/lakechapalasociety.

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Join Linda R. Harley, chef and cooking instructor, in a memorable cooking experience. Formerly of the Urban Kitchen in New York City, she offers passion, culinary expertise, and her 35 years of living and cooking throughout Latin American and the Caribbean.

Taste authentic Mexican cuisine in small, intimate hands-on classes which include time for questions about Mexico's role in the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cuisines. Cost includes all ingredients, and we will eat what we prepare. $300 pesos per class. 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

0H[LFRÂśV &XOLQDU\ *LIWV WR WKH :RUOG â&#x20AC;&#x201C; an introduction â&#x20AC;&#x201C; December 1, 11a.m. to 1p.m. $300 Register by November 26 Mexico has given the culinary world more ingredients than any other culture, including tomatoes, chile, corn, beans, avocado, cacao - even the poinsettia plant - la noche buena. We will focus on the versatility of corn - from appetizers to soups. We'll make the perfect 'sope' (a delightful little corn cake with a layHUHG WRSSLQJ RI EHDQV FKLFNHQ DQG FUHDP DQG ÂżQLVK ZLWK D delicious corn chowder using at least two colors of corn. Our agua fresca will be of a seasonal fruit.

Tianguis to Table December 3, $300 Register by December 1 Please note time change: starts 10 a.m. -1 p.m. We will meet at Salvadore's Restaurant and walk the tianguis to learn about this regionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s many fresh vegetables, then go to the Casa Grande Kitchen and make a typical comida corrida. Vegetarian meal with a sopa, veggie entree, and agua fresca of seasonal fruit. %RWDQDV DSSHWL]HUV KRUV GÂśRHXYUHV WDSDV \ FDQWLQD IRRG December 4 $300 Register by December 1 Mexicans love a ÂżHVWD VR OHW V HQMR\ VRPH ÂżQJHU IRRGV 7LQ\ tortillas turn into little Ă&#x20AC;DXWDV stuffed with chicken; chubby tortillas become gorditas stuffed with a tasty chorizo-bean mix, and our steaming consomme (beef broth) will have a drizzle of tequila. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll have traditional agua fresca of seasonal fruit.

Sopas Mexicanas December 8 $300 Register by December 4 Mexicans love soups. Some are dry - sopa de arroz, some are brothy - caldo, some are refreshing - sopa de lima, but today weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll concentrate on one of the most traditional-sopa de tortilla with its sublime use of chile guajillo for color and an assortment of delicious garnishes: chicken, tortilla strips, crema, lettuce, avocado, etc. Delicioso!

Tianguis to Table- December 10 $300 Register by December 8 Please note time change: meet at 10 a.m. For the last class of 2014, weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll meet at Salvadorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s and walk the tianguis. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll have time for questions and answers while shopping for a delicious chicken-based comida corrida-veggies, and a chicken entree with a new seasonal aqua fresca. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll walk back to Casa Grande to prepare our lunch. Buen provecho!

THURSDAY FILM AFICIONADOS

/&6 0HPEHUV 2QO\ %ULQJ <RXU &DUG $OO ÂżOPV VKRZQ LQ WKH 6DOD IURP S P No food No pets 'HFHPEHU 2I +RUVHV DQG 0HQ Iceland - 2013 This Academy Award submission, one of the most imaginative and beautiIXOO\ ÂżOPHG PRYLHV \RX OO HYHU VHH LV D SV\FKRORJLFDOO\ SHQHWUDWLQJ YLHZ LQWR WKH PLQGV RI PHQ DQG EHDVWV <RX YH QHYHU VHHQ D ÂżOP TXLWH OLNH WKLV one!

December 11 Tangerines Estonia/Georgia - 2014 During the in Abkhazia in 1990 an Estonian man, Ivo, has stayed behind to KDUYHVW KLV WDQJHULQHV :LWK D EORRG\ FRQĂ&#x20AC;LFW DW KLV GRRU D ZRXQGHG PDQ is left behind, and Ivo is forced to take him in. Submitted as an Academy Award entry.

'HFHPEHU %LOO USA - 1981 Bill, a retarded man, ventures out into the ZRUOG RQ KLV RZQ IRU WKH ÂżUVW WLPH KDYLQJ VSHQW PRVW RI KLV OLIH LQ D GUHDU\ institution.

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TED Learning Seminars for December Members only. All seminars noon until 1:15 p.m in the Sala.

December 2 Chaired by Ron Mullenaux and featuring Ron Simon Sinek. â&#x20AC;&#x153;How Great Leaders Inspire Actionâ&#x20AC;? considers how leaders can inspire cooperation, trust and change, exploring the idea of the Golden Circle, â&#x20AC;&#x153;a naturally occurring pattern, grounded in the biology of human decision making, that explains why we are inspired by some people, leaders, messages, and organizations.â&#x20AC;?

December 9 Chaired by Fred Harland features Anne Curzan: â&#x20AC;&#x153;What Makes a Word Realâ&#x20AC;?? English professor and language historian Anne Curzan is fascinated by how people use words and how this changes. She is a collector of slang words arguing that slang words like â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;hangry,â&#x20AC;&#x2122; â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;defriendâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; DQG ÂľDGRUNDEOHÂś ÂżOO FUXFLDO PHDQLQJ JDSV LQ WKH (QJOLVK ODQJXDJH HYHQ LI they donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t appear in the dictionary. As she puts it in her talk, â&#x20AC;&#x153;The English ODQJXDJH LV ULFK YLEUDQW DQG ÂżOOHG ZLWK WKH FUHDWLYLW\ RI WKH SHRSOH ZKR speak it.â&#x20AC;?

December 16 Chaired by Reba Mayo features Pamela Meyer, author of â&#x20AC;&#x153;Liespotting.â&#x20AC;? Research indicating who lies (all of us), why, and how to know when youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re on the receiving end of a lie. Is lying is a cooperative activity involving both the liar and the recipient in an act of complicity? She UHĂ&#x20AC;HFWV RQ WKH GUDPDWLF FRVWV RI GHFHSWLRQ DQG KRZ ZH FDQ EXLOG D ZRUOG where trust and character still matter.

December 23 Chaired by Rick Rhoda features Jonathan Haidtâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s presentation: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Religion, Evolution, and the Ecstasy of Self-transcendenceâ&#x20AC;?.

