MARCHING ON

Best Christmas Present I’ve Ever Had

“Whatever We Do, The Environment Must Be The Central Piece”

Wangari Maathai, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate

Prologue

Most of us participating in the capitalism economy live way beyond our environmental budget.  Our buildings consume more materials, our air-con more energy, and our cars more resources than any single human being can justify on an environmental balance sheet.    

It’s a tribal thing driven by ego.  The most ego-driven among us succumb to one of humankind’s darkest and most common addictions – accumulating and flaunting money far beyond one’s ability to consume in a desperate attempt to demonstrate one’s “Value”. 

Just like the heroin addict, Money Addicts do whatever it takes to fulfill the need. 

Absent basic human values, one’s value becomes a numbers game, consuming more of our earth’s resources than any person can rationalize.  The more money in the Financial Credit Card, the greater the ability to consume, feeding that evil ego with a need stronger than cocaine.  The most ruthless money mongers end up flaunting their material wealth – complicating matters, millions more follow ala Thorsten Veblen in a frenzy of conspicuous consumption proving “I’ve also made it.” 

There’s nothing wrong with money, unless somebody makes more than they can spend at the expense of employees, customers and environment.  We can have all the money in the world, but that doesn’t buy position on the human decency or environmental balance sheet.

Unabated, over-consumption dooms both our species and our planet.  Elegant understatement is the key to our survival as a species.

Working in Hawai’i’s boardrooms, I learned we don’t need to be ruthless ego-driven predators to be successful.  My business heroes had great hearts and down-to-earth low resources consumption. They realized that honey attracts more flies than vinegar, and hard-ass managers are simply hiding their incompetence.  Coincidently, they spent more time giving away their money than they did making it.

As this vignette demonstrates, there are more ways to measure one’s value than money.

“The Best Christmas Present I’ve Ever Had”.

In scholarship days, times were lean.  School breaks found me and my backpack thumbing a ride somewhere accessible from L.A.  On the quarter system, UCLA winter breaks were almost one month, plenty of time to hitchhike deep into Mexico. 

I had $50 and a backpack full of peanut butter to last a month, and wanted to see how far south I could go.  Pesos were twelve to the dollar, and I could live forever on peanut butter and steaming hot corn tortillas straight from the village Tortillaria.  Every village has a tortillaria, but it’s a real treat to find a village with earthen-oven banana bread. It comes out every hour on the hour, so good when it’s steaming I can inhale two loafs straightaway – no butter, jelly or knife – just stuff it in and “broke ‘da mouth, Brah” as I learned to say later in Hawaii.  Even a poor student can live forever on banana bread and peanut-butter tortillas.

Just outside Mazatlan, I got a ride with a trucker all the way to Mexico City.  I could be there overnight and then on to some small fishing village on the lush coast south of Acapulco. 

We stopped at a red light two hours south of Mazatlan.  An oyster stand sat outside the cab.  I could almost reach out the window and grab a few oysters, but I have a lifelong phobia of eating shellfish, guts and all.  No matter how the chef decorates Oysters Rockefeller, they remain slimy creatures with no substance.

For some unknown reason I decided to try these shellfish.  On an impulse I gave up my ride, said Muchas Gracias, grabbed my backpack, and jumped from the cab to the oyster stand. 

The light turned green.  My new friend gave me one last gesture, waved goodbye, and disappeared into a cloud of dust.  What was I thinking?  There went my ride to Cuidad Mexico. 

I turned and grabbed an oyster from the tray.  What a stupid fool.  I just gave up one of the best rides of my life to discover Mexican oysters were the same as their California cousins.  It’s Rocket Science! 

I surveyed the surroundings, a crossroads traffic light on Highway One, the main artery down Mexico’s West Coast.  East was inland – I had no interest.  However, the road west went to the coast.  An extension cord literally ran along sticks stuck in the ground, snaking alongside the road as far as I could see.  The length was unusual for such a flimsy apparatus, so I asked the oyster-monger the story. 

