How I went from 80 to 8 in moments!

 

How I went from 80 to 8 in moments!

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 I’d mulled this notion for a year. Everybody bicycles around here. When I first moved here, more people used bikes than drove cars. Then, seemingly overnight, cars proliferated. Now that parking is near to impossible, more people have dusted off their bicycles.

I checked several bike shops in town. Nobody had what I wanted. With the words from Queen bouncing through my brain and out my mouth, “Tricycle, tricycle, I want to ride my tricycle. I want to ride my trike. I want to ride my tricycle. I want to ride it where I like,” I ordered a gorgeous orange tricycle with a perfect basket in back for Lola to ride along like the queen she thinks she is.

I don’t intend to take my trike to town, much as I like the thought. I bought it to ride the lanes here on the rancho, nice flat lanes.

Eight days for delivery—it arrived in three! I’m not stupid. I hauled it to one of the town shops for the Bike Man to assemble. I’m no fan of instructions translated from Chinese to either English or Spanish by Artificial Intelligence. It’s hard enough to put something together when translations are guessed out by real people.

The following afternoon, while I was out walking my Lola Dog, Leo drove into the rancho in his pickup, my orange trike in back. That part of the lane runs through a nice flat, though very small, “field”. Leo unloaded my bike. I parked my walking sticks in the basket and had a series of instant realizations as I lifted my leg to climb onto the seat.

The seat was too short. We adjusted it as tall as it would safely go.

I must buy sneakers, pronto. One should not ride a self-powered vehicle in open sandals, slides or flip-flops, which are all that I own.

I have never used gears. My bicycle was the simple kind. I could not find a simple kind of trike, so thus, mine is geared.

And, what are brakes doing on the handlebars. Brakes are for feet.

I’m in for a learning curve. Nevertheless, I climbed on and wobbled up and around and back and around, wibble, wobble, wow.

Instantly, I was transported back in time to my eighth birthday. My Dad bought me a real bicycle. He ran alongside me as I wobbled on the lane between the barn and the house, holding me upright until I could hold it myself. That afternoon, I could feel my Dad’s hands on the back of the trike seat. I could smell him, faintly redolent of Camel cigarettes and good sweat and laundry soap.

Yep, I will have to learn how to ride all over again. I searched my memory. I’ve not rode a bicycle since I was 18. Next week I’ll endure my 81^st birthday. Oh, my.

First, I will go to town and buy sneakers. Next, I’ll stop at the bike shop and buy a longer post for the seat. Then, I’ll climb on, ask my Dad for help, and wobble until I don’t need to wobble. This will take the time it will take.

Once I’ve mastered balance, I may need to find a more sophisticated bike shop in Guadalajara. I may need a pair of those skin-tight bike shorts, you know the kind I mean. I’m thinking of cobalt blue with yellow stripes. Oh, and a matching top, which means I will also want a padded push-up bra, you know, for definition. And I’ll need one of those water-bottle thingies with a hose to your mouth, and a bike helmet.

Maybe my bike helmet should have a built in telephone in case I crash and need to call the ambulancia. Also, perhaps, one of those SMV triangles.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

April 2, 2026

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My Wild Water Story

 

       My Wild Water Story 

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Etzatlan, the little agricultural town to which I moved ten years ago, is bursting out of its britches.

In practical terms, to those of us living here, growth shows in various ways. Parking near the center of town is nearly impossible. Traffic has increased exponentially. Building happens, tear downs, remodels, add-ons and build ups, on every block. Corporate greenhouses sprout like acres of mushrooms. Strangers who work in Guadalajara have discovered this as a viable bedroom community, hence, cookie-cutter, ticky-tacky housing colonias, which were not here yesterday, seemingly magically rose from the ground. 

Nowhere does this growth show more clearly, to me, than in our water situation. “Situation” is my make-nice term for shortage. The city has dug two new wells but growth out paces infrastructure.

 This is my story so all I can tell you is how I adjust the best I can, to the “situation” which became alarming about three years ago. These “situations” always, always become alarming too late. I think it is a natural law, like gravity, polarity, and cause and effect.

I quit watering my lawn. A lawn is a British affectation. My grass is native so it’s nature is to brown in the dry season and green up in the rainy times. I drastically reduced my garden to essential herbs, fruit trees and a few essential flowers. Don’t argue with me. Flowers are essential to health.

I pat myself on my head and said, “That’s nice, honey.” Nice, but, not enough. We began having “no water” days in which no water flowed down the pipes from the city wells, not just to us out on the periphery but people in town also don’t have water. In the beginning, these days were during the height of the hot season. Now these days are any week of the year.