Psychologist Haidt investigates why we search for spiritualism, self-transcendence, a sense of escaping from our everyday life, and feeling at one with ourselves and the universe. Haidt draws upon evolution, asking why some types of human groups survive while other do not.

THE LAKE CHAPALA SOCIETY, A.C. 16 de Septiembre #16-A, Ajijic, Jalisco LCS Main Office: (376) 766-1140 Office, information and other services - Monday-Saturday, 10:00 am to 2:00 pm. Grounds open until 5:00 pm LCS BOARD OF DIRECTORS President - Ben White (2016); Vice-President - Cate Howell (2015); Treasurer - Michael Searles (2015); Secretary - Carole Wolff (2016); Directors: Lois Cugini (2015); Ernest Gabbard (2016); Aurora Michel Galindo (2015); Fred Harland (2015); Keith Martin (2016); Pete Soderman (2016); Executive Director - Terry Vidal

The LCS Newsletter is published monthly. Deadline for submissions is the 17th of the month preceding publication.

News items may be e-mailed to Reba Mayo rebaelizabethhill@yahoo.com; cc to Terry Vidal tqv56431@yahoo.com Note: The editorial staff reserves the right to edit all submissions according to time, space availability and editorial decision.

Saw you in the Ojo 91

92

El Ojo del Lago / December 2014

Saw you in the Ojo 93

Service

EMERGENCY NUMBERS

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DIRECTORY $'9(57,6,1* ',5(&725<

%((5 /,4825 6725(6

(/ 2-2 '(/ /$*2 Tel. 765-3676

$/&2+2/,&6 $121<0286 - ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS Tel: 766-5961

3DJ

$1,0$/ &/,1,&6 3(7 6+23 - CLINICA VETERINARIA SAN ANTONIO Tel: 766-0808

3DJ '((¶6 3(7 +27(/ Tel: 762-1646

3DJ /$.(6,'( )5,(1'6 2) 7+( $1,0$/6 $& Tel: 765-5544 Pag: 35 0$6.27$¶6 /$.( Tel: 766-0287 Pag: 91 - PET PLACE Cell: 333-1964-150

3DJ - PET FOOD AND GROOMING Tel: 766-3062

3DJ

$57 *$//(5,(6 +$1'&5$)76 - ART HOUSE Tel: 765-5097 3DJ $/)5('2¶6 *$/(5,$ Tel: 766-2980 Pag: 79 $=7(& 678',26

3DJ - DIANE PEARL COLECCIONES Tel: 766-5683 Pag: 07 - EL PALOMAR Tel: 01 (33) 3635-8089 3DJ - LA BELLA VIDA Tel: 766-5131 Pag: 37 - SOL MEXICANO Tel: 766-0734 Pag: 20 - THE CREATIVE HEART Tel: 766-0496 Pag: 65 =$5$*2=$ Tel: 766-7049, 766-0573 Pag: 22

$872027,9( - LINEA PROFESIONAL Tel. 766-2555, Fax. 766-0066

3DJ

%$1. ,19(670(17 3DJ Pag: 10

%$5%(5 6+23 Pag: 91

%($87< - AFRODITA Tel: 766-6187 - CRISCO SALON Tel: 766-4073 - GLORIOSA Tel: 766-3372 - GLOSS - Nail Salon Tel: 108-0848 - MARIALE Tel: 766-4229 1(: /22. 678',2 Tel: 766-6000 3(50$1(7 0$.(83 %< +5/ Tel: 333-676-2514

3DJ 3DJ Pag: 22 Pag: 11 3DJ Pag: 19 3DJ

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3DJ

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Pag: 11 Pag: 29 Pag: 15

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- FUMIGA Cell: (045) 33-1303-7764 - VIDA VERDE Cell: 33-1082-6807

- AD HOC DESIGN Tel: 766-2877 Pag: 69 - 7(0385 0$775(66 $1' 3,//2:6 Tel: (52) 333-629-5919, (52) 33 3611-3049 Pag: 35

3DJ 3DJ 3DJ

Pag: 27

$8720$7,=(' *$5$*( '2256 5 * Cell: (045) 33-3446-5770, 33-3874-4445 3DJ - AUTOMATIC GARAGE DOOR OPENERS Tel: 766-4973 Pag: 72

- ATLAS COUNTRY Cell. 33-3829-1059

3DJ

&216758&7,21 $54 3('52 $5(//$12 $552<2 3DJ - EME ARQUITECTOS Tel: 765-4324

3DJ - GENERAL HOME SERVICES - $PDQFLR 5DPRV -U Cell: (045) 331-520-3054 Pag: 10 - MARBLE & GRANITE Tel: 766-1306 Pag: 73 - ROBERTO MILLÁN ARCHITECT Tel: 766-3771 Pag: 56 - ONLINE ARCHITECTURAL TECHNOLOGY Tel: 331-252-1613 Pag: 60 7+( /$.( +$1'<0$1 *(1(5$/ CONTRACTOR Cell: (045) 33-3459-5533 3DJ :$5:,&. &216758&7,21 Tel: 765-2224

3DJ

'(17,676 & ' 0$5Ë$ /8,6$ /8,6 9,//$ Tel/Fax: 766-2428 Pag: 07 & ' 6$1'5$ $1$<$ 025$ Tel: 765-3502, Cell: 331-218-6241 Pag: 11 - CHAPALA DENTAL CARE Tel. 765-5584, 766-3847 3DJ - DENTAL EXPRESS Tel: 106-2080 3DJ - DENTAL HEALTH ONE Tel: 1060-826 3DJ '(17$/ 2)),&( 'U )UDQFLVFR &RQWUHUDV Tel: 765-5757 3DJ - DENTAL PLASTICA LIFT Tel: 108-0595 Pag: 19 '5 $/%(572 '21 2/,9(5$ Tels: 765-4838, 765-4805 Pag: 12 '5 $1*(/ 0('(/(6 Tel: 766-5050 Pag: 63 '5$ $1*(/,&$ $/'$1$ /(0$ ''6 Tel: 765-5364 3DJ '5$ 5(%(&$ 6$1'29$/

