Kitsilano Beach sunset in Vancouver, on the early evening of Monday, July 2nd 2018
As we had indicated earlier, for the next seven weeks VanRamblings will reduce posting, through until Monday, August 20th.
Families are on vacation & voters’ attention is focused elsewhere than on who will comprise our next City Council, School Board and Park Board.
Even so, this upcoming Thursday, VanRamblings will publish the interview we did with UBC’s Patrick Condon, who is currently seeking the Coalition of Progressive Electors’ Mayoral nomination — this is the most provocative, gut-punching, wide-ranging interview with a person of character, integrity, passion and commitment that VanRamblings has conducted in 30 years!
Be sure to return here this Thursday to hear what democrat Mr. Condon has to say about where Vancouver would be headed were he to become our next Mayor, working with Council and working with folks in the 23 neighbourhoods across Vancouver to create a fairer and more just city.
Still and all, we were impressed during our interview with independent Mayoral aspirant Shauna Sylvester, published last week on VanRamblings, and going forward each Thursday in July we would hope to publish interviews with the remaining Mayoral aspirants, independent Kennedy Stewart (who, in fairness to readers, we would have to say has been our favourite mayoral aspirant to date), Vision Vancouver’s Ian Campbell — for whom we harbour much respect, and would feel just fine were he to become Vancouver’s next Mayor — and Vancouver Non-Partisan Association Mayoral candidate Ken Sim, who is currently odds-on favourite to become Vancouver’s next Mayor, and as such is very much deserving of our respect.
With the exception of the Vision Vancouver nomination meeting scheduled for this upcoming Sunday, July 8th, the Coalition of Progressive Electors’ Mayoral nomination decision set for Sunday, August 19th, and the announcement of the Vancouver Non-Partisan Association candidates for office, and who will comprise their 2018 team for City Council, School Board and Park Board candidates — the announcement likely to be made in the next couple of weeks — BBQ’s, picnics and informal gatherings of candidates for office aside, politicking in the summer months will be at a near standstill over the coming weeks, as should reasonably be the case.
Although VanRamblings’ postings will be haphazard through much of July and August, our intention is to post twice weekly on Vancouver Votes 2018 — each Thursday, for certain, interviews with Vancouver Mayoral aspirants — and through July 28th to post to Stories of a Life each Saturday in July.
As August is VanRamblings’ birthday month, the first 19 days of August posting will consist mainly of re-posts, August 1st through 10th Stories of a Life re-posts, August 12th through 19th, re-posts of relevant Vancouver Votes 2018 columns — although somewhere in there, it’s likely we’ll manage to sneak in three or four Vancouver Votes 2018 August columns.
We have also made a commitment to ourselves to work on a book project this summer, arising from a commitment we made to ourselves during our cancer journey, August 2016 through March 2017, a commitment that we have not kept thus far, but will seek to keep this summer, a writing project that we imagine will consume much of our spare time in July and August.
VanRamblings’ intention is to resume daily posting on VanRamblings on Monday, August 20th, through until election day exactly two month later. From September 6th through 27th, we’ll also post a great many columns on the upcoming 37th annual Vancouver International Film Festival, for VanRamblings the première arts & cinematic event of the calendar year.
Don’t forget, c’mon back here on Thursday for the absolutely fascinating and inspiring interview with Patrick Condon, and check in with us on succeeding Thursdays throughout July. We post to our Twitter account when we publish on VanRamblings, and seem to have a penchant for posting to our Facebook account with alarming frequency — so, feel free to follow either or both of our social media accounts if you’re of a mind to do so.
EWG: The Environmental Working Group’s Dirty Dozen & Clean 15 Foods | Eat Organic
From August 2016 through the end of October of that year, from the initial diagnosis of my terminal, inoperable Stage 4 hilar cholangeocarcinoma, I simply stopped eating. No appetite, simply wasn’t hungry. Didn’t feel well.
