Today is Cinco de Mayo, the fake Mexican holiday created to sell margaritas and nachos in the US. It drove me down Memory Lane.
Mike used to LOVE El Torito, a Mexican place in the Falls shopping center. We would go often, and back then I wasn't a margarita guy (still aren't), and so I would drink Kahlua and creams. I was The Dude before The Dude! Cinco de Mayo Mike would arrive early, to secure us a table, and Wifey (before she was Wifey -- she was just bottom, um, girlfriend, would arrive, as would Jeff and then girlfriend Cheryl, and maybe Dave S, and other UM Law stragglers. Every once in awhile, Eric would come with some of his Med School buddies, too, and we would eat and listen to mariachi music and have a gay all time, as the Flintstones theme sang.
But Mexico has a far deeper meaning in our lives -- it was where my family truly began. In May of '84, Cheryl and Jeff invited me to go with them to Cancun -- and this was way before Cancun became a Spanish speaking Ft. Lauderdale. Cheryl's step dad Roger (pronounced Ro-HAIR) owned a villa right on the sea, and we could stay there for free, and Mexicana had a $150 round trip flight from Miami. We would go for a long weekend, check out Tulum and Isla de Mujeres (Jeff re-named the place Isla Mujeres Facil), and shake off the mental stress and harm done to us by our 1L year. Cheryl told me to invite proto-Wifey.
But there was a problem. Pre-Wifey had broken up with me for the second and FINAL time weeks before, on account of she was 27 and I was nearing 23 and she wanted us to be EXCLUSIVE (a term that never fails to crack up the Ds) and I wasn't ready. 1992 was a rough year for me -- the college girlfriend I thought I might marry dropped me like I was hot, and far worse, my Dad had died in my arms. So I planned to date for, oh, the next 17 years before marrying when I got to be 40.
Fine, said Cheryl -- pick another date. And I tried -- asking no fewer than 10 ladies I had either dated, or were just old college buddies, and each and every one had a conflict -- ranging from "sorry, dude, working on hooking a Mt. Sinai doc -- last thing he needs to hear is I went away to Mexico with you" to "Oh man -- would LOVE to, but had plastic surgery to fix my broken nose from a bike fall and can't get sun" (my friend Edee the neuroscientist in training then.
I called Cheryl and said I would just come solo -- probably find myself a seniorita like the Jay and the Americans song. NO! Cheryl, always with bad energy, though it took decades to realize that, was adamant -- there would be no third wheel interfering with her and Jeff's romantic time -- get a girl, Dave, or stay home.
So I called Wifey, and got the expected chilly response. "I told you NEVER call me again -- what is it?" I talked fast, like the guy in the old FedEx commercial: "Mexico -- like the Against All Odds movie we loved. Beach. Pyramids. Xel-Ha underwater park..." To my shock, she said she would call me back.
I learned later she called her at that time BFF Linda, who had correctly called me a creep and warned her friend about STDs I must be carrying. I wasn't. Linda, my largest detractor -- said to Wifey, who happened to be on vacation the week of the trip "Go with him. Have a great time. You broke up with the creep 2 times -- why not a 3rd?" And Wifey agreed to come along!
Well, the trip was where I fell in love with her. I loved her before, I guess, but 5 days of pure romance, away from the rigors (and multiple classmates I was dating) of law school were intoxicating. We played Trivial Pursuit, drunk on tequilla (and kahlua for me). We climbed the pyrmamids of Tulum. We snorkeled Isla Mujeres -- except Wifey, who, comically could not because of TMJ.
And we 2 couples laughed -- deep, belly laughs -- the kind that these days cause me to lose my breath. It was magical.
When we came back, we got together, even though Wifey had moved to North Miami to get farther away from me. She was killing it as a flower marketer. I interned at the law department of Key Pharmaceuticals. We had money -- plenty for our needs of going to dinner and concerts. We house sat for 3 weeks for my professor friend Judy and her now late husband Bob -- in the UK for a conference. It was a cool house in the Gables -- we hosted Jeff and Cheryl and Mike and Loni -- pool parties.
The next year, we visited Mexico again -- this time 3 couples -- Mike and Loni joined us, and the laughter memories multiplied like rabbits, including an incident where Mike ended up on the barrel tile roof in the wee small hours in his tighty whities following some squabble with Loni. The details have, to this day 41 years later, mercifully never been revealed.
There was one later, much later, trip to the Yucatan -- a stop on a cruise with Eric and Dana and their family -- to Cozumel. We ended up on a beach, and there was alcohol, and a misheard quote that turned into "What about Louise?" More great times.
So no Cinco de Mayo for us this year, but memories of the place I first read about in Malcolm Lowry's "Under the Volcano."
Their president is, of all things, a Jewess, but an embarrassment like Bernie Sanders -- a self hating Jew is anti Zionist. One would have thought Mexicans were smarter as a nation than tiny Vermont is as a state.
But that's their problem -- not mine. For me, memories of Mexico are as pleasant as the James Taylor song: It sounds so sweet with the sun sinking low. The moon's so bright like to light up the night - make everything all right.
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