Festival of Lights, 2013

One of the loveliest of holiday celebrations in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas is the "Festival of Lights."  Hidalgo, a small city about thirty miles from our south Texas home, is located on the northern bank of the Rio Grande River.  It has hosted this event for twenty-two years.

The town is old, established in 1749 by José de Escandon, an early Spanish explorer of the area.  It has been known by various names over its many years of existence but now proudly bears the name of Father Miguel Hidalgo, the inspiration for Mexico's independence from Spain.  A statue of its namesake stands at the entrance to the city park.  More than 97% of Hidalgo's 11,198 residents are Hispanic, over 44% living below the U.S. poverty line.  Most of the year, the city is best known as the location of the northern end of the busiest international bridge which connects Hidalgo, Texas, to Reynosa, Mexico.

 

But, during the month of December, Hidalgo throws a holiday party of epic proportions, a treat for the eyes, ears, taste buds and wallets!  Each evening during the month, the fun begins before dark as holiday celebrants arrive for dinner.  Approaching City Hall on the main plaza of town, clues to the coming festivities can be seen in every direction.

 

The empty stage in front of City Hall holds the promise of entertainment to come.  Dinner is prepared and served as a fund-raising event for one of the local school or community groups and diners enjoy their feast at tables prepared for them on the porch of the city Hall building.

 

 

As the sun sinks below the horizon and daylight fades, more than three million festival lights begin to come alive.

 

 

Trains, trolleys and horse-drawn wagons get in line to load up for the holiday light tour of the city.

 

 

The waiting lines for the tours are long so Washboard Willie, a wandering minstrel, entertains the queues by singing Christmas songs, accompanying himself with sleigh bells and washboard.

 

 

Finally dark descends and the tour begins.  Up and down the bumpy streets of Hidalgo the touring vehicles make their slow way.  Now and then the trolley slows or stops so the narrator can point out a special display, such as the house of musician Ramon Ayala, the local celebrity.  His elegant home is always festooned with lights from the ground to the rafters including all the surrounding trees!

 

 

The displays are varied, bright, creative and beautiful. 

They range from sublime reminders of the real meaning of Christmas,

 

 

through imaginative and symbolic images,

 

 

to this whimsical illustration of the Christmas song "The Twelve Days of Christmas."

 

 

Texans never pass up an opportunity to brag about their state, so even Christmas light displays include a bit of Texas pride. This display includes an armadillo, the Lone Star, the Texas statehouse, a spaceship representing Houston, and all, of course, in the patriotic colors of red, white and blue.

 

 

Other displays have even less connection to the coming holiday, such as this lighted image of a London double-decker bus.  Brightly colored dinosaurs, the Loch Ness monster, butterflies and peacocks add variety to the displays.  Christmas cards, designed and drawn by local school students, line the walls and fences along the tour route.

 

 

Over fifty commercial sponsors also provide elaborate and prominent light displays.  Sponsors include local TV and newspapers (both English and Spanish language media), the H-E-B grocery chain, Hershey's, Kleenix, Pepsi, Kraft, Oreo, Maxwell House, and, of course, the City of Hidalgo.

 

 

After an hour-long tour of over 900 light displays lining the city streets, the trolley returns its visitors back to the stage in front of City Hall.  It is no longer empty but is filled with the music of the boys' choir of Estudiantina Guadalupana from San Luis Potosi, Mexico.  The boys are dressed in outfits resembling medieval minstrels and they sing enthusiastically in both Spanish and English. 

 

(If you look carefully at the above picture, a very small boy is just barely visible to the right of the speaker on the left side of the stage.  We estimated his age to be no more than five years but he sang a solo in a voice ten times his size and with all the stage presence of a professional!) 

 

We hope this internet tour gives you a hint as to why Hidalgo's "Festival of Lights" is one of our favorite holiday outings, year after year.   With this virtual tour, we send our holiday greetings to all of you:

 

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Eskimos in deep south Texas?

 

Gazing out my window for the past several days, I’ve seen a strange sight. There’s been little foot traffic outdoors, but I can clearly see that the folks who are out walking are all bundled up in winter jackets, knit caps or hoods, and gloves! Has south Texas been invaded by Eskimos?

They don’t look like the conventional Arctic-circle-type of Eskimos, though. I’ve seen no fur parkas, trousers or muckluck boots. No sled dogs have been prowling around our neighborhood and there are no dogsleds to be seen. Of course, there’s no snow for the sleds to travel on, either! So what’s going on?