I learned there was a fishing village 40 kilometers down the road.  The extension cord would bring electricity to the village, and the lights were scheduled to brighten the village for the first time on Christmas Eve, almost a week away.

What Xmas Break luck! I’ve been in three villages at the moment of electrification now, but this was my first.  This could be a real adventure, so I turned right and stuck out my thumb on a road with almost no traffic.  The road accessed several farming villages along the way – not much traffic and all short stops.  I was a rather imposing figure on my late 20’s – rugby fit, almost two meters, with hair to my waist and beard almost as far.  On campus, beautiful women told me they were jealous of my long, shiny hair.  In reality, I was more a scruffy mountain man than a fashion statement, and when I hitch-hiked the Mexican coast I was always Jesus Christo or Santa Claus to the locals!

It took half a dozen rides through this flat farming country to reach road’s end. Each driver asked this unusual hitchhiker where I was going.  Each time I said I was just following the extension cord. Their faces lit up – Ah, you are going to the village that goes electric on Christmas Eve! 

It was big news in this neighborhood. 

I finally reached the town.  It wasn’t much.  Green fields stretched behind the village, formed around an austere town square fronted by a beach, and an estuary where the road ended and the fishing boats began.   

This place was as simple as it gets – and there was another American.  A Texas anthropologist Ph.D. candidate was just finishing a six-month study.  He selected the perfect coastal fishing village for his studies, and then discovered it was primarily agricultural.  He didn’t realize it, but the egghead academic speaking broken Spanish was regarded by the villagers as something of a buffoon, and they were always playing games with his studies, answering his “observations” with inside jokes and ridiculous stories.  Instead of staying for a true anthropological event – the electrification of his study village – our future anthropologist was headed home for Christmas dinner.  The villagers graciously bid him goodbye, but I silently questioned his academic commitment.   

I instinctively camped on the beach 200 meters away from the village, and walked past the shrimp boat captain’s house every day.  The richest and most powerful man in the village, with the biggest “casa’” right on the beach, the captain had a full barrel of dried shrimp next to the table in the walled patio, and plenty of warm beer.  On my third day, he invited me in for beer and shrimp, a ritual we enjoyed every afternoon for the next three weeks. 

Soon, the college students from Guadalajara and Cuidad Mexico joined us.  I learned of the modern Mexico emerging in the early 70’s, of farmers’ sons going to University to train as engineers, teachers, doctors and pharmacists, to see the benefits of the “Agua Potable” projects I had seen fifteen years earlier. 

Forty years after Pancho Villa, Mexico was growing up, and thanks to my family’s adventures, I experienced it from the ground floor in the late 50’s.  Now the first generation to benefit was off to University – my drinking buddies.

The setting was still traditional Mexico.  The captain got a real kick out of hosting the Gringo.  Inside his adobe walls, we sat at a large heavy wooden table with non-stop beers and that casket of shrimp.  Across the courtyard, the women of the family sat in the kitchen door deciding if I was Santa or Jesus.  In this rural Macho culture, the women were light years away from Women’s Lib. I wondered if their UCLA sisters comprehend the difference between the two neighboring worlds, or appreciated their own amazing opportunities within progressive California society. 

I still had a good time, flirting from afar with the 20-somethings of my own generation, totally understanding that’s as far as it could go.   

The anthropologist was the big topic at the patio table.  The students got great glee telling stories of leading the scientist down dusty paths to nowhere, to sites of “great significance”, of how they invented absurd farming and fishing techniques and humorous tales of teenage courting strategies in an era of an emerging society.  They verified the unsuspecting anthropologist didn’t have a clue about their tongue-in-cheek antics.

Worthwhile University guys the world over have an innocent mischievous streak that demonstrates whit and creativity, especially in a rural Mexican village still without electricity.