My 500-liter tinaco (water storage tank) on the roof is adequate for my one-person household but is inadequate in a crisis.

Leo, my all-purpose helper, and I put our heads together. Three days ago I bought a 2500-liter tinaco for a cistern or reservoir. Two days ago my huge tank was delivered. Yesterday, the plumber/electrician came to hook my tank up to city water. My tank began filling. One could stand near it and listen to the water falling from the pipe on top.

Late in the same afternoon, I was standing in the shower when my shower slowed, dribbled and quit. Water had showered down—and then it didn’t.

I phoned Leo who was at the hardware store buying hose to move water from Big Tinaco on the ground up to Little Tinaco on the roof. “Do you think gravel might have plugged the water line again?”

No. My Little Tinaco was bone dry. Leo climbed the ladder to the roof, cleaned the tinaco, a semi-annual job anyway, hooked up the new hose to the new pump and pumped water from BT to LT. We’d had drastically low water pressure all week. I don’t use a pressure pump. Usually the downhill flow is adequate.  Unbeknownst to me, no water had reached my roof in days. None.

Okay, so here’s the wild part of my story. How likely is it that the very day my Big Tinaco is hooked up, my Little Tinaco runs dry? Figure the odds on that one, will you.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

March 18, 2026

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A Sunday to Remember

 

A Sunday to Remember

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We recently experienced an interesting Sunday. I use the word “interesting” to cover a lot of ground.

It was mid-morning before I knew anything unusual was happening, I heard some crackling noises, then an explosion, and saw plumes of black smoke billow up out by the highway.

My phone rang. Leo called to tell me that the Jalisco cartel was burning vehicles to form roadblocks. I’ll simplify and paraphrase his conversation. Mainly, he said, do not leave the house.

I was in my house watching the smoke cloud fill the sky to the west. Leo, our rancho all-around helper, was in Rincon, near Puerto Vallarta, lounging on the beach, with phone connections to friends in our little town of Etzatlan. I don’t think Leo had a relaxing holiday.

Leo told me that the head of the Jalisco cartel had been captured and died. The blocked roads, burned vehicles, on highways throughout the state, were disruptions in acts of retaliation.

Thus went the day. Several vehicles burned near our entrance onto the highway, on the little bridge over the arroyo, and further up the highway toward the main part of town. Our homes are near the eastern entrance into town. Leo and other local friends kept us informed. Informed mostly meant “stay put”. We did.

To say we were a tense bunch is, again, to oversimplify our fears. Speaking for myself, for I can only speak for myself, I never felt any danger or fear for my life. Our friends with information were reassuring. Not knowing what is happening is a good way to ratchet up the tension.

Until evening encroached. In the late afternoon, early evening, a large diesel truck with double trailers was stopped directly across the roadway from my nearest neighbor. I heard the explosion as the fuel tank blew and watched as the black plumes, edged with vibrant flames, mounted into the sky, were caught by the wind and blown back toward our homes.

Now, I felt proper fear. What scared me was that the roadsides were edged with high, dry grass. My fear was that the grass would catch fire, which would ignite the trees, especially the jacarandas edging our lawns, which are losing their leaves, perfect dry tinder to accelerate the fires. I stood at my doorway watching, as though that would make a difference, until dark, retreated to a window where I kept a lookout until around 10:00 that night, when finally, the smoke no longer seemed edged in flame.

Monday was quiet. No road traffic. No cane trucks. Quiet. By morning we knew that during the retaliatory burnings on Sunday, the pedestrians had been herded off the streets, were warned that there would be a burn. Drivers and passengers had been escorted out of the hi-jacked vehicles, that despite several people losing their cars or trucks, overall, the damage in our community was minor.

Monday the Police were out rounding up alleged suspects, were clearing the highway and main street of husks of charred vehicles, were directing cleanup of any damage and mess. The highway was opened again. People began to go about doing what needed to be done, whether foraging for food or reassuring their family, going to work. The airports were in operation, under heavy guard, both in Guadalajara and Puerto Vallarta, with limited flights. It helps to have friends who know these things.

I never thought I’d ever say that I was happy to hear road traffic noise, but, believe me. I was happy to hear road traffic noise, the more, the better.

Tuesday, we were back to life as normal. All the businesses, cafes, and stores in town were open. Delivery trucks from Guadalajara delivered milk and diapers and other life essentials. Friends met friends in town. We replenished groceries. Life. Normal.

And so it goes. I’m okay. My friends are okay. We were never in danger.

