Sales receipts are prosaic.
On most there are times and dates, food ordered and its price, balances due and how the bill was paid. There is a spot for taxes and gratuities. There can be series of numbers indicating stock numbers of merchandise, re-order times, discounts, adjustments, credits.
On this restaurant receipt, at the bottom, is the phrase, ” Keep Tulum weird. ”
This is weird for a number of reasons. Weird, according to the Oxford dictionary, should really be spelled wierd to follow the rule – i before e except after c. Wierd has been spelled wrong so many years that both spellings are acceptable.Weird is also pronounced – wird, so we have a screwy English language where how a word sounds is not how it is spelled.
“Have a good day” is often at the bottom of sales tickets
” We appreciate your business is sometimes at the bottom of sales receipts.
In Tulum,” Keep Tulum Weird ” is totally acceptable.
The creator of this receipt is probably a seventy year old hippie living an an airstream trailer in a fenced off lot on the beach bought in the fifties for several thousand dollars. He would sell but can’t move because his cat, Mister T, likes to nap on an old couch under the airstream awning, on top of a Pittsburg Pirates World Series Blanket.
For all its weirdness, Tulum is becoming very comfortable.
The location of this old Mayan city was well chosen.
It is a place Mayan elite lived for the best part of the year,entertained visitors, enjoyed food and drink on porches as their sun sank into the Caribbean sea. There were simple platforms built on the grounds upon which slaves and servants lived in thatched communal homes. There are altars that still overlook cliffs where offerings would have been made to the Mayan Gods.
Most of the old city has crumbled and front porches have been claimed by iguanas, prehistoric reptiles that survived the dinosaur extermination.The iguanas bask on the stone floors in palaces off limits to tourists, their coloring matching that of the stones around them perfectly. They run oddly with their tails swinging left to right and legs moving like robot legs, surprisingly quick, tongues testing the air as they move towards food or away from danger.
The pyramids still standing here tell the story of this ancient Mayan culture.
On top of the wide base have been stacked smaller and smaller blocks. At the top of the pyramid is a single living unit for the head of the society. There is no agonizing discussion of equality and fairness. All major decisions come from the top of the pyramid and all below the top support the King until they can’t and the pyramid crumbles.
It is strange to walk in one of history’s graveyards.
We have better toys today but we play in the same sandbox the ancients played in.
“Why is Yoga so popular, ” I ask?
” Tulum”, Angelique smiles,” is an old hippie colony – it grows out of that. People want to feel good. ”
There is plenty of feel good here with a huge European presence.
In the morning a large group of Europeans sits at a big table at the Canopi restaurant and talk in foreign languages, eat healthy, dress in flowing garments for the girls and shorts for the boys. By nine o clock most will be seated on mats on a wood floor in an open thatched roof room, assuming positions that stretch the body, holding those special hard to hold positions for excruciating minutes.
Along the main thoroughfare are signs for hotels, bars, restaurants, shops, renting bicycles, buying juice, shopping for land from Mr. Tulum, eating Vegan, There are words of advice and scheduled times for finding your inner person. It brings back memories of Akbol in San Pedro Town, Ambergris Caye.
” You’ll never forget this chair….. ”
” Be easy on yourself….. ”
” The first day of the rest of your life…. ”
” Fresh lobster….. ”
” Free Corona…..”
This is not a cheap place to be when you need water, a hot bath, internet, good food, fine wine and entertainment.Tapping into your inner person is best done when you have a stack of hundred’s in your wallet and a high credit limit.
Chasing Zen masters is sought these days mostly by people of substance.
Elton might not approve, but a cheap radio, playing one of his yesteryear hits, provides music at the Rincon RV Resort Farmer’s Market.
Having the same feeling as watching a John Wayne movie on a TNT movie night, I listen to Elton belt out his early ancient hit to whomever is listening. Once a song goes out on the air, it has more lives than a cat.
Now, rumors of his lifestyle are far more interesting than his music, but good songs seem to outlast their composers and resonate across generational borders.
Ghosts stick around, but music residuals go on forever.
After Spanish explorers conquered Central and South America, they scoured the present states of Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, California, Utah and Nevada searching for lost cities of gold. Motivated by faith, Spanish priests established missions for the conversion of natives to Catholicism. These missions, outposts of European civilization, still operate, draw modern men seeking their ancient roots.
The Mission San Xavier is south of Tucson and it’s construction was finished in 1797. One of the mission’s two towers has recently been restored and funds are currently being saved to restore the second one to it’s original condition.
The church interior, though small, is intimate and shows icons of the Catholic church, carved saints, candles, Holy Water, wood carvings, high ceilings and stained glass.
Early morning, these church courtyards are in shadows, bells are silent, doors are ajar and tourists snuggle in warm coats as they file into the small church to say their prayers.
Churches built by hand, with wooden dowels, seem more trustworthy than those built with power drills, metal studs, with huge HVAC systems.
The Holy Water is in a metal container, on a chair, in a hallway, with little paper cups to drink from instead of a long heavy ladle.
This water has been blessed, and, in a torrid desert landscape like this, water is always Holy, whether it is blessed or not.
The Pima Air Museum is an equal opportunity museum.
It has fighter planes, bombers, helicopters, experimental dreams, cargo planes, There are hangers filled with donated airplanes of every vintage, staffed with volunteers, and a large open field where aircraft have been retired from service. There are early primitive planes, and then more modern sleek riveted birds made out of metal, plastic and fiberglass that fly higher, faster, quieter.
From the bomber’s seat in the nose of a museum B-52, tattooed with buxom women, the bomber squinted through his viewfinder at the enemy target below. In his gun sights were manufacturing plants, bridges, military bases, railroad tracks, airstrips – strategic targets.
