We, the Coronado Scribes, consist of both professional and amateur writers. We have in common a desire to learn, by sharing our efforts and listening to other writers. We hold pressure-less sessions every Wednesday, at the Coronado Library conference room, starting at 1:30. Often we have guests who wish to just listen. They are welcome, and so are you.
Each week on eCoronado, we feature a different piece of prose or poetry produced by one of our writers. Please feel free to comment or ask questions in the comment section below.
TIS THE SEASON
A Memory of “La Ligne Tijuana y San Diego”
Thirty-two days before Christmas, and at least an hour before it was our car’s turn to inch across the busiest international border in the world, we found ourselves awash in a sea of commerce.
A fellow with no water bucket, polished moving cars in the inside lane. Women with babies on their backs begged for change in the polluted air, below a billboard with a flawless nude who extolled the virtues of “State of the Art Plastic Surgery.” Beside the road, the Pope raised plastic hands in blessing over a mountain of serapes.
Men with Aztec maidens on one arm and Our Lady of Guadalupe on the other, paraded between the rolling cars. Jesus Christ and Che Guevara kept watchful, painted, velvet eyes on boys of nine or ten who juggled tennis balls and strolled in traffic. Paper flowers tickled the chin of Apollo’s sculpted face; and helium-inflated marlin in every shade of blue, dove and leapt from an invisible ocean.
A peddler paused to rest between life-size versions of Michelangelo’s David and Marilyn Monroe. “Hey, Lady! How about this!” he called out with a grin, as he mimicked Marilyn’s pose, a hand on his hip, his ankle neatly turned.
A white teacup poodle with a pink bow in her hair leaned from the window of the SUV beside us. Together she and I enjoyed the show:
Dashboard dogs with bobbing heads,
Baskets three feet tall,
Wooden desks and children’s puzzles,
A candy cart, a parasol.
Nativity scenes, leopard skins
Mango and “nieve” ices,
Parrots, roosters, piggy banks,
Churros, roasted corn and spices.
Santa, Zeus and Pancho Villa,
Chimineras, leather chairs,
Nefertiti, Tweety birds,
Blankets sporting Pooh bears
A gaggle of barnyard geese,
Green, smiling, giant frogs,
And pots and pots and pots,
And lots and lots and lots of other fancy things.
High above the border line, the biggest Santa of all tapped his boots and beamed cheery blinking lights on the heads of immigration inspectors and tired commuters entering the US.
There was no mistaking the holiday cheer and car exhaust that filled the border air that day. But there was nary a partridge nor a pear tree to be seen.
Happy Holidays!!
©Doris Besikof
