Tuesday, July 24, 2007

We're All One At Party Time


Quote of the day:
“Goodness isn’t just cool, it’s the new snowboarding.... Too many people seem to see goodness as the kind of tree that doesn’t exist unless someone is around to hear it fall. And that’s no way to save a forest.”
--Meghan Daum in the July 21 Los Angeles Times.

Last Friday Hector Tobar of The Los Angeles Times wrote a story about the residents of Naco, a town in far southeastern Arizona that straddles the border with Mexico. This is what he said:

“The residents of the two Nacos occasionally gather along the border for a party. They recently met on the western edge of town where the tall steel barrier ends. Only a low fence made of rail ties marks the border there: it is a hurdle so short and insubstantial that a toddler could cross it.

“’They served hamburgers on the American side, and we served tacos on our side,’ [city employee Rene] Siqueiros recalled.

“At first, Americans and Mexicans stayed in their respective countries, passing hamburgers and tacos across the short fence. ‘We were a little timid,’ he said.

“But after a few beers, people started to loosen up. ‘We crossed over to the American side and they would jump over to Mexico,’ Siqueiros recalled. After a while, Mexicans and Americans were all mixed up on both sides of the frontier.

“When the party ended, everyone stepped back into their own country and went home.”

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