To Every Thing There is a Season

I imagine when the old Lake Chapala Burial Society evolved into the Lake Chapala Society sometime, I suppose, around when Neil James bequeathed her property to that organization, the society had a purpose that made some sense in an isolated foreign community attracting artists and retirees to a poverty stricken rural area where the language was incomprehensible to many attracted to this area and cultural differences were somewhat daunting in a time well before the advent of so many modern conveniences from electronic banking to ease of national and international communications and such incredible resources as the internet. At the time the LCS was in formation and beginning to mature, the organization provided help to newcomers and, in a limited way, served the local Mexican community albeit in a superficial manner. In those days, there was certainly a need for an organization dedicated to helping foreigners make the transition to living in a new community with different ways and a different language.

Somewhere along the way during the course of a few decades, the LCS evolved from a source of essential information for foreigners needing guidance in adjusting to a new environment with certain peripheral services such as an English language library with a modest selection of shallow fictional and reference works and a library of insignificant video tapes and a coterie of unschooled and unknowledgable "helpers" manning information desks ready to misinform newcomers with utmost vigor on all sorts of information of which the helpers had little or no knowledge, to a dull witted social club given to cliquish insolence and finding new members unschooled in local ways an irritating inconvenience useful only for their annual dues. Then, as time went by and information technology evolved beyond anything Neil James ever imagined and newcomers here became more schooled in matters once esoteric in nature, the LCS became what it has become. It seems now to have become what anachronistic organizations which have outlived their usefulness inevitably become but this remnant reminiscent of an old Woodmen of the World fraternal chapter in some Iowa backwater remains endowed with realty and old folks managing or mismanaging once useful but now overly precious subsidiary endeavors which would benefit from separate management without the unnecessary burden of being overseen by an outdated and foundering parental structure which has seemingly devolved into nothing more than an anachronistic coffee klatch culture that appears to exist more than anything else, simply because no one has figured out how to simply turn off the lights, sell the property and just go home calling it a day.

Oh good grief, Dawg. Just because somebody over there pissed you off doesn't mean it has no value for others.

In your "ideal expat world", how would things be? Anything positive to suggest?

gringal wrote:Oh good grief, Dawg. Just because somebody over there pissed you off doesn't mean it has no value for others.

In your "ideal expat world", how would things be? Anything positive to suggest?

I don´t get it Gringal. Why do you rate five forum stars and I only four? Here I pour my heart out trying to explain what the planet needs and I find myself the Rodney Dangerfield of Lake Chapala Informational posters. No respect.

Since I am on Rodney Dangerfield, bless his misbegotten soul, let me quote my favorite of his many lines:

"When I was a kid, we were so poor if I hadn´t have been a boy, I´d have had nothing to play with."

As far as the notion of a perfect place for retirement is concerned, I am torn between Cartagena and Biarritz but would settle for Veracruz if I could fill my days with drinking great Veracruz dark rich coffee and fine dark rum interspersed with luncheon on the principal plaza of huachinango a la Veracruzana but I suppose that would become old as well so, what the hell; since I´m already in Ajijic, I´ll just stay here but avoid the LCS like the plague.

Since I am on funny guys, I just remembered the great Henny Youngman joke:

Guy gets on an elevator and just as he enters the car the cable breaks and the elevator falls 20 floors to the basement and, as he is lying there all broken up and dying his last words are; " I said up."

Hound Dog wrote:

"I don´t get it Gringal. Why do you rate five forum stars and I only four? Here I pour my heart out trying to explain what the planet needs and I find myself the Rodney Dangerfield of Lake Chapala Informational posters. No respect."

Despite you being a member of this forum for three days longer than Gringal, thus far you have not been prolific enough to earn that 5th star having only made 58 posts to Gringal's 732. Besides that, she is not only younger than yourself but no doubt she is better looking as well.

The number of words doesn't get you more stars, just the number of posts.