Not only did I have no appetite, but my entire intestinal system was in an uproar and in the early stages of shutdown, with my kidneys, gallbladder, biliary tract and bile duct, pancreas and liver pretty much shot and so cancer-ridden as to dramatically compromise my tenure on this Earth, my being kept alive a function of my Vancouver General Hospital gastro-intestinal surgeon, Dr. Fergal Donnellan, placing stents into my bile duct to keep things functioning, alleviating the jaundice that was serving to compromise my immune system, my bilirubin count up in the 200 range (normal bilirubin count: 17), my liver shot, my jaundiced body (but not spirit) causing me to glow yellow — not that I could see any difference between how I look normally, and the apparent way I looked to friends in this three month span of 2016 — keeping me bed-ridden, or in the hospital.
The bile duct system in the intestines, the organs and ducts that make and store bile (a fluid made by the liver that helps digest fat), and release it into the small intestine. The biliary tract includes the gallbladder and bile ducts inside and outside.
Of course, aside from writhing around in my bed or finding myself in meu banheiro for hours on end, there was an upside to all the pain and misery that was now consuming my life: I was losing weight like mad, and I wasn’t spending any money! Now, anyone who knows me — as my daughter Megan is wont to point out — knows that I tend to be tubby. Dropping 70 pounds & not spending any money — what a great programme, I tell ya.
I didn’t announce my hilar cholangeocarcinoma to the world until October 7th, 2016, doing so only after arriving home from Vancouver General Hospital after a day of surgery, still a little fuzzy and discombobulated from the anaesthetic, but ready to reveal to the world that my time on this Earth was seemingly and abruptly, not to mention, painfully, coming to an end.
Not really oh woe is me, I thought, nor did I relay the information of my cancer diagnosis in an attempt to gain sympathy (or, empathy for that matter — as came to be my experience in the next months, though, as one person after another revealed their own cancer diagnoses to me), but more as a matter-of-fact “this is what’s happening to me, it’s been good knowing you, thank you for your support, and for indulging my idiosyncrasies all these years” message to friends on Facebook, and a whole lot of good-natured folks I had no idea had been following me on Facebook, among them friends I’d not communicated with in years, sometimes decades.
Now, my friend (and as it turned out, personal saviour), author and mom and lover of Alan Bayless, the incredible and talented — and “make no mistake, I would not be here today were it not for Maureen’s intervention on my behalf, consistently the only person and the right person to see me through the scarifying experience of my cancer journey, and the only person who knows the whole story” — Maureen Bayless, about whom I will write, and dedicate more than one VanRamblings column in the future, in the story of my cancer journey, which will commence publishing in the aftermath of the current and hopeful 2018 Vancouver municipal election.
Marlie Oden, with whom I had worked as an arts journalist with the Lower Mainland community newspapers, as Director of Special Projects at Vancouver Magazine, and later publisher-editor of Festival magazine, published in support of Leonard Schein’s Festival Cinemas, upon reading in early October of my cancer diagnosis, got on the phone with me, texted and messaged me, told me of her own arduous cancer journey, a cancer with which she was still living, and set about to make arrangements to arrive at my now dark, dank and utterly messy home in mid-October, laden with an organic chicken from Whole Foods, as well as soups and prepared breakfast items from Whole Foods, salads and more, she and her husband leaving me a store of food that took me more than a month to eat, Marlie insisting, “Okay, Raymond. You’re going to eat well. You’re going to eat organically. You may not have much of an appetite, but you’re going to find a way to eat this food, whether you want to or not, because you need nutrition to keep up your strength, and to fight your cancer.” Hallelujah!
And with that, Marlie and her husband were gone.
I should probably say that I’d had no communication with Marlie in 20 years! Yet, there she was in my home, placing food into my refrigerator, giving me much needed instruction, showing a caring that was so heartening and spiritually uplifting that — as dire as everything looked, and would for months to come — for the first time in two months, Marlie gave me hope. You’re reading this, so you know I’m still around. When you run across Marlie and Maureen thank them for me, will ya — please.
I managed to consume the chicken over a one-week period, the soups over the month and into November, and most of the breakfasts over the course of the next month. So, thanks to Marlie and her husband, I was eating again, my weight loss slowed, and my strength began to return.