Let me qualify that. We were in no danger so long as the grass did not catch fire.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

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My Last Road Trip—Maybe

 

          My Last Road Trip—Maybe

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Jim from Missouri, one of my part-time neighbors, walked over to ask if I would like to go with him to Isla de la Piedra, otherwise known as Stone Island, across the estuary from Mazatlan, my old stomping grounds.

We quickly knocked out the details for a short trip, two days on the road flanking two days on the water.

Jim and I have talked, with much laughter, a lot these last few weeks about impending death, our own, which is not to be taken as morbid, but, as practical. We might be considered the halt and the lame, me mechanically, Jim with lung challenges. We both have friends on the coast we wanted to see, at least once more.

Monday we drove the cuota, the toll road, over which I’ve been many times but not in the last five or six years. So, for me, this drive was much like seeing the country with fresh eyes.

Once we’d arrived, we filled our time in exactly the ways we’d intended.  I met Jim’s friend, Lynn, truly a character and a delight, a woman with energy to spare. We sat around a campfire on the beach. 

Lynn is a decade older than me, more spry, with a never-ending repertoire of stories. May we all have Lynns in our world.

My own main purpose for the trip was to see my old friend, Carlos.

Carlos drives a pulmonia. The pulmonia is one of the modes of public transport in Mazatlan, an open air conversion of a WWII model Volkswagen. When I lived in Mazatlan, Carlos, and then his family, took me under wing and helped me navigate through much of my business and personal needs.

We became close and I needed, wanted, to tell Carlos, face to face, how important he and Selena were to me and how much I love them all. Hugs, tears, laughter, stories of family: that describes our day of sweet wonderful. That’s the best way I can say it.

When not with Lynn or Carlos, we filled our hours with fresh seafood, with watching the waves roll in. Our hotel rooms overlooked the beach with an excellent restaurant adjacent. What’s not to like!

Thursday, on the road again. We took the toll road as far as Tepic, a bit over halfway, then jumped onto the camino libre for the winding road through mountain villages and lava fields, with frequent stops along the way. This is my favorite part of the road, slower, with several hold-your-breath turns, but more scenic by far than the cuota.

While we were gone from home on our not-so-epic journey, the season turned from winter to spring, a welcome coming home for two grizzled, happy and exhausted travelers.

Both Jim and I felt like we’d done something important. We’d told people we loved them, and face-to-face is always better.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

March 4, 2026

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My Heart for Art at the Casa de Cultura

               My Heart for Art at the Casa de Cultura

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Leo, our all-around Rancho helper, plunked down in the chair in front of me, early in the morning, before I’d had my first cup of coffee.

“Remember years ago, when you gave me all the paints and brushes and art stuff to give to an artist when you couldn’t use them any more?”

“Leo, that really was a long time ago. When I give something, it is gone from my head. But, yes, now that you say it, I do remember.”

A bit of back story here: When I moved to Mexico, I brought my best easel and boxes of all my art supplies. I kept myself so busy just settling in, first in Mazatlan and then in my forever home in Etzatlan, that all I did with art was shuffle it from bins to cupboards.

I had boxes of oils, watercolors, brushes, some old and others with price tags still attached, charcoals, oil pastels, drawing tablets, a French easel, canvases of every size. I was constitutionally incapable of passing an art supply store without going in and stocking up on what, after all, I might need, someday.

I dearly loved to paint. I enjoyed the feel of the brush on the canvas, the smell, the mixing of colors. I always ended up with paint on my face, my hands, my shirt. Didn’t matter.  I never was a good artist. Didn’t matter. I loved to paint.

Once I moved, most of my painting was practical, with larger brushes. I painted walls. I painted furniture. I painted concrete and wrought iron, doors and benches, but, sadly, neglected canvas. Until one day during the pandemic, I set up my easel and my oils and my favorite brushes and started a painting, scraped it off, started another. Set up watercolor paper and destroyed several sheets. Get the pictured?

My hands were no longer able to work the magic. The tremor I’ve had for years had gotten worse with time. I sat myself down and had a CTJ meeting.

I asked Leo to take all my art supplies to give to an artist in town who could and would use them. Leo said, “I know just the person.” The only thing Leo told me about him later was that the man’s father was ill, he was his father’s full-time caretaker, and it would be a while before he would be able to paint. That was that.

I poured a cup of coffee for Leo as he told me that Pepe, the artist to whom I’d given the art supplies, his father now passed, was using the materials to teach classes and the first showing opened tonight at the Casa de Cultura. Would I like to go to see their work?

“Would I go? You can’t keep me away.”  I’m so tickled that I can hardly hold my own self in my own skin.

