Walking is a great pleasure in this town with its cobble stone narrow streets, up and down the hills – no level ground here. While looking at houses for sale with Veronica, Jim Lewis’ realtor, and driving down from atop the hill to the east, I said to Jim, “If you walked down and back up this hill everyday of your life, you will be a healthy man.” I know that he was thinking, “If he were to do that, I’d be dead in a week”. But Veronica told us of the 85 year old man who has walking up and down that hill for years.

Houses are beautiful inside and some outside, some with great views. For gringos they range in price from $150,000 unfinished to several million. At the pot luck yesterday at Warren Hardy’s estate, we experienced his–perhaps in the million(s) range. The local gringos are very happy to report that taxes on such a place is just a few hundred dollars a year, low utilities and there is no need for insurance as they are made out of stone, bricks and concrete. And good tequila is cheap. San Miguel, where the living for the rich is easy, where maids, cooks and gardeners make maybe ten bucks a day and we pay $2.50 for taxis for a ride home from the many parties of the white people. I like this place, but could only live here if I were a Mexican or at least lived like one, hmmm $10 a day, that’s a bit less than I make as a musician. Hell, I don’t even speak the language. Jim is trying to learn and knows enough to get around. Patty is doing very well with it. All of this while I walk, practice Jim’s trombone, consider composition and sitting on my ass watching Wimbledon. I doubt that I could ever feel at home here. I see no gringos working for mexicans. I lived in Portugal with my family in 1972-73 for about six months while on my first sabbatical, writing music. A maid came with the house and she scolded us for doing any work in or around the house. It was very awkward for us. Against the advice of all gringos, we treated  Maria as “part of the family” and at the end, she wanted to come home with us and we would have liked that. Her husband was a fisherman who sailed out with the fleet at dusk and returned at dawn, then sat at the cafe drinking espresso and spirits. He slept in the afternoons while Maria worked.

There were many ex-patriots there, mostly from England. I met not one Englishman who had anything good to say about the natives and treated them with much disdain. Perhaps they were still angry because Portugal was never  one of Their colonies, or was it. After Portugal, we went to England and found the English there, wonderful. After that, I thought much about ex-patriots. Perhaps it is because early on mine was a poor ($) family which had few possessions of any kind that I find the ex-patriot, by in large, unappealing if not appalling. —   My friend and colleague Ed London reminds us that Apostle Paul was appealing and Apostle Peale (Norman Vincent) was appalling. — Or perhaps it is because my father and mother, liberal democrats from Texas back when Texans were yellow dog democrats, taught me to closely observe the rich and the poor separately AND alongside each other. It has been a life study for me. Selfishness, which is usually, but certainly not always, associated with the rich and “powerful” is our sorriest trait and generosity our best. I think of the actions which come from that, like the ability to forgive or not, to love or not, and so on. “If you got nothin’, you got nothin’ to lose.”

Here the public schools are deplorable because of little or no taxes. The financially well off send their kids to private schools. I can hear it now, “Well, that’s just the way it is and has always been and will always be. C’est la vie. Well, Durwood Cline said, “You’ve got to give half-a-man a chance.” But Durwood, Doesn’t giving a man half a chance require a measure of  generosity from the haves to the have-nots, say nothing of giving them a full chance? And if so, and if we want to give that man even a half a chance, then, “What’s holding up the delay?” as you also said, Durwood.         Ask George W., he can make it uncomplicated for you.

One of the benefits of travel is that one’s contact with a different culture promotes questions and lets one reevaluate ideas. It is said that if you are content and pursue happiness, stay home. If not, get moving. I’ve never known nor heard of a great artist who “stayed home”. What about Emily Dickinson?  Her feet were planted while her mind was on the move. Yep, traveling is not simply a matter of geography.