No Time To Return Your Call

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The following are the reasons I didn’t return your calls this year . . .

Febrero y Marzo were spent in Mexico at la Isla Mujeres and Tulum.  37 sleeps Joga retreat with familia and friends and friends and new friends.

What blizzard? There was a blizzard?   

Overheard on Playa Norte: “I had to fly from Newark to San Francisco to Cancun to get here."

The summer of 2015 was full of Rexhame Beach fire dinners, swimming pool parties including our yearly Fourth of July party, Federal Hill dinner trips to Providence, Paw Sox in Pawtucket, 3rd of July fireworks at McCoy. Yup. Road trips to Adams Massachusetts -- we found Cole Porter’s old house in Williamstown. His wife loved it and wanted to be buried there. He buried her in Indiana. At least it wasn’t Wisconsin. Cajun/Zydeco dancing at Johnny D’s in Somerville and Pawtucket at the German Club, boxing matches, and dinners out, mostly at El Sarape and Hola. Where’s the axe? Paw tucket. Miss Beam, 7th grade geography, Junior High, Commercial Street. Dad went there when it was the high school. He was the captain of the football team. I have a photo of him making a shoestring tackle at Drury at Noel Field in North Adams. We lost.

In July it was a family trip to Connecticut -- Hartford, Mystic, Groton sub base, Ocean Beach, and the Pequot Museum . . . and over to Hope Street in Providence via the state capitol for dinner.  No, it wasn’t all on the same day. Mystic Pizza. Yah, we went. The movie was filmed in 1988. But you are not getting any older. We watched it recently and it really holds up. So does Karate Kid. Top Gun. Did someone say Top Gun?

August we drove to Brant Lake (family) New York via Cooperstown (Fenimore Museum). I take it that James Fenimore Cooper wrote books. There is a baseball thing there also. And we took in the Painted Pony Rodeo at Lake Luzerne. We drove through Amish country on Sunday and there were many families out in their horses and buggies. My Mom & Dad took me to the very first rodeo when I was eight. They have REAL cowboys and cowgirls from Colorado and Texas and Pennsylvania.

 

Labor Day was the Rhythm & Roots Festival in Ninigret Rhode Island (friends, friends, friends and friends) and dance, dance, dancing. 93 sets of musica. Awe some. Los Lobos and Mr. Steve Riley & David Greely, thank you.  Ninigret was a sachem to the Narragansett and Niantic Indians of Connecticut and RI in the 1600s.

This early fall will be Yarmouth (friends) Falmouth (friends). The Stroll Farm in NY (friends & friends). Martha Vineyard (friends), Stow Massachusetts with 49 year old Navy friends. I wish I was 49 again. 1966 actually.

October/Novembre - Cartagena, Bogota and Medellin (friends that we made on the Portugal river trip live in Medellin).

January - Costa Rica for the 4th time (friends). Volcanoes, butterflies, hummingbirds, strawberries, Libetas Tropical Beer, earthquakes, rice and beans, howler monkeys and rain. The HOTTEST place we have EVER been: Quepos. 

Locals would ask, “Where are you traveling to?”  

“Quepos,” we would say.

Every single time they would reply, “It’s HOT in Quepos!”

Febrero/Marza 2016 : Mexico  - Tulum, Isla Mujeres (Joga retreat) -- friends, friends, Mexican friends & familia. Puerto Morelos. Some jogies from Marnie’s Retreat -- lo siento, it is full -- are traveling on to Isla Holbox (hole bush) on the Gulf of Mexico. The Mexican people call Yoga “Joga.” Jessica is “Yes ica.” David is “Da beed.” Roberto is NOT Bob. The village you go to catch the ferry to Holbox is called Chiquila. Glen Campbell played guitar on the famous 1958 hit. Huelyn Duval hollers out,  "CHIQUILA" at the end of the song.

 

Seinfeld  "Flarida, Jerry, Flarida” is next. South Beach in Miami; Key West again. 70 years old and I finally, at Brant Lake, read “The Sun Also Rises.” I loved it. Especially the bullfighting parts, and Paris of course. Sandy didn’t like it.  Marathon (friends), Mrs. Mac’s Diner in Key Largo, Sanibel Island (friends), Marco Island (friends). The people of Key Largo changed the town’s name to Key Largo -- from the movie with Humphrey Bogart -- to draw in tourists. It worked. The African Queen boat is there from that movie with Katherine Hepburn. It wasn’t filmed there. “The loons, Norman, the loons!” Sorry I just slipped into the Golden Pond movie. Many loons on the lake this year. Beautiful sound, aye?

April 2016 - Anguilla (family) friends and friends  Yoga retreat  It is a British Territory in the Caribbean. They fly the Union Jack. There is rum there. Pusser’s Rum. I will enjoy mine with Mexican Coca Cola. One day we will cross the sound to Merigot. It is the French side of Saint Maarten. We were just there. Thirty one years ago.

Grand Canyon

July 2016  (family) - Flagstaff, Grand Canyon, Bright Angel Trail, Four Corners, Canyon De Chelly, Monument Valley, Winslow to stand on the corner, La Posada (hotel), the Hopi Mesas, Painted Desert, Meteor Crater, Oak Creek Canyon, and fly home.

 

Monument Valley

Many trips are not totally booked yet.  Isla 2017 -- that will make it 29 years straight, almost.  Italy again (Verona area this time), Sicily, Peru, Cuba, Thailand (I hope not). Channel 2 PBS the other night showed people enjoying the opera in Verona in a two thousand year old totally filled Roman amphitheater. WOW! Romeo & Juliet … you bet. Also western Spain. We did from Barthalona to Madrid, Salamanca, Toledo,  Zaragosa, Cuenca, to Valencia, and we need to see the rest of it.

Barcelona

 

Zaragoza

Cuenca

77 is the average age people live to in the USA, and even in Cuba. So like the Toyota commercials say, “You'd better hurry!” Wasn’t I just 60?

If you would join us, I wouldn’t have to return your telephone call or -- god forbid -- your  &@#$% texts. If you need to talk to me, call me on October 3rd. It is the only day that I have open. Call between 2 and 4, por favor. I know three people who will. You know you will.

Saludos,   

Señor y Señora  Roberto Francisco Tocino

P.S. Growing up in Adams, Sandy and I never dreamed we would be this lucky to travel this much and to see what we have seen.