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Signs and Symbols
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Welcome to CaliforniaTWO WOBBLY LENGTHS OF REBAR held the message, which was blue and gold like our license plates -- blue and gold like our deserts and ocean. How had anyone decided on this place for a border? The highway stretched out for miles through a sickly yellow desert and glittering pyramids of sand dunes. It was inhospitable, dying, yet when I crossed that line I immediately felt at home. As soon as I had the chance I detoured on a route slightly south. It surprised me, contrasting so sharply with the desert I had just left, with its wildflowers springing from rocky escarpments, with its curves and valleys and the clarity of its sky, so alive, as if inspired to activity by the death of its neighbor. The Mexican mountains hovered at my left, brown and bare. Giant watching hulks. Guards. Tecate 2 MilesThe narrow road led through a pass, and I was faced with another border. After parking the Ural on the American side, I walked over the line into Mexico and installed myself at a parkside cafe under a row of massive old shade trees. In the park, well-dressed men and women rushed to and from appointments, mothers watched their children play, and a handful of loiterers gathered around a bench. It looked like a park in France or Italy instead of some "underdeveloped" country, and I realized that I was finally seeing a Mexico that wasn't dependent on the tourist trade from America. These people had their own business, the making of Tecate beer, and they behaved independently . . . . . . read the rest of this story in American Borders - the book |