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Pag: 31

Pag: 73

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Pag: 17

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+($/7+ /$.( &+$3$/$ &(17(5 )25 63,5,78$/ LIVING Tel: 766-0920 Pag: 90 - THE NATURAL HEALTH CENTER Tel: 331-944-0815, 766-5130, 333-676-1999, 106-0839 Pag: 53

+($5,1* $,'6 /$.(6,'( +($5,1* 6(59,&(6 Cell. (045) 33-1511-4088

Pag: 90

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Tel. (477) 745-2067

3DJ - HOTEL PERICO Cell: 33-3142-0012 Pag: 63 - LA NUEVA POSADA Tel: 766-1444, Fax: 766-2049 Pag: 03 48,17$ '21 -26( Tel: 01-800-700-2223 Pag: 60 - VILLAS DEL SOL Tel: 766-1152

3DJ

,03257(' ,7(06 - CASA GOURMET

Tel: 766-5070

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,1685$1&( - BLUE ANGEL Tel: 766-0547 - EDGAR CEDEÑO - MEXICO PROTECT Cell: (045) 33-3106-6982 3$5.(5 ,1685$1&( 6(59,&(6 Cell: (33) 3809-7116 - PROTEXPLAN U.S. Toll Free 1-800-608-5743 Mexico Toll Free 01-800-681-6730 5$&+(/¶6 ,1685$1&( Tel/Fax: 765-4316 - TIOCORP Tel: 766-3978 :(67 &2$67 0(;,&2 ,1685$1&( Tel: (818) 788-5353

3DJ Pag: 20 Pag: 39 Pag: 26 Pag: 36 Pag: 31 3DJ

/,*+7,1* 48,&. %/,1'6 Tel: 766-3091

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Pag: 02

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Pag: 61 3DJ Pag: 30

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Pag: 76

Pag: 16

El Ojo del Lago / December 2014

- GARDEN CENTER Tel: 765-59-73 - GARDEN DESIGN Tel: 766-3843 / 5 :$7(5 *$5'(16 Tel: 766-4386

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Pag: 21

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- BARBERSHOP - COYOTE

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Tel: 106 0839 - HÉCTOR HARO DDS Tel: 765-3193

EMERGENCY HOTLINE $0%8/$1&( &58= 52-$ FIRE DEPARTMENT POLICE $MLMLF

&KDSDOD

La Floresta

$/7$ 5(7,1$ 'U 5LJREHUWR 5LRV /HyQ Ophthalmic Surgeon Tel: 766-1521 Pag: 31, 50 - CARE Tel: 765-4805, 765-4838 Pag: 57 - CASITA MONTAÑA MEDICAL CENTER Tel: -766-5513 Pag: 50-51 - CHAPALA MED Tel: 765-7777, Cell: 33-3950-9414 Pag: 25 &/,1,&$ < )$50$&,$ 0$6.$5$6 Tel: 765-4805 Pag: 77 - DERMATOLOGIST Tel: 765-2400, Cell. 333-170-6570 Pag: 60 '(50,.$ 'HUPDWRORJLF &HQWHU Tel: 766-2500 Pag: 22 - DOCTOR PINTO OPTICAS Tel: 765-7793 Pag: 32 '5 -26( +$52 )(51$1'(= Tel. 766-5154 Cell. 044-33-111-57-174 3DJ '5 *$%5,(/ '( - 9$5(/$ 5,=2 1HXURORJ\ DQG 1HXURVXUJHU\ Tel: 765-6666 Pag: 70 '5 -8$1 $&(9(6 1RQ 6XUJLFDO /RVV Programs Tel: -766-5513 Pag: 50 '5 /8&$6 &255$/ Tel: 3641-1958, 3641-1960 3DJ '5 0$18(/ $&(9(6 6XUJLFDO /RVV 3URJUDPV Tel: -766-5513 Pag: 50 '5 0$5< /28 9,//$5$1 &OLQLFDO 3V\FKLDWULVW Tel: -766-5513 Pag: 50 '5$ 0$57+$ 5 %$//(67(526 )5$1&2 Cell: (045) 333-408-0951 Pag: 17 *2 /$% /DNH &KDSDOD Tel: 106-0881 Pag: 35 - HOSPITAL ANGELES DEL CARMEN Tel: (01) 3813-0042 3DJ - ISILAB Tel: 766-1164 3DJ /$.(6,'( &$5',2/2*< &/,1,& Tel: (387) 763-0665 Pag: 37 /$.(6,'( 0(',&$/ *5283 Tel: 766-0395 Pag: 33 - MED INTEGRITY Tel: 766-5154 Pag: 16 - PLASTIC SURGEON-6HUJLR $JXLOD %LPEHOD 0 ' Tel: 108-0595 Pag: 19 3/$67,& 685*(5< 'U %HQMDPLQ 9LOODUDQ Tel: 766-5513, Cell 044-333-105-0402 Pag: 51 - PLASTIC SURGERY & RECONSTRUCTIVE 'U 0DQXHO -LPpQH] GHO 7RUR

Tel: 765-4805 5,&$5'2 +(5(',$ 0 ' Tel: 765-2233 - VARICOSE VEINS TREATMENT Tel: 765-4805

Pag: 71 Pag: 70 3DJ

029(56 /$.( &+$3$/$ 029,1* Tel: 766-5008 67520 :+,7( 029(56 Tel: 766-4049

Pag: 06 Pag: 17

086,& 7+($75( ' - +2:$5' Tel: 766-3044 Pag: 32 *5($7 -$== Tel: 333-676-4042 3DJ /$.(6,'( /,77/( 7+($75( Tel: 766-0954 Pag: 59 7+( 1$.(' 67$*( 5($'(5Âś6 7+($75( Tel: 765-3262 Pag: 12

1856(5< - LAS PALMAS Cell: 33-3170-1776/33-1195-7112 3DJ 9,9(52 $=8&(1$ Tel. 766-4289 Pag: 60

3$,17 48,52= ,PSHUPHDELOL]DQWHV Tel: 766-2311 48,52= 3LQWXUDV Tel: 766-5959

Pag: 72 3DJ

3(5621$/ $66,67$1&( 1(:&20(56 ,/6( +2))0$11 ilsecarlota40@gmail.com, www.guadalajarachapalatravelguide.com Tel 01(33)3647-3912 Cell 33-3157-2541

