Older Than the President of My Childhood

Perhaps you're familiar with the most popular entry of my modest blog, "The President of My Childhood." I've been in an odd frame of mind for the past week or so, realizing that our 36th president, Lyndon B. Johnson, died at the age of 64 years 4 months and 3 weeks on January 22, 1973. I was a a senior in high school then, and he seemed impossibly old. His passing wasn't much noted by people my age, as the Vietnam War was still going on and the rancor of American involvement there was still very fresh.

You see, around the first of May, I turned 64 years 4 months and 3 weeks old. It's hard to imagine that I'm now older than LBJ was when he died, barely a month after this video of his last public appearance was recorded at the end of a civil rights symposium at the LBJ Library in Austin, TX. This might seem an odd fact to carry around in one's head, but there's a sort of following among those who have visited the LBJ Library and Museum, much facilitated by social media of course. He was a fascinating individual, tremendously conflicted and of two minds about most things. He hated the Vietnam War, and spent too much time listening to "experts" rather than following the intuition that told him that South Vietnam was simply too underdeveloped as a nation to resist the north's determination to unite the country under one government.

His true sense of pride, and the place closest to his heart, was the civil rights legislation passed during his five years and two months in office. If you understand the background and have a sense of history, this is a difficult video to watch. LBJ went into a deep depression after leaving office, resumed smoking and drinking heavily, and--aside from overseeing closely the construction of his presidential library--seemed hell-bent on his own self-destruction. Roy Wilkins and other leaders present were reportedly dismayed at the former president's appearance, the hesitancy with which he began his remarks. He got stronger though, and by the end had several audience members in tears. Jack Valenti described it as seeing the champ enter the ring one final time, not as strong as he was in his prime but rising to the occasion.

It is, in the end, a pretty good speech from a man who was not that good a public speaker. As one of the commenters to the link puts it, regardless of all that he did well and badly in his life, it's hard to see this man as anything but a good and decent person who loved his country. If you've gone as far as finding your way to this blog, give it a listen and try to understand the spirit of the times and the enormous changes his actions brought to American society in less than a decade since the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964. It makes me feel that my own life's accomplishments, and those of most of us, are but nothing in comparison.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJKq18m0oYs

LBJ was particularly proud of Congresswoman Barbara Jordan
of Texas, shown here during the symposium with Vernon Jordan.

The Wayfaring Stranger, 2019

It's getting onto summer vacation time. I've had unusual difficulty deciding what I want to do with the 12 weeks or so I have off between semesters. Now, I think I've figured it out.

Since 2012, I've had some consistently memorable summers. Even during Japan days, students would comment that I nearly always managed to come up with something interesting to do with my long time off. There, over several years, I attended all the northern festivals while making my way up to Sapporo from Osaka. One year, 1990, I climbed Mr. Fuji before hitting the Nebuta Matsuri in Aomori. In more recent summers, I've travelled to Europe, taken a Colorado River raft trip, visited the hometowns and final resting places of relatives from both sides of my family, signed legacy gifts in Washingon DC and taken the train from there to Miami, re-visited Peru, ridden my motorcycle cross-country, and traveled around Mexico by train, bus, and ferry.

What does one do for an encore at age 64? Well, since 2014 the trips have been built around the concept that I have a home on each coast, in San Diego and Miami Beach, and can make my way from one to the other as part of the adventure. This time, I think I'm just going to buy a one-way ticket to Miami, then make my way back from east to west as I damned well please.

It fits into the general self-improvement kick I'm on at the moment as well. Though always on-the-go during vacations, I tend to spend weekends and days off during the semesters about as active as a beached whale. My San Diego condo isn't big, but it's filled with all sorts of me-stuff that makes it very comfortable just to burrow in and stay home when I don't have a lot of time to wander... even the exercise equipment I need to stay reasonably in shape. I suppose the self-centered nature of the place--and of its component part in Miami Beach--goes a long way toward explaining why I've never settled down with a woman. I like wandering around drunk and naked. I like eating what I want when I want it. I like burping and farting whenever the urge overtakes me, with no one around to take offense. I like being only a few steps away from whatever I'm looking for. I like having things just so.

Most of all, perhaps, I like the feeling of being affluent, and as secure as a person can be in an uncertain world. It doesn't take all kinds of expensive stuff and ostentatious consumption to feel this way, mind you; I also get a kick out of owning no computer of my own while having access to all of them I could ever need. I find it very cool that I can watch TV free, with an antenna, when I watch it at all. I enjoy dressing sloppy, and not shaving or showering, when I have no outside responsibilities and no one to impress. I like having a full head of long, wavy, multi-colored, completely natural hair that I suppose must be striking because so many people have told me that it is. If there's any social aspect to the enjoyment at all, it's in getting the stink-eye from some shallow, conventional soccer mom type, knowing that she'd probably turn instantly obsequious if she knew my passive income exceeds what most people make by working... and having no particular desire that she know.

