OK, so, I know I haven't always been what might be considered a Model Citizen or Typical. I quit high school and joined the Army when I was 17, broke my back in basic training but being a Bruce I shrugged it off and did 3 years as a scout for a tank battallion. I got out when I was 20, and since then I've done a ridiculous amount of different jobs, from parking cars to being a drilling fluids engineer and working for CNN to having the 2nd late night food cart in Austin Texas, the first and for many years only cart in the just flourishing Warehouse District. Did a fair amount of stupid stuff and despite what have apparently been my best efforts, if I died and went to heaven when I got there I would be dissappointed. In almost everything I've ever done it's really worked out well. I've crashed and burned a few times for sure but you can count them on one hand. I think the thing that made all these crazy jobs work out was that I never did anything that I didn't know I could do. When my friend Joseph asked me one afternoon if I thought I could fly a plane back from Port Mansfield to Cameron County I said 'absolutely' because I knew I could. And I did. When I decided to bake and sell cheesecakes to just about all the hotels and restaurants on South Padre Island everyone told me how hard it was going to be and how it would be almost impossible but I did it because the day I decided to do it, I knew I could. Same thing with the hot dog cart. I walked out of Lavaca Street Bar one night and there wasn't anything to eat so I decided in about 5 seconds that I was going to buy a hot dog cart, serve hot dogs and water and nothing else. I quit my job at Dell where I was making bank but I knew I could make the hot dog cart work. And I did, for almost 8 years because I knew I could do it. You can't listen to other people telling you how hard it is or why you can't do something. Their intentions are good but they don't know you. Every obstacale you run into you don't freak out about you just roll over it. It was like I was trying to get a permit to throw old people off a building when I went to get my permits for the cart in Austin but I just rolled over all of them. Because I knew I could do it. You have to know that no matter what you want to do, how or where you want to live, you have the ability to do just that, to be where you dream of and be the person you want to be. And the funniest thing about it is this.. no matter how much well intentioned comments on how dumb I was to try to do something, being where and who you want to be isn't difficult at all, it's incredibly simple to do. The only thing required is that you have confidence in who you are with all your good points and flaws and when you accept who you are nothing anyone can say or do can stop you. I swear, I am about the laziest person you'd ever meet... not that I sit around all day or anything, I've worked my ass off most of my life... and I've done OK because I knew I could. I decided I could do those things. And I did. And if I can, you can. I'd like to think my heritage has something to do with it but then again, if I can do it, anyone, with any other heritage can do it to. It's pretty cool actually to be really honest. I highly recommend it to everyone.

