Thanks to La Manzanilla

Posted by Dan Rueffert on March 7, 2013, 8:01 am
198.144.116.85

It’s not like me to speak to the entire class but here goes. This little blog is inspired by a nasty one someone forwarded to me. I’ll not get nasty because I have nothing to be nasty about. I’ve been hanging on the west coast of Mexico in the winter months since 1974 and know allot of people there. I went to La Manzanilla to visit a few friends after dropping off some paintings in my gallery in Puerto Vallarta (not mine, they just show my work). I wanted to eat first so as not to arrive anywhere hungry and ran into some dear friends of many years, Dick and Annie Olsen, in the restaurant on the beach. When she found out I’d just arrived, she insisted I come stay with them for a few days. A few days turned into a week and started to look like longer and as I am aware of the three day rule and my ability to smell like a fish I started to make noises about returning to Guanajuato. The person I made noises to offered me his bungalow on the beach and as Annie and I were painting like mad men, I accepted his generosity and moved into the bungalow. It didn’t stop Annie and I from painting everyday and I was having fun again. One morning as I waited for Annie to show up, Alison and Terri came to the door and told me that long time rodeo producer David Godin was not going to do the rodeo this year and asked me if I would design a T Shirt for the event which sort of put me on the “committee”. We were three at that point. After talking to Dave I realized how much work it was for the poor fellow every year selling tickets and T Shirts to Gringos that for some reason liked to put off buying them till the last minute making the finances shaky every year and very stressful for him. So I came up with the idea that those lucky enough to be able, not should, but could, help immensely by paying an up front donation of 250 dollars. As I started to ask around we found people right away eager to take on the task of funding and providing labor to make it happen. We also found that 250 was a bit excessive to some that wanted to help but could not afford to at that level. As we already had ten or eleven “sponsors” and could not conceive of it costing much more, a plan was made to continue to charge Gringos entry to the affair as a way of allowing all to participate and perhaps creating a fund that would take the stress out of the affair for following years. It was painful as my idea was to make it free for all this year but I understood it made the donors seem proprietary. No sweat, That was not our intention, the intention was to have the party without one complaint about not enough beer or birria or what happened to the money. Complaints I’ve heard with my own ears and that Dave has shared with us over the years. The one thing I did learn from my experience is that you’ll never get rid of the complaints because that’s just the way some people are built. So be it. We pulled it off and have a fund equal to what we collected from sponsors to get us going again next year. Yes, we created a committee. Some of the sponsors come to the meetings, some do not. You can become a sponsor and join the committee for 250 dollars or you can volunteer your help as all are welcome and it’s a wonderful way to meet the people that do as opposed to the people that talk about doing. I had so much fun this year from group outings to eat Chinese to Polo matches to private and public dinners and daily outings to paint and our little rodeo meetings to make sure every thing was on track and hanging out at that great bar on main street (PJ”s)(hey, how about a pajama party next year?) that I began to question my solitary life in the mountains. I’m too much fun to be a recluse. The truth is I’m no fun at all but I found I can be inspired to be fun by people that are naturally so, and La Manzanilla is jam packed full of those people. I can’t begin to tell you of the wonderful people I met this year simply because I’d forget to mention someone and feel terrible about it. You all know who you are. The only bummer, apart from the criticism of my T Shirt design, was losing Barry. Barry was a sponsor, paid his donation the morning he died, and asked to remain anonymous. I break that promise to say thank you Barry, I only wish I’d have gotten to know you better. I was looking forward to it. I sometimes wonder if I'm a painter, but I know I'm no writer so to those that love to complain I give you this.

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