For a time, the only concern about this pleasant if unhealthy lifestyle was that I might have been becoming something of an alcoholic. Now, however, I'm three weeks into a planned six weeks of drinking no booze at all, and am surprised by how little I miss it. At home--and only when I had nothing in particular to accomplish the next day--I'd been in the habit of going through entire fifths of scotch, rum, or tequila in a single sitting, waking up to a dead TV and splayed clumsily across my second-hand, custom-rebuilt sofa. In a social setting, on the other hand, I've always been pretty moderate, even watching out for other folks who've had too much. On a road trip, I never drink anything stronger than beer, and that usually only as a way to quench my thirst after a long summer day. This made me wonder how much my habit was actually a problem rather than simply an enjoyable form of relaxation.

In the end, I suppose it comes down to my being too wary and untrusting to truly bust loose and get scheissgesichtet around anyone but myself. As an old NCO during my time in Germany once put it when we were idly discussing such things while loading a truck, there's nothing you can do in a bar that you can't do better at home.

Besides all this, I have a rather ritualistic approach to booze. I own a matching set of rather fancy glasses of various types, accumulated second-hand over the years until they've evolved into something rather impressive to behold. Each piece is somewhat valuable, but acquired through garage sales and thrift stores. I always clean them nicely so that they won't have water spots or fingerprints, and--most of all--I'm always careful to drink the booze of my choice from the appropriate glass. I'd rather not drink at all than drink a glass of wine from a champagne flute or such. I can hardly even stand to drink scotch with ice from a tumbler, though I will if there's just a little bit of ice left and no soda water to finish things off.

Thus am I not too worried about my pleasant habit, but just the same it will be a healthy break to get out of town for awhile, and away from my comfortable surroundings and fancy glassware. The plan at this point is to buy a one-way ticket to Miami Beach, and hang out there for a few weeks. With my mostly matching set of glassware there, if I lapse into several drunken nights at the boat dock, watching the planes take off from Miami International, listening for dolphins surfacing to breathe, and dipping in the pool, so be it. I'll stay as long as I want, within reason, and then I'll head back by whatever way suits my fancy.

A song comes to mind, "The Wayfaring Stranger." My piano teacher gave it to me to learn when I was about 9 years old. I'd never heard it before, but it stuck with me. About a year later, I heard it sung in the movie How the West Was Won, but by then I was already familiar with it... and even a bit surprised to hear it somewhere else. Since I was that age in the mid-1960s, I've always had a vague image of myself as a much older man (until I in fact became one) wandering and drifting across this great wide land. I'd be dressed in rags--sloppy clothes anyway--with a floppy hat, a walking stick, an old backpack, and a few days beard growth. Other people dream of being a five-star general, or a corporate CEO, or the president of the United States or something, but I always fancied myself as a kind of carefree vagabond. Whenever I've had higher aspirations, I realize that this is really my essence, and that where I am is where I always wanted to be.

I suppose this is the summer where I "Live the Dream." The plan is to make my way north toward Minnesota. I'd like to take an old friend up on his long-standing invitation to see the rural paradise that he bought after marrying his wife, a former secretary at the first language school I ever taught at in Peru. Then I'll head west, hoping to see Mount Rushmore, Yellowstone, the Missouri River, and some of the scenes in Montana from Robert Persig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. In Idaho, I'll make a big left turn and maybe pass through Reno to visit my brother and his wife for a few  days (if it's OK by them). Then on back, via familiar roads, to San Diego.

Mind you, I'm the first to know that living like a vagabond is tremendous fun only if you have the means to head for the nearest airport and fly home when/if it all gets to be more of a hassle than a glorious adventure. This was, after all, what the whole sixties hippy movement was all about: a buncha spoiled white kids mooching off their parents and posing as counterculturalists. Me, I can do such things now without mooching off of anybody or shirking any of my life's responsibilities. I don't care if it's hypocritical or fake or what-not; it's what I want to do... and I'm old enough that I don't care what anyone else has to say about it.

The first of several sheet music illustrations
for the song, and the closest to the one I
remember from childhood.

Another sheet music illustration, and
perhaps the closest to the way I fancy
myself.

An interesting illustation, though not particularly like me.

Using the proper glassware is important to my drinking habits.

It drives me nuts when people drink
from the wrong glass.

Asian Fetish? Phooey! (or is it "Fui?")