3DJ 3DJ Pag: 23 Pag: 76 Pag: 03, 21 Pag: 61 Pag: 05 Pag: 55

5(17$/6 3523(57< 0$1$*(0(17 &2/':(//%$1.(5 &+$3$/$ 5($/7< Tel: 766-1152, movile: (045) 33-1175-9632 3DJ - FOR RENT Tel: 765-2671 Pag: 90 - FOR RENT 3DJ Tel: 3615-9356 - HACIENDA PMR Tel: 766-3320 Pag: 65 -25*( 7255(6 Tel: 766-3737 Pag: 27 0$1=$1,//2 9$&$7,21 5(17$/6 Tel: (314) 100-6773 or (314) 109-0657 3DJ - RENTAL CENTER Tel: 765-3838 3DJ - RENTAL LOCATERS Pag: 76 Tel: 766-5202 - ROMA Tel: 766-3163 3DJ - SANTANA RENTALS Cell: 315-104-3283,

3DJ - VILLAS DEL SOL Tel: 766-1152

3DJ

5(67$85$176 &$)(6

3+$50$&,(6 - FARMACIA CRISTINA Tel: 766-1501 - FARMACIA EXPRESS II Tel: 766-0656 )$50$&,$ 0$6.$5$6 Tel/Fax: 765-5827 - FARMACIA Ă&#x161;NICA Tel: 766-0523, Cell. (33) 3190-0010

- LUCI MERRITT Cell (045) 331-545-6589 - MPR REAL ESTATE Tel: (315) 351-5167 12e /23(= Cell: 331-047-9607 3(7(5 67 -2+1 Tel: 765-3676 5$8/ *21=$/(= Cell: 33-1437-0925 - SANDI ALLIN BRISCOE Tel: 765-2484 - VISTA ALEGRE Tel: 766-4867 - VISTA LAGO Tel. (33) 3616 4536, 3125 6363

Pag: 91 Pag: 75 3DJ Pag: 39

322/ 0$,17(1$1&( - EQUIPMENT AND POOL MAINTENANCE Tel: 766-1617 3DJ

5($/ (67$7( $-,-,& +20( ,163(&7,216 Tel: 766-2836 Pag: 09 - ALL IN ONE REAL ESTATE SERVICE Tel: 766-1161 Pag: 15 - ALMA NIEMBRO Cell. 331-212-9553 Pag: 67 %(9 -($1 &2)(// +RPH 2IÂżFH Pag: 72 - CHULA VISTA NORTE Tel: 766-2177 Cell: (045) 33-3841-8867 3DJ - CIELOVISTA Tel: 766-4867 Pag: 05 &2/':(// %$1.(5 &+$3$/$ 5($/7< Tel: 766-1152, 766-3369 Fax: 766-2124, Tels: 765-2877 Fax: 765-3528 Pag: 100 - COLLINS REAL ESTATE Tel: 766-4197 3DJ - CUMBRES Tel: 766-4867 Pag: 05 - DON SNELL Cell 33-1005-9129 3DJ - EAGER & ASOCIADOS Tel: (376) 766 1917, 1918 Pag: 99 )25 6$/( %< 2:1(5 Cell: (045) 33-3149-9415 3DJ )25 6$/( %< 2:1(5 Tel: 106-0862 Pag: 62 )25 6$/( %< 2:1(5 Tel: 315-351-7458 Pag: 36 )25 6$/( %< 2:1(5 Tel: 765-7749 Pag: 90 )25 6$/( %< 2:1(5 Cell: 333-100-3013 3DJ )25 6$/( %< 2:1(5 Cell: 331-252-0071 3DJ )25 6$/( %< 2:1(5 Cell: 33-1384-2821 Pag: 71 )25 6$/( %< 2:1(5 Cell: 3311 4348 23 Tel. (33) 3133 0218 3DJ )25 6$/( %< 2:1(5 Tel: 36-100-416, 36 101 264 3DJ - GERARDO MEDINA Cell. 331-121-7034 3DJ - GEORGETTE RICHMOND Tel: 766-2077 Pag: 11

5(67$85$17( Tel: 766-1360 Pag: 33, 39, 59 $-,-,& 7$1*2 Tel: 766-2458 3DJ - ARILEO Tel: 106-1627 Pag: 36 %5812Âś6 Tel: 766-1674 Pag: 62 - CAFE PARIS Pag: 69 - CASA FUERTE Tels: 3639-6474 / 81 Pag: 17 - CHRISTMAS PIES & OLD ENGLISH FRUIT &$.(6 Tel: 765-4412, 333 156 9382 Pag: 76 - GO LE CLUB Cell: (045) 33-3502-6555 Pag: 23 -$60,1(Âś6 &ODVVLF ,QGLD Tel: 766-2636 Pag: 30 -$5',1 '( 1,1(77( Tel: 766-4905 Pag: 13 -2+$1$6 Tel: 765-0437 Pag: 56 -867 &+,//,1 Tel: 766-3437 Pag: 56 - HOSTERIA DEL ARTE Tel: 33-1410-1707 Pag: 62 - HUERTO CAFĂ&#x2030; Tel: 108-0843 3DJ /$ &$6$ '(/ :$))/( Tel: 766-1946 Pag: 19 /$ %2'(*$ '( $-,-,& Tel: 766-1002 3DJ - LA HACIENDA DE DON PEDRO Tel: 766-4906 Pag: 61, 79 - LA MISION Tel: 108-0887 3DJ - LA NONA Cell: 33-1130-9584 Pag: 69 - LA PAELLA DE MARIA Cell. 33-1438-9706 Pag: 36 - LA NUEVA POSADA Tel: 766-1444, 766-2049 Pag: 03 Âł /$ 7$9(51$´'(, 48$7752 025, Tel: 766-2848 3DJ - LA UNA Tel: 766-2072 Pag: 67 - LOS MOLLETES Tel: 766-4296 Pag: 76 - MANIX Tel: 766-0061 Pag: 72 0(/Âś6 Cell. 331-402-4223

3DJ 020Âś6 '(/, 5(67$85$17 Tel: 765-5719 Pag: 06 - PANINO Tel: 766 3822 Pag: 55 - PARRILLA DEL CHĂ&#x2030; Tel: 766-0823 Pag: 73 3(55<Âś6

