Braguetas, Braguetazos & Mangueras
In 1968 in Mexico City I saw a woman in a miniskirt, with long blonde hair and splendidly shaped legs. I saw her from behind. Soon after, I married Rosemary.
I have always been keen on beautiful legs because my mother had them. Her sister Dolly, while a lot slimmer, also had lovely legs. In those years in the 50s and 60s when passengers deplaned on the tarmac I always knew (especially when they deplaned on the other side of the aircraft) which one was my mother.
She told me that I had inherited her legs and also her swimmer’s feet. Neither of us ever had corns and we could easily find shoes that fit us. I may look 75 but when I show off my feet as I did once at an all-female pedicure place in a resort in Florida the women were amazed on how young my feet looked (and still look).
I like legs. I love legs. And at about this time with the weather inching up towards summer I cannot stop looking at all those women in shorts. Those shorts have been creeping up in the back in the last three years. I feel that not only are my feet young but something in my mind that keeps getting excited by lovely gambas (a word Argentines like to use for legs which they borrowed from the Italians).
I told my almost 16 year-old granddaughter Lauren today that I do not understand why we men cannot wear Lululemon yoga pants (Lauren prefers the word leggings). I explained that men in the medieval ages wore hose. In many cases they wore a codpiece. Why cannot we men, particularly those of us that have lovely (but manly) legs not wear hose? Unisex fashion was popular years ago. I think the time has arrived that I try on a pair. Lauren told me that should I do so that I must not go to any of her Arts Umbrella Dance performances as I would embarrass her beyond belief.
Now, curiously hose in English is the same word for a garden hose. In Spanish that is also the case. Medieval hombres wore mangueras. I had no idea what codpieces were called in Spanish. The word used is bragueta. This word is an interesting one.
A bragueta is also the zip up and zip down device that men have in the front of their pants.
In baseball we all know what a fly ball is. In Mexico in the late 50s there was a rise in nationalism and in keeping Mexican Spanish free of anglicismos. They failed miserably with baseball terms. Left field became jardín izquierdo so a fielder became a jardinero (gardener?). But it was with a fly ball where they got it all wrong rather nicely. A fly ball is a braguetazo (the wrong fly here).
Should I go out and buy myself a Lululemon legging? I don’t see why not.
As for a homerun the formerly nicely sounding jomerrón has been replaced by the most boring cuadrangular (all about four bases I suppose).
Originally published at blog.alexwaterhousehayward.com.