Anyone who knows me knows that I like (maybe that should read, love) strong, emotionally healthy, and spiritually sound women — any part of me that is at all recommendable comes in consequence to the women in my life, women who have cared for me against all reason, I have often thought to myself, but who have taken on the task of helping to make me a better, a healthier and more spiritually-centered person, women who have given me life and a sense of purpose. Marlie Oden and Maureen Bayless certainly are members of the cadre of compassion who have contributed to creating the best parts of me, and of how I daily bring myself to the world.
Read through the entire Dirty Dozen list of foods that the Environmental Working Group insists you should never eat, unless they’re organically-grown.
Marlie says, “Eat organic,” I eat organic. Of course, I already knew that — but I’d bought into the myth that eating organically would cost a fortune, and living like a pauper like I do, I thought, “Well, I oughta be eating organically, but can I really afford it?” Turned out, though, that eating organically doesn’t cost any more money than eating pesticide-ridden, corporate-farmed agri-business foods. For instance, if you look at the graphic above, you’ll notice that strawberries are first on the list of foods that if you’re not eating them organically, and you’re consuming pesticide-ridden agri-business strawberries, as I wrote on Facebook the other day …
“Strawberries contain residue from up to 22 pesticides — eating ‘regularly grown’ strawberries is like eating little bits of death, as yummy as they may look and taste. UNLESS, unless, unless the strawberries are ORGANIC — in which case, you may enjoy this life-giving food to your heart’s content. A couple of weeks ago, Whole Foods Market had 3 pounds of organic strawberries for only $9.99 (regular price, $6.98 a pound). This week, Choices Market has stepped up to plate, offering 3 pounds of organic strawberries for only $9.94!”
If you’re a Trump / Alex Jones conspiracy theorist, and you believe that there’s no difference between organic foods and agri-business grown foods, have at it, believe what you will. Me, I’m going to eat organic, especially when organic foods are often cheaper, much cheaper, than agri-business grown foods you’ll find at your local grocer. For instance, organic celery at Safeway — which is #10 on the Dirty Dozen list of foods you should stay away from, or as the folks at the Environmental Working Group write, “More than 95% of conventional celery samples tested positive for pesticides. A maximum of 13 pesticides were detected on a sample of conventional celery.” Oh gosh, I want to have some conventional celery right now … not — is consistently cheaper, often much cheaper, than the agri-business celery that you’re probably buying regularly, or periodically.
Read through the entire Clean Fifteen list of foods that the Environmental Working Group suggests you can eat, even if the foods are not organically-grown.
The Environmental Working Group also publishes a Clean Fifteen list of foods you can consume without having to be too concerned as to whether they’re organic or not, including as above, avocadoes, corn on the cob, pineapples, cabbages, onions, frozen peas, papayas, mangoes, eggplant, honeydew melons, canteloupe, cauliflower and broccoli — because these foods have thick, impenetrable “skins”, or the Environmental Working Group found that these foods had no detectable pesticide residues.
You’ll notice, too, that on both lists, at the bottom of the linked pages there’s an expanded list of foods under each category, so you’ll want to take a look at the expanded lists, in order to know what you should, or should not, be eating.
If you’re a parent of young children, as is the case with OneCity Vancouver’s Alison Atkinson, Cara Ng, Anna Chudnovsky and Christine Boyle (and their respective partners), or if you’re a good BC NDP supporting parent of a young child, like Kurt Heinrich and Theodora Lamb (should I have reversed the order of names? hmmm), Stepan Vdovine and Mira Oreck, or physician-to-be Cailey Lynch who’s co-habiting with some guy named David Eby (isn’t he British Columbia’s Minister of Justice and Attorney General, and maybe they’re, like I dunno, married? … who knows, it’s so beyond me …) — and, how in heck did I manage to miss mentioning Vancouver City Councillor Melissa De Genova again? … ew, she’s not going to like that, and what about new mom, and great and democratic Park Board Commissioner, Erin Shum, or mom-to-Grade One student and fiscally prudent and dedicated and hard-working Vancouver School Board trustee, Lisa Dominato? — or even if you’re not a died-in-the-wool progressive — or, maybe you’re the hope of our future, COPE candidate for City Council, Derrick O’Keefe, and his partner, Andrea Pinochet-Escudero, who have a great young son — it’s probably in the best interests of your family, and your family’s health, to take a look at both EWG lists, and act according to your conscience & as I say above, in yours and your family’s best interests.