Tel: 766-2841 Pag: 77 3,==(5,$ 726&$1$ Tel: 765-6996 3DJ 67 5(0< Tel: 766-0607 Pag: 66 7$%$5.$

Tel: 766-1588 - TASTE OF THAI Tel:333-203-8531 7+( 3($&2&. *$5'(1 Tel: 766-1381 - TRATTORIA DI AXIXIC Tel: 766-3796, Cell. 33-1795-5253 721<Âś6 Tel: 766-1614, 766-4069 - YVES Tel: 766-3565

Pag: 75 3DJ Pag: 32 3DJ Pag: 30 Pag: 77

5(7,5(0(17 5(67 1856,1* +20(6 - ALICE NURSING HOME Tel: 766 1194, 766 2999 - EL PARAISO Tel: 766-2365 - LA CASA NOSTRA Tel: 765-3824 - LA VALENTINA Tel: 766-5179 /$.( &+$3$/$ 1856,1* +20( Tel: 766-0404

3DJ Pag: 91 Pag: 03 Pag: 23 Pag: 77

6$7(//,7(6 7 9 $-,-,& (/(&7521,&6 6 $ '( & 9 Tel/Fax: 766-1117, 766-3371 - SATELLITE SERVICE Cell: 331-631-7161 6+$: 6$7(//,7( 6(59,&(6 Tel: 33-1402-4223

Pag: 33 Pag: 70 Pag: 91

3DJ

6(&85,7< $/$50 6<67(0 0 * 0 $/$506 Cell: 331-343-0865

Pag: 29

6(/) 6725$*( - SELF STORAGE-BODEGAS CHAPALA Tel: 766-0661, Tel/Fax: 766-1045 3DJ

62&,$/ 25*$1,=$7,216 /$.( &+$3$/$ 62&,(7< Tel: 766-1140 3DJ /26 1,f26 '( &+$3$/$ < $-,-,& Tel: 765-7032 Pag: 92

Pag: 79 Pag: 37 3DJ Pag: 26 Pag: 53 Pag: 17

STAINED GLASS - AIMAR Cell: 33-1741-3515

Pag: 62

7$;, $57852 )(51$1'(= Cell: (045) 333-954-3813

3DJ

&+$3$/$ 0(' 0,*8(/ 5(<(6 3K\VLFDO Therapist Tel: 765-7777 Pag: 25 /,& -26( 5$8/ 58,= 6$1&+(= 3V\FKRORJLVW and staff therapist Tel: -766-5513 Pag: 50 /(6/,( ' 67521* 3K ' ,QGLYLGXD 0DULWDO )DPLO\ 7KHUDSLVW Tel: 766-5374 Pag: 31 - RESPIRO SPA Tel. 108 0879, Cell 33-3157-7790 Pag: 26

72856 &$5/26 $1'5$'( / 7RXU *XLGH Tel: 333-4000-838 Pag: 72 - CHARTER CLUB TOURS Tel: 766-1777 Pag: 09, 13 - LYDIAS TOURS Cell: 33-1026-4877 3DJ - LOS VAGABUNDOS Tel: 01(415) 152-3013 Pag: 63

75(( 6(59,&( - CHAPALA TREE SERVICE Tel: 762-0602

3DJ

:$7(5

62/$5 (1(5*< &,0( 32:(5 6<67(0 Tel: 33-3797-8705 - ESUN Tel: 766-2319, 01-800-099-0272 - GREEN HOME Tel: 108-0912

- BLUE MOON Tel: 766 0937 - LA BELLA VIDA Tel: 766-5131 - MARIALE Tel: 766-4229 - RESPIRO SPA Tel. 108 0879, Cell 33-3157-7790 - SPA TERMAL COSALA Tel: (387) 761-0494 - TOTAL BODY CARE Tel: 766-3379

7+(5$3,676

6&+22/ - INSTITUTO TERRANOVA Tel: 766 2401, 766 3999

63$ 0$66$*(

Pag: 57

- EL MUNDO DEL AGUA Tel: 766-0060

Pag: 65

Pag: 15 Pag: 66

The Ojo Crossword

Saw you in the Ojo 95

CARS

FOR SALE: Smart For Two, Got the price reduced from $130 to $122,000 pesos, Dealer serviced, new tires, all the keys, manuals, 3 cylinder, automatic. Call: 331-269-2696.

FOR SALE: 2001 ford escape, Mexican plated car, excellent mechanical condition, New tires, make offer, need to sell, have use of another car. Price: $7,2000 pesos. Richard 331-745-1493 English.

FOR SALE: Honda CRV Way-back Ă&#x20AC;RRU PDW Âł1HZ FRQGLWLRQ´ 'DUN *UH\ )LWV years 2012 through 2015. Price: $650mx.

FOR SALE: Sienna LE 2008, single owner, dealer services always, DVD, reverse sensors, Price: $165,000 negotiable.

FOR SALE: 2014 Camry XLE White, Like New Mx Registered Bluetooth Rear Camera Navigation System Security Windows all around Never in accident Nonsmoker Moving to USA. Price: $21,000 or $283,000 Pesos. Call: 333-507-4153.

FOR SALE: This is a high millage RT Turbo 4 cylinder that is perfect inside and out. Has Autostick transmission (goes both ways). Mexican plated. Price: $60,000 pesos. Call Adrian at his cell 331-388-0191.

FOR SALE: Mexican Plated car, Red Nissan Altima High 2.5 Model. 4 cylinders 2.500 CC Sunroof, 5 places, very economic gas consumption, great car for a very low price $90,000 Pesos / $6,950 USD, call me 376-106-0666 or cell 333-719-1351 Martin.

FOR SALE: White Mercedes ML350. 6 cylinders 3.500 CC Sunroof 5 places, very economic gas consumption, great car for a very low price $125,000 pesos, call me 376766-2430 or cell 331-283-3206 Rainer.

FOR SALE: Motorhome. 56000 original miles, Air conditioner, Generator, Sink, Shower, Bed, Toilet, Stove, Microwave and Kitchenette. Price: $4,000 USD.

COMPUTERS

FOR SALE: HP Laser Printer/Scan/ Copy/Fax, Has original box. Comes with software disc but can be installed right off the internet. Price: $350 pesos obo. Call: 331-540-2592.