Sometime in my early-to-mid twenties, while I was stationed in Frankfurt with the army between tours in Washington, DC, it occurred to me that it might be interesting to get an advanced degree in linguistics some day. It didn't seem like the most practical of things to study, but I took to heart the advice of a retired literature professor who'd taught some of the evening classes on Fort Myer that enabled me to start and finish my bachelor's degree while on active duty. He told us one day toward the end of a course not to worry too much about being practical, that studying what one is passionate about is the best way to prepare for a career.

Well-me-now, in the Age of Trump, I wonder just how practical it is nowadays to worry not too much about being practical. All the same, I finished up the coursework for a master's in linguistics in my hometown of San Diego after getting out of the service. The thesis would take a bit of time to finish, but I did it eventually. I was pushing 30, full of interesting life experiences but basically broke, so the important thing at the time of coursework completion was to find a way to make some money.

My coursework was itself broken up by a stint in Peru, where I studied at a university there and got a taste of teaching English as a foreign language (EFL), the first cousin to English as a second language (ESL). The difference is that the latter is used to refer to teaching in the U.S., while the former refers to teaching abroad (or, at least, in a place where English is not used as the primary language).

I'd always had a soft spot for Latin America, but it was hardly the place to make money teaching English. I had a girlfriend in Peru whom I'd met in Washington during my last year in the army, and spent the year there deciding that she took me much more seriously than I took her. I was very fond of her, but didn't think the long-term prospects were good. Then, as now, I really think that intercultural romance is an overall bad idea beyond the, um... exotic aspect of it.

After a bit of research into the matter during the spring of 1984, talking to exchange students and to people who'd taught abroad in those pre-internet days, I eventually found my way into a choice between Saudi Arabia and Japan as potential moneymaker destinations that would serve the added purpose of giving me even more interesting stories to tell. I chose Japan, and ended up staying there off-and-on for over ten years in two different and distinct jobs and locations.

The first was "the fun job," in the northern city of Sapporo. I was there about two and a half years. Then I came home, finished off my master's thesis, and spent a few months in Mexico helping to start the UdeG-affiliated PROULEX program in Guadalajara. Early in 1988, I followed up on an interview I'd had the year before and got hired at an ESL/EFL convention for what would turn into an eight year stay, working mainly for Panasonic's training center in Osaka. The company was known then as Matsushita Electric Industrial Company.

During this time, I studied with limited intensity the Japanese language, and made progress year by year in both the spoken and written languages. Though never completely proficient, there was a time when I felt more comfortable speaking Japanese than Spanish, and I was able to take care of everyday business without translations or other help.

I left Japan in March 1996, feeling I'd satisfied my curiosity about the Mysterious East and, more importantly, that I'd saved enough money to never again have to seek full-time employment in the notoriously unstable field of ESL/EFL. Throughout the years there, my love life was hit-and-miss, mostly miss because I simply wasn't that interested in pursuing Japanese girls. I'd tend to have better luck when I'd come home each spring to attend that annual convention. After a few years in Asia, Western women came to seem somewhat "exotic" to me.

I'm not talking about the scowling water buffalo types who might as well wear a large chip on their shoulder at all times, the ones who cackled like Popeye's Sea Hag when that Bobbit woman cut her husband's dick off. I mean the ones who take care of themselves and thrive professionally, who can be logical--and assertive when necessary--yet gentle in their private moments. My "type" had long been Latinas, but living in Asia was giving me an appreciation for my own kind, though during army service I'd come to appreciate a nice down-to-earth black lady's company as well. Asians were on the list, but by no means at the top of it. In my more mean-spirited moments, I found their often fake cheerfulness tiresome, their deliberate blandness boring, and their appearance somewhat cricket-like.

By sheer law of averages and the age I was then, I had something of a girlfriend in Sapporo, but she was really a Japanese version of the one in Peru. I was fond of her, but had no desire to spend the rest of my life with her and, in fact, usually couldn't wait for her to leave after I'd cooked her breakfast in the morning after she'd stayed over. In Osaka, I managed to go the entire eight years without a girlfriend to speak of. A number of colleagues there had married Japanese women, and in one case I knew a female with a Japanese husband. Some of them were well-adjusted; living in Japan was like living anywhere, and Japan was where they'd ended up. Many others were miserable, often divorced with kids in limbo. I never devoted a minute to the thought of getting myself into such a situation.

Since leaving Japan, I've had no desire to return, though once in awhile I'll have a dream about being there since it comprised such a large chunk of my lifetime. I was reasonably curious about things while I was there. I went to all of the major summer festivals over the years. I ate a lot of good food, and drank a lot of sake. I enjoyed participating in teachers' conferences all over the country. I got along OK with my neighbors, and left them some of the souvenirs I'd collected in other parts of the world when it was time to pack up and leave. Once re-settled in San Diego, I became active with the Japan Society and the San Diego/Yokohama Sister City Society. There's a girl or two in Japan that I have pleasant memories of, even the one in Sapporo who so often overstayed her welcome.

