Finding peace in Mexico

Well, the holidays are behind us. I can’t believe we don’t have anything exciting to look forward to through the upcoming dreary winter. I think that’s why we men barricade ourselves behind the football playoffs, the Super Bowl and then the Final Four. That should take care of those cold or wet weekends until mid-March or so.Life for baby boomers has to be more exciting than that. Certainly, life for baby boomers has to be better than looking forward to another tax year ending and starting a new one. Grind, grind and more grinding seems to be our credo while the Canadians are whistling Dixie down here.

Though I am typing this while seven stories up overlooking some of God’s natural beauty. I’m still on my balcony down in Puerto Vallarta overlooking the Bay of Banderas and the Sierra Madre Mountain backdrop. This place is packed with people escaping the cold. There are baby boomers all over the place here. It is extremely tough getting a beach or pool chair. That seems to be life’s biggest hassle here.

I haven’t met anyone from California visiting down here yet. In fact, there just aren’t that many Americans at all. There is a splattering of people from Minnesota, Utah and Michigan. There are at least four to five Canadians for every American here if not more.

I was down on the beach today with a few people from Canada. I was lucky as they saved one chair as a buffer from the crowd next to them and they invited me to take it. I most willingly did and was grateful. Lying in the sand is fine, but having the lounge chair is definitely a step up. I asked them why they come down to Mexico when the papers are filled with violence. The usual response is, “What violence?”

You see, in Canada, they didn’t get involved in trying to eliminate their second amendment like our government did. They already have strict gun laws there. Our government though gave more than 2,000 high-powered assault weapons to the Mexican cartels in the Fast and Furious ordeal in 2010 and 2011 and then turned around and fed our media headlines with all the killings down in Mexico while blaming it all on the ease of acquiring weapons in the United States.

Only problem is it all turned out to be a fraud and a ruse with ulterior motives and continues to be investigated by Congress and specifically our own Darrell Issa out of Vista in the House Oversight Committee of the House of Representatives.

The decent 99.99 percent of Mexican people who have nothing to do with the drug cartels or small town graft got caught in the middle of the ruse and are suffering the loss of American tourism in Mexico. I can tell you one thing, I have been coming down to Puerto Vallarta for more than 10 years now and I would rather walk down the street at 1 a.m. in Puerto Vallarta than any street in San Diego County at the same time.

The people are so nice and so friendly that I don’t have to walk with one eye over my shoulder. I don’t even want to start in on what living in Chicago must be like where they have more killings in a week than Mexico has in a month and surpassed the number of deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan in a shorter period of time.

I only bring that up because reality trumps fiction. The American press likes Americans to think that 131 Americans were killed in Mexico in 2011 alone. Even Fox News reported that without following up. I did follow up with the State Department in Washington. I wanted to know who these 131 Americans were that went unnoticed in all the U.S. news.

I found out that all but one were dual citizen Mexicans in the drug cartels. One tourist died diving into shallow water while on vacation. But that isn’t the news we get and so everyone is afraid to come down to a place that world travelers now call their second homes. I’m sure there are better places in the world but for the value, nothing even comes close. Just ask anyone who has invested down here.

It is so beautiful and peaceful here and I’ve been an absolute bum for five weeks so far. Actually I’ve been recovering from double knee surgery and a ton of dental work, which I spoke of in my last column about having done for about 20 cents on the dollar.

I’m feeling great which, unfortunately, is just in time to come home on the 18th to begin my winter sojourn working again. If I want to live free down here for about nine months out of the year I have to rent my condo here during the high season, which is now. I won’t be able to come again until April when the worldwide Cheerleading Competitions begin again right here at my own condo building in the Holiday Inn. Ah, to be young again. Can you imagine hundreds, if not thousands, of cheerleaders in one place relaxing on the beach between competition?

I still encourage any baby boomers looking for that slice of paradise to give another look at Cabo or Puerto Vallarta. If you don’t run drugs you have nothing to fear. The economy here is vibrant and new construction continues unabated with a huge middle class growing here.

The Mexican people here are not what you envision Mexican people to be like. They’re upscale and modern. I found my peace despite the media accounts and that’s all we baby boomers should be looking for. Find yours in 2013. The clock is ticking.