Readers' Forum


Dogging it
By Jock Ferguson, alias Rex Rover (June 2, 2006)

San Miguel has a dogmatic cultural problem. The town is doggied up. Roiling roof dogs and wild street wailers can disrupt our civil slumbering. For gringos, the noisy night dogs are seen as a Mexican community problem.

But in the daytime-and especially evenings-there appears to be an unsettling doggy problem tied to gringos. And this one is doggone offensive for Mexicans and many of us foreigners.
The number of gringas dogtrotting around town on their high heels with little toy dogs under their arms or on fancy leashes appears to be growing rapidly. These American matriarchs are pushing their tiny, toy pets into the lives of everyone in town-not only in Centro, but in stores, churches and, most appallingly, in restaurants. 

My jaw drops onto the table when I see women dogging into one of my favorite restaurants.

Usually I'm sitting with Mexican, Canadian and American amigos when we get dog-wacked. We cringe. But do we say or do anything? No-we just jump into doggerel with our friends at the table. In many instances, restaurant owners also do nothing, because they don't want to offend well-off gringas. 
One popular restaurant in town, Hecho en Mexico, has a courtyard patio that was regularly swarmed by dogged women. After years of bad smell, bad behavior and doggie dumps, the owner put a stop to it. An entranceway sign now reads "no dogs allowed."

Another favorite gringo restaurant, Harry's, also banned dogs recently. 

Like in America, it is illegal to take dogs into restaurants in Mexico. When was the last time you saw a Mexican woman drag a dog into a restaurant? Clearly, they know it is illegal, and they also know that imposing doggy life on other people is culturally insensitive. 

Remember the famous expression "when in Rome do as the Romans do"? Well, in San Miguel it appears that dogmatic gringas do not do what Mexicans do. Worse, it appears they have little interest in doing what Mexicans do. And this is what is making Mexicans, and a good number of us foreigners, a little unhappy with this dogged gringa insensitivity.
Recently, I saw a dolled up gringa stroll into a popular fruit and vegetable store with a tiny dog on a leash, instantly inflicting her toy pet on the rest of us trying to buy clean, healthy food. A quick flutter of eye rolling and smiles revealed that the rest of us in the store-mostly Mexicans-were offended by this toy dog invasion.

Did you ever hear about the infamous Texan woman who brought a dolled up arm dog into a church for a Mexican family wedding? Can you imagine what family members in the church thought of that?

For months now I've sniffed around town trying to get a read on why this daily doggedness exists and why these doggone gringas are clueless about the anything-goes dog's breakfast they've created. 

Now, don't for a minute think this is all about my disliking dogs. Like most gringos and Mexicans, I'm enthusiastic about family pets. Many residents here are daily dog trotters, and most are pretty good at cleaning up after their pals and don't add to the street garbage problem that litters town. Many also get a good workout with large dogs and keep them on tight leash control because of heavy SUV and pedestrian traffic in Centro. Clearly, they are not part of this doggone problem.

Dog invasions also appear to be growing in the United States. A recent newspaper article in New York disclosed that some restaurateurs noticed "a surge in diners seeking to bring dogs inside for emotional support where previously restaurants had accommodated only dogs for the blind."

An owner of 12 New York area restaurants said: "I had never heard of emotional support animals before. And now all of a sudden, in the last several months, we're hearing this."
So why, you might ask, do they do this in New York and San Miguel? Is it not time to speak out against this culturally offensive behavior? 

Maybe the town needs to hire Mexican dogcatchers to monitor our restaurants and park these rather disrespectful women in a local doghouse. Clearly, my raising the issue of this problem and illustrating how it offends Mexicans and foreigners will make this a dog-eat-dog issue for these women.
But maybe they need a paws to reflect about what is appropriate gringa behavior in San Miguel.


A gregarious man about town
By Edward Rapp

Gene De Dea gets up early in his country home and makes ready to hop on the shuttle bus into San Miguel. He walks the streets of town and chats up anybody who wants to chat back. Later in the day he takes the shuttle bus back home. Or maybe he gets up and repairs to his meticulous home workshop, where he will work on the production of pens-a hobby and a sort of business.

