Way Up High And Out Of Breath

Already the Mexicans have a vast edge on the Japanese in seating capacity, with the 80,000-seat University of Mexico Stadium being altered and improved and the breathtaking Aztec (soccer) stadium already built to hold 105,000.

As for not consulting the Japanese, says V�zquez, it was not necessary, because they had already talked things over with the Italians. "' Rome's problems were similar to ours. Besides, they are Latin. They have the same temperament. They understand us better."

A traveling member of the U.S. State Department, Nick Rodis, is more vocal on the subject. "These petty gripes burn me up," says Rodis, getting burned up. "All this baloney about these guys being ma�ana. These aren't plumbers down here, you know. I don't care what anybody says, the Mexicans are doing a damn good job."

In Mexico City, that beautiful place, high and mighty, whole families sit on curbs watching the traffic go by. The traffic leaps and spurts and dribbles and rips. There are 19,000 taxis in Mexico City, some flying the skull and cross-bones. Who blows first goes first. There are 8,000 buses. Last week the chief of traffic issued a warning that bus drivers would have to stop racing each other in the street.

There is a recklessness, too, about the architecture in Mexico City, and the way Mexicans handle colors, but that is a kind of deliberate recklessness that makes the beauty of the place. Important things take time in Mexico City. They are forever sweeping the streets there. A shoeshine is a work of art. Alex Cardini of Cardini's restaurant builds his Caesar salad—he is the son of its inventor, Caesar Cardini—with deft, deliberate strokes.

"People in New York," says the Mexican, "they are always roomh-roomh, going like mad and drinking martinis like mad. We are not like that. There is complaining that we are not getting ready for the Olympics soon enough. We are not like the Saxons and the Germans. The Germans are getting ready for 1976 already. We say tomorrow, tomorrow, then in 1968 we will work like mad and get everything done. We will scare hell out of you, but we will get everything done."