Author: David Diego Rodríguez, Ph.D.

I teach Spanish and I am a standup comedian.

Age


Tempus fugit.

I’ve been thinking about my age–again. So, what got me thinking about my age? The presidential campaign had a lot to do with it. Come January 20, 2009, I will be–for the first time in my life! –older than the President of the United States of America.

This must be a significant moment in my life. Now that I think of it, I’m also older than Osama bin Laden–if he’s still alive. I was the oldest of six children. After I failed the fourth grade–the toughest two years of my life–I was among the oldest in the class. When I joined the Marines, I was 22, so I was the oldest recruit in my platoon in boot camp. I’m now older than my mother was when she died in 1986 at age 51.

I remember in grade school how we had to date every writing assignment we turned in. Every time I would write the year 1963, 1964, etc., I would fantasize about the day that I would someday write the year 2000. But I planned to be out of grade school by then. The year 2000 seemed so far off into the future.

Time traveled much more slowly back then. I remember watching the second hand of the clock in our classroom. The second hand moved ever so slowly right around dismissal time. Those last ten minutes of school seemed to last a lot longer than the previous six hours of school.

I remember birthdays taking much longer to come around. Birthdays meant so much more back then. I remember anxiously awaiting my tenth birthday because writing my age would require writing two digits. That tenth birthday also took forever to come around. The next milestone was 13 because then I would be a teenager. At 16, I took driver’s ed. At 18, I registered for the draft even though no one was being drafted to Vietnam anymore. At 19, I was able to buy wine and beer in the state of Illinois. When they changed the drinking age back to 21, ta da! I turned 21!

25 was my favorite age because my auto insurance really dropped then. That meant I was no longer in the high-risk age group of drivers 16-24. The last significant milestone was 30. I enjoyed the nice round number. After that, birthdays didn’t really seem all that important to me anymore. When I turned forty, I celebrated by taking a nap. My friends insisted on throwing me a surprise big 5-OH party even though I told them I didn’t want one after they told me about my surprise party. I mean, it really wasn’t a surprise anymore after they told me about it so I wouldn’t go on vacation before my party even though it was in July even though my birthday was in May. So, I’m older than President-elect Barack Obama. How do I absorb all this? I think I’m going to bed. Good night!

DDR

00000.0


My Pontiac Vibe

Or perhaps I should write 77777. You’re probably wondering what the heck I’m talking about, right? Okay, just pretend that you are.

Okay, if you insist, I’ll tell you. I was driving to school today when I suddenly looked at the odometer and read 77777. My car’s only three years old and I’ve already put on 77,777 miles (My 2005 Pontiac Vibe doesn’t display tenths of miles). And I don’t consider myself a heavy driver.  I seem to spend more time reading books than driving. So how did I manage to drive so many miles? I really don’t know. However, I stopped the car immediately and took a poor-quality picture–as is characteristic of my photography skills–of the odometer to mark this blessed occasion.

Actually, I’m not so sure what so special about 77777. All those sevens mean nothing to me! Really! But when I saw them, I immediately thought of 00000.0 (I’ll bet you thought I forgot about the title of this blog post!) from when I was in the Marines and my Marine friends with whom I lived in the barracks insisted that I drive my 1976 Chevy Nova with them in it (and a keg of beer, of course–talk about an open container of alcohol in vehicle!) until the odometer turned over to 00000.0. They constantly checked my odometer because they wanted to be with me for the blessed event when I drove past 99,999.9 miles. I really didn’t see what the big deal was about driving so many miles. I had bought the car new and I was the only owner. I had driven it to California and back a few times by that time in 1979.

There’s something that I like about driving. Is it the solitude? Is it the time that I have to myself that allows me to reflect about past transgressions and allows me the opportunity to reflect on how to better myself and the world? Of course not! I just love driving–and fast! Nothing feels better than driving on the open road in the middle of nowhere, such as upper Michigan or the Mojave Desert, with the pedal to the metal and not a worry in the world because I won’t see another vehicle for miles!

Anyway, I’m with my Marine friends and a keg of beer with our names on it (To my sons and students who may be reading this: Remember this if FICTION! Please see the disclaimer in the right margin!!) in the car going about a hundred miles per hour because they want me to hurry up and hit 100,000.0 miles! In their excitement, one spilled a beer in the front seat, another drank too much and puked on the exterior side of my rear door. Luckily, we were driving in the Mojave Desert, my car had no air conditioning, and it was 120 degrees out. I’m glad he had time to stick his head out the window. It was so hot outside that his vomit dried almost instantly. However, I had to pull him back in when he felt so bad about vomiting that he tried to clean up the mess and almost fell out of the car.

This was also a memorable trip because as I was driving I thought I heard an airplane engine. When I looked in the rearview mirror, I saw that a small airplane was actually closing in on my Chevy Nova. This really happened to me! The plane buzzed us about three times. Actually, it was quite funny. Then came the much-anticipated moment. The odometer read 99,999.9. I slowed the car down to practically a crawl. There were six heads crowding over the odometer. It felt like a slow-motion special effect as we watched the odometer slowly–ever so slowly–turn to all zeros. The cheering in the car was deafening. They insisted that I stop the car so we could christen it. They poured our precious beer over the hood, the roof, and the trunk, and I was about to complain until I noticed that it was washing the puke off my car door. My friends were drunk with pride–and a little beer (it was a small keg)–over my car’s accomplishment.