Dawg does get the award for the fewest sentences in a paragraph (2). And possibly the most words in a sentence. Go Dawg!

I'll betcha that if the number of words were counted instead of the number of posts, Dawg will be galloping past me in no time flat. My stars would cease to shine.

The fact is, Dawg........95% of the world's population is dumber than you are, so using a superior intellect to put down the peasants isn't a worthy use of a fine instrument. What's the point?

I happen to live within throwing distance of the notorious Lake Chapala Society and I'm a heavy user of both the library and the video rental facility, so I see what's going on in general. It has a useful place in the community. I'd rather pay a buck to rent a movie than enrich the pirates.

When the LCS ceases to be useful to enough people, they'll go broke from lack of paying memberships. The doors are still open.

I have no idea what got the Dawg so pissed off at it. Maybe he'd like to tell us.

That is only if we don't die of old age during time needed to read one of his posts.
Dawg... have a heart. The vast majority of members of this board are already chronologically gifted. Could you possibly be more SUCCINCT? Lizzy

But Lizzie: there are fans of "Remembrance of Things Past" as well as of "For whom the Bell Tolls".

On the other hand, this is just an internet forum.
When I see a post of four long paragraphs graced by one or two sentences each.........I go into "speed reading" mode, seeking the point. But.......whatever makes ya happy, si?

xxx

Lehrer........not to worry about Bubba posting on TOB, he was banned from that one a long time ago.

Remarkable collection of adjectives there. Is it necessary to use then all at once? Lizzy

xxx

If you tried it on all four, you could be quadrabanned.

xxx

Lehrer wrote:gringal,

Is that a word, or did you make it up?

It will be when it happens to ya!

It's OK Dawg, if you break your endlessly rambling treatises up into posts of normal length, you are clearly the most prolific poster on this board.

Now, when is the book coming out? I want an autographed copy.

LOL

It's a word now! Good going gringal! A pun upon a pun, WOW! Lizzy

Wow!

For Mainecoon´s sake:

"It was a hot summer day; you know the type; humid and low cast sky, typical of the South Alabama torpor broken only by the commencement of the late October fall when, finally after several months of low hung grey skies dripping unseen mist over live oaks and azaleas soaking up the same drear hated by humans but beloved of endless bush flowers and magnolias and camelias and fragrant roses and other extraordinary and fragrant and impossibly green plantlife and all John Bob could think of as he lied there smoking his unfiltered Camels was how important it was that Aunt Beulah not come upon him on her way back from the Piggly Wiggly with her pork butt and Heinz 57 Sauce and Del Monte Instant Grits especially if he were in the final throes of masturbatory delight and, consequently, making a fool of himself as he often did but that is another story.

And this is why the Dawg is the King............nice work Mr. Dawg. For a minute there I was whisked away to the quieter, easier life of youth in the back hills of Alabama. And that is no lie (ly?, li?)

Oops....my bad I edited the post instead of quoting it. Sorry Dawg.

Bob

xxx

Lehrer wrote:

hound dog wrote:...and all John Bob could think of as he lied [sic] there smoking his unfiltered Camels....

Editor's note: He "lay" there -- unless he was lying about something.

Well, damn. I changed "lay" in that post to "lie" in an attempt to presume correct English usage as it seemed to me that the concept of Lying about is inappropriate to the notion of laying about since it seems to me that to "lay" , implies the notion of having put upon the earth things such as eggs inviting the unwieldy activities of undisciplined cocks dancing about the chickenyard and performing procreative rituals. Perhaps my command of English is deficient. After all, I am a child of and recipient of a South Alabama education with all of its implied deficiencies.

xxx

Please stop attacking "hound dog" or he will teach you a lesson by leaving you to search for the "real life" by yourselves. This is one of the last forums he can post on. The only other ones left are the forums that discuss "French Military Victories in Mexico" , " bullying for pesos" and "how I terrorized bankers by being a bank examiner."