What I don't have is any sort of "Asian Fetish." It's one of those terms that come up if you do some casual reading about Asia and the topic turns to romance and dating. It took much reading of these articles--usually written by self-righteously indignant Asian American females--to really gain awareness of what often turned me off about Japanese women while I was living there.

The self-esteem of women everywhere, I guess, is very much tied up in how they look, and whether or not men go to great lengths to look at them. Granting the differences between various Asian cultures--meaning East Asian of the type that used to be referred to as "Oriental"--as well as the great differences between a native-born Asian female and one American-born and/or raised, they nearly all have one salient group quality that stands out like a sore thumb: They are so full of themselves! Try doing a google search of men who don't find Asian women particularly attractive. What you get is a potpourri of indignant Asian women griping about how obsessed white men are with them. I mean, no matter how you word the search, you can't find a word about men who aren't obsessed at all with hitting on the nearest Asian female.

Though not a big-time user of dating sites, I'm reminded of the Japanese female attitude toward these things on the once-in-awhile occasion that an Asian female views my profile and contacts me. It's as if these women presume that all they have to do is wink their eye or send a casual "Hey there..." to have me panting after them like a thirsty dog. I made the mistake of dating one some years ago, a Vietnamese-American hairdresser who spent several hours talking about nothing but how hot she was, how living in America had made her more curvaceous and sassy than the average Asian girl. I was polite as always, but couldn't wait to get her back to her place so that I could drop her off and be rid of her!

It brings back unpleasant memories of nightlife in Osaka, where most of the time I simply wanted to relax with a few beers in a different sort of place, only to constantly have complete strangers drunkenly try to introduce me--in English, and always in English--to some simpering Ja-pa-neeez woman that I had no particular interest in dealing with. Once in awhile, the woman herself would approach me in an overly familiar way, apparently presuming that I would be captivated to be breathing the same air as she. I seldom to never was.

Asian ladies, you can whine online all you want about the horrors of being objectified by white men. I'm pretty old now, have been all around the world, and have been objectified aplenty myself. We're not all obsessed with you, and everything isn't all about you. I can hear a little of myself in some of your whining, but realize now that, sometimes after I'd had my fill of pretentious Asian girls or drunken salarymen's B.S., I could lapse into hypersensitivity. Every once in awhile, I probably saw things that weren't even there. The difference between you and me is that I don't have an entire cult following to keep reinforcing an inflated sense of myself.

You complain that this is a white male-dominated country, and you're right. Wouldn't it follow, then, that people might be curious as to what in the world you're doing thousands and thousands of miles away from the place of your ethnic origins? I know a thing or two about the construction of the southwest railways, the borax mines in Death Valley, the mass immigration of agricultural workers from Kyushuu in the late 19th century, the Vietnam War refugees. I know a bit about the different language families of East Asia. I see you as individuals, and being the polite and sociable person I tend to be, I might try to ask you a half-way intelligent question about your background. It doesn't necessarily mean that I'm all that interested in you, and certainly, it doesn't mean it when you cop that Everybody-Wants-Me-Cuz-I'm-an-Asian-Hottie attitude.

In Sapporo, my buddies for hangin' out tended to be a fluid group
of housewives who studied at the language school where I taught.
Some were in my class; others were former students. They were
older, and I enjoyed flirting with them harmlessly. 

One of my best friends in Japan was actually happily married.
He owned a house in Sapporo, where I often stayed while on
vacation from Osaka.

The Hanagasa Festival in Yamagata, Northern Japan. No, I had
no romantic interest in the girls... but bought a festival costume
for my friend's little daughter when I visited later in Sapporo.

At Panasonic's training center. There were always more men
than women taking English classes, just as there were more
working in the company. I tended to like Japanese women
better when I knew them a bit from working with them.

At a teachers' conference in Matsuyama. I joked at the time
that the photo demonstrates a white man exploiting human
labor while presumptuously helping himself to the women. 

How Kids Learn Basic Life Skills

Spring break started for me on Thursday, March 21st after I'd taught my last class of the week and graded a few papers. I flew off to Miami Beach for ten days that evening, returning late on Monday, April 1st because I had to teach the next morning. This is cutting things closer than I usually like to do, but the trips, with direct flights between San Diego and Miami, have become quite routine to me. There's little anxiety because I know just what to expect.

On the after-dark return flight, the pilot announced the route we would follow, and I was even able to identify from the air every major urban area as we passed slightly north of them: El Paso, Tucson, Casa Grande, Yuma, Calexico/Mexicali. The latter two are easy, as Yuma is shaped like a long snake that winds along on either side of the I-8. I could even identify the neighborhood near the eastern end where my rental house stands. Mexicali comes up shortly after, a huge sea of lights with a small wedge jutting out northward which is the city of Calexico, on the other side of the border.

