Just a word of warning if you go to Mexico. Don’t expect comfortable seating in the bathroom if you stray far from the traditional tourist areas. If you don’t have regular bowel movements, the typical Mexican diet will have you visiting the sanatorio regularly. But make sure you always carry loose change because you need two pesos to use most sanatorios. And only after you pay will someone hand you toilet paper if you really need it.

What I noticed in most bathrooms, since I am a regular guy, was that most toilet seats were either broken or missing. Missing, I assume, because someone stole it, or, broken, I assume, because someone caught the perpetrator in the act of stealing it. Of course, this wouldn’t pose any problems for the average woman, since I understand that their buttocks have never actually touched the toilet seat of any public bathroom. And all public bathrooms have a wastebasket next to the toilet for you to dispose of your used toilet paper. If you put the toilet paper in the toilet and flush it, the toilet will back up. However, most people fold the used toilet paper and all you see is white in the wastebasket. Of course, in some homes, you can actually flush the toilet paper.

As gross as all this may sound, this is actually an improvement in sanitation from when I went to Mexico as a boy. I remember having to cut newspapers into small squares that would be placed on a nail near the toilet bowl and the accompanying wastebasket. I really hated wiping myself with newspaper because you had to use extreme caution not to scrape yourself.

However, once I spent a week on a farm in Celaya, Mexico, I stopped complaining about the newspaper. On el rancho, I had to go really bad. I mean I held it as long as I could, until I thought I would burst. You see, we had to go to the pig sty to do our duty and then wipe ourselves with a corn husk. As a nine-year-old boy, this terrified me, especially after the first time. I entered the pig sty, dropped my pants to my knees, and squatted. A few pigs gathered round to watch me. Before my feces even hit the ground, the pigs had gobbled them up! Ditto for the soiled corn husks!

So, if you go to Mexico, be thankful for the improvements in the sanitation system.

One thing I noticed about México was that everyone puts peppers and/or salsa on everything! Even small children put spicy sauce on everything. Would you believe even the Lolly pops are spicy?

Last night, I went to a fair and had a Michelada, which consisted of dark Victoria beer, lime, pimento, and a bunch of other cosas that I now forget. Not only was it spicy, but it came in one-liter portions! I wanted a small one, the smallest one they had was one liter. Needless to say, I didn’t finish it. I had about three gulps left.

I would have finished it, but my cousin asked me if I wanted papitas (potato chips) and I foolishly said yes. That’s right, even the potato chips had salsa. I almost OD’d on salsa last night.

Okay, now that I’ve spent some time in México, I realize that it’s been a little more than a short while since my last visit. My relatives who remembered my last visit asked me how long ago I came. Well, I visited them 29 years ago!

My! How everyone has changed since then! My cousins who were small children are now adults. Some of them are not only parents, but also grandparents. I should go back to México more frequently to keep up with the latest family additions.

They were also asking me about my first wife that I divorced long ago. I had to tell them about my second wife, whom I also married and divorced since my last visit to México, and my three sons. Everyone expressed genuine interest in our family in Chicago, my sons, and me.

I felt very welcome in México, especially since I have a lot of relatives here. At the border, there was a big sign that read, “Bienvenido paisano.” And there were a lot of Mexicans like me returning to visit family. I was considering moving to México after my retirement from the police department and now I have the opportunity to do it. I’ll have to think it over carefully when I return to Chicago. Of course, I’d have to live in a house with Internet access and all the amenities. I wrote my last two Blog entries from an Internet Cafe. For me, that’s roughing it!

Okay, while in Celaya, Guanajuato, México, I met another David Rodríguez! I have a cousin named David Rodríguez!

Before I met him again, I introduced myself to his brothers and sisters, also my cousins, as David Rodríguez. They all gave me that same puzzled look because the only David Rodríguez they know is their brother. Add another list to the world population of David Rodríguezes. This one plus the two that one of my Spanish students told me about. She had two, count them, two Spanish teachers who were named David Rodríguez before me!

I spent a significant part of my coming-of-age years living in Marquette Park. But I was aware of the Marquette Park neighborhood long before my family moved there.

My mother loved taking my brothers and me to different parks in the Chicago Park District. Before she learned to drive, we only went to Davis Square Park and Cornell Square Park, mainly because they were walking distance from our home in the Back of the Yards neighborhood. We would always walk there with my Aunt Mari and my cousins.

Once she learned to drive, she took us to Marquette Park. My mother took us to play at Marquette Park a few times and I remember as we were driving west on Marquette Road once, she said that we would someday live in this neighborhood. I really thought this was just another one of her farfetched ideas that she would propose to us from time to time. I remember thinking that we could never afford to live in Marquette Park, especially after my parents divorced. I was shocked when I found myself living on Marquette Road itself: 2509 W. Marquette Road to be exact. My mother had actually bought a nice house in a beautiful neighborhood. Wow! Was I surprised when we actually moved there!

I also remember going to the Marquette Park fieldhouse in 8th grade for a wrestling tournament where I met someone whom I had met previously at Divine Heart Seminary for the sneak-preview weekend.

There were a lot of fears that the Marquette Park homes would be sold to African-Americans, so the seller told my mother when he finally saw her, “At least, you’re not black!” This is the neighborhood where Jesse Jackson marched down Marquette Road  and was pelted by rocks and bricks.

Of course, I never wanted to move to Marquette Park because I was perfectly happy living in Back of the Yards. After a while, I adapted. I accepted Marquette Park as my home and Gage Park High School as my high school. But I was never genuinely happy there. However, I was happy to live in a Lithuanian neighborhood near Maria High School and the retirement home for nuns of the order of St. Casmir. I actually ran into some of my teachers / nuns from Holy Cross School in the neighborhood.

The focal point of the neighborhood became Marquette Park itself. I soon joined the Mar Par Chessmen that met on Tuesdays in the fieldhouse. The park was such a great place just to hang out. When I began driving, I would drive my ’75 Pontiac Firebird around the park at 65 miles per hour. I really loved driving that fast around the park drive. Looking back, I’m surprised that I didn’t get into an accident because I could barely control the car around those curves at that speed. When I began running seriously, I would run laps around the park. Eventually, I joined the Marquette Park Track Club–but that’s a Blog entry for another day!

When I was honorably discharged from the Marines, I found an apartment in the Marquette Park neighborhood. I felt wonderfully comfortable in the neighborhood. I lived there for six years until I bought a house in Bridgeport, but that’s another story!