Down Mexico way
It was really cool driving down there with
the top down, enjoying a beer, and those cool wide open
Texas spaces.
There was no problem drinking, and driving back then.
The border was no problem either, back then
all we needed was our ID. Since we were GIs, our military ID was more than
enough. Today you need a passport. Once across the
border, I was surprised to see such a piss poor place. I had never seen
anything like it in my life. The streets were all unpaved, dry dirt, with a mud
puddle here and there, almost everywhere.
The cantinas lined both sides of the
street, much like the Irish bars on 2nd Avenue. They spread
out one after the other. Once inside they were pretty much like those I had
seen in so many cowboy movies.
I hadn’t had a drink of rum since I left
the city. I was like nineteen, and in Texas you had to be twenty one to enjoy a real
drink. The only place to get a real drink on base was
either at the officers club or the non comm’s club, the sergeant’s club. If you
weren’t one or the other, then you had to go off base. On base you could drink
all the three point two beer you could handle, but off base you had to be twenty
one.
After we parked, I ran and got myself a
bottle of rum, and we enjoyed a few slugs, before putting it in the trunk, so no
one would take it. Then we went cantinaing, that’s
where you go from one Cantina to the other having a drink in each one, much like
the Irish do on 2nd Avenue on St. Paddy’s day.
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