I like this sort of comfortable familiarity for a definite reason: my childhood was extremely traumatic. It wasn't that my parents didn't love me. It's that my mom and dad, who was a public school teacher, didn't have the slightest aptitude for teaching their three kids how to function in the real world. For years, things like answering a phone call, crossing a street with a traffic signal, buying a few items in a supermarket, or sweeping a floor were extremely anxiety-producing for me. I didn't really know what to do because my parents never showed me, and my difficulty with accomplishing such tasks confidently and correctly often led other people to be quite impatient with me.

To this day, it's not clear why my parents were so clueless about such things. They used to complain that their three kids were passive, and they were right. They waited on us hand-and-foot, treating us as if we were helpless infants until we were nearly into our teen years, meanwhile complaining loudly and bitterly that we never seemed to do anything for ourselves. Tired of hearing this, we'd try, and the results would usually leave my dad, in particular, yelling at us about how stupid we were. Then, we'd sit around passively until the cycle started again.

My mom did teach me how to ride a bicycle, but it was a huge, ancient full-size monster with balloon tires that my godmother had given me when her daughters no longer wanted it. The other kids had stingrays and such with training wheels, and those training wheels came off long before I was able to do much more than coast a few yards before crashing painfully. Once I was able to make a turn on the small lawn in the back yard, mom let me take the bike out on the street.

The problem is that we lived along a very busy street, and that she'd never bothered to show me how to stop the giant machine. The brake was in the hub of the rear wheel, so of course to a 6 year old kid the bike appeared to have no way to stop it other than to jump off. I smashed into sign posts and over picket fences, each time coming home to a tirade from my dad about how stupid I was. Finally, the older brother of my best childhood friend figured out that I simply didn't understand how to work the brake. He lifted up the rear tire, pulled the pedals back, and showed me how that stopped the wheel. I never had such problems again.

For Christmas 1964, my parents impounded the money my maternal grandparents sent me and made up the difference to buy me a new Schwinn American two-speed. It was actually a little bigger than the balloon-tired monster, but I'd grown by then and the dealer was careful to adjust the seat to my height... something that was far beyond by dad's mechanical aptitude. My brother inherited the old one, and apparently knew no more about operating the brake than I once had. We'd moved to a quieter street on level ground, so the problem didn't come to light until about a year later when he crashed into a garage door at the bottom of a steep hill, breaking his nose and knocking out his front teeth. I don't think my parents ever figured out that neither of us knew at the time how to operate a rear hub brake.

Once, while I was taking swimming lessons at a YMCA around 40th and University Avenue, my dad told me he had a meeting after school and couldn't pick me up after the lesson. He handed me a dime, and told me to take the bus home. He told me the bus number, and that I should get off at College and University; that was it. Well, after the swimming lesson, I managed to walk to the bus stop and get on. I had no idea what to do with the dime, and the driver and other passengers began yelling at me. Finally, someone took it from me and told me to sit down on one of the seats. I watched people pulling a cord to ring a bell as their stops came up, and figured that out without much problem.

Once off the bus, I had no idea how to cross University Avenue to head north to our house on College. I stood at the corner nervously, as various people yelled at me from cars. After a few false starts, I ran halfway across to the island in the middle just as cars began bearing down on me, their horns honking. I stood terrified in the middle of the street while a woman in a car at the light kept telling me patiently to go ahead and cross while the light was green. I hesitated and hesitated, then set off just as the light turned red. She began yelling in exasperation as I sprinted across in panic. My mom, of course, began screaming at me as soon as I crossed the doorway because it had taken me so much longer to get home than she thought it should.

One holiday season while my paternal grandmother was visiting us, my mom needed some tomato sauce for a pasta dish. Dad threw me a dollar, and told me to go up to the supermarket and buy a can of tomato sauce. Once at the store, I had no idea where to find it. After searching around, I picked up a can of tomato paste, then wondered what to do with it. I got into a line, with several adults cutting in front of me because they figured I was with somebody else. Finally, I got up to the cashier and gave her the dollar. I knew enough to wait for some change, but couldn't understand when she told me several times, then yelled at me, that I should wait for my receipt. I had no idea what she was talking about, but took the strange piece of paper from her and waited to see if there was anything else I had to do before I could leave. Several customers in line told me impatiently that I could go.

When I got home, dad exploded with rage that I had bought tomato paste instead of tomato sauce, berating me once again about my stupidity. My grandmother was appalled at his behavior, and came in to console me as I cried uncontrollably in my room. Dad came in to scream at me to stop blubbering, but left when he saw my grandmother talking to me. I told her that I couldn't do any of these things right because I didn't know how. I wondered at the time how anyone ever DID learn to do routine things if they'd never in their lives been shown.

