Many Panamanians are Curious About Daily Life in the U.S.
Since I do all my writing in Panama, why not compare and contrast the two countries.
The Santa Barbara Mission is a wonderful church, though not my religion. I walked past it every day from 1961 to 1971. My friend Ken got married on the front steps. We hit pinatas every year during Fiesta. I almost clocked the priest one time.
I lived above the church in the mountains you see in the photo. For a while we also lived downtown. Santa Barbara has always been Latin American and is a wonderful area. It includes the wilderness of Santa Barbara County, where I often went to be away from civilization.
I now live in Panama and in part that happened because I fell in love with Latin culture. Santa Barbara, and all of southern California, is Mexican by heritage. The Mexicans were as polite and proper as Latinos worldwide, though the younger Mexicans these days have adopted some American habits and become more crude. (Don’t quote me on this observation — I’ve become a cranky old man, and could be getting it wrong.)
I would love to return to Mexico, just so you know. They’ve adopted some American culture, but they’re still genuine latinos. Everybody has adopted some American culture — the fools.
(I never cared for it.)
Well, I’m sorry to tell you, but my days are numbered by metastatic cancer. So I’m writing some death and dying articles and I don’t plan on regretting a word I say. (A death joke.)
They don’t have good drugs in Panama, but I buy a couple bottles of rum every day. That’ll have to do. I’ll stay in touch until I can’t.
No regrets, because, you know, it’s all erased when you die.
You Americans seem to hate that I talk like this. Your right to life. Don’t you know that it’s the right to death that matters?
Read some Elizabeth Kubler-Ross…
… Fred Ermlich
