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Solicitations Most Sublime

For years, during which time we hop-scotched our way in and out of Tucson, tending to our education and jobs, we took short breaks from chores and drove toward Arizona's southern border where it meets Mexico.  Sometimes we crossed into Nogales, Sonora for special meals, and sometimes we only drove as far as Tubac, a small arts town less than an hour from home.

Sometimes, at first, and always, as we became familiar with the territory, we watched for Amado, a community just north of Tubac.  We knew nothing about the village except that we could see its longhorns from the freeway.

Yesterday we drove to Tubac, again, intending to buy a ceramic pot for our backyard, and to have lunch at Elvira's, while we were there.  This time, perhaps only for the second time in all those years, we decided to watch for, and explore, the longhorns, again.

We had not intended to go into the restaurant/bar, but it was a tad sad, nonetheless, to learn that the bar had closed, probably because there did not seem to be any other reason to turn into Amado unless you lived there.

It was about as classy an announcement about going out of business as I have ever seen.  And, seriously, since we were not giving away beer--do I look like a man who mutilates himself?--we went on to Tubac, although the first detour having proved to be so interesting, we did stop at the spice shop in Tumacacori first (Too-mah-CAH-co-ree).

The Spanish happened upon an indigenous settlement there in 1691.  This part of the Southwest has deep roots; thousands of years older than its discovery by the Spanish, but even that is long:  325 years ago!

Finally in Tubac, we found the pot we were looking for, and had a genuinely elegant lunch at Elvira's, a restaurant that pulled up its own roots in Nogales, Sonora, just across the border a few miles away, to move to Tubac:  our gain!

This morning, or this blistering mid-day--I not being of sound mind or body--I established the pot we bought in our back yard to grace the round building whose inspiration was traditional African homes.  I thought that Representative Steven King, from Iowa, who spoke so ignorantly a day or two ago about all worthwhile civilization being rooted in White Europe and America deserved a small counter-argument in our back yard.  Think of it as the only response I had at hand.

I do not mean to single out Mr. King:  he is, after all, attending the Republican National Convention, where his compatriots are howling for the imprisonment and execution of Hillary Clinton for crimes against God, against God's Whole 6-000 Year-old Creation, and against Republican Aspirations for a Righteous Kingdom of White Men.

But I am getting carried away here, mucking up a perfectly delightful day.


"Amado" means loved.  Except maybe for solicitors.  And the hopelessly ignorant.













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