Happy New Year!

Even at 4 he was Mr. Confident and Mr. Social. The world is his oyster and everyone is his friend.

He bonded with a hard core A's fan behind us and at one point blurted out to him:

"My dad's second favorite team is the Yankees!"

He nearly got a bear dumped on me just because once he saw me watching them on TV in the postseason.

Where do kids get these ideas?.

Columbia: A deposed Ambassador trying to strike it rich selling Saltenos, the Columbian equivalent of the soon to be popular Perosky.

Philippines: A Filipino woman that married an American Anthropologist that went DEEP into the wild areas and had the bad form to send headhunters home to the wife to collect a nice dinner "anytime" as a return gesture for their generosity shown to him.

Guadalajara: A very wonderful and naive young woman that had the greatest reactions to my puns and wordplay (Nico-ish but not nearly as good). We worked in a building that once was a home and the kitchen was still intact. I lobbied for and got mutual consent for cooked lunches on our slower 2-3 days per week. She made us the greatest lunches you can dream of, I introduced my bother-in-law to her and still enjoy that cooking! They have two wonderful daughters and granddaughters.

Cal Berkeley: "Shakey" the Editor who also headed up a "Spanish Dept" of some sort on campus. Shakey  experienced the DTs 50% of his waking moments and kept a backup bottle in the center left drawer. Shakey prepped the articles that others finished and would square off in frequent confrontations with our displaced Columbian Ambassador. What pompous, meaningless, egotistic displays we enjoyed!

Cuba: Our Cuban refuge was a most curvaceous and feminine Cal student that had all functioning males walking into walls and tripping over themselves and never seeming to mind. She wore mini skirts daily that didn't come close to hiding some of the laciest panties in the Greater Bay Area.

Me? I'm an all American mutt void of any Latin Blood what so ever so every day was an adventure! My command of Spanish was restricted to those words that would never see print in this family oriented Spanish Newspaper.

So.
It's the end of the year and there is this big push to get out the New Years Edition. Our translators had been arguing all day as usual since none of them could possibly agree because of their very different ancestries, dialects, and education. Eventually they would tire and my sister in law to be would get the final say since Guadalajara is part of Mexico and Mexicans were the dominant Spanish speaking culture in California. This agreement would always come with an eye on the clock and mental calculation as to the desired leaving time, since not one could leave until every word was proofread and every proper accent had been added by hand. <Typesetting equipment of that era was not capable of adding accents>.

So.

On the front page it was decided a simple direct  banner would blaze "Feliz Año Nuevo" across the top in the largest possible letters (About 2-1/2" tall if I recall correctly).

All of this is well and good, ...unless, like we, you place the accent wrongly. Then the meaning of Ano changes and suggests the orifice we all sit on.

"Feliz Año Nuevo" AN!

<Karmic adjustment complete: 12/31/05>