A cold front has hit south Texas. Three days ago, in the afternoon it was sunny and 85 degrees. Down here, near the Mexican border, they call that "Chamber of Commerce weather." Twelve hours later, it was windy, cloudy with a cold drizzle and was 44 degrees! The temperatures hovered in the 40s all day, and the next morning had fallen to 38. So, those strange figures I’m seeing outdoors are just Winter Texans trying to keep warm!

Now 38 degrees doesn’t sound cold to those of you up north who are reading thermometers registering below zero. You may also be experiencing blizzards or ice storms which deep south Texas has so far escaped.

You’re right, of course, it’s not REALLY cold. But many of us down here have traveled thousands of miles just to escape northern winters! We’ve sold our snow blowers, given away our snow shovels and ice-melting salt. Some of us even got rid of our winter coats, hats and gloves, thinking we’d not need them again.

Then, suddenly, our "Chamber of Commerce weather" becomes an "Arctic Blast" instead. We have to scurry around to find the layers of clothes we need to survive, and we end up looking like overstuffed snowpeople even though we have no snow!

So, the weirdly waddling walkers I’m seeing out my window are winter-wrapped Temporary Texans, not Eskimos! We’ve all driven many miles and many days trying to escape the bitter winters of Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Ohio, Maine, Colorado or Canada. But the cold weather has caught up with us anyway, and made emergency Eskimos of all of us, in spite of our attempts to find summer in December!

Saved by a Stranger

The skirt only cost 50 cents at a yard sale some years back. It is a bright combination of turquoise, white and copper-color with black accents in a southwestern desert motif. Many yards of material are gathered on its wide, elastic waistband and an even fuller ruffle swirls around the bottom of the skirt. 

It looked like it was made for dancing. I paid the half dollar and took it home. Over the years, topped with a plain white knit blouse, it has been the perfect outfit for our weekend outings to public dances. The fullness of the skirt flares out like an air-filled sail as we swing and swirl in various dance steps.

There is, however, a hidden danger I had never even considered. Several weeks ago, dancing at a neighboring RV Park, I visited the ladies’ room at the break between music sets. We had chosen seats on the opposite side of the dance floor from the restrooms. The lights were high and the dancers were clustered around in small groups resting and visiting with friends.

I walked across the dance floor – clumsily as usual – reached my seat and sat down. But something was wrong! I felt the cold plastic of the seat of the chair against the backs of my bare thighs! I was trying to unobtrusively solve this mystery when a lady – a perfect stranger I had never seen before – approached me.  She didn’t even introduce herself; she just came very close to my ear and whispered, "Your skirt is caught in the elastic of your panties!"

I had walked nonchalantly across the width of the dance floor, under bright lights and within view of dozens of other dancers, with the back of my ruffled skirt tucked into my underwear! What a sight I must have made, with the backs of my bare legs and my underpants revealed for all to see!

I thanked her profusely. I was able – rather inconspicuously – to rearrange my outfit to a more decent position. Then I made a hasty return to the ladies’ room to fix the problem. I shall be eternally grateful for that stranger who was kind enough to save me from further embarrassment!

The Decline and Fall of Democracy

"U. S. government shut-down!"

All the news media tout.

So what is this latest

Congressional quagmire about?

 

The President's not explaining;

Dems won't talk to the G. O. P.

Workers laid off receive back pay

From the taxes of you and me!

 

National parks and monuments closed.

Doors shut at the C D C.

N I H suspends its research

That could benefit you and me!

 

The nation's blood is boiling.

It's mood from "mad red" to "sad blue,"

While the rich get richer, the poor go hungry,

And the rest of us get the "flew."

 

So, "government of the people, for the people,"

And by them has now been axe'd,

Replaced by government in spite of the people,

Beneath them and behind their backs!

To Share or Not to Share

Marriage means sharing; that’s the way it must be

When two are joined as one.

You must share your love, your hopes and dreams

Or trouble has begun.

 

You must share your troubles and your smiles,

Your schedules, your space, your time.

Perhaps you’ll even share in-laws and kids,

As up life’s hills you climb.

You’ll share your money and property.

You may even share your name.

Ah, once those vows at the altar are said,

Life never again is the same.

 

BUT ...

 

Even in marriage there are limits to sharing.

