Not quite 75--only 67. Still in reasonable shape, swim a kilometer a
day, dive and sail.
I first went to Mexico by myself 50 years ago at age 17, spent the
summer traveling. The movie they made of Cormac McCarthy's book "All
the Pretty Horses" kind of reminds me of those days. A fellow who
worked for me told me about the movie, said he thought I might like it.
A little to my suprise, I did. Doesn't every South Texan have a
cross-cultural star-crossed romance in their background? That summer I
covered a little more ground than the boys in the movie did. The 2nd
class train from Nuevo Laredo to Mexico City was less than $6. I got
as far south as San Cristobal las Casas, hitch-hiked with a trucker
from Oaxaca. Some evenings I was the only gringo in the town square at
San Cristobal.
The Blooms were in their prime doing anthropological research in the
nearby Mayan villages. They were kind enough to introduce me to some
people in those places. This planted the seed for a later summer spent
walking around in the high jungle in southern Yucatan and northern
Guatemala.
The memory is not as sharp as it once was. I still remember lists of
measurements and results of calculations for a few months, if they're
important to some ongoing technical mystery. It impresses my
co-workers, but I have to write down phone numbers if I'm only going
to use them once or twice.
My daughter the lawyer smoothly intimidates people by asking them for
their phone number in her friendly and offhand way, and simply nods
when they give it to her. Then she calls them a week later on their
unlisted cell phone. She cites page and paragraph numbers in 1200-page
case files from memory.
It's nothing to be proud of--it's just something that happens to you,
like growing to a certain height.
Most people know that early memories persist longer than later ones. I
spent a little over a week with my 94-year old mother last December. A
couple of days she didn't remember whether she had taken her pills in
the morning, but I heard South Texas stories from the 1920s and '30s I
had never heard before.
She dated both of the Snow brothers before she met my Dad. Luke was
sheriff of Willacy County for 42 years, a Captain in the Texas Rangers,
and ran the Rangers' intel network in Mexico, unbeknown to the world at
large. Bob worked for the King Ranch, the Fish and Game Department for
years, and was foreman of the YO Ranch near Kerrville.
My Dad was part of the bunch including the Snows who threw out the
Anglo caudillo gang that ran the county until the late 1920s, as all
the border counties were run by gangsters at one time. When Dad
testified at a murder trial, they sent two Rangers to escort him from
Brooks Army Airfield in San Antonio to Brownsville and back.
For those who may be unfamiliar with the Ranger mystique, there was a
riot in an oilfield boomtown in East Texas in the early 1920s. It went
on for a day or two. Local law enforcement was unable to handle it, so
they telegraphed the Governor for help. He wired back that help would
arrive on a certain train. When the locals met the train, they were
disappointed to learn the Governor had sent only one Texas Ranger.
When they questioned him, the Ranger replied, "You ain't got but one
riot, have you?"
He literally read the riot act to them and ordered them to disperse.
Everyone knew then what people still knew when I was young: any fatal
attack on a Ranger was an automatic death sentence, court or no court.
The mob dispersed.
When I was a boy, I thought everybody left a pistol lying handy on the
car seat when they drove through South Texas brush country.
They waylaid Dad and his brother once as they drove the road from the
Red Gate to Port Mansfield (it was still called Redfish Bay then),
meaning to go fishing. The road was unpaved in those days. They
pulled a car out of the brush in front of them. The guy who climbed
onto the running board with a pistol didn't live to tell the tale, and
the car that pulled out behind them decided to get out of the way when
they headed back west.
The border still doesn't strike me as the safest place in the world.
As you drive the more isolated parts of the old River Road, every few
miles you come across a nice brick house, just sitting out in the brush
country. If the owner is at home, there's a nice new 18-wheeler with
all the chrome and fancy mudflaps on it, the kind you see coming across
the bridge at any port of entry along the border. According to Bowden,
who prefaces the Ford book you mention, there will be someone in a
building overlooking the bridge from the Mexican side, radioing the
driver how to negotiate the border. The customs and immigration people
he comes in contact with will be bought, says Bowden, who worked for
the DEA for years. After all, how many people are going to turn down
making several hundred $K per year in favor of a customs agent's
salary? Even if the answer is "most people", there are still enough
who go over to the dark side to keep those big 'troques' running.
My cousin, a tough old South Texas ranch woman, teaches remedial
classes at Freer. She says it's as rough as it ever was. Her mother,
my mother's sister who must be about 86 or 87, lives out in the country
by herself on her thousand acres or so of farmland. There used to be
farm workers living in the nearby houses, but she leases out all the
land now. The older generation of the farm worker families have died
off, gone back to Mexico to retire, or moved to the city to be near
their kids. Their kids have educations, US citizenship, and city jobs.
Her place was burglarized once while she was gone. I was there when
she told my mother about it.
"I think it was people came across the river walking toward San
Antonio, judging from what they took. They left jewelry and the like
alone. Ate some stuff out of the refrigerator, must have fried up some
bacon and eggs, but cleaned up after, left the skillet and plates in
the dish rack. They took food, a little money, some water jugs, quilts
and stuff. Things they could use."
"How did you feel about having your place broken into?"
"Well, I was pretty mad at first. You would be. But after a while I got
to halfway feeling sorry for them. It must be pretty hard walking to
San Antonio. I got to thinking, it could just as well have been
relatives of people who used to work for us. Lord knows enough people
came across the river and worked for us, to keep from starving back in
Mexico. Stayed on and made good hands, some of them. Brought their kids
up right, made good citizens out of them, moved back to Mexico when
they could, a lot of them. Told me they missed the old country. Some
of them moved to Corpus or San Antonio when they got old, to be near
their kids. Still makes me mad they took my shotgun. It belonged to
D___ [her husband]. You've shot doves and quail with him many a time
when he had it. But I got another one."
"Aren't you afraid to stay out there all by yourself?"
"Oh, nobody comes around when I'm there, and I always make sure they
can tell."
"I guess they know better."
"I suppose."
Thanks for the tip. I think I'll buy Ford's book. Bowden's "Down by
the River" is pretty informative about how things work on both sides of
the border more recently with the drug business. As I said, he was a
big dog with the DEA for a good while. Both books are on Amazon.com.
RNJ