FOR SALE: Brother Inkjet Cartridges, 4 black (1 opened), + 1 each Cyan, Magenta & Yellow. Price: $200p.

FOR SALE: Imac 27, Hardly used, purchased in August 2014, manufactured late 2013. Imac Desktop Computer. Extremely thin monitor. Comes with DVD/CD Rom drive. Have original purchase invoice.

Price: $26,000 pesos. Call: 045-331-3824771.

FOR SALE: Clam case pro for Ipad mini. Integrated keyboard and protective cover for both top and bottom of your Mini.

Can hold mini at any angle. Price: $1,400 pesos.

FOR SALE: Ink Cartridges for Canon.

2 PK PG-240XL CL-241XL Ink Cartridges for Canon PIXMA, MG3520, MX532, MX479 Printer. Price: $200 pesos. Call: 376-766-4260.

FOR SALE: New English keyboards, they come with larger than normal letter size and high contrast colors for ease of use. Price: $350 pesos. Call or email me.

If you call, leave a message. 765-2538 or etccomputers@gmail.com.

96

FOR SALE: CaseTek (USA made) Leather Messenger Bag/Laptop Case.

Measures: 17â&#x20AC;? wide by 13â&#x20AC;? tall. Fits up to a 16â&#x20AC;? diagonal screen laptop. Has a velFUR GLYLGHU WKDW DOORZV WR ÂłVQXJ XS´ WKH ÂżW RI a smaller laptop. Zippers work great. This bag is in good structural condition. Original shoulder strap. Has a total of 4 compartments. Price: $200.00 pesos.

FOR SALE: Laptop Backpack. Premium Mobile Edge USED Black Backpack in good condition. Superior Safety Cellâ&#x201E;˘ computer protection compartment. Dedicated padded tablet/iPad pocket. Padded SRFNHWV IRU &'V 3'$ DQG ÂżOHV 0HGLD Pocket for iPods/MP3 player w/ headphone Sound Port. Cool-Meshâ&#x201E;˘ ventilated back panel. Detachable cell phone pocket. +HDY\ 'XW\ 'XUD Ă&#x20AC;H[Â&#x152; ÂżWWLQJV (= $FFHVV WLFNHW SRFNHW 5HĂ&#x20AC;HFWLYH VDIHW\ VWLWFKLQJ 1680 Denier Ballistic Nylon. Price: $350.00 pesos.

PETS & SUPPLIES

FOR SALE: Australian Saddle Used Excellent Condition All leather, very comfortable Price: $2,500.00 p Make an offer!

Karen 766-0237.

FOR SALE: Viatek professional BARK STOP ULTRASONIC DOG TRAINER. Device used for only a few weeks for two puppies. New $149 US asking $100 US or BF. Call: 376-106-2010.

FREE: :H ZRXOG OLNH WR ÂżQG D SHUmanent loving home for our little rescued dog (11Kg). She is about 1 year old, we have had her spayed, de-wormed and had all her shots. She is kind and loving, and completely house trained, being scrupulously clean. We already have a little dog, and we would like to keep this one as well; sadly our Rental Agreement prohibLWV WKLV DQG ZH PXVW ÂżQG D VXLWDEOH KRPH for her. If you can give this lovely little girl a home, please call as soon as possible 331-751-5283 or 331-751-7520.

7:2 &$76 )5(( 72 $ *22' +20( Cats are brother and sister. Both cats are declawed and neutered. These are my Momâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cats and she has fallen twice because the cats are underfoot. Looking for a good home for these guys.

GENERAL MERCHANDISE

:$17(' Does anybody have one of those video cassette Recorders I want to buy one. I still want to tape my program and need s VCR for that. Call J. Guerin 766-2811 or email thanks FOR SALE: 16 foot Alumacraft Bass Boat 48 horse Evenrude motor Trailer with new tires and a spare Seats 4 people Semi New Decking and Carpet(Blue) Great Boat but just donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t use it enough. Needs a good home where it will be used and appreciated. Price: $1,299.00 U.S Dollars.

FOR SALE: Iron Man inversion table.

Excellent condition. mechanically sound.

LPSURYH ÂżWQHVV DQG EXLOG FRUH VWUHQJWK Price: $850 pesos. Call: 376-766-4260. :$17(' If you are remodeling and have a vented skylight you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t need would you please contact me. I would like to buy it.

FOR SALE: LQĂ&#x20AC;DWDEOH JUH\ WZR SHUVRQ Sevylor Kayak, with 2 two hour lessons,

El Ojo del Lago / December 2014

used 15 times, folds up to 30x20x12. Price: $6,000 Lamont owner 376-766-5128 Lake Chapala or wayne FOR SALE: UNIDEN Caller ID phones (white) One base and two handsets Speed dial programing. Price: $45 US. FOR SALE: TORO Electric Super Blower/Vac up to 230MPH will mulch 10 bags into 1 $69.99 New used only twice.

Price: $50.00 US. Call: 376-106-2010. :$17(' Cast Iron Cookware. I need several pieces such as frying pans of various sizes, pots, perhaps a dutch oven. Will HYHQ FRQVLGHU PXIÂżQ SDQV LQ FDVW LURQ FOR SALE: Old two piece corner cabinet. Price: $5,000 pesos.

FOR SALE: Old large corner table, excellent condition. has bottom wood base DERXW LQFKHV RII Ă&#x20AC;RRU 3ULFH SHsos.

FOR SALE: wine cooler Avanti, works KDV ÂżYH VKHOYHV KROGV WHQ ERWWOHV VPDOO Price: $1,200 pesos.

FOR SALE: Jacuzzi 2.40m x 2.40m YHU\ OLWWOH XVHG 6DQG ÂżOWHU ÂżOWHU SXPS \HW stream pump, airstream pump. Diverse plumbing material etc. Price: $2,000 USD. FOR SALE: Kill A Watt. Had a friend buy me one of these in USA for $30; have hardly ever used it. Comes with Operational Manual. Good for measuring appliance usage of CFE. Price: $200 pesos OBO. Call: 045-331-382-4771.

FOR SALE: FIRE ENGINE RED. Golden Technology 3 wheeler scooter comes complete with Hydraulic lift and 2 sets of ramps, sadly its owner never got to have the pleasure of riding upon it. Price: $2,000 USD. Make an offer.