When my new friends learned I was from Los Angeles, i.e., Hollywood, they asked if I knew Tom Jones, Englebert Humperdink and Carlos Santana.  It wasn’t surprising – these three were the stars of Mexican Pop Culture of the day.  I did photograph Carlos onstage at a United Farm Workers concert, and carried my classic photos every time I hitch-hiked Mexico, both close-up and full stage arm-in-arm with Cesar Chavez.  The guys went nuts, and I certainly gained acceptance in local society – no bonehead anthropologist here.

But Tom Jones and Englebert Humperdink?

We definitely bonded, and then the big day came – Christmas Eve. 

A string of 20 very basic electric lights hung from a string of sockets and electrical cord were strung around the town square.  Even though it was the main village in that end-of-the-road neighborhood, the town still wasn’t crowded, but on the appointed day people sat in the square for hours before full darkness, waiting to turn on the lights. 

The University Boys gathered on the beach and enjoyed a beautiful sunset, passing around skinny bottles of cerveza donated by the shrimp boat captain.  They went to school in Guadalajara and had seen it all before.

As the last red disappeared from the horizon, we walked to the plaza.  Obviously, everybody was there.  As the last light of day dropped into darkness, the Mayor flipped the switch, and the plaza came to life.  Unlike the University boys, most villagers had never left their hamlet, and had never seen incandescent light.  When it happened – in an instant – a universal gasp energized the square.  The unfrosted lights were definitely bright. 

Somebody started walking around the plaza counter-clockwise.  Every ambulatory member of the village, including me, soon joined him.  It was great.  I stood a head higher than anybody else, and had enough hair to match everybody else combined, so I looked across a sea of sombreros as we all walked in the same direction.

When I was bored with walking in a circle, it was time to play Santa Claus.  I packed a red T-shirt, red stocking hat, a can of white hair spray and small duffel bag. 

Wherever I was in Mexico for Christmas Eve, I bought all the wrapped penny candy I could find.  Armed with long white hair and beard, red hat and shirt, and a 10-kilo bag of candy over my shoulder, I entered a different Mexican town square every Christmas Eve of the early 70’s.  The script always played the same.

Village kids see pictures of Santa, but never a real live Santa Claus. 

When I walked into a town square and start handing out candy, the naturally polite kids were orderly for about a minute.  Every kid under 12 could smell the sweet stuff, and I handed out the first morsels one at a time, placing a candy in a palm and a smile in their brain.  I was soon surrounded by a sea of jumping, screaming, laughing kids.  At that point, I just reached into the bag, grabbed a handful, and started throwing the candy like raindrops (hence wrapped candy only).  The scene became a madhouse of laughter as kids grabbed the air for flying candy or dove for the majority of sweets that ended on the ground. 

Then the cleverest kids would figure out where the candy came from.  Kids going for the bag start grabbing my arms and legs, climbing up toward my shoulder.  I continued grabbing and tossing candy with up to three kids hanging onto each arm, praying I would run out of candy before I was swarmed by a sea of kids laughing and screaming “Santa Claus’!  Santa Claus”!  Eventually they always overwhelmed me and I collapsed into a sea of excited children.

It was great.  What a wonderful, positive way to celebrate Christmas – far better than any sedate and polite turkey dinner with people I only saw once a year. 

This time, a real living Santa appeared in the village on the same night as electric lights.  What a miracle, maybe more for me than the village kids!

Christmas morning was hotter than hell, a great day for the town’s first rock concert, complete with a live Rock ‘N Roll band.

Well, almost a band.  They didn’t speak English, but made a valiant attempt at memorizing the words.  They didn’t speak music either, but made a valiant attempt at that.  The group was far from those great California Flower Power concerts of the 60’s and 70’s, but I still gave them points for even attempting a band in these parts.

I will never forget their rendition of Tom Jones’s “She’s A Lady”, by far the worst piece of music I’ve ever heard – but one of the best memories.

