The bedroom

THIS APPEARS to be a bedroom. There’s the antique bed that’s been neatly made up. There’s an armoire to the right.

And an apparatus to repair flat tires rests in the foreground, and an electric welder sits between the bed and the armoire which has a picture of Jesus attached.

Someone repairs auto tires and does welding to boot. It also appears to be Home Sweet Home.

The bedroom/business is open to the street. The only thing separating it from the sidewalk is an old, chain-link fence. There’s a makeshift roof overhead. A good night’s sleep would be a challenge beneath rain, lightning, thunder.

Strung vertically is a line with cloth that can be pulled down to make a curtain to hide the sleepyhead from people passing by on the sidewalk late at night.

I snapped this photo through the chain-link fence. There was no one home at the time. Or at work either. It was late Friday afternoon. Perhaps he was out for a beer.

Odds are that this fellow is not married. He appears to be a hard worker. Neat too. He makes up his bed.

And he believes in Jesus.

Independence day

TODAY IS Mexico’s version of the Fourth of July.

Here on the mountaintop, we start partying on the previous evening, and we continue today. I don’t participate much because I’m not party people.

I did salute the flag yesterday evening on the plaza as a police band played, and the banner was brought down for its usual overnight siesta indoors.

That makes the third time since I became a citizen in 2005 that I’ve saluted the Mexican flag. It’s not that I avoid it. I just rarely find myself at an event where it’s appropriate.

I’ll admit it feels weird. Wish it didn’t but it does.

While downtown yesterday, I took the photo while sitting on a cement bench on the plaza. And, of course, you’ll find other Fabulous Fotos by Felipe right here, amigos.

¡Viva México! Bring on the tacos and cerveza.

A thousand words

THIS PHOTO says it all. Look at those woebegone hillbillies standing behind Bernie. Give us free stuff!

Sometimes a photo is indeed worth a thousand words. Atop the list of free stuff these folks would like, I’m guessing, is a six-pack of Budweiser and a coon dawg.

Mardi Gras days

CONTINUING THE old-photo theme I started Friday, we have here a shot from early 1966. That is me with my first wife, who went by the name of Ginger in those times, but not anymore.

She was, as the baggy blouse indicates, in a family way.

I was, as the beads draped around my head and neck and the Dixie beer can in my grip indicate, in an inebriated way. However, my fondness for booze did not really start till five years later.

We are standing outside a rooming house on St. Charles Avenue in Uptown New Orleans on Mardi Gras. A parade was passing in the street, which is how I caught those beads. I was 21, and she was 20.

This first marriage — for both of us — lasted a bit over five years. Ginger later married a more appropriate fellow, a great guy, and they’ve been together for decades. She had two more children. She’s now a therapist in New Orleans and, from what little I know, doing well.