FOR SALE: Technics Turntable, belt drive, DC servo, dust cover, Model SLBD20D, 2 speeds (45 and 33 rpm), includes cartridge, operation manual, original box, excellent condition. Price: $80 US or equivalent.

FOR SALE: Sherwood Surround Sound System, Model SP-155-S, very good condition. Five (5) speakers, one powered sub-woofer, brackets, all black.

Price: $75 US or equivalent. :$17(' I want to buy a good used apartment sized refrigerator/freezer.

FOR SALE: Shaw HD DSR630 PVR with remote. HDMI and power cord. Receiver is free and clear and ready to set up on your account. Price: $3,300 pesos.

Call: 766-5947.

FOR SALE: Shaw HD 600 receiver with remote, HDMI and power cord. Receiver is free and clear and ready to set up on your account. Price: $2,300 pesos.

Call: 766-5947.

FOR SALE: Sofa + Ottoman $2500p call Pete or Gethyn at 766-0773 FOR SALE: )XMLÂżOP )LQH3L[ 6 GLJLtal camera. 7.1 megapixels 48x total zoom, 10x optical, 4.8x digital 2.5 inch wide view LCD monitor 640x480 pixels movie mode xD/SD compatible slot internal memory approx. 27 MB. Price: $1,400 pesos. Call: 766-5686.

FOR SALE: 4 Used tires and rims for Dodge Diesel 2500 pickup truck. 2 Dunlop WLUHV DQG ULPV ORDG UDQJH ' 'HÂżQLW\ WLUHV and rims load range E. Price: $3,000 OBO. Call: 766 5686

FOR SALE: Like new, in original box, Google Chrome cast with power supply.

Price: $600 pesos. Call: 766-5686 FOR SALE: Wine Refrigerator Haier brand Used for the 1st year we were here, bought 2008 height 41â&#x20AC;? width 12â&#x20AC;? holds 18 BOTTLES like new condition. Price: $2,500p OBO Call Fran at 766-0112 :$17(' Wanting a set of free weights and bench in good shape. Would prefer metal weights but will also consider the plastic covered type.

FOR SALE: Hydropool - SPA / Hot Tub. bought in 2009 and not used in the last 3 years. Original price $5,995. US. will sell for $2,700. Maintained and supported E\ DQ $MLMLF ÂżUP ,I LQWHUHVWHG FDOO (Pls leave message).

FOR SALE: Shaw direct HDTV DSR 505 Receiver, remote and dish, all in good working order. Not attached to an account.

Price: $3,500 OBO. :$17(' I need to join you as a star choice subscriber. I have one receiver.

Call: 387-761-0987.

FOR SALE: Large Shaw Direct 75E dish, LNB, mount.

FOR SALE: Nice 32â&#x20AC;? TV, used for only 6 months. It is in our bedroom and does not get used so selling it. It was purchased at Costco for $39,000 Peso. Price: $2,600 pesos.

FOR SALE: Three pair Ecco lace-up shoes size 37, excellent condition. Black leather. Tan Nubuck and Light Tan leather.

Make offer. Afternoons 765-7629.

FOR SALE: Rear Door Hydraulic Lifters for a 96 Jeep Cherokee or similar year.

Stop using a stick or pole to hold up your back door. Price: $1,000 pesos. Call Mike 331-330-1050 FOR SALE: Hard sided â&#x20AC;&#x153;Revelationâ&#x20AC;? suitcase. approx. 27x17x10 pull handle, wheels. Grey in colour. $100 pesos 7664105, FOR SALE: Large â&#x20AC;&#x153;Atlanticâ&#x20AC;? suitcase.

Approx 21x29x14. Taupe in colour, pull handle, wheels, lots of compartments etc.

Price: $300 pesos Call: 766-4105.

FOR SALE: These are the â&#x20AC;&#x153;goodâ&#x20AC;? sunĂ&#x20AC;RZHU SODQWHUV WKDW \RX FDQ EX\ LQ 7RQROD for 4x the price. All used. Price: $10 - $20 US or Peso Equiv. Call. 376-766-3120.

FOR SALE: Shaw/Star Choice HD DSR630PVR with remote, HDMI and power cord. Free and clear and ready to be activated. Price: $4,200 pesos. Call: 7664105.

FOR SALE: Solid wood TV/entertainment unit. Pocket door on top and bottom of main unit. Bottom of main unit has installed electrical and cable outlets in an unobtrusive area. Top and bottom of main unit can be separated. 2 side units have glass shelves and are lit from the top. Side units can be stand alone - each unit has the top crown molding piece included. Pics available -could not load to website. Price: $4,000 pesos OBO. Call: 331-805-4654.

FOR SALE: Sous Vide Supreme. One year old, Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s amazing for the tough MX PHDWV DQG UHDOO\ VHDOV LQ WKH Ă&#x20AC;DYRU 3DLG $480 US and am selling for $200 US. Can send picture. Call: 376-766-0388. :$17(' Am looking for a good carpet cleaner and shampooer for large area

rugs.

FOR SALE: Beautiful Zebra pattern, black and creme, area rug. 9 Ft. x 12 ft. Excellent condition. Photoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s available. Price: $1,200 pesos.

FOR SALE: Glass top desk $75/$1,000 pesos, Brother printer $40/$550 pesos, File Drawer on wheels $25/$350pesos, Two Glass top coffee tables $250/$260 pesos, Bowes Sound System with DVD $150/2,025, Garage sale items various prices Mens jeans size 38 $8/$100 pesos.

Call: 333-507-4153.

FOR SALE: This is a four piece shell SDFN ,QFOXGHG LV WKH WRP PRXQW DQG Ă&#x20AC;RRU tom legs. snare is 6 1/2 x13, tom 8x12, Ă&#x20AC;RRU [ EDVV LV [ &\PEDOV DQG stands are not included. Price: $450.00 US -or- equal in Pesos.

FOR SALE: Home lite lre4400, Briggs & Stratton, 8h.p, watts intermittent 4400 watts, rated voltage 120/240 volts Runs Good. Used once in eight years. Price: 45,000.00 pesos OBO. FOR SALE: Nice briefcase for sale new $100usd used $600p. With combo.