Illicit: Stories from Vancouver’s harm reduction movement is a community-engaged arts-based project developed and led by residents of our region brought together by the harm reduction movement, and the ongoing opioid crisis impacting on our region’s most vulnerable citizens.
Please listen to the audio above of the interview conducted last evening by VanRamblings with Illicit Artistic Director Kelty McKerracher, for full background on the development of the Illicit community-developed performance piece, what it’s all about, who developed and is involved in the project, the rationale behind Illicit, upcoming performances, and more.
Created in response to the 2016 closing by Vancouver Coastal Health of the Downtown Eastside harm reduction facility DURC (Drug Users Resource Centre), Illicit explores the lived realities of the opioid overdose crisis, the effects of Canada’s drug policy, the stigma faced by those who use illicit drugs, and the courage of community to act in the face of continuing loss.
On July 3rd and 4th, the creators of Illicit invite you to witness the next step in the evolution of their work-in-progress — by entering an immersive world of shadow, music and story that celebrates the heart of a movement. The July 3rd and 4th performances of Illicit will take place at the Orpheum Annex, at 823 Seymour Street, in the artistic heart of Vancouver.
At 1pm on July 3rd, there’ll be a ‘pay what you can’ matinée performance of Illicit, for community members and anyone who wishes to attend, with ticketed performances in the evening, at 7pm, on both July 3rd and 4th.
Towards the end of the month, or very early in July, VanRamblings will re-publish today’s post. Tickets for the upcoming performances of Illicit will be available here, at some point in the next 24 hours, for the July 3rd and 4th performances of Illicit with information, as well, on how you might contribute to the Illicit project, as well as where and when performances of Illicit will take place in Victoria and Kamloops.
“In both places,” says Ms. McKerracher, “we’re working with wonderful teams of people, to set up not only a theatrical venue but an environment where we can have a productive dialogue. Illicit isn’t just about a performance, it’s about opening a space for a conversation that needs to be happening across the board in our society.
Harm reduction and the opioid crisis is not just a Downtown Eastside issue, this is affecting people across the province and across the country. We’re hoping that by taking it outside of Vancouver we’re going to reach audiences who don’t have access to this kind of conversation, and this kind of cultural shift.”
Illicit, a site-specific installation and performance uses theatre, monologues, shadow puppetry and marionettes to tell personal stories that nurture dignity and hope. The artistic team behind the project: current Artistic Director and producer Kelty McKerracher, director Renae Morriseau, musical director and Juno award-winning artist, Devon Martin, and shadow marionette and puppeteer David Mendes, who collaborate with an active and intimately involved group of co-researcher performers — including Alanna Abrosimoff, Tyler Bigchild, Steve Cardinal, Nicolas Leech-Crier, Shawn Giroux, Jim McLeod, and Tina Shaw — to create Illicit.
Tina Shaw, who works in overdose response in the Downtown Eastside, is involved in the upcoming production about Vancouver’s opioid crisis.
Presented in partnership with PHS Community Services Society, Hives for Humanity, and SFU ‘s Office of Community Engagement. And with support from Canada Council for the Arts, Community Action Initiative, and Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research. As Ms. McKerracher related to VanRamblings last evening …
“The show will be educational and anecdotal, about what’s going on in our community and how people feel, the performance of Illicit hopefully ending with a discussion. It’s about truth and understanding and about acknowledging the uncertainty, the loss, and the tragic unfairness of the current opioid crisis.”
For more information on the Illicit project, please visit the Illicit blog.
An early 1970s Mexican Adventure, Part 1 of 4 Simon Fraser University to Los Angeles, then Mexico
I loved university. In the 1970s, I loved attending classes at Simon Fraser University, talking hours on end with classmates sharing obscure insights into arcane literature, or why anarchism is the most humanist political philosophy, or spending hours in the library, or finding some quiet corner to type out the dozens of essays that were due each semester.
