Taco!?!?!

By Scott Robertson

The average American considers the following to be minimum standards of living: no. 1—air conditioning, no. 2—hot running water, no. 3—an iPhone. Most people on the planet do not enjoy these extravagances. My hope for every American is to work outside the United States with non-Americans for one year before they are thirty years old. In this manner, one truly understands that Americans are different, not necessarily in a good way.

Who is the one nation in the history of the world to unleash nuclear weapons on other humans? Sure there were reasons, but all media and political quibbling aside, only one country in the history of the world has dropped nuclear bombs on other human beings.

Other people’s goal is “to live just like the American’s.” They will catch up, or we will fall behind. With luxury comes responsibility. They go hand in hand. Please open your mind, relax, and enjoy my story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Feb 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781546278498

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© 2019 Scott Robertson. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 01/30/2019

ISBN: 978-1-5462-7850-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5462-7851-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5462-7849-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019901148

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Foreword

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

FOREWORD

This book is fiction. It is one hundred percent make believe from the authors mind. Any references to specific individuals are circumstantial, coincidental, and unintended. It is a copulation of the author’s life experiences, from riding in an ambulance to the Emergency Room at a local hospital, both as a patient, and as a passenger, to travel to foreign countries and their cultures.

The average American considers the following to be minimum standards of living; #1: air conditioning. #2: hot running water. #3: an I phone. Most people on the planet do not enjoy those extravagances. My hope for every American is to work outside of the United States with non-Americans for one year before they are thirty years old. In this manner you truly understand that Americans are different, not necessarily in a good way.

Who is the one nation in the history of the world to unleash nuclear weapons on other humans? Sure there were reasons, but all media and political quibbling aside, only one country in the history of the world has dropped nuclear bombs on other human beings.

Other people’s goals are; to live just like the American’s. They will catch up, or we will fall behind. With luxury comes responsibility. They go hand in hand. Please open your mind, relax, and enjoy my story.

Taco!?!?!

1

Meeeooow Foobie quietly announced. Blink. Santé was awake, as he always was in this manner every morning at 5:00 am. The room was bright daylight. Foobie was standing on his chest looking directly into his brown eyes with her yellow eyes four inches away, drooling.

Their apartment was actually just a large bedroom inside of a barn, built over a utility room that had the water system for the property, a toilet, sink, and shower, a heater, hot water heater, and a washer and dryer. The barn was very large, and enclosed on three sides, the east side was open. The only window to the bedroom was also on the east wall, so the sun only shone in at sunrise. Any other time of day and they had to use the lights.

This apartment was Santé and Vicki’s home June, July, and August. The rest of the year it was just storage for the patron’s. They had weird items there that were too good to throw away but were not good enough to display inside their house, which was just down the stairs and 50 feet away. There was a collection of state plates that his grandmother had, hanging on one wall. There was a limited print, matted and framed, of a P-51 model D mustang fighter plane, which was pretty, but what do you do with that? There were old photos of his racing career days, some 30 years ago. There was a variety of hunting rifles and shotguns that he no longer used. Santé and Vicki didn’t mind. They enjoyed living here because neither their social class nor their personal problems mattered. They could just be themselves. The problem was that this patron was not wealthy, and this work held no future for Santé. The pay was low, but it did give him the opportunity to sell some horses.

Foobie was a scraggly ass old cat that the patron’s daughter-in-law had dumped on them. She was black, and old, and had been rescued as a kitten from the streets of Seattle, with a broken jaw. She was long haired. The patron had four barn cats. In general, Santé was not a cat person. But everybody made a big deal out of Foobie, like she was some fine Persian high-bred, so Santé went along with the fantasy. She had a cheap cat collar that was blingy, so everyone pretended it was a diamond bracelet off of a queen’s wrist. Foobie slept with them every night. She stayed out of the way while they had sex, and she snuggled in to either’s belly when they were asleep. She could walk around very lightly without waking either, and she crawled up on Santés chest every morning when she wanted out.

This little apartment had no kitchen. It was large for a bedroom, with a small table and chairs next to the bed. The other side of the bed had a pole lamp and an end table. There was a writing table that was nothing fancy, just an old family heirloom full of collectable junk. Nobody actually used it for writing. The one window was between the writing desk and the table, and was also a fire escape with a ladder mounted to the barn wall outside of the sliding window. This barn was used for storing hay. Their bathroom was down the stairs, and they took most of their meals with the patrons; often barbeque that Santé or Vicki prepared, eaten at a picnic table on their porch.