He picked that up years ago at a Veterans Administration hospital in New Mexico in their search for work that fits his talents. One way or the other, he has crafted a life around his new problem and maintained his balance and good nature. 

That shop has to be meticulous: a drawer for everything and everything in a drawer. Gene became blind, what is called "legally" blind, out of the blue only four years back. He lives a diverse and interesting life for a man who cannot see what he is doing or the world around him. His social visits to the Jardín make up a large part of his trips into town. Out of a series of casual visits and conversations at the Jardín, he has put together an improvised luncheon club. He and a coterie of "regulars" move around among the various restaurants. It has become commonplace to hear the tapping of his walking stick on the streets and see the 78-year-old making his way across the precarious sidewalks of town. He knows the feel of the streets in San Miguel, but he does not know their names or what they look like.

Gene comes from a European family. His father was Swiss, his mother French. They moved to New York, where Gene was born, around the time of World War I. He later moved to New Mexico, where he worked for 27 years for IBM. In 2001, he was driving his car when suddenly the light poles along the highway appeared to be bent. The next day, they looked broken in the middle. This was his introduction to macular degeneration, a serious eye ailment that plagues him to this day and does not respond to treatment.

This would upset and depress most people. It does no such thing to Gene. He has made a remarkable adjustment to the loss of vision, and he lives a happy life. Gene credits much of his adjustment to the professional ministrations of the Veterans Administration Hospital in Tucson, Arizona, where he received treatment and prolonged therapy. He also credits his wife, Carolyn, of 33 years. The onslaught of his blindness hit her harder than it did him. They live in a single-story house in Rancho Los Labradores out on the Dolores highway.

Carolyn discovered early on that Gene was not to be babied. He does not want the over-attention that people offer the blind; he handles himself well, tapping away on his stick and negotiating San Miguel's notorious cobblestone streets. The couple recently went to Guatemala. Indeed, if you did not know Gene was blind, you would not likely discover it on your own. He is more likely to greet you with a wisecrack than with a groan.



Letters (June 2, 2006)

Send your letters to the editor to 
atencionedit@bibliotecasma.com. Atención will not publish offensive, defamatory or anonymous material.


Editor,
Thank you, Atención. As a result of the article that ran in the May 26 issue, "Parting is such sweet sorrow," concerning the closing of the Sensual Chocolatiers' factory, I would like to report that something positive took place. Sensual Chocolatiers' stores will re-open the first week of June. I, and especially the proud employees who are grateful for their work, thank everyone who expressed concern and those who stepped forward to offer help. In San Miguel you will find us in the plaza at Mesones 57.

Michael McKenna, Owner


Editor,
Conservatives in San Miguel take a haven by avoiding the liberal majority that dominates the written expressions found weekly in Atención. However, I must come out of the closet to comment on the nonsensical prattle in the article by Joseph Dispensa. I really need to go no further than to provide the quote, "But terrorism is not an armed enemy-it is a quality." Is it to be our conclusion that those three airplanes that were sent on the September 11 mission were not "arms" of the terrorist? The terrorist attacks in Spain, England, Saudi Arabia, etc. etc. were not armed? Just merely expressions of "hostility and/or meanness." The gist is that we should not react to defend ourselves from unfounded terrorist fears. Mr. Dispensa asks, "What is it that we are so afraid of?" The answer, Mr. Dispensa, is that we are not afraid, but we do believe in protecting our families and nation. That is why we are taking it to the terrorists abroad. And just maybe that is why there has not been another attack on US soil. I hope and pray we continue this success.

Robert Bundy


Editor,
I am torn between a place of joy and anguish and somewhere within a great unknown. The joy of completing my latest film, Luz del Mundo, collided with anguish last Wednesday upon returning to our base camp and office to find my laptop computer missing. This was the very night of our wrap party and final celebration of finishing a film I often thought would be impossible to get through. A director's laptop computer is an extension of all the creative energies, notes and ponderings that are applied toward the film before, during and after production. It is a tool for refining the craft of filmmaking, and I am lost without it, and editing the film remains in total limbo. 
By last Tuesday evening, the sweat of my brow was all but gone and I began to breathe a sigh of relief for somehow, some way, pulling through and making this film become a reality. Over three years of development allowed me this time to decompress, or so I thought, and this much-needed moment of grandeur and bliss could finally be enjoyed. I began to relax. The short, happy moment would soon be broken.

