Brian Fey cannot fly

AN ECCENTRIC named Brian Fey, who lives alone nearby on another mountaintop, fell off a two-story building last week in a village abutting our lake, and screwed himself up real good. He was filming a celebration called Corpus Christi.

Over 15 years ago, Brian moved down from the United States, purchased a large property on that mountain where there was already a building or two, and he established what he calls Bosque Village. His goal is “sustainable living” or something like that.

I don’t believe there is any electricity in Bosque Village except what his generator makes now and then. Brian lives without even a refrigerator.

He seems to make his living by hosting paying visitors who stay days or weeks to live the Bosque Village Experience and learn about sustainable living.

Brian has no family here, no medical insurance, and little savings. He’s a good egg, and if you could toss a few bucks in the Brian Basket to help with his medical expenses, it would benefit your karma. There is a GoFundMe page that makes it easy.

https://is.gd/vsRsbi

Click on the link just above.

Brian has a YouTube channel. A search for Brian Fey or Bosque Village will take you there.

Mansplaining Trump to Mexicans

PRESIDENT TRUMP is not a popular man in Mexico.

If I had a MAGA cap, and I wish I did, I would not wear it on the street. You may recall that I ordered a Trump coffee mug via eBay after the presidential election. Someone at Mexican Customs smashed it, put it back in the box, and sent it on to me.

I glued it back together as best I could, and now it sits proudly on my desk as a pen-and-pencil holder. Trump’s grinning at me as I write this.

Mexicans’ attitude toward Trump is understandable. Were I a born Mexican instead of merely a made one I probably would dislike him too. It’s human nature. The stuff he said during the campaign was pretty harsh, but he was campaigning like Teddy Roosevelt, and what he said was for American consumption. It worked!

On a couple of occasions, I’ve had Mexicans ask me what I think about Trump. I tell them I voted for him, and then I provide this analogy:

How would Mexicans feel if, instead of the two Gringo-infested havens of San Miguel de Allende and the Lake Chapala area, there were literally hundreds of San Miguels sprinkled across Mexico?

And these hundreds of San Miguels were infested with Gringos who lacked visas because they had entered Mexico via tunnels, climbing over fences and swimming south over the Rio Bravo, dodging the law.

And how would Mexicans feel if these millions, literally millions, of illegal Gringos, most of whom spoke no Spanish and had no interest in doing so, were fond of marching in our streets waving American flags and demanding their “rights”?

I’ll tell you how Mexicans would feel. They would be apoplectic. Of course, this would never happen because Mexico would not allow it in the first place.

Mexicans are not that stupid. We would deport you.

If Mexicans want to get angry at the election of Trump, and they decidedly do, they should know who caused it. They need only look into a mirror. They themselves caused it with their lawless, decades-long border invasion. That plus the collusion of the vote-grubbing Democrat Party and the acquiescence of the numbskull Republicans.

Mexicans and the two corrupt U.S. political parties created Trump.

You did it, amigos. Nobody else.

The luckiest generation

MY FATHER WAS a member of The Greatest Generation, Americans who suffered through the Great Depression and still had the will to defeat the Nazis and the Japanese during World War II.

These guys then put Germany and Japan back together before coming home and gearing up the most successful and innovative economy the world has ever known.

I am one of that generation’s offspring. Perhaps you are too. My generation is called the Boomers, but a far more accurate name would be The Luckiest Generation.

We have never known true want. Except for our soldiers in foreign lands on occasion, a necessity, no one has ever shot at us or dropped bombs on us. We’ve never faced famine or refugee camps.

Since we’ve been so lucky, most of us don’t think about the fact that few people across the grim pages of history have had it this good. I’m talking about the “Western World,” which I define as the United States, Canada, Western Europe, and I’ll toss in the Aussies and New Zealanders.

It’s the world of liberal democracy, capitalism and freedom.

The Luckiest Generation should go to bed each night thanking the Goddess for its good fortune. Most do not, and their offspring, the grandchildren of the Greatest Generation, do it even less, if at all. They are Twittering, Facebooking and Instagraming.

The leading edge of my generation, those who timed it just right, like me, is getting long in the tooth, and the odds are that we will go to our cremation urns relatively unscathed.

What incredible good fortune, good karma. We are blessed.

The sound of honeybees

THE OLD MAN was walking down the stone sidewalk when he realized he felt no stone. And then he saw that he was an inch or so above the surface, which was quite strange.

Being a quick study, he knew that he was dead. He stopped the stroll and looked around. The sky was not blue. It was as clear green as the sea off Luquillo Beach in Puerto Rico where he had once lived. And the rock wall in front of him was pink with yellow highlights.

Dead, but he had ascended only an inch or so, which was quite insufficient, he knew. Perhaps there was bad karma to burn off. If so, he had no idea how to do that. Perhaps a voice would tell him.

But there was no voice. Just the soft sound of honeybees.

He stood stock still and waited for further instructions.