We've all been there. We set a time for a meeting and the other party does not show up. What to do? We can be diplomatic and show understanding as to why the other party did not show. We could graciously confront the other party and stress the need to strictly adhere to planned events if the other party is pathologically late. Or we could do what the famous Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa did. Shoot the clock. The top picture is of the Palacio de Gobierno (government palace) in downtown Guadalajara; Mexico's second largest city with a metropolitan area of around 5 million people. On the way to and from Mazatlan, we drove through this large historic city. A nephew of Moises that lives in Guadalajara gave us a small tour of the beautiful downtown core. He showed us the building above where Francisco "Pancho" Villa was to meet another revolutionary for a 5:30 meeting. Unfortunately, the other party was late and typical of a revolutionary that struggles with anger, he just had to shoot something. So he shot the clock under which he was to meet his comrade. He didn't leave a Post-it note or cellphone voice message saying "I was here but you must have been delayed. I did wait for two hours." He shot the clock to mark the hour! That bullet hole is still there today as seen in the second photo and the clock is stopped on the time at which it was shot. Another interesting historical fact about this building was that Padre Miguel Hidalgo declared the abolition of slavery in Mexico from the main balcony in 1810 which launched the nation into a war of independence.
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