The Battle of San Miguel

I couldn't end my blogging today without telling you how the Battle of San Miguel turned out.

The big hooha occurred on Friday night when the rockets started firing at 2 am. This is to sound the alarm and wake up the townspeople so that we will all get dressed and come to the square for the battle. I joined the festivities at 2:30 am dressed in flannel pajamas, jean jacket, neck scarf, and combat boots, drinking a 7Up, minding my business and looking for all the world like a gringo ripe from the avocado fields. Frankly, not much was going on other than the battle of the mariachi bands which was quickly resolved when the only band with a tuba arrived to drown out all the others. It was kind of a bore.

Boy, did that change in a hurry.

At 3 am St. Michael started hitting the Devil with at least as much firepower as was used in the opening night of the U.S. vs. Iraq war. The poor Devil brigade was entrenched at the church but they were returning fire with what sounded like 5 or 6 Daisy pump action rifles, cap guns and sparklers. (I think they took cues from Saddam Hussein when they went shopping for weapons.) But I had to hand it to those Devils. Those boys kept up a valiant fight that would make even Davy Crockett doff a coonskin cap. For 2 solid earsplitting hours concussions rocked these ancient buildings. The ground shook. (Did I say this went on for 2 hours? Yes, I did. Good. You need to know that.) By 6 am, the devil was out of ammo. The deal was done. A huge outline of Jesus on a stick was lit up with some kind of sparkler explosives and everyone was amazed and overjoyed. (There was a glitch though. Someone holding the Jesus on a stick made a bad move and dropped Jesus on the iron security fence and impaled him. But maybe that was supposed to happen. Impalement is part of the Jesus Easter story and it's possible that these guys took some literary license.) We went back to bed. Well, most of us. There were a lot of drunk guys by 6 a.m. I got asked out by a Mexican kid named Bryan. People get pretty desperate at closing time, don't they.

The final finale last night was pretty cool and pretty terrifying. At least it was for me. I hate loud dangerous explosives and I really hate them when they are in close proximity to my hair or exposed areas of skin. So I carefully scoped out what I thought was the safest place on the square from anything explosive or flamable and it happened to be really close to where a Spanish classmate from Australia named Peter was standing. Peter and I were standing next to this 50 ft. tall tower that I thought was a cell phone tower, just chatting away, when he casually mentioned that this tower was about to blow up like a really cool giant roman candle. I screamed and frantically tried to thread my way through the crushing crowd of 5,000 when it started up. With no way out, I cowered for safety behind Peter who laughed the whole time like the tasmanian devil that he is. (I now suspect that he was behind that Jesus impalement.) He was nicer for the 2nd and 3rd exploding tower spectacles though and didn't make us get closer than 100 ft. away. Anyway, I got out unscathed this time. Whew. (Never again, Peter, never again!)

So this story has a happy ending. St. Michael won. The world is safe for another year despite what Wall Street and the White House are doing. You can sleep soundly tonight.