You just never know. One day you’re just a regular shmuck important to no one but your dog, and the next minute you’re a legend in your own time. Not “mind,” mind you, but the real deal, the guy people point to on the street or office or wherever and say, “That’s the guy who…” Oh, there are notorious people all right, but I’m talking about Paul Bunyan type legends, stories that attach to someone that put him above and beyond the normal range. As of now, I’m figuring that’s me. Hard to believe, I know, but I’ll give you the facts and let you decide. Unless you’re acting from spite or jealousy, I know which way you’ll turn. Yes: Fred, a living legend in his own time.
It happened in Mexico where a lot of legends are born: who has not heard of Emiliano Zapata or the Virgen of Guadalupe, and more recently, the fabulous Frito Bandito? Mexican legends do not necessarily involve the eating of corn chips or, for that matter, of bugs – although they might. Let me explain.
It so happens – no brag, just fact – that I am one of the scant 50 million or so souls residing in the USA who can speak Spanish, at least well enough to order a beer and hale a Taxi rather than a taxidermist. It also so happens that in the group of 4 that made up our troop to Oaxaca – my wife and another couple to be more exact – I was the only one who spoke Spanish even well enough to not order a Budweiser, but rather a Dos Equis. Or refried pork rather than grasshoppers, and I can say that as a fact.
The story begins in a restaurant where the other guy with us, let us call him “Andy” (as everyone else does) was about to order tortillas with chapulines because it sounded exotic and why not? But I stopped that misadventure pronto when I told him what that word meant - grasshoppers. I remain a hero to this day in a small way because of that, although the story does continue in a strange way. As events would turn, I told the waiter I had been trying to buy the crispy little fellas on the street for my son but could not find the grizzled old lady who had tried to sell them to us a few days before. “Ah, but we have them. How much would you like?”
He sold me twice the amount that I had wanted, and Andy’s wife got some from me for her students to try, and in the process both Andy and me have since tried the grasshoppers, so not only did I not save him from grasshoppers, but got others to eat them as well, including myself, but that is not the story on the street. No. The story the people hear is that I saved Andy from eating “crickets” as he calls them and we’re stickin’ to it.
But no, that is not what has made me a legend. Rather, it involved a mule, a church, five pesos, a touch of “Montezuma’s revenge,” and a sanctified bathroom. Let me explain.
It started with a muleteer back in Old Mexico of the 1600’s. As the account goes, he was driving his mule train packed with goods from town to town when he noticed that he had an extra mule carrying a large box. Huh. Well, one never knows, so he kept going on to the city of Oaxaca until the mule sat down and died. The authorities instantly heard of this, and as there was a city law against animal cruelty, they castigated the muleteer for mistreatment of animals. Then they thought to look into the box that the mule was carrying. In it was an image of the Virgen Mary with an inscription reading, “The Virgen by the Cross.” There was no delivery address, so the bishop took it as a holy sign and had a cathedral built right next to the spot where the mule had died. The cathedral, officially named “La Basilica de Nuestra Senora de la Soledad” (The Basilica of Our Lady of Solitude) sits there just to the side of the city’s central park to this day, along with a large stone placed at the exact spot where the mule died, and a statue of a mule. (I did not see that statue. But there were so many others.)
We had to see this church. We walked the few blocks from the city’s center, and after climbing a set of steps, we arrived at the plaza of the basilica where a man with a bullhorn loudly hawked his wares of religious relics and sugary treats. Before us was the moderately ornate basilica, where a sign told us mass would be held within the next half hour. ‘We might as well go,’ we thought. That turned out to be a good idea, for besides receiving blessings, we also witnessed a procession where Our Lady of Solitude – perhaps the original statue – was placed on a litter and carried by several people past the knickknack stand, down the steps, and onto a pick-up truck heading somewhere, God only knows. But that is still not the main story.
No. Rather, because we had to wait a half hour, and because I was in Mexico, I naturally had to go to the toilet for the natural obligation that demands paper, even for a man. It was not a choice, and so I looked anxiously around for some sign saying “banos” and fortunately found one opposite the altar that was still part of the original complex. Beneath the sign stood an ancient lady managing a table set with a roll of toilet paper and a collection box. “5 pesos,” it read, and I instantly begrudged the spare change I had given to the beggars on our morning walk. All I had was a ‘one hundred,’ and as I handed it to the crone I received the dreaded answer. “I do not have change.” I was becoming desperate, and so told her to take the large note and give me change later, as she would undoubtedly be collecting more change soon, what with the state of tap water in Mexico and their extraordinary use of hot chili pepper. Fine, she said, as she handed me two squares of rough toilet paper. “A little more, please?” I asked. “Of course,” she replied, pulling off a few sheets more. I quickly grabbed the pathetic offering like an athlete grabbing a baton in a relay race and dashed up the stairs that she guarded.
