Halloween Fiesta

27 October, 13

In my house, October is the time for a fiesta. Our first big party came in 1997. Susan and I were married for about one year when we started building our house in Pinehurst. It was a disaster. We fired the builder four months in, because we were only to the basement walls, and should have been almost complete. I stepped in as the general contractor and proceeded to finish the house apace. It only took me eight more months. When October, 1997 finally rolled around, we were ready to be done with the stupid thing and have a party to celebrate.

I had been working at Triangle Building Supply during this time, so I was able to get all my building materials at a discount. More importantly, I was able to find all my subcontractors. It was my previous job at Burlington Industries, however, that hatched the party plan.

Hervon "Snowflake" McCollum was a friend of mine from work, and he had a pig cooker. His mama made her own Barbecue sauce, and even Hervon didn't know the recipe. His buddy raised and slaughtered hogs. All I needed was a location and a date. Check and check.

About a month out, I called him and set the date for the weekend. Susan invited all her friends. I invited all my friends. We invited all our friends. We invited all our neighbors. Then I invited the guy beside me at the gas station. And the waitress at "Mac's Breakfast Anytime". And the sheriff's deputy at the jail. She actually came. I invited all my family from South Carolina. Susan invited her girlfriends from elementary school.

We had well over 100 people for that first pig pickin'. It became an annual Askins tradition, along with epic "Total Makeover" birthdays , Christmas and New Year's Eve parties. We have hosted literally 1000's of people in our home. We know how to throw a party.

So we decided Halloween was the right time for us to host a fiesta here in Spain. Our family has never really made a big deal about Halloween. We don't especially like the celebration of death and evil that is often associated with it. Here in Spain, Halloween isn't even celebrated much at all. It's about as big here as Cinco de Mayo is in the USA. The girls and Susan, however, have been OBSESSING over it for about three weeks. I think they are just groping for a little bit of American-ness.

Well, I invited my friends. Susan invited her friends. Elizabeth and Katherine invited their friends. Then I invited the guy at the pump...You get the idea. We had a relatively small turnout of about 40-50 people, but still big by Spanish standards.

Susan cooked up some really scary looking food, and I got our grill going with salchicha. We had anchoas, tortillas patatas, atun, olivas, jamon y asparago. We also introduced them to deviled eggs, pound cake and a token veggie tray, to assuage our guilt over feeding people so much stuff.

Dados de Brujas, Witches Fingers

Oranges decorated like pumpkins and a pound cake

My buddy, Julio, helping me get ready for the party

Los Chicos had a sugar binge with all the carmelos. They don't give their kids much candy around here. After the party our salon was covered with candy wrappers, strewn about like so many beer bottles at a college frat party. The last guests left at 3:30 AM. A few of us sat on the terrace, discussing the merits of capitalism and its effects on China. At that time of night, there really isn't much more ground to cover.

Susan and I staggered to the bed and slept 'til noon, exhausted after three weeks' preparation. It was awesome.

Teacher Strike!

23 October, 13

Spain is in the middle of La Crisis. It is all part of the worldwide financial meltdown that began way back in August, 2007. I remember visiting here in 2001, just prior to the conversion from the peseta to the Euro. There were big cranes all over the place, and buildings were popping up like mushrooms in the forest. I asked my friend, Antonio, what was going on, and he told me that people were laundering old money with construction projects.

Now many cranes are sitting idle all over the country. I suppose it is cheaper to leave them where they are than to dismantle and store them. Four or five of them dot the landscape in La Alberca, so we have not been immune to La Crisis, but it is pretty hard to find any other evidence.

Everybody we have met has a job, and many of them are quite good. We don't see beggars in the street. We don't see bread lines or riots. The first personal encounter we have had so far has just hit us this week.

Teachers are going on strike.

It seems the government has cut their pay over the last few years, in an effort to get the budget under control, and the teachers are fed up. The rage is welling up in their souls, and they must be heard.

In a show of solidarity, the high school students at IES Alquibla, where Elizabeth attends, staged a strike of their own. It was a stirring show of support for their beloved teachers, as the students decided not to show up for class. Of course Elizabeth was swept up by her passion for teachers and education in general. She begged us to allow her to go on strike as well.

How could she focus on her schoolwork, knowing these poor teachers were underpaid and overworked?

How could she sit in a classroom, the very site of this financial slavery?

