A ROUND OF TORTILLAS FOR THE LOCAL BAR

By Juan Montoya

Recently, when we were looking up a file with the district clerks's office, we found ourselves wandering over to Amadeo Rodriguez's courthouse coffee shop.

We ran into a couple of attorneys, among them Ruben Herrera, Trey Mendez and Alfredo Padilla.

As often happens when people who have an inside track on civic and court stuff come together, the talk turned to local politics. Herrera, besides being a hotshot criminal lawyer, also sits on the Brownsville Housing Authority board and the Brownsville Visitors and Convention board. Padilla has made a nice living defending the accused and has often been talked about as a possible candidate for one of our courts.

Trey, of course, is one of the four trustees on the Texas Southmost College majority that defied the powers that be and separated the University of Texas at Brownsville from college district so that we could have two free-sanding institutions like other communities in Texas.

Padilla declined to order the cholesterol-rich huevo con chorizo con papas y frijoles submarines that pass off as tortillas at Amadeo's shop. Instead, he opted to slice off a piece of Herrera's bulging flour taco.

"Cuidando la linea," he said as he sliced off the piece and put on a plate. All of us, except for Trey understood exactly what he meant. Pork chorizo and eggs with refried beans would tip off any diet red flag anywhere.

We commended Trey for his stand at UTB-TSC and told him that some of us would love to take a photography class or audit a history course, but that the $700 in student fees apart from the cost of the course was prohibitive.

"We're working on that," he replied as he walked off. "I know exactly what you mean."

"But Alfredo," " I commented, turning back to the talk at the table. "Nowadays you can get reconstituted wheat tortillas, low-fat, low-bleach ones that are actually healthy for you."

"That's true," he replied as he munched on the morsel. "But not here."

"Furthermore," I continued with the set up, "You can get blue corn, black corn, yellow corn, all kinds of tortillas without the chemicals that we got used to eating when we were growing up. I'm not talking about gorditas, now."

There was a general murmur of contented agreement around the table and I let them have it.

"It's called tort reform, you know."