Robert Baum
Postcards from Paradise
A tanned, hairy rooster struts the cruise ship’s raucous pool in a thong that barely contains penis and balls. And a round gentleman’s baseball cap declares “Vietnam combat veteran”—commemorating the wrong reasons?
Onshore the excursion bus stops at sweet-smelling “Pineappletown” where the dusky stalls of vendors are outnumbered by stinking litter piles and scampering children in the middle of a school day.
There’s a beer-bottle strewn beach near a Mayan ruin. One local boy scurries among tourist blankets, scooping up valuables left unattended. His t-shirt declares “play hard—hustle hard.” In answer, a tourist’s t-shirt shouts, “wives come and go, brothers stick together.”
Mayan priests and kings invented lavish gods so the few could live in splendor. The masses provided them temples and human sacrifices and maize. Drought and disease and overpopulation provided them inevitable collapse.
Mexican jungle— an orange and black monarch chases its shadow
About the Author
Robert Baum is a retired educator, writer/editor, and artist. Currently he teaches English to immigrants for the Hispanic Outreach Center in Clearwater, Florida. He and his wife, Carolyn, divide their time between the Gulf Coast and the Jersey Shore.