IN SEARCH OF MCALLEN'S SOUL AND DUARDO~FINDING NEITHER

Duardo Be Stylin! Will A Barber
Lose their License?

My son, grandson and I took a leisurely Saturday trip to McAllen, considered one of the valley's least interesting cities.

We kept an open mind.  

We were aware we might run into the area's attack blogger, Duardo Paz-Martinez, reportedly just returning from an imaginary trip to Texas' neighbor to the west, New Mexico, but our primary purpose was to find evidence that McAllen was soulical, containing the Biblical breath of life, historically, culturally and intellectually.

In Duardo's Saturday sermon on his blog, he shared with his readership, mostly other bloggers, the results of his annual trip to the barber for a trim, proudly posting his version of the photo above.  

We found on Google that McAllen does indeed have a barber school, precociously named the Enlightened Barber Academy on S. 10th Street.  Perhaps, Duardo engaged one of the senior students to give him the "do" above.  As some say:  "Time heals all wounds."

Anyway, now that the "look at me" out-of-town blogger is "back," local bloggers may look for his daily stool sample offerings, smelly, contagious and frequently misaimed.

As for the city of McAllen, we started just south of town on S. Jackson Street, running into what must have been the restaurant district, 5 or 6 metal garages set up in a row as taco venues.  A smiling lady beckoned us to the establishment pictured on the left.

The restaurant next door cleverly combines the words fajita and taco into a business name.

  Yet another business owner was putting a traffic light; red, yellow and green alongside his building.  He agreed, laughing, that the decor was intended to encourage potential clients to "stop" there.

We left South Jackson, venturing to the city's entertainment district,  Catching our eyes was a water feature in front of the event center where "Comedy Con" was featured.  We caught some young people strolling on the brick-paved promenade near the fountain.

   McAllen's water feature in front of the event center pictured below:

When I saw the long stretch limo below, it entered my mind that Robert Sanchez, "Captain Bob," had finally sent Duardo his promised ride. . LOL

As Russian cosmonaut said after his suborbital flight over Earth years ago:  "We found no God or angels."  

We did find a bustling city.