It’s Cinco de Mayo, which is not the Mexican Fourth of July, though Americans treat it as comparable, even adding it to their National What the Hell Let’s Drink & Drive Party Calendar.
The neighbors, the ones with the kids, have decided to throw a fiesta in the cul-de-sac this year, possibly because an uncle from Colorado was coming down to do the Turquoise Trail Burro Race at Cerrillos.
• Read “The Treasure of the Sierra Mojada,” in which I recount my own experience as a burro racer.
The uncle got here yesterday and his burros were quite the draw for our sleepy little ’hood.
My man Hal Walter will not be participating in tomorrow’s race at Cerrillos — he will drive pretty much anywhere at the drop of a sombrero, and will drop it himself if need be.
But he is busy retrieving his son Harrison from Colorado Mountain College this weekend; the kid just finished his first year of postsecondary education and will be spending the summer at the family’s Crusty County rancheroo.
This evening, Hal and Harrison will be motoring from Leadville back to Weirdcliffe, the uncle and the burros will return to the cul-de-sac, and we’ll have some quality neighbor time and medium-light refreshments to commemorate the ass-whuppin’ that General Ignacio Zaragoza and his troops laid on the French at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862.
One time, one night in America.
Mad Blog Media 
Don’t slip on any burrito pies while rolling out of the cul-de-sac señior.
The burros were very well behaved. Nary a stink-bomb.
That is too cool! What great neighbors you have.
Small world, eh? We move to Albuquerque and settle right next door to a family with a relative who races burros, same as Hal back in Weirdcliffe?
That is great having a couple of trail buddies around. I suppose this weekend you can grab some churros and watch a little Giro with the burros.
Ale’ ole’ !
Seems you ended up just where you two are supposed to be. Nice, isn’t it?
Indeed, Paddy me lad. It was our great good fortune to have landed where we did. We have the best neighbors we could ask for here, and we had ’em in Bibleburg, too.
Cinco was started by Cuervo and Modelo beer companies to try to push the California celebration nationwide and enhance their sales, according to Wikipedia. California has been celebrating Cinco since 1863.
Me. I’m going to kick back and drink a festively colored bottle of Bud Light this weekend.
Claro que si, hombre. I guess the holiday isn’t so much of a much south of the border. Still amusing, though. Everyone gets to be Irish on St. Patrick’s Day, and I get to be Mexican on Cinco de Mayo. (I’m actually an Honorary Martinez thanks to connections with a San Luis Valley branch of the clan that we used to run around with Back in the Day®.)
I see you have a bike race down there this weekend.
https://www.abqjournal.com/2596381/albuquerque-hosts-usa-cycling-collegiate-road-national-championships-what-to-know.html
It appears that all road race categories are only 32 miles. That probably makes things exciting. A mad rush to the kom and then a brutal push over the remaining hills to the finish. I think I’d consider warming up very well.
Seems pretty short for a collegiate race. From what I remember, when Stony Brook had a team, the races were a lot longer.
Yeah, I was glad to have seen that in the Journal today. The burro people were planning to head up NM14 to Cerrillos for the race, and I suggested they might want to rethink their travel plan. Imagine driving a trailer full of jackasses through a collegiate race on a two-lane highway with next to no shoulder. Hijo, madre.
“…a trailer full of jackasses” and here I thought you meant the Albuquerque GOP was having a rally.
Naw. He had to work. One of his colleagues at Lotaburger called in sick.
Whaddaya know? Our neighbor Jason and his uncle Tim got mentioned in The New Mexican‘s coverage of the Cerrillos burro race. The world just keeps on getting smaller.
That is really something. I assume that they met Hal at previous races. How was the cul de sac fiesta?
Fiesta was swell. Jason and Kate know lots of other parents hereabouts and so the cul-de-sac was crawling with kiddos, some of whom got to ride the burros.
At least three of of them play violin, because I saw (and heard) them doing it. The kiddos, not the burros.
One was a 12-year-old who’s been playing for seven years. I don’t remember when I started taking piano lessons but I sure as hell wasn’t any 5 years old. I didn’t pick up the flute until seventh grade.