IV. A LONG-LIVED FASCINATION WITH MEXICO: THE CONSEQUENCES OF JOSE'S INSTRUCTION

To say that my brief time with our guide Jose was an eye-opener would be an understatement, for he set the wheels of my twelve-year-old brain turning as they had never turned before.  In effect, my very brief first visit to Mexico had turned out to be a cultural epiphany, opening up new ways of viewing people and their histories.  In the course of our dialog, it occurred to me that in order to understand people as they grouped themselves into nations and cultures, I had to know not only their chronological histories, but also their forms of expression, both physical and spiritual, and what the sum total of their various experiences produced in terms of shared identities.

As for the Virgin of Guadalupe, she came to occupy a substantial portion of my imagination, for even them I was drawn toward mystery and how the imagination might reveal areas of truth untouched by what I would later learn to call empirical inquiry.  For the time being, the Lady of Guadalupe became my passport for initial entry into the Mexican psyche, affording me a glimpse into what it meant to be "Mexican."

I would find my boundaries greatly expanded a year and a half later, when I was fortunate to encounter a young fellow history traveler who would prove to be my best friend through high school and college.  After spending his initial school years at Sacred Heart School in Poplar Bluff, my friend made the transition to the public junior high school, where his inquiring mind and efforts to probe more deeply beyond the cursory teaching of history that passed as education at that time enabled me to quickly identify him as a kindred spirit.  It was through my friendship with him that I would learn of other Marian apparitions that had occurred in scattered venues across the globe. Being consequently somewhat better informed, I began the process of of placing the Virgin of Guadalupe in historical context, an ongoing process which continues to this day.

It is for certain that my friend and I were seen as being somewhat odd for that time in Poplar Bluff, Missouri.  What especially set us apart from our contemporaries, I think, were our lunchtime discussions on such topics as the toppling of the Mohamed Mossadegh government in Iran, the CIA-backed coup against the Arbenz government in Guatemala, the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and the progress of the Cuban fighters in the Sierra Madre against the Batista regime.  Our junior high acquaintances  who habitually had lunch with us at Nick's Steel Grill in downtown Poplar Bluff never tired of referring to us as "eggheads." 

Our final full day in Monterrey would be a Sunday.  Ever the stickler for regular church attendance, my father located a Protestant chapel nearby our hotel.  Although the language of the service was, of course, Spanish,  I very much enjoyed the choir and the congregational singing of hymns.  I also recall that we were warmly greeted by the pastor and members of the congregation.

Since the next day would be a long day of driving,  Dad decided that the remainder of Sunday would be devoted to rest and relaxation.  In that spirit, we had an early dinner and by 7 PM, my father had retired to his bed.  It was then that I engaged in an act of filial disobedience that I would not admit of for nearly twenty years.

At the onset of my father's snoring, I quietly slipped out of our room and made for the nearby main plaza.  It was soon dark and, as I sat by myself, I became a keen observer of what was transpiring. There was a musical group of students performing,  but what most drew my attention were ongoing processions around the plaza, one of young men and the other of young women, each going in opposite directions.  It did not take me long to discern that those doing the processing were ogling each other, while older ladies seated on the sidelines were serving as chaperones. I would later learn that the older ladies were called "duenas" and that what I had observed was a courting ritual called the "paseo."

By 10 PM I had returned to the Ancira and, as unobtrusively as possible, managed to get into my bed without waking my father, who never expected that his son had been out and about.  I did not fall asleep immediately.  Instead I mulled over my experience of the last three days.  Finally, concluding that Mexico was a far different place than Poplar Bluff, I fell into a deep sleep from which I awoke at 7 AM the next morning.

In all the years that have gone by, I have never wavered from my youthful conclusion.  Mexico is, indeed, a very different place.  In fact, I would be hard-pressed to name two countries sharing common borders that are as different as Mexico and the United States.  It is that dissimilarity that was observed by a twelve-year-old boy some sixty years ago that has continued to account for my fascination with the land that lies to the south of the Rio Grande.