<a href="mailto:gordandk@aol.com">By GORDIE LITTLE</a>
Small Talk
March 09, 2008 05:15 am
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Kaye reminds me that I neglected to mention a couple of significant anecdotes from our recent vacation in Mexico.
We did a lot of walking and gawking in Cabo San Lucas. Kaye and I love to absorb the local flavor in typical tourist fashion.
One street sight was particularly disturbing to us. As we strolled along a sidewalk, we were slowed by a crowd gathered around a Mexican family. Cameras were clicking, pointed at some children posing next to a dog. The pathetic pooch was dressed in colorful clothes and was sitting on its haunches with the handle of a basket clenched in its teeth. People dropped coins into the basket.
The poor animal was not allowed to move as we watched. Kaye and I had all we could do to walk away without expressing our displeasure at this exploitation. Each time we walked by for the rest of our stay, the same family and the same dog in the same pose appeared never to have moved. We saw no food or water dish nearby. It left us with a bad taste.
The second story was another chapter in the Detroit airport rush for our plane on the way home. Having to pass through Customs and Immigration, pick up our luggage and go through security again was exhausting and nerve-racking.
Airport metal detectors hate me. Over the years, I have only seldom been passed through without hearing buzzers and alarms.
Once, it was nothing more threatening than the metal in a gum wrapper. More recently, it has been a forgotten coin, a cell phone, a belt buckle or just my arms brushing the sides on my way through.
On the way to Cabo, I was delighted when the guard in Burlington called me by name as I walked through. She said she was from Plattsburgh. It's a good thing I didn't try to put anything over on her.
On the way home, though, I almost got whiplash from having to back up and try again so many times in Detroit. It got to be a standing joke with the security guard.
"Take off the belt," he ordered.
"BEEP!"
"Keep your arms in," he requested.
"Too fat," I explained.
"Just big muscles," he responded with a chuckle. For some reason, that evoked a round of raucous laughter.
In any case, I finally passed muster. By then, we were so late that our seven-month pregnant granddaughter, Meeghan, grabbed my belt from the tray along with Kaye's purse and jacket and all of her own belongings and began running for the far-off gate to hold the plane for us.
If you can picture her with my very long belt dragging on the floor and me hobbling along behind trying to hold my pants up with one hand, then you can visualize what would make a hilarious comedy routine, were it not so stressful in the moment.
I guess they felt sorry for us when Kaye and I arrived panting at the gate. They took our tickets and let us pass onto the plane. So much for the rule that you must be at the gate at least 30 minutes prior to take-off.
To top it off, there were more than a few eyebrows raised on the plane as this young, pregnant woman reached across the aisle and handed this gray-haired fat man a belt. The contortions necessary to put the belt onto my jeans in a seat designed for far more svelte passengers evoked further tittering.
Everything after that was downright mundane.
We captured hundreds of digital images that will help us to relive our Mexican memories. I've sent selected shots to friends and family via e-mail. I'm certain they are as thrilled as I was when others used to drag out the slide projector and we yawned through their travel slides.
Our friend Jane Lawless Murphy was brought up within a few miles of our Morrisonville home and wrote a wonderful book of her childhood recollections titled "Sugar on Snow." She graduated from Plattsburgh State and entertained many in musical theater productions back in the day.
She and her husband, Charles, now live on Long Island, and we keep track of each other via long e-mails and occasional visits.
Imagine our surprise this past week to learn that they were vacationing near us in Mexico at the same time. What a thrill it would have been had our paths crossed in a restaurant or along the Cabo waterfront.
Aside from a five-day bout of Montezuma's revenge upon returning to the North Country, I thoroughly enjoyed the trip with Kaye and our grandchildren and would do it again in a heartbeat.
One thing I did not see in Mexico was any sign saying, "Kilroy was here."
That will be the subject of next week's column. If you have any stories of that little guy showing up in your memory banks, please let me know.
Meanwhile, have a great day and please, drive carefully.
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