The band set up against the side of a store, the dance floor was a dirt road, and the band earned money by running a rope across the dance floor every few songs.  When dancers stepped over the rope, they paid a peso.  About a dozen of us University boys sat in a coconut frond restaurant passed the hat every half hour so we could buy one skinny cerveza, take a sip, and pass it on. Our only topic was figuring out the pattern of the collection rope so we could dance without paying. 

At mid-afternoon, two large Winnebago’s drove through the town square, complete with all the bells and whistles.  Both had motor scooters mounted over the front bumper and trailed small outboard boats.  It was quite a shock.  No villager had seen anything like this, so they were very excited.  I had a more ominous feeling – Middle America might muck up this perfect Christmas. The camper vans continued down to the estuary and I hoped that’s where they would stay. 

Those rigs just didn’t look like their occupants would fit in with local people, and this was a very special Christmas.

About an hour later, the Louisiana rednecks invaded our Christmas Party.  They arrived in almost comical fashion; a fat, overweight, middle-aged couple on each bike.  The husbands were driving, definitely drunk, with their wives laughing on the pillion seat as they drove towards the party in corkscrew patterns, almost falling over several times. 

The first motorbike drove right into the middle of the dancers, where it crashed in the middle of the dance floor.  What a grand, typically redneck, totally embarrassing entrance.  Remember, this demographic is the base of Bush politics.  At this very moment, “W” was an alcoholic fraternity boy evading National Guard duty while Nixon was extending the Vietnam War as long as possible.

Despite their disgraceful behavior, polite Mexican villagers reached over to help up the drunken bikers, who came up screaming about how the dancers got in their way.  Refusing helping hands, the couple got up, dusted themselves off, and left their bike on the ground in the middle of the dance floor, leaking petrol into the ground.  The screaming husband started pushing dancers out of his way to clear an open dancing space without tripping on his own bike.  It was straight out of Hollyweird, except this scene was tragically real. 

When the rope came by, the drunken husband stumbled across the string without realizing its purpose.  When the manager explained with gestures, the millionaire pulled a thick wad of money from his pocket, and shouted, “I’ve got all the money in the world, but I’m not paying one peso for this shit music”.  He then stumbled into a couple politely trying to ignore him. 

They were loud, rude, spoke Southern and the guy literally had a red neck, the arrogant, unaware kind of folks who voted Bush into the White House and were stupid enough to re-elect him.   It was one of those moments that make decent people ashamed to be American, so I slid over on the bench deeper into the shade, trying to be invisible. 

We passed our own “hat”, bought another skinny beer, and I took my swig.  It would take more than one sip of beer to lessen the embarrassment created by my compatriots.

Then the Redneck saw me.  He froze in his gyrations, stopped dancing and marched straight to our table, fists clenched, arms swaying like a determined Porky Pig cartoon.  I never said a word and tried to ignore him, but it didn’t work.  He walked under the coconut leaves, directly across the table from me.   I was happy the table separated us.  I was 28, playing national championship rugby, and he was a short, fat middle-aged drunk.  I didn’t want to be forced into a one-sided physical confrontation on Christmas.

“You know what’s wrong with you fucking hippies?  You just don’t give a shit about money.”

“It’s Christmas.” I replied.  “Let’s just relax and have a good time.  Where you from?”

Mr. Redneck came back at me.  “I’m a Louisiana oil millionaire, and I know that money is everything.  You fucking hippies aren’t even dog shit – - – because you just don’t care about money.”

All the University Boys were sitting at that wooden table, six on each side.  While the Red Neck harassed me, my friends were asking in Spanish, “Both of you are American.  Why is he making a problem for you?” 

Rural Mexicans are much too polite to consider such behavior.

As I explained that all American aren’t the same, Mr. Red Neck shouted, “Hey Hippie, I’m talking to you.  You just don’t give a shit about money.” 

“Listen, I’m a scholarship student at UCLA, and I do care about money, but it isn’t everything, and this is Christmas.  Just relax and let these people enjoy their holiday.”

