The Height of Machismo

            All ten of them packed in one 1965 Impala. Thats right, ten, to the tune of 7 adults and 3 children. They were immigrants, who hailed from the Azores. It was around early spring, as they were heading from the Newcastle/Auburn area to Los Angelas for one of the biggest festivels of the Holy Ghost in California.  A wonderful event, rich in Portuguese culture. It was in the seventies.

           All was going smoothly until the rough, desolation kicked in that is a great part of the pilgramage to Southern California. Mind you, no airconditoning, and 10 btu's generating a great amount of heat.

          My great uncle, a tall, thin man was at the healm. Now what you must understand  about this man is that he was a degree away from insanity. He found that all arguments could be settled with a fight, and typically he won all arguments in this way. His machismo was matched only by the likes of Burt Reynolds. He spoke broken, sloppy English that was further hindered by the cigarette that night and day seemed to portude from his lips.

           Much to the relief of the passengers in the car, the sun had set. Further enhancing the relief was that the car needed be gassed up, so a obligitory leg streth was in order. My uncle pulled in to a  station, and the passengers all exited, streching and rubbing sleep from their eyes.

         Remember, this was the seventies, a time when gas stations had strict regulations on fueling vehicles. One was that, at this station, only using exact change because all money was removed at day break so robberies were less fruitful for potential theives. My uncle, only having a twenty (a large sum at the time) handed the attendent the money. He then filled the Impala, lit cigarette glowing in the night air. When finished, he thrust his hand under the window of the attendents booth for his change. As you may imagine, my English challenged uncle was not happy with the attendents reply. Suddenly shouts erupted, my uncle throwing every insult ever known in the books to the attendent. The attendent, cowered in the security of his booth, praying my uncle would go to his car.

          My uncle did go to his car, but not to leave. Still with the cigarette in his mouth (and all the passengers crammed into the car) he went to his trunk. The car bobbed and shook as my uncle furiously searched for...something, God only knows what he was looking for. Certainly the mortified attendent and horrified passengers in the car had no idea.

     Finally, the furious search ended, and my unlce emerged with his prize- a rubber boot. He held the boot high, swore something that sounded awful but no one could understand, and began pumping gas again, now into the boot. After each "fill" he dumped it out, beside the poor attendents booth. After a few cycles of this, he turned with his back to the booth, and flipped his leg up behind himself and thundered the exterior counter. Satisfied the theiving station didn't recieve extra gas, he drove off, still swearing obsenities.

            You may be wondering, like the poor passengers in the vehicle and the attendent, what just happened. In essence, this was caused by many factors: poor cooling in a car, a language barrier, constraints in the gas industry. But most of all, however, it was caused by a culture's emphasis on machismo, and my uncle being a master in the field. A short temper, physical blessings, and a life of not being bested led to this incident. Much worse could have occured, like the whole station igniting, or the attendent shooting my uncle,  but the results still weren't favorable.

          There are good aspects of culture and poor ones. This falls under the poor apects. Imperialism is another poor aspect of cultures, as is slavery. Sex inequality is another. Yes, it is important to preserve culture, but not at the cost of others humanity. The festival of the Holy Ghost is a wonderful event that very few people would want to do away with. The food, music, dancing, and pagentry are all worth experiencing, catholic or not. The extreme Portuguese machismo is something we could all do without.

     So as a culture of many cultures, we must excersise caution to not get to lax in our judgment of what is exceptable to intergate. Yes, this is ambitious, because after all, who are the culture police?  I am a firm believer that all of us are born with a sense of reason, judgement, and humanity. There are exceptions, and those infamous creatures are easy to name. However, the average human has this, and with it comes a sense of responsibilty to move forward as a society and look at the good of a culture, as well as the bad. This goes for all cultures, including the hybrid that is our own.