The First Visit to San Miguel de Allende

The First Visit to San Miguel de Allende

I arrived in San Miguel in June of 1961, on a visit to my older
brother Bob who was working on his masters degree in fine arts
at the Instituto Allende. I, had just graduated from High school.

All the way from the airport in Mexico City he regaled
me with stories of his life in San Miguel. He even had a girl
picked out for me. (When we arrived I was truly fascinated with
the town, and the girl, and nothings changed these 50+ years later!)

When my brother Bob and I entered the dry goods store where my
future wife worked that day we were greeted by two girls and my
first thought was, “What was my brother thinking!” They were
plain ordinary girls, but then from the back of the shop came
Roselia. She was gorgeous! A petite brunette with a beautiful
smile, pearly white teeth, and large brown eyes. She laughed
easily and teased my brother playfully about his little brother.
I was enchanted.

We met the girls later that day when they got
off work and walked around the Jardin with them. They were trying
to learn English, they said, and my brother was their teacher,
the oldest line in the book. We soon separated from the other
girls and walked Roselia to her home a few blocks from the
main square. This became a nightly ritual for me, brother Bob bowing
out after the first night, a ritual that continued until we
married in June, 1964, three years almost to the day, later.

Our first date was to watch the “locos parade,” and their dancing
that took place after the parade in the colonia San Antonio.
They, the locos, stomped around a corral constructed of mezquite
branches in the dirt in front of the unfinished church (one tower
had not been finished in its more than 200 years of existence.

Later that day we went, holding hands, to the Angela Peralta
theater to see a movie, that was the movie house in those days.
The movie featured “Joselito,” a young Spanish singer, who sang
soprano songs for which I had no clue, but enjoyed immensely. I
wonder why?

One of the first Mexican men I met, in San Miguel, was Rafael
Agundis.

We met in the only fancy bar in town at the time, El Patio. Rafael could
speak a few words of English and he was playing guitar, not as a
professional entertainer, but as a patron who played to amuse himself
and his friends. In those days romantic songs, played by
trios, were all the rage in Mexico and Rafael was singing songs
for his absent beloved, who he kept referring to as his Elefanta,
his Elephant.

My Spanish was practically non existent then, but we became
friends and he and my fiance encouraged me to learn their
language to be able to communicate with these friendly, outgoing
people. That and I was getting tired of eating ham sandwiches,
which was all I could say!

During the day I was on my own in San Miguel, my brother in
classes and my girl-friend at work. I wandered around with a
Spanish-English dictionary clutched in my hand. Everywhere I went
the people were very open and friendly, trying to engage me in
conversation, while I struggled with my dictionary. No one spoke
English beyond a few words.

Mexico smelled of wood smoke then, everywhere you went including
Mexico City. The principal cooking fuel was either wood or
charcoal with some kerosene stoves too. Butane was only just
coming into use, but only the well-off could afford a gas stove.
Water heaters too were wood burning and taking a bath took some
advance planning. When the hot water and steam started shooting
skyward your bath was ready!

In my wanderings around town I encountered El Chorro, San Miguel’s
only water supply. A natural spring, above French Park where the
waters flowed freely from an underground spring and then ran freely
in ditches that wove in and out of the planted gardens there,
overflowing with flowers, down the hill and across the street to
the public wash tubs which were packed with women and children
from dawn to dark everyday (lots of people had no running water
in their homes). The water streamed down the street to
the park and spilled into tanks which in warm weather were full
of laughing children splashing contentedly, the run-off spilled
into the park and was channeled into the flower beds. Water also
ran in the gutters of nearly every street in town, day and night
there was so much of it.

My brother took me to my first Cantina the day after we arrived,
the Infierno, Hell. (Across the street was another little
hole-in-the-wall joint called La Gloria, Heaven.) The owner was a
large middle aged man, Pancho Perez, who loved to joke with his
patrons, and a favorite joke of his was to produce a rifle from
under the bar and force Gringos to drink their first straight
tequila. He needn’t have bothered because I was already
very curious and drank one as soon as it was offered and ordered
another. This put me “in” with the man and his other patrons
right from the start. (He later was one of my Godfathers at my
wedding. He provided a large zinc washtub full of grape flavored
Kool-Aide, spiked with grain alcohol, for the reception.)

During that first visit to San Miguel it became obvious to me
that several of the town’s upper class young women were throwing
themselves at my brother. My brother, as usual, was oblivious to
it all. He did, however, have sense enough to take me along to a
sit-down dinner he had been invited to. We arrived bearing flowers, our
first mistake because flowers to a Mexican woman means you’re
interested. The whole family was there, including a suitor of the
older daughter who fawned over her the entire evening. The youngest
girl glomed on to me and the middle “girl” was obviously interested
in Bob. We spent a pleasant evening being chatted up by the parents
as prospective sons-in-law, and when we got out of there we ran for
our lives back up to my brother’s mountain lair.

My eighteenth birthday happened to fall during that first visit
to San Miguel and there happened to be a dance that night in the
Patio Restaurant/bar, a twistathon. The only dance I ever
learned! Naturally I attended. The place was packed and I had
difficulty getting a drink from the waiter so I order two
tequilas as soon as I got his attention, and when those arrived
ordered two more, and so on. My celebration didn’t last long I
can tell you, and I don’t think I danced a single time. Istaggered
out only to have to stumbled up the mountain to where
my brother had an apartment. The hangover, my first, was brutal
and lasted all the way to Mexico City where my brother got me a
hotel room to lay down in for a few hours before I caught my
flight home to Florida.

I always count my San Miguel experience from the date of that
first visit. The effect of it was so profound and moving that I
never did get San Miguel out of my system.