Call: 333-904-2463.

FOR SALE: Nice Rod iron glass top table that seats 6 for only $6,000p. Call: 333-904-2463.

FOR SALE: Lovely glass punch bowl with 18 cups. Wonderful for large gatherings, hospitality rooms, parties, schools and churches. Includes ladle and base to elevate bowl. Price: $480 pesos. Call: 376766-1213.

FOR SALE: Bowling. Almost new Columbia 300 series White Dot deep amber/ gold tones marbleized ball. Very nice-looking and weighs approximately 14 pounds (or a little less). Of course, the holes can be re-drilled. Price: $250 pesos. Call: 376766-1213.

FOR SALE: Fruit Painting 39â&#x20AC;?W x 32â&#x20AC;?

H. Price: $300p. Call: 331-762-7717.

FOR SALE: Swivel bar stools - 49â&#x20AC;?H to top of chair back, 34â&#x20AC;?H to seat, for the 2 is $1,500p. Cal: 331-762-7717.

FOR SALE: Dining Room Set 6 Chairs.

Glass dining table with beveled glass - 71â&#x20AC;?L x 47â&#x20AC;? W $8,000p. Cal: 331-762-7717.

FOR SALE: Bicycle carrier for one or two bikes. Mounts on rear mount spare tire eg. CRV. Price: $400 pesos. :$17(' &RWWRQ Ă&#x20AC;DQQHO VKHHWV Queen size. gently used. any color. any info on buying new appreciated. call 7664106 :$17(' Looking for a massage table, preferably portable. Call 376-766-5941 or email FOR SALE: Like new reciprocal stationary bike, weight bench, assorted dumbbells and bars, rubber workout mats and much more. Price: $5-$200. Call: 376-7663120 FOR SALE: Good running wood chipper leaf shredder, Blades recently replaced. Create your own mulch and compost. Good for your plants and the planet.

Price: $3,500 pesos. Call: 376-766-1132. :$17(' Looking to buy a cassette tape player or preferably a combination cassette tape/CD player in good condition.

FOR SALE: Super practical pocket high impact aluminum Lantern with 9 leds ultraviolet light.10 cms large, 3 cms diameter. Detect false money bills, scorpions, Ă&#x20AC;XLGV RQ FORWKHV PRXVH RULQD EORRG UHVWV tickets passports and its authenticity; and more. Needs 3 AAA batteries included.

Also include security strap. 30 days warranty on manufacturing defects. Shipments out of Guadalajara to be negotiated. Price: $150.

FOR SALE: Roland Digital Piano

EP.5. Power adapter, pedal damper, music stand, midi connection, tuner, extra VSHDNHU RXWOHWV ÂżYH RFWDYH UDQJH 5HJXODU piano, electronic piano, vibraphone, organ, strings settings and volume control. Price: $225 USD or equivalent pesos.

FOR SALE: Two Wilson Tennis Racquets. Hammer system 5.8 and 7.4. In very good condition. Price: $500 pesos each.

Cal: 045-331-382-4771.

FOR SALE: Yukon Advanced Optics 7HOHVFRSH [ ÂżHOG GHJUHHV ft.at 1000 yards. Four years old. Comes with original instructions, carry case, neck/ body holder and adjustable stand. Like new - only 4 yrs. old. Pictures on request.

Price: $2,000 pesos OBO. Call: 045-331382-4771.

FOR SALE: Hand held luggage scale.

Price $91 pesos. Call: 765-7629 afternoons.

FOR SALE: Slightly used free weights.

2-5lb weights $190 pesos pair. 2-3lb weights $95 pesos pair. All 4 weights $285 pesos. Call: 765-7629 afternoons.

FOR SALE: WAHL Dog/Cat Grooming Kit. Includes self-sharpening blade, combs, charger, mirror, blade oil, carrying case, and instructional DVD. Price: $500.00 Pesos.

FOR SALE: Roof Tiles. 480 Very Good Quality â&#x20AC;&#x153;walk-on strengthâ&#x20AC;? red clay roof tiles (9â&#x20AC;? x 16â&#x20AC;?). Will cover about 500 square feet of roof. Market price for new is $17 pesos/tile. Selling at $8.00 pesos/tile or OBO. :$17(' Does anybody have one of those Sony Beta Videocassette Recorders that were popular in the 80´s in good, fair or working condition that you are not using and want to sell or give away? I still want to see my old videocassettes and need this appliance for that. Call Rick: 766-4804 or email me.

FOR SALE: Dining Table and Chairs.

Reproduction of Italian vintage pedestal table with distressed top and ornately decorated base; 4 upholstered comfortable armchairs. Table D- 4ft. Price: 800usd.

Call: 333-487-0868.

FOR SALE: Semi-Professional Canon Camera SX510HS rarely used almost new condition. Have complete with manual case and all. I am open to offers. Price: $3,000 pesos. Call: 3824-8958.

FOR SALE: Bedding & Blow up Mattress. Queen size comforter set in chocolate brown, NOT from Wal-Mart. Includes: FRPIRUWHU GXVW UXIĂ&#x20AC;H (XUR SLOORZV shams, 2 small pillow shams. Price: $3,300 pesos & $1,000 pesos.

FOR SALE: Tools: Drills, Sanders, Grinder. Makita Cordless Drill with battery charger and 2 new batteries; 1 Black & Decker Sanders; Black & Decker Power Drill; and Truper Grinder. All in working condition. Price: Negotiable.

FOR SALE: This is Ironstone (Pottery) service for 12 in burnt orange with beaded black octagon shaped rims from NOB. Includes serving pieces. Each place setting has dinner plate, luncheon (or dessert or salad) plate, soup or cereal or ice cream bowl, cup and saucer. All pieces are still available when needed. This service is dishwasher and microwave proof. Price: $2,750 MXN. Call: 376-766-1213. :$17(' Want to buy a chipper/ shredder, gas or electric. Call: 766-1132.

FOR SALE: Water Heater. Cinsa de Paso 6 liters purchased June 22, 2014. :RUNV ÂżQH EXW WRR VPDOO DQG WRR IDU IURP my gas tank to work correctly. Price: $1,900 pesos. Call: 376-766-0944.

Saw you in the Ojo 97

98

El Ojo del Lago / December 2014