The test of will and patience had another chapter-perhaps the greatest of all. A filmmaker losing his computer is not unlike a painter standing before her canvas with brush in hand but no paint, a photographer with camera ready to snap but no lens in which to capture the image, or a concert pianist's piano keys stolen by ivory thieves from Zanzibar. 

My plan to remain in San Miguel de Allende to begin the very crucial phase of post-production is slowly slipping away. I cannot even watch our dailies (raw footage) as this highly specialized computer had high-definition editing software that is hard to find and extremely expensive. I cannot be alone with this material (as every director would desire to be) to know and understand what pieces lay before me, in order to pull together one of the most ambitious short films San Miguel will ever know, based on the final memories of Neal Cassady just before his death in 1968. Without this computer, I, as an artist and filmmaker, am without my most essential tool. As a producer and young ambassador of filmmaking in Mexico, I am in a stalemate. 

To say the least, I am disappointed in myself for not taking better care of something so cherished (although it was locked away in an office). But mostly I have begun to question the goodness of humanity while also questioning our dependence on these material items. I, no doubt, am as guilty as any for adhering to such a dependency. It is the life and career I have chosen.

My greatest concern here is that of the lack of morality when reaching out among my people. For someone within my circle of collaborators, or someone close to it, was involved in the crime. The great irony is the time and energy we spent together on the battlefield in making this film happen. I cannot imagine giving so much and then turning a blind eye when the questioning begins. I have offered rewards and disclosures of anonymity. I have had no success.

In a world that is filled with so many other issues of importance, I ask for your forgiveness and understanding in asking you to read my words today. I respect your time more than you could ever know. My missing computer means nothing to the greater scope of the world. What it does signify, though, is the destruction of ideas and the creative choices I made in choosing to shoot this film in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. My desire to shoot in San Miguel was a battle I began over a year ago. All my collaborators insisted on staying stateside. But how could I tell the story of Neal Cassady and Jack Kerouac in Mexico by filming in the US? Outrageous. Impossible. I fought for San Miguel. I need San Miguel to fight for me. 

I'm writing this now with no real purpose other than to get my story out there. Perhaps someone knows something that will lead to the recovery of my Apple Powerbook G4 17-inch laptop. Perhaps not. Most of all, I hope San Miguel de Allende continues to thrive as an artists' community to all those who will embrace it. 

If anyone has any information they would like to share feel free to send an email to mac_perdido@hotmail.com  

Ty Roberts


Editor,
I had the honor of working for 12 years as an assistant to Col. Phillip J. Maher at the US Consulate office, during which I learned a lot from a wise man who is devoted to serving the community and always certain in his decisions. All kinds of problems used to present themselves every day, and he always was ready to solve them, from the smallest ones to truly difficult situations. It was always a pleasure to work with him, not caring about the long office hours the agency demanded. Emergencies always occurred after office hours, and he, without doubting, attended each call as though it were of utmost importance. I can count myself among those who say that daily work was satisfactory, and this would not have been possible without Colonel Maher's example. I believe his position will be quite difficult to fill; his integrity makes him one in a thousand. I cannot thank enough this wonderful human being who is Colonel Phillip J. Maher. 

Paula Ramírez 


Editor,
Millions of Mexican nationals are earning money doing jobs others don't want to do-and sending billions of dollars home to their families. It is a sad state of affairs that they must break the law to do so.

In Atención [May 26] there are many comments about the situation from differing perspectives. Anyone that has spent hours-and dollars-in the immigration department here is doing so not because they want to. Most "gringos" here try to stay within the law-in most cases because they know they would be deported if they don't.

Those who make the laws in el Norte don't seem to care about the "realities" of the work the illegal immigrants do. Without the protection of law, many must suffer. Those OUT(side the)LAW are outlaws. Those who make-and enforce-the bad laws are the real problem.

Rick Welland