Surprising myself, I was so curious about the world around me, so committed to learning everything I could on any given subject presented to me by my various approachable and erudite professors and radicalized teaching assistants, in the books I was reading or from folks in the pub at whatever stage of their university career, who over a beer would good-naturedly engage with me in philosophical arguments, whatever the topic of the moment. Attending classes and living at Louis Riel House — sometimes not leaving Burnaby Mountain for months on end — attending Simon Fraser University was for me the happiest and most rewarding time of my life.
Not so much for Cathy, my long-suffering wife.
Ever since we had met, and as would remain the case for years to come, there was no disappointment to be found in our love-making, when we arose from our overnight slumber, between classes or when I came home for lunch. Before and after dinner. And, of course, before bed, which was always the longest period we dedicated to connubial bliss. Quite simply, we couldn’t get enough of one another. And that was good, for the both of us.
Still, after Cathy left her employment at Grayce Florists, and although Cathy worked with me and our friends publishing weekly at The Peak, where I was the Arts & Entertainment Editor, writing 10,000 words each and every week, in addition to my regular daily afternoon radio programme on CKSF, and all those classes, and tutorials, and essays, Cathy often attending classes with me, attending protest rallies and reviewing my essays before I handed them in — given that Cathy had consciously chosen not to re-enroll in school, to continue her university into its third year, there was something missing in her life and in her wanderlust nature. Travel.
Cathy made no secret of the fact that she wanted to get away, to explore new lands, to be adventurous and anonymous thousands of miles away.
In February 1972, I was enrolled in my fifth consecutive semester at SFU, having early on identified my areas of interest for my studies — political science, sociology and anthropology, part of the radical PSA department at SFU, as well as English literature.
Much to my astonishment, I was achieving straight A’s in school, my grade point average past my first year 4.0, and in this fifth semester I was on a roll, most of my course work completed by early February, as I prepared to ready myself with the reward of five more A’s, bursaries and scholarships, and further down the academic road enrollment in a Master’s programme.
Arriving home mid-afternoon Tuesday, February 8th, 1972, opening the door and walking into our student apartment, Cathy standing in the living room, rather than approaching me to give me a kiss, she stood stock still, looking down, then looking up and directly at me, and said, “We’re leaving for Mexico next Monday, for two months. Get your head around it.”
Cathy and I traveling along the Oregon coast, headed to California, and then Mexico
I knew there was no arguing with her about her dictum. Cathy had sacrificed so much for me that it was quite clear: it was her turn now. The next Monday morning, early, we jumped into our 1970 Datsun 510 — a wedding present from her mother — and only hours later we found ourselves barrelling down the coast of Oregon heading towards Los Angeles, where arrangements had been made to stay with our friend, Bachi — with whom I had attended almost all my classes my first four semesters, and who was my best friend, Manuel Vittorio Esquivel, handsome, swarthy, adventuresome, and the best friend anyone could wish for.
While in Los Angeles, Cathy & I listened to KRLA, southern California’s rock ‘n roll giant
Cathy didn’t like driving, so I drove the entire 1500 miles (I love driving!) to our L.A. destination, arriving two days after we’d left our Burnaby Mountain home, as we found our way to the Chicano area of Los Angeles, a Latino and Latina East L.A. of boom boxes and low-riders, a vibrant Mexican community with which we fell in love, as we did Bachi’s mother’s cooking — eating mole chicken and lime-cilantro rice for the first time while consuming gallons of fresh-squeezed orange juice available at farmer’s markets in two quart containers, for only a dollar, driving along the freeways in the jasmine-scented night area, KRLA radio at full volume blasting into the warm night air, free and in love, and enjoying the time of our young lives.
