checalaTUBE, Our eldest daughter, LPoS, in TJ

Dear Tijuana, Te amo. I love you.   You're one of those cities with a bad reputation, but the more others hate you the more I fall for you. My clothes reek of your streets -- a combination of vendors' carne smoke, diesel petrol, watered-down beer con salt and limon, and the stares of whores who lean against hotel facades. You're not afraid to love me back, offering me a grand sonrisa and handshake. You're not afraid to ask my name. You're not afraid to tell me how handsome I am, and to feign shock at my daughter's age (21). EN SERIO, guey? ARE YOU SERIOUS, dude? You ask me, and LPoS's brilliant smile grows as wide as the Rio dividing your boundaries. Gracias. It's as if you KNEW LPoS needed to hear good things about her padre loco. And all I want to do is hold you, my sweet TJ, and tell you to ignore the stupid fucking Americans who know only military wall building and gross police enforcement. I am not an American, and I haven't been for many years. I am yours, and yours completely. TJ, don't listen to them. Ignore them. Stay in Baja, and grow that place while the United States eats itself through ever-more wars and killing and patting themselves on the back in congratulatory orgies. We know better, TJ. Be the lone example of freedom in North America. I know you will point to your cousin, Canada, and wish to be more like her. NO. I want your grit, and I adore your freedom. Leave the US and Canada to die a natural death. Flood your spaces with babies, with loud music, with laughter, with old fashioned debauchery, and don't look back at the fools to your north. TJ, I love you, and I am sorry I ever doubted you. Siempre, Craig. And I mean it.