This led to a lifetime of anxiousness about unfamiliar situations. It seemed as if everything I did for the first time inevitably ended with a group of people standing around screaming at me. Often I'd simply freeze up in confusion, but that would only make it worse. When I joined the army and went through basic training, it was like 8 weeks of that... except that it was pretty much the same for everyone else there. Though considered somewhat dim-witted for my difficulties with such things as making a bed or mopping a floor, I got through it, and was surprised at how unnerved many of my comrades were about the constant yelling. After all, to me it was like any average day of my childhood. It's a miracle, really, that I ever became a functional adult. I suppose I am now, but I still don't really like getting outside of my comfort zone, and I take unnatural satisfaction in doing routine things without having someone scream at me or tell me I'm stupid. From conversations with my brother long after we grew up, apparently he feels much the same way.

From time to time, I notice parents letting their kids do things like pay the cashier at the store. The kid fumbles around with the money, taking forever while people wait behind them in line, but I have a patience for that sort of thing that some people don't. I understand that the parent is trying to teach the kid the kinds of things no elementary school teacher covers in class, and to this day I don't understand why that was such an alien concept to my elementary school teacher father. He's gone now, and I don't like to speak badly of him, but it was an inexplicable blind spot that both of my parents had.

Early 1965, with the new Schwinn American

Still have it!

Airport '19

.
Last week I returned from a long stay at the Miami Beach condo over the holidays. I'd worked pretty hard during the semester, and was happy to do not much of anything for three weeks. All good things  must come to an end though, and it was time to get ready for the spring semester.

As usual, I left with a few days to spare, hoping to lounge around in San Diego before getting back to my obligations. It was to be an early evening direct flight back home, and with the time difference I'd be there not many hours of the day later than when I'd left Miami.

The flight was full, like most of them are nowadays, and the worker at the boarding gate asked for several volunteers to give up their seats. The benefit was a stay in a first-class hotel near the airport, and an invoice that gradually increased to $550. A guy from San Diego who'd been on a cruise volunteered just before I did, as well as a couple who'd been on the same cruise with him. There were a few other people who'd volunteered but didn't interact much with us, but as the situation became more and more comically chaotic we bantered a bit with each other.

Eventually, four different airline employees ended up huddling around the boarding gate. Over and over, they were paging an old woman in a wheelchair who'd somehow become separated from her daughter. The workers were having a hard time figuring out the final arrangements, and one of them explained to me later as I waited for the hotel shuttle that there are very definite weight restrictions for flying into San Diego's airport when the conditions are foggy. At any rate, they seemed to be having an exasperating time of it.

Everyone concerned was actually quite professional, and though the volunteers wanted to know whether they'd be staying or going home tonight, we were after all unhurried enough to be willing to stay behind. Just the same, it was obvious that the employees were getting rather annoyed with the constant complications. One, presumably the supervisor, walked out to the plane four or five times to try to make the final arrangements. He bore a vague resemblance to Marlon Brando in The Godfather, and and before you knew it several of us were snickering while gesturing and mumbling things like, "Um gunna make-um an offer they can't refuse."

Finally, just as they appeared to have things settled, an attendant who looked very much like Fredo came rushing up, pushing the old lady in the wheelchair. The Godfather, keeping his cool but obviously pissed, went back out to the place once again, and the decision was made that the poor lady was just too late arriving to be allowed to board. Naturally, she seemed quite unhappy, and Fredo morosely rolled her away.

After more delays, we received our vouchers and hotel accomodations. I spent an uneventful night in an unfamiliar part of Miami, doing nothing more interesting than walking down to a convenience store to buy a huge can of Heinekin and a small bag of Cheetohs.

Morning came, and I got an overpriced buffet breakfast with the meal vouchers. Then it was time to catch the shuttle back to the airport. As usual, I got there quite early because I don't like unexpected surprises when I travel. It rather sucked to have to go through airport security again, but even that had its humorous moments. The TSA workers were enduring the government shutdown with strained patience, repeating the same dumb instructions over and over to endless herds of passengers. One of them was guiding the dog that sniffs for whatever it's trained to find, and the worker kept announcing:

"Don't touch the daaaawg! Don't pet the daaaawg! Just pretend he's not there!"

The daaawg was a light colored retriever with a friendly face. He did actually look more like a pet than a working dog, and--like the workers--would probably rather have been somewhere else.