Santé got out of bed, walked to the door, and opened it. Foobie ran out. He started the hot water, grabbed his pack of American cigarettes, and his lighter, and walked back to his side of the bed. He sat on the edge of the bed, and shook a cigarette out of the pack. He threw the pack on the end table next to his ash tray, and tore the filter off of the American pre-rolled. This always amused him. Why do these Americans put a filter on a cigarette? Is it supposed to make smoking safe? If you’re going to smoke, then smoke. All of his smoking in Argentina was cigarettes that you rolled yourself with a paper and a pouch of tobacco. There were no filters. Santé then placed the clean end of the cigarette in his mouth, and lit the torn end with the lighter.

As he exhaled he felt Vicki’s fingers tap his right shoulder, as every morning. He pulled the cigarette out of his mouth with his right hand, held it over his right shoulder with his index finger and thumb, and waited. He felt her wiggle up to a seated position with her back on the headboard. She grabbed the cigarette from his fingers and he heard her deep drag on the cigarette, she held her breath for a moment, and exhaled slowly, just like she was smoking a joint, and handed it back.

Santé took a few more puffs and then put the cigarette out in the ash tray. Every day that they were home started like this. They did not need to get up this early. The only reason that they were awake was because Foobie wanted out, and the window had no shade.

Neither one really smoked. This was Vicki’s only cigarette, one drag each morning, but she treated it just like smoking a joint, which she did enjoy a couple of times a week. She actually grew her own marijuana in a couple of ceramic pots from seeds that some Argentines playing in Calgary had given her. Their patrons didn’t mind, and just asked that they keep the plants out of sight when the grandchildren were around. Pot was legal for recreational use in Washington State.

Santé smoked about four half’s each day; one first thing with their mate’, one after the morning sex, one after his siesta, and one after evening sex when they went to sleep. He had started this at an early age, around 13 or 14 years old. His father had sent him and his brothers, each in turn, to work horses with the braceros out in the pampas grass. Smoking was a social occasion with the braceros. They took this very seriously. Nothing interrupted the ceremony. A cigarette was rolled from a paper and tobacco. The mate’ was poured. Then in turn you passed the same cigarette and jug of mate’ around, and the group shared it, and discussed life’s issues.

This was basically a gripe session. The braceros never complained about anything. Indeed it was hard to drag a word out of them except during these morning mate’ sessions. Once the mate’ was consumed they began the day’s work with feeding the horses and mucking the stalls. But Santé’ came to recognize his dad’s style. As none of the braceros would complain to him, these morning sessions allowed their problems to be communicated to him through his children. Argentina is a servant culture in that the employees are not paid, but given a place to live, fed, and clothed, for them and their families. So if a bracero had a sick child that needed dental work, his dad would accommodate that need. In this manner his sons garnered a level of respect from the braceros in looking out for their needs. Their estancia was large. His father rode the fence lines with a Cessna 172. There was no public schooling in rural Argentina as there was in the United States. To the Americans this servant culture seemed like slavery; people working for a family and not getting paid. But that is not how it was. Americans that worked for minimum wage were probably far behind these servants in regards to standard of living. This culture had been brought with immigrants from Spain and Italy. Indeed, many Spanish immigrants had tried to go to the USA with their Basque servants through Ellis Island, were denied, and continued on to Argentina. The servants lived on the same land as the family, although not in the same house, ate the same food, and wore the same clothes. The servants wanted for nothing. Everything was provided for their entire family, be it clothes, medical care, everything.

The servants had no use for money. The only thing local that they could purchase was ice cream, and the ice cream shop was for sale. Any supplies needed for the estantia were at businesses that held accounts that certain persons could charge to for grain or tack supplies. Most of the braceros actually made their own horse tack supplies from leather they had cured themselves.

Santé crawled back in bed and he and Vicki made love, slowly and gently. He then got back up and prepared their mate’ from the electric water pot on the table. He walked over and handed it to Vicki, who had worked her way back up to a sitting position, and got back in bed himself.

Every day began in this way. They sat there in bed and sipped their mate’ and listened. They discussed the horses, the field, the patrons, and what needed to be done. They heard the patron, Mick come out of the house and call to his dogs, his cats, and his chickens. This was amusing. Mick used a child’s voice, even though he was nearly 60 years old, and told each animal how special and good they were. When he fed the chickens he gathered the eggs. They had six hens. They got two brown eggs and four blue eggs every day. This was Santés queue to get up. He threw on a pair of denim pants, a T shirt, his socks, and some sandals. He went downstairs and put two bales of hay in the Kubota RTV side by side. He drove it down to the dry lot, about 5 acres on the far end of the 40 acre farm, and fed and watered the horses. There were 16 head; nobody was limping or bleeding; so far so good.