“Fucking Hippie, everything is all about money.”

The sloppy disgraceful redneck was beginning to upset me, but not in a physical way.  This was Christmas, and I just wanted the village to enjoy the biggest day in their history. 

I replied, “Money can buy material things, but it can’t buy the most important things in life, like love.”

“Want to make a bet? Honey, come here.”  He grabbed his wife by the arm, yanked her close to him, looked me in the eye and said, “Money sure can buy love,” said Mr. Redneck.  “Doesn’t it honey!” squeezing his embarrassed wife so tight about the shoulder I worried her head might pop straight up.  I felt truly sorry and embarrassed for her.

“Well maybe money can buy what you think is love, but money certainly can’t buy friendship.”

“Oh, really?” said Mr. Louisiana.  “Watch this.”

“Cerveza for everyone, on the house!”  Mr. Millionaire gallantly waved his arm over the entire table like a Magic Wand.

It was a clever ploy.  The day was hot, the table was packed with young male college students, and we were so poor there was only one skinny bottle of beer on the table – empty.  We were all sweating in the heat, and a cold beer on Christmas for each student would be Heaven.

I was willing to play the peacemaker.  If this guy bought a round for everyone, he might shut up and we would satisfy our thirst. 

I said in Spanish “Come on, guys, just forget this asshole, take the opportunity to mellow out this jerk and enjoy a cold beer.”

I was surprised when all heads shook “No”.

In Spanish I explained, “Every one of us wants a cold beer.  We all know this guy is a total jerk, so it won’t change our friendship if we enjoy a beer.” 

Long faces still shook their heads no.

“OK, guys, just consider the beer a Christmas present.”

Nothing worked.  Then, in perfect English I never heard in the previous week, an Engineering student replied.  “Hey, Gringo.  We really don’t care how much money you have, but you offended our friend – and you aren’t good enough to drink with us in the first place! 

“We don’t want your millionaire beer.”

Mr. Redneck was in shock.  Like many of the rich and powerful, he bought a comfort zone of panderers who didn’t really want his friendship, but were willing to brown-nose for some of his money.  For this, they sold their friendship and dignity.  It’s a common clique, the magnate and his “trusted” handlers telling him what he wants to hear.

Yet in this small, poor Mexican village electrified less than 24 hours before, Mr. Millionaire finally met people so proud they could not be bought. 

He looked at his wife and said “Come on, honey, let’s get out of here.”  They gathered the other couple and both motorbikes careened away from the party and back to the estuary.

An hour later, two Winnebago’s drove out of town.

The integrity of those simple villagers denying a free cold beer on a hot day left me with a friendship and sense of character no money can ever buy.  To this day, it remains a far more important Christmas present than any material gift 

I stayed in the village another ten days, until school started again in Guadalajara.  Every night, the University Boys went to the Plaza to watch their village walk around the fountain until midnight. 

It was always counter-clockwise, but the University Boys, at least, all knew that once electricity arrived, there was no turning back the clock.

# # # # #

A decade later, I frequented Fortune 500 boardrooms, not in Louisiana, but in Honolulu.  Aloha shirts, not coats and ties, are the standard attire, and the management practices are as professional as they get – maybe more.  At least until I left Alohaland in 1989, the typical power-playing hard-ass jerk didn’t stand a chance of becoming a director in a Hawaii-based corporation (excepting Harry Weinburg, who bought his way onto the Alexander & Baldwin board.) 

My highly successful clients had money to burn, but they never bought a friendship.  Filled with Aloha Spirit, they didn’t have to.

About the Author

John “Caveman” Gray, AKA Ling Yai (Thai for Big Monkey)was first published nationally in the USA in 1957 in Parade Magazine. He’s been writing, photographing and producing videos ever since. His stories have appeared in numerous national and international magazines and newspapers on everything from Science to politics and travel. You can catch many more stories in the “Readings” section at www.johngray-seacanoe.com

Jason Forrest – War Photographer

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