Recognize this man?
His bravery at the Battle of Puebla and unlikely victory over french forces there on May 5th, 1862 is celebrated every year as Cinco de Mayo. His name is Ignacio Zaragoza. The same first name of our favorite bartender at Gallos, where Happy Wife and I ventured to on our bikes yesterday, knowing that the carefree imbibition of tequila drinks would leave us unsafe for driving an automobile. Who knew that three of those babies would make even the bike ride home challenging! Happy Wife took a spill in the mud where the trail was in horrid condition, I nearly fell myself. I quickly helped her up, steadied her bike, and reassured her this happens from time to time, even to expert cyclists with perfect sobriety. What she didn’t need was the remark of the little brat further down the trail: Hey lady I saw you fall in that puddle.
In that second I totally understood Scrooge, “Are the orphanages full then?“
Oh, but we had a grand time, and the food was free. And good. And necessary! Ignacio wasn’t there, but other competent bartenders were, masters at fulfilling — and refilling! — Cadillac Margaritas, the means of our self-imposed depravity.
You’ve got to love a restaurant concerned enough with the safety of its patrons to provide free shuttle service to and from the church parking lot. It was Sunday after all, and what better way to live this one than to leave the car in the lot after service is over, hop the shuttle to Gallos, and commit a range of uncomely behaviors needing forgiveness the next Sunday!
Now, you may be asking, what, for example, do I mean by “uncomely?”
Ahem. Well, for example, see here:
And no, I’m not providing a “BIGGER” link to this — it’s plenty big enough!
Even dogs were welcome — some arrived on the back of motorcycles.
We celebrated on the patio outside, drenched in afternoon sun and so it was comfortably warm, low 50s maybe, but I don’t know that it was this warm:
At least no drafty butt crackage there. More defiance I think: “It’s spring now, dammit, and I’m going to wear my open-toed wedgies and short shorts if it kills me.” And it might’ve, had she stayed there after sunset.
Finally, an argument against government intrusion in private affairs, as if we really needed another argument. If government men serviced Cinco de Mayo celebrations only one kind of booze would be served in faceless tin cans with the single word “booze” on the front, something like that. But turn it over to entrepreneurs and private markets and viola!, you get innovation like this (not our drink, the table next to us):
I mean really, is this inventive or what? A kind of steady IV drip of Corona into your cocktail! Something I’m quite certain would be banned in New York by Bloomberg and the anti-Big Gulpians — after all, who really needs a Corona continuously decanting into their Cadillac Margarita? It’s not about what we need, sir, it’s about what people want, on Cinco de Mayo, in Alaska. It’s how we roll.