Seniors love is in the air

Day 12 Feliz día de San Valentín – Happy Valentine’s Day the banner across the square trumpeted. It is Friday, Feb. 14th. This is a sad day on the calendar for seniors. Much like a single person spending Christmas in a strange town alone; for seniors it’s a day when you remember what passion used to be like… last century.

You remember back when you’re 13 and Gina Romano is teaching you how to French kiss in the boy’s bathroom and when she’s gone you’ve got her mom’s spaghetti sauce on the back of your teeth. The closest Carol’s tongue has come to mine lately is when she licks her finger and rubs mozzarella cheese off my forehead (it only happened twice).

Or your last kiss on the lips was from your grandma at the old folks home and she was aiming for your cheek.

You think back to when you used to steam up the windows of your Ford station wagon in the Baptist church parking lot, before church (forgive me Father for I have sinned… ya baby!) Now the last time our hips touched was when we were wedged together in a doorway rushing to get to the ice cream truck.

In Mexico, Valentine’s Day is a big deal. Young couples sit on stone walls under draping trees, arms wrapped around each other with foreheads touching in complete innocence. Throngs of couples walk the malecon hand in hand, the girls looking shyly down while the boys turn their heads and wink at their friends as they pass by. The girls wear ruffled dresses and the boys have on their white shirts with black pants as they pass retired gringos wearing ancient Hawaiian shirts, loud shorts and flip flops.

Dozens of vendors offer up treats of candied nuts, cotton candy, fresh barbecued corn in a cup with mayonnaise and chilli lime, and bountiful bouquets of flowers to offer their loved one as a sign of their devotion. The last time I gave Carol flowers the police came by asking why I had been in my neighbor’s garden. Uh, I was retrieving a soccer ball.

Red and white is everywhere in this love-struck playground. Red tablecloths with white rose centerpieces, waiters in red shirts with pressed black pants, and of course newly-landed gringos with white skin, and cheeks, nose, and shoulders bearing a shiny red glow.

Red Lobster is in on the act as well with photos of sunburned customers wearing bibs at the table with wide grins and butter running down their chins as they break off pieces of an unlucky crustacean.

A cruel public death awaits a tankful of the bony creatures as they peer back through the glass at the stooped over humans as they point to one, then back to another of their neighbors that will become the main course for some heavyweight with an I Drank Beer in Red Deer or I’m with Stoopid shirt. It’s like Caesar giving the thumbs up, thumbs down sign deciding who lives another day and who goes into the pot. Hopefully they force the lobsters to watch a Nicki Minaj video first so they’ll WANT to die.

Another reason seniors struggle with Valentine’s Day is the toll that the years have taken on their bodies. Young people can be seen in the upstairs windows of gyms as they work their bodies to tone and harden them with lunges, curls, and bench presses. The passle of old folks stopped on the sidewalk below to ogle the young flesh look first at these health-concious fanatics and then down at their own six-packs… of Bud.

Oh, how Father Time has ravaged us. Patchy skin, missing hair, unwanted hair, rogue hairs, and of course jowls and sagging intimate parts. On vacation, sharing a small space with your partner means you will undoubtedly see more skin than back at home. Here, shaving naked in front of the mirror stirs the other to glance over to see pockets of cheese-like areas that used to stir passion but now cause them to turn away and start another chapter in their David Baldaci thriller.

So now we’re on our way back to the hotel with me in the lead and Carol keeping her distance surprisingly far behind, but it’s only because I forgot to remove my bib when we left the restaurant and she wants to teach me a lesson. Hey, everyone is so friendly here with broad grins as they pass by. What a great place!

Close to home I pass by a garbage bin and a picture from the obituary page in an old newspaper catches my eye. It’s Gina Romano! WHAT? Her memorial recounts that when she was 15 her parents suddenly sent her down here to live with her uncle Bruno and his ‘girlfriend’.

She had had a full life and unsurprisingly it turns out that she was very fertile and had 8 kids. There were glowing rememberances from all of them, also from all the guys at Burros Bar, the guys on the local futbol team, and her four ex-husbands.

I can still taste her mom’s marinara sauce in the back of my mouth.

Author’s note: The wifi here lately has been unable to support the upload speed that I need to send photos to the blog. Maybe it will work mañana.