COCKFIGHTING COMES OF AGE

I just found this article in the news and it conjured up old memories of my past.**** http://www.businessinsider.com/romanian-princess-irina-walker-krueger-arrested-for-cockfighting-2013-8 **** I never knew any princesses and I do know times are getting tough all over the place due to free trade, global warming and Area 51. But, the idea of a princess getting all wrapped up in a cockfighting ring brings home the fact that the world economy had really turned everything all topsy-turvy and in some cases has even had a leveling effect on the status of various folks. One look at the last princess of Romania yanks at the chains of my heart as this very beautiful woman has resorted to the primal sport of cockfighting which heretofore I was only aware of due to the experiences of my long lost friend from South of the border, Pedro.

(The heretofore beautiful princess Irina Walker Krueger of Romania as seen above). **** Like the beautiful princess, my friend, Pedro, too is an immigrant. Immigrants have provided us with a cultural stew of music, arts, cuisine and sports…like the sport of cockfighting. This never used to be here. But, now we got us a new sport. Years ago, I had this friend names Pedro. My friend named Pedro is a bad ass, but, he’s my friend. I knew him in my younger days, when I lived for some time as a child and young adult in Costa Rica. So, I went over to his apartment and I said to Pedro, “hey Pedro…(cause that’s his name)….you wanna go to a cockfight?” He says, “Sure man, I’ll go get my protective cup.” I said,“No Pedro, not that kind of cockfight. I mean the kind they do with chickens.” He says, “Oh!” Chickens can serve a practical purpose other than food. When I lived in Costa Rica as a child, I would go to a little back alley market with my uncle who would take me to a cockfight. These were between roosters which are men chickens. Cock fighting seems to be illegal here because of animal cruelty issues, yet boxing is legal here as it is also in Costa Rica. It’s odd that this country sees sport in people beating the brains out of each other but we must protect the chickens. Sometimes, the chickens would die. Then, if you owned that chicken, you could still eat it which is what some people said that’s all they’re good for anyway. So, afterwards, I go to this cockfight with my friend, Pedro, and the crowd is full of men and a few roosters. There is one really big cock fight going on and the men watching are worked up into a mad frenzy, shaking money and little pieces of paper, what they call markers here. As the chickens became more excited and the fight got more violent, so too did the men become more excited and then the chickens got even more excited than the men who too got more excited and some of them started to fight with one another. So, in this circle, you had the chickens fighting and outside the circle you had the men fighting. Just as the fighting chickens worked the men into a frenzy, the fighting men worked the chickens into a frenzy and the next thing I saw was the chickens went berserk and were pecking each other and everything else in sight, including the men. The money and markers were flying everywhere as were the chickens and the men’s fists. Then, some guy starts screaming because a chicken pecked his eye out! I heard Pedro in the pile of men shout that he wished now he had brought his protective cup, but I didn’t know if that was because of the men or the chickens. Things kind of calmed down and they would have taken the guy with the pecked out eye to the hospital, but we didn’t have a hospital so they just took the guy home. As near as I could tell, most of the men went home without their money which would have happened anyway except the people who did go home with the money were probably not the ones who had a winning chicken. and that was wrong. I don’t think the chickens were any stupider than the men who lost their money. The chickens caused a riot and really screwed up the day for most of these men. I think those chickens got ate, which probably would have happened anyway. The very next day, I went over to Pedro’s and we had dinner….fried chicken. I didn’t ask no questions.