The sunny, open air shopping mall located in wealthy, beach-fronted Santa Monica
All was not perfect, though. One afternoon while awaiting dinner and sitting in the living room, Bachi’s 18-year-old sister, Maria — one of the most beautiful and self-possessed young women I’d ever met, who was enrolled in her second semester at a nearby college, and who worked as a sales clerk at a department store in a mall in the wealthy Santa Monica neighbourhood to help pay for her tuition — came home crying, sobbing, inconsolable, wracked with pain, broken and disconsolate, collapsing onto the sofa, curled up into a heaving ball of sobs and pain, bereft of hope, for the moment not of this world, not of any world, alone and withdrawn.
Maria worked in the shoe department at Macy’s. Earlier that afternoon, a wealthy woman in her early 30s had arrived at the shoe department, miserable, abusive, racist, on the attack and demanding service — now pointing at Maria — to “that dirty Chicana over there, who oughta be sent back to where she came from, but if she’s gonna be here, she damn well better serve me, and get her ass over here. Now!”
The manager stood nearby, but didn’t come to Maria’s aid, instead directing the abusive woman over to where Maria stood, now quivering, saying to the irate-for-no-good-reason shopper, “Of course, ma’am. Maria is here to serve you. She will find you anything you need. Now hop to it, Maria.”
The situation devolved from there, with Maria finding one pair of shoes after another for this racist and abusive early-30s woman, responding to the demands of the woman to, “Get down on your knees, don’t look at me, put those shoes onto my feet now, don’t look up, and you better be careful when fitting those shoes, or I’ll have your job.” The woman remained in the shoe department for an hour, loudly and abusively making Maria’s life a hell on earth, before finally leaving the department store harrumphing, having made no purchase. Maria finished her shift, and drove home.
Once home, after her mother intervened, Maria spent the rest of the evening in her bedroom, while Bachi, Cathy and I left his home, leaving Maria — whose young life had been a litany of the kind of abuse she had suffered that afternoon — in the care of her mother, as the three of us drove to a nearby drive-in for a burger and fries, staying away until late.
That evening, Cathy and I decided we would leave for Mexico the next day.
After an early breakfast of heuvos rancheros prepared by Bachi’s mom, Maria still in her bedroom, not wishing to join us at the kitchen table, leaving our car in the garage attached to Bachi’s home, Bachi drove us in his own vehicle to the Mexican border, just north of Tijuana. Cathy had mapped out our journey, involving us taking a bus to Mexicali, where we would board a train for the 2,000 kilometre journey to Guadalajara.
The train above, very much like the train Cathy and I traveled on throughout Mexico
Both Cathy and I, once we’d boarded the train in Mexicali for the first leg of our Mexican adventure — we were planning on staying in Guadalajara for a few days, then planned to make our way over to the coast, and come back to Guadalajara before heading to Mexico City, but it was still a largely unplanned adventure, where we both felt secure that we’d meet good folks, and learn something about a country about which knew little — were surprised that there were 20 young Americans traveling in the same car as us, hippies who’d shorn there hair, as I had, in order to get a visa, the men letting their hair and beards grow once we’d made it across the border.
As is almost always the case when traveling in a group — not that any one of us knew one another, or anyone else in our car — one of our 20 ‘fellow travelers’, in this case a gaunt young man with an adventurous spirit who’d traveled to Mexico before, suggested to us all that upon arriving in Guadalajara, we immediately make our way over to La Peñita, along the coast, 72 kilometres north of Puerto Vallarta, where we could stay for as little as a dollar a day, swim, get to know the townspeople, and enjoy ourselves away from the hubbub of the tourist trap to the south.
Sounded good to all of us — we now had a destination.
Now, traveling as a financially itinerant train and bus traveler in the 1970s was fraught with adventure. Why fraught? Well, because revolution was the order of the day, throughout Europe, throughout central and South America, and most certainly in Mexico, where guerilla groups fought with the Mexican army, farmers led by ex-teacher Lucio Cabañas fighting against landholder impunity and oppressive police practices in rural Mexico, the guerillas carrying out ambushes of the army and security forces, and blowing up train tracks throughout northern Mexico — as proved to be the case on the first leg of our collective journey into the heart of Mexico.