In the waiting area for my flight to San Diego via Chicago, a youngish gal sat glued to her phone just like 99% of the people around me. Then suddenly, a big smile came to her face. A pilot, probably in his fifties, came over with a rolling cart and they embraced for a long time. Presumably, he was her father, and they were having a short visit in the departure area while each waited to take off for different places. They spoke softly, and I didn't try very hard to listen to what they were saying. Just the same, the pilot seemed a kindly person and a loving father. After he left and we began boarding, I wanted to say something to the gal, but she was again absorbed in her phone.

He'd taken off his uniform coat and hat, and hung them on the cart while they talked. I couldn't help noticing how plain the uniform seemed. It was a dull navy blue with three sleeve bars and the airline insignia or pilot's wings over the breast pocket; I'm not sure which. The hat also had a similar insignia, but none of the fancy braiding or oak leaf designs of a military officer's cap.

It occurred to me through these experiences that while everybody was doing a job, they all had a very human side to them. The flight to Chicago went fine, but the connecting flight to San Diego was among those cancelled due to the crummy weather there. Without too much complication, I was automatically re-booked due to my volunteer status apparently, and got back home without too much aggravation. I even had a genuine Chicago-style deep-dish individual pizza while waiting.

Back in San Diego around 10 PM, I made an unenthusiastic effort to use the vouchers to book my flight back to Miami for spring break. I wasn't happy with the price, and wanted to compare online. However, you can only use the vouchers to book face to face at an American Airlines office, i.e. at the airport. I got somewhat impatient with the employee, and would probably apologize to her if I saw her again... though I doubt she remembers me among all the anxious and impatient people she probably deals with on any given day.

I still had a juror's pass that I'd gotten in December, and used it to catch the bus downtown, then the old #7 which now goes only to the corner of College and University. The route, unchanged since before I was born, was finally changed last July. It's OK though. I pack light, and simply walked an extra half mile or so to get to my place. On the way, I bought another huge beer at the liquor store that's also been there forever but that I seldom patronize. I mentioned that to the guy attending, and he said it had opened in 1951. A couple of blocks later, and less than that from my place, I got a nice California burrito to complement the beer and celebrate me home. Like the Miami Beach condo, it's empty when I get there, but when I'm tired from traveling that suits me fine.

Link to My San Diego Reader Blogs, 2009-2013

For a time, the SD Reader sponsored a monthly neighborhood blog contest. Mine won two second places, and one first place.

Those that did not win anything can be found here:

https://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/kstaff/?page=2#


The award winners were not necessarily my own favorites, but here they are:

https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2012/jan/11/blogs-his-little-brother-france/

https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2010/jun/29/blogs-oddball-friendships-are-forever/

https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2009/oct/30/blogs-rip-van-winkle/


The original name of the last one was "Does God Live in Old Men?" For some reason, the
SD Reader changed the title when they moved it to the awards section. For some other reason, the 2012 and 2013 blogs are archived differently. You have to do a search by year, and then by month. There are a total of 37 entries in all.

Hope you enjoy these early efforts, and that you find it worth the effort to search them.

Mex-Sicko

If you were hooked by the title and harbor certain expectations, you'll probably be disappointed. As you might have gathered from previous entries, I have a lot of time off during the summers and try to do something interesting each year. For summer 2018, having just paid off the last mortgage on my properties, I felt the need to do something both relaxing and relatively economical. Hence, a return for the first time in 30 years to away-from-the-border Mexico. For us San Diegans, trips to Tijuana don't really count as Mexico excursions, though I hadn't even been there since the late 1990's as far as I can recall. Though I'd lived in Peru for a time, trips to Guadalajara were the extent of my Mexico experience. I knew the route from Tijuana to Guadalajara pretty well, but virtually nothing about Baja or Sonora.

For about half a year in late 1987 and early 1988, I lived in Guadalajara. I'd just returned from my first job in Japan, and during that summer decided to take a 5-week Spanish course through the UdeG. While there, I was offered a job. The university was developing a new English language program for the general public to enroll in, and invited me to help develop it. The program was called PROULEX, and to my surprise during this most recent visit I found that it is not only still in existence but has grown into a prosperous enterprise, with several branch schools around the city.

A number of friends and colleagues--even ones with roots in Mexico--were somewhat apprehensive about my plans: to enter Mexico at the El Paso/Juarez crossing, then to proceed by bus to Chihuahua, where the CHEPE (Copper Canyon Train) originates. From there, I would figure out how long I wanted to spend along the route, and make my way to the terminus at Los Mochis. At that point, I would decide whether I wanted to continue southward to Guadalajara for a somewhat sentimental return, or whether I wanted to catch the ferry to La Paz in Baja California without the side trip. It all depended on whether or not I was having a good time. Everyone wished me well, but many were genuinely worried about the idea of me traveling alone in Mexico.

