¿Que es la Dia?
¡Buenos dias, amigos, y feliz Cinco de Mayo!
As a life-long resident of the mythical land of Aztlan, en el Tiempo del Quinto Sol, allow me to give a big shout-out of solidarity to my Mexican hermanos y hermanas on this day of celebration and historical significance. As most of you know, today marks the anniversary of the Mexican Army defeating the French occupying forces at the Battle of Puebla near Veracruz back in, what was it? 1862, I think? Something like that. Anyway, now it's essentially an excuse for Americans to drink Corona and Pacifico and Dos Equis cerveza and knock back a few shots of tequila. Oh, and to embarrass ourselves in public by speaking bad español.
So, mission accomplished there, linguistically at least. The tequila y cerveza will come later.
Actually, I have a Cinco de Mayo story from south of the border. I was about 18 or 19 years old, and happened to be in Ensenada on the fifth of May. It was a national holiday there, and most businesses were closed -- except the bars and the shops that sold trinkets to tourists, of course. People were all dressed up and walking around drinking, celebrating and setting off fireworks everywhere. The most memorable scene for me from that day was seeing a guy driving a trash truck slowly through the jammed streets, when he spotted a federale walking along the sidewalk with his M-16 at the ready. The driver stopped the truck in the heavy traffic and yelled something to the federale, who looked over at him with a wary eye. The driver then produced a large bottle of tequila from inside the truck, saluted the federale and took a long pull from the bottle. He said something else, cackled like a madman and then drove on, while the federale said nothing, and just kept walking. I tried to imagine that happening in the US on the Fourth of July, but couldn't believe that it would end up the same way at all.
Then I went to Hussong's and got drunk.
¡Arriba! ¡Caramba! ¡Ay chihuahua!
As a life-long resident of the mythical land of Aztlan, en el Tiempo del Quinto Sol, allow me to give a big shout-out of solidarity to my Mexican hermanos y hermanas on this day of celebration and historical significance. As most of you know, today marks the anniversary of the Mexican Army defeating the French occupying forces at the Battle of Puebla near Veracruz back in, what was it? 1862, I think? Something like that. Anyway, now it's essentially an excuse for Americans to drink Corona and Pacifico and Dos Equis cerveza and knock back a few shots of tequila. Oh, and to embarrass ourselves in public by speaking bad español.
So, mission accomplished there, linguistically at least. The tequila y cerveza will come later.
Actually, I have a Cinco de Mayo story from south of the border. I was about 18 or 19 years old, and happened to be in Ensenada on the fifth of May. It was a national holiday there, and most businesses were closed -- except the bars and the shops that sold trinkets to tourists, of course. People were all dressed up and walking around drinking, celebrating and setting off fireworks everywhere. The most memorable scene for me from that day was seeing a guy driving a trash truck slowly through the jammed streets, when he spotted a federale walking along the sidewalk with his M-16 at the ready. The driver stopped the truck in the heavy traffic and yelled something to the federale, who looked over at him with a wary eye. The driver then produced a large bottle of tequila from inside the truck, saluted the federale and took a long pull from the bottle. He said something else, cackled like a madman and then drove on, while the federale said nothing, and just kept walking. I tried to imagine that happening in the US on the Fourth of July, but couldn't believe that it would end up the same way at all.
Then I went to Hussong's and got drunk.
¡Arriba! ¡Caramba! ¡Ay chihuahua!
posted by Generik at 7:35 AM
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