"Give me fully compensated teachers, or give me death!"

Her fervor reached a fever pitch last night, when we informed her that she would have to attend school, even if all her friends decided to go to the park and have fun instead. Her heart ached for teacher equality. She pined for a fair and reasonable wage on behalf of her teachers. She pleaded for the opportunity to make a declaration of independence from government tyranny. But to no avail.

We made her go to school, reasoning that she needed every minute available to learn the language and get a little ahead on her studies. Going to school when nobody was there would afford her the opportunity to meet with her teachers one on one and get some good teaching from them.

Elizabeth was not happy. We were ruining her life. We were making her look uncool. Blah. Blah. Blah. Insert your own teenage girl angst-filled histrionics.

She went to school, a slave to the system.

At 9:30, I got a phone call from my friend, Julio, asking if I could pick up his daughter from school. Apparently, she was the only other student in her class, besides Elizabeth.

Revolution springs up in the strangest ways. The despots just never seem to see it coming, do they? I went to school and scooped up Che Guevara and Sam Adams, feeling the sting of my defeat at the hands of the proletariat.

Or so they thought. (Insert evil laughter)

I deposited Julia at her house. I don't have a dog in that fight.

Elizabeth and I walked home in silence. She defiant and me calculating. That's when I had a stroke of tyrannical genius. She wasn't going to school. School was coming to her.

We got home and immediately started working on math, the bane of Elizabeth's existence. Polynomials. Order of operations. Powers. And tomorrow, when the teachers are really striking, more of the same. Bwahahahahah!


I lost a battle. I will win the war.

My First English Lesson

8 October, 13

I love Barbecue. I guess I should stop right here and explain that word to any Yankees or Foreigners out there. First, Barbecue is a noun, not a verb. Barbecue is not something you do. It is something you eat. Some of my friends are NC BBQ purists, like Bill Crews, who would only eat BBQ east of I-95. But not me. I have traveled all over the USA, sampling Barbecue as I go. I LOVE BARBECUE. All of it. Vinegar. Mustard. Ketchup. Dry Rub. Wet Rub. Boston Butt. Beef Brisket. Kansas style. Memphis style. Hot. Sweet. All of it.

I moved to North Carolina, back in 1992, right out of college, and I fell in with a wonderful church family at Sandhills Alliance Church. At the time, they had a lot of old people there, meaning anybody over 30, and several of the families would invite me to dinner. One particular couple, who happened to be Yankees, invited me over for barbecue. Well, I got excited. When I got over there, I saw my friend standing over the grill, cooking hot dogs and hamburgers, but I did not see any Barbecue. Not to worry, because it is not uncommon to have a separate cooker for that divine delicacy.

You can cook burgers and dogs in a microwave, if you want to, but BBQ requires a whole different set of equipment. The mantra is, "Low and Slow". Low heat, between 250-300, and plenty of time. The best cookers are wood fired, with indirect smoke. They even have separate chambers for meat and heat. I am wearing a bib right now to keep the drool off my keyboard.

I looked around for the other cooker, and in a very good-natured way, asked where was the Barbecue? The man had that look on his face, like he just realized why we lost the war, sort of like when a dog turns his head sideways and looks up at you. Confused and a little dumbfounded. Not sure if this is a joke or not. So he good-naturedly said, "It's right here" and pointed at the grill. That's when I had that look on my face, like I just realized people like him beat us in the war. "But you're grilling hot dogs and hamburgers. I don't see any Barbecue." That's when he explained it. To a Yankee, the very act of cooking outside, over a fire, is called barbecuing. Well, that's just stupid. Everybody knows that cooking over a fire is called either grilling out or cooking out. Duh.

I ate their hot dogs and hamburgers. I smiled and thanked them for asking me over. I played with their kids and made small talk all night long. Then I went home and cried. For the first time in my life, I realized the desperate need in other people's lives. There were people in this world who did not know what Barbecue was. I let the weight of that sink in. God had given me a mission. "Boy, go cook up some Barbecue! And while you're at it, tell 'em I love 'em." My God speaks Southern, and he sounds like Uncle Jesse, from Dukes of Hazzard. Awesome, right?

I have been feeding people ever since, and, Yes, God does love you. Even if you don't know how to speak good English.

Some day, I'll have to tell you about my first pig-pickin'.