Above, a contemporary photo of Benjamin Hill, in the northern Sonora state of Mexico
Upon arriving in Benjamin Hill, in the northern Mexico state of Sonora, approximately 714 kilometres south of Mexicali, the train conductor informed us that there’d be a day or two layover in Benjamin Hill, as the tracks 30 kilometres south had been blown up by guerillas. When we arrived in Benjamin Hill, midday, the sun was bright, the day sweltering. We all alighted the train to take a look around at the dusty little village.
We debated whether or not we’d each rent a room in one of the mud shacks off the main street. One of our companions, who had kept a close watch on me since we’d boarded the train in Mexicali, a ‘sexual freedom leaguer’ traveling with her boyfriend, she a stunningly gorgeous Asian woman, her boyfriend a nerdy-looking, quiet guy, looked at me and looked at Cathy, and then set about to announce to everyone gathered around in the boldest possible fashion, “I want to fuck him,” then looking at me said, “I want to fuck you. Let’s go find a room in that building over there.”
I looked over at Cathy, who was rolling her eyes, looking heavenward, then looking at me, exclaimed, “You want to fuck her, go ahead. I’m not fucking her boyfriend, though.”
Me, I’m not good in situations such as the one I was now being confronted with. Would I liked to have gone off with this beautiful young woman for a sweaty afternoon of sexual frolic? Sure — but that would mean leaving Cathy behind, and I wasn’t prepared to do that, so I just said, “You’re invitation is very kind, and I appreciate it, but I’m going to stay with Cathy,” at which statement the young sexual freedom leaguer grabbed her boyfriend’s hand, marching off to rent a room in a sun-baked mud building.
As it happens, the twenty-two of us remained in Benjamin Hill for only about six hours, as the authorities had identified an alternative route to get around the tracks that had been destroyed. By late evening, we were all on our way again, the night chill, Cathy wrapped securely in my arms, under a blanket we’d purchased in town for about three dollars.
Two days later, we arrived in Guadalajara, the twenty-two of us alighting the train, seeking food and drink. “No water,” our appointed leader told us — ”Stay with Coke, you’ll be better off. You can trust it because it’s bottled by Americans under strict standards. Drink the water, or anything washed in local water, and you’re going to find yourself in trouble.” So, we found a food cart along the street — all along the way from Mexicali to Guadalajara, we’d fed ourselves from the food carts at stops along our journey south.
We looked for, and found the bus station, all of us purchasing tickets to La Peñita for the five-hour, 262 kilometre pilgrimage to our coastal village destination, arriving around 7pm, by which time it was night, although the near full moon above shone bright. Once in La Peñita, we secured our accommodation — spacious houses about 200 yards back from the beachfront water, several of us staying in each of three houses we rented for what would be our one-week stay in the rural village, our new home.
Having left our pack sacks in our new domiciles we all went back into town, where we were accosted by a group of 6, 7, 8 and 9-year-old boys who wanted us to play foosball with them, for a peso a game — if they won, we gave them a peso (equivalent to about one cent), the game free to play.
The first game I played was with one of the 6-year-old boys, who wasn’t tall enough to even see the top of the foosball table. “This is gonna be easy,” I thought to myself, “Poor kid.” I meant to win, and show this boy how it’s done — although I’d never played foosball before. Five minutes in, the game was over, I hadn’t scored once, the boy’s facing beaming, looking up at me saying, “De nuevo, señor, de nuevo.” Over the course of the next hour, I played each of the boys, as did the men in the group, losing each game successively more quickly, as was the case with each of my companions, now 20 pesos poorer than when I’d begun the night, the women standing nearby by shaking their heads, going off to look at the “shops” nearby (stalls, really), the young boys now gleeful.
Our leader, the gaunt young American man, rounded us all up, and said, “Let’s go for a swim,” and we did, some of the women going back to our new homes to find blankets to lay on the sand, but not swim suits, as this was to be a naked swim in the ocean, all twenty-two of us running toward and splashing in the warm, sparking water, the moon above glistening in the purple night sky, the light of the moon reflecting off the water.
Kitsilano Beach sunset in Vancouver, on the early evening of Monday, July 2nd 2018