I made the bathroom, but what a bathroom! Built for Munchkins, the stall was so small that my knees collided with the door while my butt straddled a toilet bowl without a seat. The privacy door was also for Munchkins, as it only covered me up to the neck, so that as I sat (not straining, that’s for sure), I could clearly look out at passerby’s through a door that had been purposefully chocked open to grant a full view of the stairs on the left. Immediately before me and opposite the stall was a sink with a dull mirror that showed my face clearly poking over the top of the door. I should have been worried about some old and stern nun walking by shaking her head in disapproval, but all I could do was shift my butt on the bowl and try not to laugh at the face in the mirror. It looked like the old graffiti of the American GI’s, the one that had a man with a big nose peering over a wall with an inscription under it reading, “Kilroy was here.” Yes, that was me, Kilroy, the American interloper with a silly accent made even more ridiculous by peeking meekly over a bathroom stall, caught “in flagrante” in a mirror.
I used the paper given me (wishing I had more), washed my hands with germ-laden water in a sink just a few inches from the toilet, and trotted down the stairs relieved in more ways than one from the situation. In the initial emergency I had forgotten about the change, but the old lady dutifully gave it back to me in full. It must have been a busy morning. And me being me, I told “Andy” all about the experience. And Andy being Andy, he told everyone else about it less than a week later once back in a small town in the US of A. Since he knows everyone, when I said ‘everyone,’ I really meant everyone.
So that is my legend – Kilroy was here – and it only cost five pesos. And to think that some spend millions for publicity! Further, one should consider the circumstances surrounding the legend: a church, a mule, a miracle, a burden, and five pesos. As with the five loaves from the Gospel, so much can come from so little: from a dead mule to a timeless cathedral; from stomach discomfort and spare change to a living legend. In consideration of what leads one to greatness, we might as well ask ourselves what good can ever come from Nazareth, as the people of Israel once did. It reminds us that through God, everything once came from nothing. If God can make a universe, he can change any laws and make anything possible. Just as from nothing has come everything, so from so little can come so much.
Five pesos or a mule, a miter or a big mouth: with a touch of faith, sometimes these are all it takes to make a legend, a cathedral, or anything at all from what we have, even if that is really nothing at all.
You just never know. One day you’re just a regular shmuck important to no one but your dog, and the next minute you’re a legend in your own time. Not “mind,” mind you, but the real deal, the guy people point to on the street or office or wherever and say, “That’s the guy who…” Oh, there are notorious people all right, but I’m talking about Paul Bunyan type legends, stories that attach to someone that put him above and beyond the normal range. As of now, I’m figuring that’s me. Hard to believe, I know, but I’ll give you the facts and let you decide. Unless you’re acting from spite or jealousy, I know which way you’ll turn. Yes: Fred, a living legend in his own time.
It happened in Mexico where a lot of legends are born: who has not heard of Emiliano Zapata or the Virgen of Guadalupe, and more recently, the fabulous Frito Bandito? Mexican legends do not necessarily involve the eating of corn chips or, for that matter, of bugs – although they might. Let me explain.
It so happens – no brag, just fact – that I am one of the scant 50 million or so souls residing in the USA who can speak Spanish, at least well enough to order a beer and hale a Taxi rather than a taxidermist. It also so happens that in the group of 4 that made up our troop to Oaxaca – my wife and another couple to be more exact – I was the only one who spoke Spanish even well enough to not order a Budweiser, but rather a Dos Equis. Or refried pork rather than grasshoppers, and I can say that as a fact.
The story begins in a restaurant where the other guy with us, let us call him “Andy” (as everyone else does) was about to order tortillas with chapulines because it sounded exotic and why not? But I stopped that misadventure pronto when I told him what that word meant - grasshoppers. I remain a hero to this day in a small way because of that, although the story does continue in a strange way. As events would turn, I told the waiter I had been trying to buy the crispy little fellas on the street for my son but could not find the grizzled old lady who had tried to sell them to us a few days before. “Ah, but we have them. How much would you like?”
He sold me twice the amount that I had wanted, and Andy’s wife got some from me for her students to try, and in the process both Andy and me have since tried the grasshoppers, so not only did I not save him from grasshoppers, but got others to eat them as well, including myself, but that is not the story on the street. No. The story the people hear is that I saved Andy from eating “crickets” as he calls them and we’re stickin’ to it.
But no, that is not what has made me a legend. Rather, it involved a mule, a church, five pesos, a touch of “Montezuma’s revenge,” and a sanctified bathroom. Let me explain.