That evening at the Casa de Cultura, oh, my, bursts of color, rows of oil paintings on easels, walls of pastels and charcoals, a wall of drawings, but most importantly, the artists, the young people and the older ones, their families and friends, all bursting with pride at the works they had created. And, rightly so.

Me, I’m bursting too, bursting with delight that something I could no longer use, is put to good use in creating joy in the lives of so many others.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

February 18, 2026

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Intimations of Mortality

 

Intimations of Mortality

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My friend of over thirty years died last week of an acute and vicious form of leukemia. Richard was 85 years old and had lived a full and vital life. We who knew him are happy/sad. He died surrounded by family, immersed in love, Kathy by his side every moment. He died with so much beauty that the nurses dubbed his room the “Love Bubble”.

Once we wiped out tears, our conversations this past week have been focused on our own ever-increasing signs of mortality, signs both numerous and galloping along at a racing speed, as if afraid of missing the final date. We see it in one another. We feel it in ourselves.

Most of my problems are mechanical. I feel good, amazingly healthy. My locomotion is derailing. In my next life I want to be born with zerts and a grease-gun.

For myself, I am only too aware of how many of my closest, longest-time friends have gone. Years ago, my Aunt Mary, who lived until a mere breath or two below 100, told me that the hardest thing was to no longer have contemporaries, people who knew and shared the same life experiences and histories.

If you wonder what I mean, you try to explain telephone party line to your great-grandchild. Tell them that we used the telephone only when absolutely necessary. We called long-distance for family deaths. You will not be believed. They will roll their eyes. “There she goes again, telling stories.”

Aunt Mary, the important things do continue. People still show us love. We still have opportunities to help a neighbor, to share food, to love one another. I still have a small garden in which to putter, a sewing room convenient for my projects, and a wriggly-wraggly dog to walk and talk with and generally spoil. Actually, Lola spoils me, takes care of me, my therapy dog.

No artist could have duplicated the sunrise colors this morning. Nobody could have painted the crisp air, the wonder at being able to walk the lane, Lola exploring every scent along the way, the way the double-barreled cane trucks roll along the highway to the factory in Tala, the goats across the highway, waiting to be milked. These things are precious, the same, and, yet, different every day.

When I step out the door, I say, “Thank you.” Lola knows what I mean.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

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The Day I Did Nothing

 

The Day I Did Nothing

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“What are your plans for today?” my daughter asked. We talk by phone most mornings, early mornings.

“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll do absolutely nothing today.”

She laughed. “Mom, you never have a do-nothing day.”

That’s pretty much true. I don’t always follow plans, but things get done, chores, projects, food, garden. One never knows what plans the day might bring, I say.

We no more than said our good-byes when I noticed that my power had gone out. Kaput! No warning. Just gone. No lights. No refrigerator. No heater on the coldest day we’d had so far this winter.

I have some weird (to me) thing with my bones. If I get cold, my bones hurt right through their centers and into the joints. We know from the song that all the bones are connected, therefore, I am one long pain.

Josue, our usual reliable fix-it man, was working on a job in town, and thus, unavailable. Leo had hared off to Tequila assisting another neighbor so I couldn’t ask him to find me another electrician.

This was early morning, remember. I dare not open the refrigerator, so a creative cookery day in the kitchen, with heat from my propane powered oven, was not an option. Within an hour I was properly frozen, my personal definition of frozen, and thus was immobilized. I ventured outside and parked myself in a patch of (fluctuating) sunlight, wrapped in robes for the arctic, gloved, lap blanket over my legs, book in hand.

I was, certifiably, properly, “doing nothing.” Doing more of nothing became the pattern of my day, as I moved from sun patch to sun patch. In the afternoon, I was saved from self-pity by visits from three different neighbors.

The day wore on, as days inevitably do. Josue returned home from his job later than usual and had committed to a different fix-it job for a neighbor. Leo did not return from Tequila until after five o’clock. I asked Leo if he could find me an available electrician. Twenty minutes later, my new fix-it man showed up.

Lights went up. Lights went down. Lights went up again. I’d no idea what the men were doing but I had no need to know. It was well past dark, when by flashlight, Leo and his friend had fixed my electrical problems, both out where the power comes in from the highway and at the panel at the house.

“Well past dark” means the bitter cold of night had robbed the heat from the day.

My refrigerator clicked on. I cranked up my trusty electric heater, fed myself, donned wool socks for frozen feet and piled on the blankets and huddled into bed awaiting sleep. For the first time ever, I ran my heater all night.

So that was it. That was the day I did nothing. As recreational pastimes go, I don’t recommend it.

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

February 11, 2026

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