Santé usually had a quick conversation with his patron, Mick, about what needed to be done and what the plans were for the next weekend. Sometimes they traveled out of town for polo matches, and some weekends they hosted them here on Mick’s field. Mick was not his patron’s real name, but he looked just like a rich Irish man Santé had played for in southern California, so the name stuck. Mick ran a local garbage company. His wife was a registered nurse in the Emergency Department for a local hospital. Her name was Missy. That again was not her real name. Vicki, which was actually Victoria, had called her Miss Tricia. She got tired of being called miss, told Vicki so, and her name just morphed to Missy. Victoria could not call someone above her class by their first name. She just couldn’t. That’s not how servant girls in rural Argentina were brought up.

They would be playing at home this weekend; which had some different requirements early in the week. The field, which was regulation size, was 480 feet wide and 900 feet long inside the corner markers. The run-off at both ends was another 150 feet; so the grass was about the size of eleven football fields. You don’t want the grass to be wet and slick when you play, so you mow, then water heavy, early in the week, then mow the day before the match. There are also goal and end lines to mark, as well as the penalty shot positions.

Santé enjoyed the home matches better than the travel play. First, he and Vicki had their love nest to live in. Second, he didn’t have to prep the haul rigs. Third, the barn had an indoor tack room next to their bedroom that was shaded, and had hot water to wash the horses with after they played. It was a horse friendly set up, versus having to throw your animals in a foreign pen around others horses, with who knows what diseases. The home matches gave him time to promote their horses for sale to the visiting players. He could stick and ball them with a potential customer before or after the match. His patron did not care. Mick realized this was the reason he had a five goal Argentine pro taking care of his stock. Mick and Missy weren’t very good polo players, but they enjoyed it a lot. They both recognized that they were relatively old for the game, and lacked talent. But they enjoyed the animals and the camaraderie.

There were a total of sixteen horses. Four each for Santé, Vicki, Mick, and Missy. This worked out pretty well. Mick and Santé liked the same type of animal, although the way that they played them were exact opposites. Both liked a tall, lanky thoroughbred mare that pawed the ground to run, reaching out with its forelegs, head low. Both liked an aggressive mare in a bump or ride-off and used that aggressively. Neither desired a lazy gelding that you had to whip to get into a play. Both would rather ride through a play on the run than have the horse plant its feet and stop.

But Mick would perform airplane turns in Santés terms, which meant big long wide turns that would take him way out of the play for several seconds. Santé would check the horse, and turn on a dime, usually pivoting on the rear legs as opposed to Mick turning on the front legs, or in Santé terms Mick can take the turn out of any horse in two chukkars. That’s the difference between an Argentine five goal rated player and an American zero goal rating.

It was about the same for Vicki and Missy. Both preferred a high headed horse that ran collected, with short strides. It could stop, and turn on a dime. However, this is where the similarity ended. Vicki was about a two or three goal rated American player, Missy was a minus one. Women aren’t allowed to compete in Argentina, so Vicki did not have an Argentine handicap. The women still got to exercise the horses, feed and muck stalls, wash, groom, wrap legs, saddle and tie tails, but they could not play in an organized club match. Vicki was a better player than any of the American men in the USPA Northwest Circuit.

So Santé and Vicki each worked eight horses, every day. Eight of these were owned by the patrons, and the other eight were Santés, from Argentina. Some evenings the patrons wanted to ride their own horses. As both riders were so bad, Santé finally just worked them all the same, and if they got rode twice that day, good for them. But their horses needed to be coached back to proper behavior, every week. Every time the patrons rode their own horses, they ruined them, unwittingly.

Sometimes Vicki had to ride a couple for Santé because he had to mow or irrigate. Santé also helped Mick put the hay up, which was three cuttings a year that they put up on site, mostly grass / alfalfa, but also some barley. This was excellent work horse feed. They also fed out a couple steers and pigs to slaughter every fall, after Santé and Vicki had gone back to BA (Buenos Aries).

This tended to run about 30 minutes of exercise for each horse. Sometimes it was just running around the property. Sometimes it was stick and balling next to another horse that needed work. Sometimes it was practicing various penalty shots. After the workout they got a bath, and any swollen tendons or other concerns were looked after. Vicki took care of all the laundry; saddle pads, leg wraps, team uniforms, umpire jerseys.

Vicki came downstairs and helped Santé gather the horses. They would pony eight at a time up to the barn and tie them to tie rails, the horse trailers, the flatbed, wherever there was room. They would tack, exercise, wash, and treat these eight, then take them back and do the next eight. This was six or seven hours of work. They tried to take care of any repairs or maintenance with any of the equipment as they went, or in Santés fathers words you don’t have to be ten goals to look like you’re ten goals. Santés father was rated ten goals Argentine, in his prime, which is the best of the best, worldwide. Santés older brother, Sabi, was rated nine goals Argentine, and played for a rich patron in Florida, December through April.