I still miss that car. I owned it and drove it for thirteen years. It had 163,000 miles on it and it still didn’t burn any oil. The battery lasted about six years because I always added tap water even though I was told to add only distilled water. When I was stationed in the Mojave Desert, I thought any water was better than no water. I planned to keep the car another two or three years, but someone ran a red light and broadsided me. Alack and alas! My Chevy Nova was no more! The car was totaled! It was only about $1500 worth of damage, but that was much more than the car was worth. Of course, in my personal opinion, the car was priceless because it was so dependable. I really miss my Chevy Nova!

DDR

You know you’re Mexican if …


La Virgen de Guadalupe en Pilsen, Chicago, Illinois.

You know you’re Mexican if …

  1. Your whole family goes to the laundromat.
  2. You grow corn in your garden.
  3. You have a birthday party for your son or daughter and you invite more adults than children.
  4. You beep your horn instead of ringing the doorbell.
  5. You go to McDonald’s or Burger King and you bring your own salsa and jalapeños.
  6. You took Spanish in high school for an easy A and got a C.
  7. You take your family on un paseo through the car wash and tell them that the ride is called “The Tidal Wave.”
  8. You’re married, but your mother still hits you in public.
  9. The police pull you over and you pretend not to speak English.
  10. You have a statue of la Virgen in a half-buried bathtub in your front lawn.
DDR

Going to Mexico


Celaya, Guanajuato, México

So I today I bought four new tires for my upcoming trip to Mexico. The two rear tires barely had any tread left and one front tire kept leaking air.

Last July, I kind of panicked when I saw my tire pressure warning light turn on. I was on a road with no shoulders in Mexico and I was afraid I would have to change the tire there. Rather than repeat that scenario, I bought four new tires. And maybe it’s my imagination, but the car seems to handle better now. It’s stops faster now and it corners much, much better now.

That’s very important for driving Mexican roads that are on cliffs with no guard rails. Of course, this could just be an illusion. I remember how whenever I got new gym shoes as a boy, I always felt the I could run faster, jump higher, and okay, I can’t think of a third thing that I could do everything better and faster with my new gym shoes, but you get the idea. So, I feel safer driving my car now that I have four new tires.

DDR

Go fly a kite


Sepa la bola

I often listened to my father and uncles tell stories about what life was like in Celaya, Guanajuato. I always enjoyed listening to these stories even after multiple retellings. In fact, I loved the way the stories improved with each retelling. The more details that someone forgot about a certain incident was an opportunity to invent new  and more interesting facts. My grandfather had a furniture shop in Celaya called “Mueblería El Carmen.” The shop was called El Carmen because it was right across the street from La Catedral El Carmen. I can’t remember what exactly the name means, perhaps no one told me in the first place. The curious thing about this cathedral is that there are three other cathedrals within walking distance of each other. This was, after all, a Spanish colonial city. And all of my family in Celaya is very, very Catholic. That’s my father’s side of the family because my mother’s side of the family lives in Mexico City and even though they’re Catholic, they don’t really go to church much.

Anyway, my father and uncles told stories about how they had a baseball team sponsored by the Mueblería El Carmen. All the team members were brothers. Yes, there were nine brothers, enough for a baseball team! And couple more to sit on the bench! I loved hearing about the furniture shop. In Celaya, people would go to the shop and describe what kind of furniture they wanted–bedroom set, dining room table, etc.–and my grandfather or my uncles would draw up the design for the customer’s approval. Then, they would proceed to make it from scratch. Their business was very successful. So successful that it’s still in business in Celaya to this day. In fact, when we were walking back to my Uncle Eutimio’s house from Christmas mass, my cousins proudly pointed at a door of a building and told me they had made that door. I immediately stopped to take a picture of the door. They were so proud that I was taking a picture of their handiwork.

Doors by the Rodríguez Family

Anyway, (again, but my last anyway–for this post, anyway), my favorite story was the one about what people in Celaya tell someone who tells them something they don’t want to hear. So, if someone comes up to you in Celaya and you want them to go away before they finish saying whatever it is they want to say but you don’t want to hear, you simply say, “Sepa la bola.” And they should take the hint and go away. So now you probably want a translation to English, right? Well, this phrase doesn’t translate easily into English. I titled this post “Go fly a kite,” but now that I think of it, that phrase doesn’t even come close to the meaning of “Sepa la bola.” But I’m not going to go back and change it now. Maybe, I should have titled this post, “Go tell it to the Marines.” Yes, that’s it! Eureka! I have found the equivalent phrase in English without even having sat in a bathtub filled to the brim with water. But “Sepa la bola” literally means, “Let the ball know” or “Go tell it to the ball.” In this case, the ball is the water tower in Celaya, pictured above. Perhaps this isn’t the funniest or most interesting story that my father or uncles ever told me, but something about “Sepa la bola” is just downright fascinating. Whenever I see my uncles here in Chicago, sometimes out of the blue, I say, “Sepa la bola.” And they never fail to laugh.

DDR