If you don’t respect them, you’ll lose all your caring.

 

FOR EXAMPLE ...

 

Sharing a flu bug goes beyond and above

All the requirements of marriage and love!

Ark Anxiety

 

I think I know how the animals felt

As they floated in Noah's ark

Above a trackless, watery world

Without a place to park.

 

The ark was small; its cargo large.

'Twas cramped, and no doubt smelly.

They had nothing to do but bide their time;

They didn't even have a telly!

 

Can you imagine the foxes and geese,

The elephants and bees

Floating together for many long days?

There must have been many skinned knees.

 

Or worse. 

 

 There must have been some times

When they wanted to kill each other.

It surely took all of Noah's skill

To protect them from one another.

 

But a little white dove with an olive branch

Saved them all from extinction.

People, animals and birds survived

(even the flamingo, "the pink one").

 

I sympathize.  We've had daily hard rain

For nearly three weeks straight.

We've not yet started to build an ark

But how much longer can we wait?

 

There's standing water everywhere,

And mud up to our skinned knees.

Thank God for those drought-busting drops,

But send a dove with an olive branch, PLEASE!

Pilgrim's Progress Report

Our 2013 Summer Tour is now over and we have returned safely and happily to our Texas winter home.  We have not been very faithful about submitting progress reports but since many of you faithfully followed us through all the stops on our Summer Tour, I think we owe you some personal reflections on our RV Adventures.

Eight years, four months, and fourteen days ago we sold our home in the town where we had lived for twenty-five years.  We had previously bought a thirty-two foot fifth-wheel trailer and a Ford 350 pick-up to tow it.  The next day, we hitched up and headed south in it as our full-time home.

Many friends -- and some family members -- thought we were crazy, of course.  They chose a variety of terms to describe us and our unconventional lifestyle:  "gypsies," "vagrants," "drifters," "trailer trash," and, of course, the IRS definition of full time RVers as "moderately affluent homeless."  In self-defense against labels like these, we chose to identify ourselves as "The Pilgrim Pair" because, for us, it felt more like a pilgrimage than a cop-out!  Thus the name of this communication: Pilgrim's Progress Report.

We've not done well in making statistical reports on our journey, but we've driven over 146,000 miles in these 8 plus years.  This summer alone, we towed the trailer 6400 miles and drove the truck an additional 2000 miles  We've had at least four major repair jobs on the truck, but no accidents.  The trailer has had a couple of malfunctions requiring trips back to the factory in Junction City, Kansas.  Considering its age -- 12 years -- it's doing quite well, however. 

In our eight year sojourn, we have visited -- once, twice, or regularly -- over ninety relatives and friends too many to count.  We've made scores of new friends along the way as well.

We were reminiscing the other day about how things have changed since we took up full-time residence in our RV.  For example, fuel costs more but the diesel fuel our truck needs is easier to find these days.  There seem to be more orange barrels and road repair and construction than there used to be.

Internet access for us on the road has improved in a major way so that on-line shopping, bill-paying and banking frees us from paperwork and standing in line waiting.  The recent improvements in GPS technology have been a great blessing for us as we wander into many unfamiliar areas.

I no longer get cold chills up my spine when I consider the kinds of emergencies that might arise: vehicle breakdown, sudden illnesses, getting lost in an unfamiliar area, getting medication refills, getting "lost" from our mail, etc.  I no longer worry about any of them because they have all happened and we have survived!

One change we could not adequately plan for, however, is that old age happens.  We knew that vehicles age, and that some other people do, also.  We never imagined, however, that we might feel its effects!  We are finding, though, that we can't work as hard or as long as we used to; morning aches assail us in ways they never used to do; walking or biking uphill is harder work than it used to be; 10 pm seems to come quicker than ever before; and nobody even asks anymore whether we are old enough to qualify for a "senior discount"! 

We're coping with elder-hood the best we can.  We never pass up a roadside rest area or another chance for a potty break.  We always hold the handrail when going up or down stairs.  We only read the headlines and pictures in the newspaper since the print has gotten so much smaller!  And, finally, the crowning adjustment to advancing age: I can now use the "accessible" stall in the women's room without a pang of guilt! 

Despite these inconvenient detail, this Pilgrim's Progress Report is positive!  We still agree that "Retired" is what we always wanted to be when we grew up, and we're making the most of it.  (We are working on a Plan B for when we must hang up the keys, however!)