It started with a muleteer back in Old Mexico of the 1600’s. As the account goes, he was driving his mule train packed with goods from town to town when he noticed that he had an extra mule carrying a large box. Huh. Well, one never knows, so he kept going on to the city of Oaxaca until the mule sat down and died. The authorities instantly heard of this, and as there was a city law against animal cruelty, they castigated the muleteer for mistreatment of animals. Then they thought to look into the box that the mule was carrying. In it was an image of the Virgen Mary with an inscription reading, “The Virgen by the Cross.” There was no delivery address, so the bishop took it as a holy sign and had a cathedral built right next to the spot where the mule had died. The cathedral, officially named “La Basilica de Nuestra Senora de la Soledad” (The Basilica of Our Lady of Solitude) sits there just to the side of the city’s central park to this day, along with a large stone placed at the exact spot where the mule died, and a statue of a mule. (I did not see that statue. But there were so many others.)
We had to see this church. We walked the few blocks from the city’s center, and after climbing a set of steps, we arrived at the plaza of the basilica where a man with a bullhorn loudly hawked his wares of religious relics and sugary treats. Before us was the moderately ornate basilica, where a sign told us mass would be held within the next half hour. ‘We might as well go,’ we thought. That turned out to be a good idea, for besides receiving blessings, we also witnessed a procession where Our Lady of Solitude – perhaps the original statue – was placed on a litter and carried by several people past the knickknack stand, down the steps, and onto a pick-up truck heading somewhere, God only knows. But that is still not the main story.
No. Rather, because we had to wait a half hour, and because I was in Mexico, I naturally had to go to the toilet for the natural obligation that demands paper, even for a man. It was not a choice, and so I looked anxiously around for some sign saying “banos” and fortunately found one opposite the altar that was still part of the original complex. Beneath the sign stood an ancient lady managing a table set with a roll of toilet paper and a collection box. “5 pesos,” it read, and I instantly begrudged the spare change I had given to the beggars on our morning walk. All I had was a ‘one hundred,’ and as I handed it to the crone I received the dreaded answer. “I do not have change.” I was becoming desperate, and so told her to take the large note and give me change later, as she would undoubtedly be collecting more change soon, what with the state of tap water in Mexico and their extraordinary use of hot chili pepper. Fine, she said, as she handed me two squares of rough toilet paper. “A little more, please?” I asked. “Of course,” she replied, pulling off a few sheets more. I quickly grabbed the pathetic offering like an athlete grabbing a baton in a relay race and dashed up the stairs that she guarded.
I made the bathroom, but what a bathroom! Built for Munchkins, the stall was so small that my knees collided with the door while my butt straddled a toilet bowl without a seat. The privacy door was also for Munchkins, as it only covered me up to the neck, so that as I sat (not straining, that’s for sure), I could clearly look out at passerby’s through a door that had been purposefully chocked open to grant a full view of the stairs on the left. Immediately before me and opposite the stall was a sink with a dull mirror that showed my face clearly poking over the top of the door. I should have been worried about some old and stern nun walking by shaking her head in disapproval, but all I could do was shift my butt on the bowl and try not to laugh at the face in the mirror. It looked like the old graffiti of the American GI’s, the one that had a man with a big nose peering over a wall with an inscription under it reading, “Kilroy was here.” Yes, that was me, Kilroy, the American interloper with a silly accent made even more ridiculous by peeking meekly over a bathroom stall, caught “in flagrante” in a mirror.
I used the paper given me (wishing I had more), washed my hands with germ-laden water in a sink just a few inches from the toilet, and trotted down the stairs relieved in more ways than one from the situation. In the initial emergency I had forgotten about the change, but the old lady dutifully gave it back to me in full. It must have been a busy morning. And me being me, I told “Andy” all about the experience. And Andy being Andy, he told everyone else about it less than a week later once back in a small town in the US of A. Since he knows everyone, when I said ‘everyone,’ I really meant everyone.
So that is my legend – Kilroy was here – and it only cost five pesos. And to think that some spend millions for publicity! Further, one should consider the circumstances surrounding the legend: a church, a mule, a miracle, a burden, and five pesos. As with the five loaves from the Gospel, so much can come from so little: from a dead mule to a timeless cathedral; from stomach discomfort and spare change to a living legend. In consideration of what leads one to greatness, we might as well ask ourselves what good can ever come from Nazareth, as the people of Israel once did. It reminds us that through God, everything once came from nothing. If God can make a universe, he can change any laws and make anything possible. Just as from nothing has come everything, so from so little can come so much.
Five pesos or a mule, a miter or a big mouth: with a touch of faith, sometimes these are all it takes to make a legend, a cathedral, or anything at all from what we have, even if that is really nothing at all.
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