Santé pondered this problem. He really enjoyed being here with Mick and Missy, even though he was wasting his time in his father’s words. His brother, Sabi, was right where he should be in his career. Santé dreaded going home. First off, Vicki was a servant, and below his class. His mother and father would not allow them to cohabitate. It was okay for the upper class to bed the lower class, but nothing beyond that, no living together, no dinners out or dating, nothing.

Vicki and Santé took eight halters and lead ropes down to the dry lot in the Kubota. They gathered two of Santés, two of Mick’s, two of Missy’s and two of Vicki’s horses. Santé and Vicki each rode one bareback with just the halter and lead rope, and ponied three apiece. When they got back to the barn they tacked the two of Missy’s and the two of Mick’s. There was a practice field which was just three pens next to each other that you could take the cross fences down, so it left a field that was 900 feet long and about 80 feet wide, planted in the same grass as the polo field, which allowed you to work the horses with a mallet on the ball the length of a polo field.

Santé rode Mick’s horses and Vicki rode Missy’s. They would gallop side by side about 50 feet apart, and make cut shot passes from one to the other. This required tapping the ball straight ahead, making the horse follow the line of the ball with your legs, then make a cut shot with the mallet head turned towards the direction you desire, They would get to the far end, make a back shot, and continue on, over and over until the horse was breathing hard and sweating heavily. This exercise required that one person was making cut shots from the near side, or reaching over your horse’s neck with the mallet and swinging a forehand, angled shot. Doing this repeatedly at a gallop was something most players could not do. It wasn’t a shot that you used a lot in a game, but when you needed one, it was important. Both Vicki and Santé could do this all day. They were fit, and practiced every day, seven days a week. When you did your back shot and swapped ends, the other rider had the near side forehand, over and over and over again.

Once these first two each were done, Santé began mowing the field. The other four horses were he and Vick’s, so they didn’t require any schooling, just exercise. Vicki could pony his around while she galloped on her horses, around the outside of the 40 acres.

The mower was actually a 1978 International Harvester Scout pick-up truck pulling a seven reel Toro mower. Mick had obtained this, used from a city parks department that had used it for parks, golf courses, and sports fields. The reels drove off of fourteen drive tires that turned fourteen gearboxes that drove the reels. Mick had some mechanical ability, mostly from keeping garbage trucks running, and repaired the rig himself. He had to rebuild five of the gearboxes and replace all fourteen drive wheels when he obtained the mower rig.

Mick called the pick-up Tonto from the old Lone Ranger TV series of his childhood days. Tonto was the right hand man of the Lone Ranger, and rode a paint horse named Scout. The International was metallic brown with huge white stripes, just like a paint horse, so the name was fitting, at least color-wise. Mick let Santé and Vicki use the Scout as they pleased to go shopping in town, or just drive the countryside. Vicki got her first driving lessons in Tonto.

This set-up actually worked pretty well for a low budget program. Mick had put the field in himself with some help moving dirt from Missy. It started as a hay field with slopes and undulations. Mick killed the hay, then ripped the ground with a D-6 Cat thoroughly, then disked it several times, then leveled it as best he could, rototilled it, and planted the grass. He did not save money on the seed. What he used was grass that was developed for high traffic such as a busy golf course with carts. It was thin bladed in that a club hitting a golf ball, or a shoe kicking a soccer ball, or a mallet hitting a polo ball was not restricted in any way from the grass. It was 50% Kentucky Blue Grass, 30% Perennial Rye, and 20% Creeping Fescue. When watered and mowed regularly it was a beautiful, lush light green, and was so thick if felt like walking on cushy deep carpet. It was excellent for the horse’s legs. The divots from the horse hooves filled back in within a week. The ball rolled straight down the field and did not bounce. When the ball stopped, it was teed up just like holding the ball up with your fingertips, making Santés long power shots easier. The field was not perfect by any means. There were still some mild undulations; it was not perfectly flat. But it was safe with plenty of run-off area.

Santé would mow it this morning, move the water on this afternoon, and soak it for a couple of days. If he mowed it with the Toro while it was completely dry, both ways, the finish was excellent. Of course he and Vicki couldn’t use it to work the horses. They would have to use the narrow practice field while the water ran. Thursday he would move the water off the field, back onto the hay. Friday afternoon Santé’ would mow the field again. When Mick had time he would help so that Santé’ could ride the horses with Vicki.

There isn’t a lot to do mowing thirteen acres for five hours with a twenty-one foot mower. Santé would adjust the radio to a local Spanish station. It was Mexican music, but Santé preferred his own language. Vicki and Santé only spoke Spanish unless there were Americans around. So as he drove, following the previous swath, he sang, and thought about life. He could see Vicki riding her horse with a saddle at a gallop, ponying his horse with a lead rope. She was