With the gentle push of a button, the bomber dropped his death packages, watched his bombs spiral towards Earth like wounded birds.Airmen, long after their missions were complete, could still hear screams in their mind as metal and stone ripped into people and pieces of cities fell like a child’s blocks knocked over by a careless hand.
Most planes on display in the museum have curved lines and their angles are sharp. Rivets on the older planes were done by hand by women in California factories and a volunteer tells Alan and I how Los Angeles plants, in WW11, were turning out one B-52 bomber a day that were immediately put into the war’s service and turned the war effort around.
Old dreams of flying like birds have come true and old dreams of conquering the world haven’t gone away.
The next Caesar, Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, Hitler is just around time’s bend, and, when they arrive, there will be plenty of firepower at their disposal.
Making weapons is a human obsession.
Interstate 10 runs through Tucson and angles northwest to Phoenix.
Once you leave Tucson, the first spot of interest, higher than rabbit’s ears, is Picacho Peak. This peak is actually a group of peaks ringed by saquaros. For miles surrounding this congregation of peaks,there is nothing but dead flat dirt, mesquite, cactus.
At the exit to the Picacho Peak RV Resort, and an Arizona state campground, is Picacho Peak Plaza – a Shell gas station and curio shop. These knick knack shops scratch out an existence throughout the west and if you can get in and out without buying something that will forever gather dust on a shelf at home, you are far too disciplined.
Near the front entrance, I am confronted by a stuffed Jackalope, a mythical American West animal that is part rabbit and part antelope.
According to Wikipedia, the Jackalope prefers whiskey as a drink, can cause a lot of damage to one’s shins. There is a man in the Dakotas who still makes them and sells in bulk to Cabela’s for around $150.00 apiece. It is said that Jackalopes are good mimics, and, at night, cowboys singing around a fire under the stars, can hear them harmonizing.
My T or C friend, Kirk, buys himself a candy bar for sugar energy and we hit the road again for Tucson, on an expedition to a camera shop to look at a new lens for Kirk’s camera. He photographs homes for sale, for Green Valley real estate agents.
I think I see a Jackalope waving at us as we pull back onto the freeway, but Kirk says I am mistaken.
The human mind, our real-unreal world keeps reminding me, is more frail than some people want to admit.
Getting out of this tourist trap without spending a dime tells me I’m tougher than I thought I was.
Chichita, known by friends and park residents, as ” Bananas, ” met her Maker on February 29th, 2016.
Not over ten pounds, soaking wet, she was a loyal dog, a steadfast alarm system, a roaming nuisance in the Rincon Resort RV Park. She was a mother to some twenty five puppies and, until she was fixed, was a favorite of the boys, especially on D and E streets.
Her owner, Mrs. Mildred Buttercup, found Chichita slumped in a neighbor’s yard and called police but they insisted the death occurred on private property and was out of their jurisdiction.
Chichita, loved by some, hated by some, tolerated by the rest, lived a full and useful life. She knew how to fetch newspapers, bark at the postman, pee on her neighbor’s best roses, and curl up on Mrs. Buttercup’s two thousand dollar couch.
Services were short, and donations to the animal fund can be made at the RV Park’s office with proceeds used to improve the dog run where Chichita should have spent more of her time.
How we do our business, whether human or animal, has consequences and ends that are often messy.
Most people love trains.
Just to the southeast of the main office at Rincon West RV Resort,in Tucson, runs the Rincon Railroad.
Sitting on a little hill, train conductors sit in lawn chairs with wireless controllers and run their trains through their make believe town. A train schedule is posted at the station, and, on this day, an engineer is trying to figure out why his train loses power in the turns. His wife is adding little plastic people to displays of Old West scenes in the miniature town, scenes that are now mostly found in kid’s books.
Trains helped settle the west and in early morning hours, in South Tucson, you hear real train whistles as big boy trains speed through pulling box cars of coal, shipping containers, and empty cattle cars.
In receding light this evening, this choo choo is not running much longer. The conductor and his wife need to fix dinner, sit around their front porch with neighbors talking about old days, listening to Glenn Miller on an old radio prized by antique hounds.
At the Rincon West Railroad Club you take a stroll back in time,
Playing with trains is something little kids and big kids have in common.
By eight in the morning, on a Saturday, a tournament is humming along.
The game is simple enough.
Each player has three discs and a stick. Each turn, a player pushes one of his disks down a slick court with his stick and tries to make his disc stop in one of the scoring areas marked inside a distant triangle. Each disc that stays in the top portion of the triangle is worth ten points. Further towards the base of the triangle, the points awarded are less. A player has to play offense, getting his disc in high scoring areas, and defense, knocking an opponent’s disc out of a scoring area.
” Each court is different, ” one of the onlookers tells me, ” and they break different ways. ”
This is a tournament between the Voyager RV Resort, on the other side of town, and the Rincon Rv Resort.Cursing is kept to a minimum because women are present and all know that tomorrow is another day. As players take their turns, scores are tallied. When the tournament is done there will be certificates awarded and losers will buy beer.
The throwing motion is slow and deliberate. A disc is cradled into the U shaped handle of the stick, the player pauses, takes two steps and leans forward, extends his straightened arm towards the distant triangle. It is a soft motion and the stick, properly used, never leaves the surface of the court. After your throw, you stand back and hope your opponent, who throws after you, doesn’t erase your effort.
This is a game one would think a five year old could play, but they aren’t skilled enough, or devious enough.
Old people might be old, but they aren’t without experience in duplicity.
It takes smarts to get to old age and no one, with any smarts, wants to spend winter in a cold place.
This winter I’m in Arizona again but I don’t try shuffleboard because I’m not old enough, yet.
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