 Waiting for the Green Flash

I didn’t sleep all that well last night, big changes ahead and all that stuff. My alarm went off 7 minutes after I had gotten out of bed, I was already brushing my teeth. My friend Roy was going to drive me to the bridge in Hidalgo to drop me off so I could catch a taxi to the Reynosa airport. The driver was Jonathon, seemed to be the typical friendly cab driver, something I’d done myself for many years in Austin. We parked at the bridge and I went inside to get my Tourist Card, paid for it and headed to the airport for my 8 o’clock flight. My spoken Spanish was rusty but I managed to get in the correct check in line, picked up my ticket, headed through the security checkpoint and headed into the waiting area. I originally decided to just find a seat and wait but the coffee smelled good to I went to get a cup and a ham and egg croissant just to get something in my stomach. All the seats in the little café area were taken but two nice Mexican women waived me over to an empty seat at their table, I said thank you and sat down and they went back to their conversation. Before too long they started loading the aircraft and someone on the PA said something that sounded like my name… sort of like a dying man might croak with his last breath when asked “Who did this to you?”. Seems the plane was loaded and was about to depart, a AeroMexico worked rushed up to me and escorted me out to the waiting jet.. Sort of made me feel like a VIP or something, being paged and escorted like that. We took off and headed to Mexico City, I just sat there looking out the window, Mexico from the air is just as interesting and beautiful as it is from the ground but without the noise and traffic and the distinct aroma of Mexican gasoline hanging in the air. As we approached Mexico City, the sky was overcast and the mountains stuck up through the clouds on both sides, absolutely wonderful to see. Then, in an instant, we were out of the clouds and Mexico City was laid out just beneath us, stretching for miles in all directions. The last time I’d been to Mexico City the town was in mourning, it was two days after the great earthquake, but today it was full of life and you could see and almost feel the hustle and bustle of some 11 million people going about their business. The airport was so full of planes it looked almost like someone had dropped a half cup of rice on a black tile floor but we squeezed in for one of the smoothest landings I’d ever experienced. Kudos to El Capitan. We disembarked and something soon became rather apparent, something I hadn’t considered at all. I’d had a triple bypass about three weeks before so I wasn’t in the best shape to begin with, but Mexico City is sort of up there in the mountains and I was dying walking to the my connecting flight! I almost asked for a ride or copped a wheelchair but I figured this was a good post surgical check on my recovery so off I walked, rather slowly, to the gate for the flight to Ixtapa. With all the planes out on the tarmac I was expecting a rather late departure but we got out of there in about 7 minutes after loading up, I was impressed once again and the myth of Mexico being laid back and slow was made a lie. They definitely have a cut in their strut these days. The flight to the coast was spectacular, I had a window seat, something I had cursed when I saw my boarding pass and seat assignment, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the window and the spectacular view of the mountains. It reminded me of the laugh lines around my grandmother’s eyes when I was a kid. Peaks and valleys, all dark, lush green wrinkles to the coast. Then out in front of us, there it was, the Pacific Ocean and the beaches that lined the coast. We crossed over, ‘feet wet’ as military pilots would say, and did a long, slow banking turn to get us lined up for the runway at Ixtapa. Deep, rich blue water, the long swells marching towards the shore, pongas full of fishermen and larger boats full of tourists, barren, rocky islands tossed about, it looked so sweet it almost brought me to tears to see it. We came into the small airport and when the door opened you could feel the heat and humidity like a slap in the face. No, not a slap, more like a love tap, just enough to let you know you weren’t in Kansas anymore. My ride was waiting, we loaded up my bag… he loaded it up, I’m still not supposed to pick up anything weighing more than 5 pounds… you gotta be joking me, everything weighs at least 5 pounds… and off we went, headed the 30 or so miles north. We exited the main road, stopped at a local fruit stand. I had been begging for some coconut water and this woman who ran the stand was someone that people went out of their way to do business with because she is apparently nothing but cool beans. I got three fresh coconuts, one with a straw sticking out of it and two more for later. I drained the first coconut in about a minute, there’s just, in my mind at least, something wonderful about fresh coconut water straight from the nut. To me, it tastes like clear fresh water with a touch of smile in it and a lingering aftertaste of laughter.

After settling in and getting things sorted out, keys turned over and small things like that, my friend took me down to his place for a bite to eat, a fresh whole red snapper, sliced down the side and cooked to absolute perfection by his wife in garlic oil. When I had finished he asked ‘Are you ok? You look like you need a nap’ and I probably did. It was a long day for me so soon after surgery and I probably looked like a pale, damp old man. Which I was at that point in time. So, I headed back to the house and I did indeed take a little nap. When I woke up, the sun was still about a half hour from setting and I headed out the door to go down to the beach and watch the sun set. I’d flown over the beach, seen the beach, smelled the salt air and heard the crashing surf but I had yet to actually go TO the beach so off I went. Found a little restaurant with a table right down by the sand, ordered a Pacifico beer and waited for the sun to set. I was hoping to see the Green Flash like I had 4 times before, years ago, once on my birthday. To those of you who’ve never seen it or heard of it, the Green Flash is something that happens just as the very top, thin sliver of the setting sun sinks into the ocean. When conditions are right, that last sliver of the sun flashes a brilliant, unmistakable bright, electric neon green. It’s so beautiful, the first time you see it you doubt your own eyes, people gasp and point and shout ‘Did you see that!?” to anyone around, and of course, they’re all doing and saying the exact same thing and they’re just as freaked out and excited as you are. I would imagine the same look would come to the faces of small children who actually DID see Santa Claus and his sleigh sitting on the roof. It’s absolutely magical and I feel so lucky to have seen it 4 times in my life because so many people never see it even once.

But alas, tonight, there was no spectacularly brilliant neon green explosion of light as the sun slipped beneath the cover of the waves for a well deserved nap, poor me had to console myself and settle for watching the local kids surfing until dark, and families walking down the beach at the edge of the water, and the brown pelicans dropping in uninvited and unexpectedly on some unlucky fish and the two hummingbirds who, without a flower in sight, decided to come check me out like they have so many times in my life. Today will go down in the record book of my memory as one of the best none the less, and you have to consider, the sun is going to set again tomorrow. Who knows, maybe I’ll get to see the Green Flash then.