Being the sort of person who generally does exactly that of which he speaks, I ended up doing all of those things and having a pretty good time of it. I was away from home for exactly 6 weeks, aside from a 24 hour or so period back in San Diego to re-pack and catch a flight to Miami, where I'd stay three weeks before flying to El Paso. My niece got married in north San Diego County on June 9, and I decided to proceed from there directly the next morning on Highway 78 to Arizona for the usual inspection and maintenance on my properties in Prescott and Yuma.

On the way out, I got the idea of calling an old colleague who now lives near the airport in San Diego. Like myself, he was a white male in a field dominated by women and people-of-color, and early on we both figured out that we'd better take care of ourselves since no one else was going to take care of us, or even be particularly discreet about discriminating against us in the name of "diversity." We'd both invested in real estate and done fairly well, growing stronger--if more cynical-- from the challenges we often faced... in a way that makes us rather unsympathetic to whiny women and minorities.

At any rate, he'd never seen my San Diego condo before, and I suggested that he come by during the single day I'd be back in San Diego. He could see my place, and later drop me off at the airport. This worked out nicely, and I took care of business in Prescott and Yuma without a lot of memorable fanfare. I got back the evening of June 13, and spent a single night at my place before preparing to vacate until July 20. He came by in the late afternoon and visited awhile, then we went over to his place and hung out awhile with his wife, who had also been a teaching colleague at one time before she changed careers.

The flight to Miami was leaving at 7:00 in the morning, and around midnight he took me over to Harbor Island, across from the airport. I'd hung out in the lobby of the Sheraton before while waiting for an early flight, and figured I'd do it again. This time, however, I nodded out in a comfortable easy chair and began to snore loudly. Security came and woke me up, and I explained my situation. They said it was OK to hang out, but that I couldn't sleep there. Seeing that they were actually being pretty nice about it, I didn't argue. I stayed awake for a couple more hours, then walked over to the airport around 4:30. The flight to Miami via Houston was uneventful, though flying Spirit Airlines is the closest one can come to riding a city bus in the sky.

The three weeks at my Miami Beach condo passed quickly. Having just paid off my last mortgage the month before, and having just completed a successful academic year, I felt a sense of total freedom... and total collapse. I didn't HAVE to do diddly-squat. I'd taken care of all pressing business, and tied up all paperwork ends. I'd done maintenance on all of my rental properties in San Diego and Arizona. I'd given the San Diego condo a good cleaning just before leaving. All I really needed to do now was go online at several branches of the Miami-Dade Library system to try to figure out how in hell I was going to approach the Mexico part of the journey.

The Miami Beach condo complex has a pool, as well as a rather dirty branch of Indian Creek that makes it a waterfront property. Indian Creek Island, with its multi-million dollar homes, is less than a mile away on the very same water. The beach is three blocks away, at the north end of the Open Space Park. I spent a great deal of time submerged in either the pool or the Atlantic Ocean.

About a week in, the upstairs neighbors had a sink clog up. The Roto Rooter guy cleared it, and was about to call it a day when I got home and saw that everything had simply dropped down into my sink and backed it up. If I hadn't been there, the mess would have sat stagnant until my next visit, or until someone noticed the stink. After some consultation with the property manager over who'd pay, the drain line in the alley got rooted as well, which cleared my sink aside from the accumulated mess that I had to scoop up and dispose of, with some help from the neighbors.

Researching things at the library was frustrating, but as the time to head for Mexico neared I felt at least a little better informed than before. There was a lot of conflicting information about both the CHEPE train and the Baja ferries. After giving the condo a good scrubbing, and watching some Independence Day fireworks, I was up around 4:00 AM on July 5 for the long walk to the Arthur Godfrey Causeway where I'd catch the airport bus. I worked up a terrible sweat in doing so, and arrived at the well air conditioned terminal in wet clothing. The flight to El Paso via Dallas was as uneventful as the flight out from San Diego, aside from an exceptionally rough landing in a strong crosswind.

As with everything else on this trip, I was totally improvising without reservations or any deep knowledge of what I was doing. My only knowledge of El Paso came from a road map, and from the memory of our train stopping for several hours there for emergency repairs at the end of Easter Vacation (as it was called then) 1967. I was finishing up 6th grade, and dad took us all to San Antonio to visit his brother's family for a week. My uncle was still in the Air Force then; his younger son is the fellow I met up with in Austin during my cross-country motorcycle trip last year. On the way back to California, the train hit a cow and sustained some damage; the cow didn't do too hot either. We'd walked around town for a few hours to kill time, then were on our way. Other than that, I could claim no knowledge of El Paso.

Seeing a display of advertisements at the airport terminal for various hotels in town, I selected one that had a free airport shuttle and seemed to be centrally located. It was supposed to be one of the best in town, with a swimming pool several floors above the ground. A number of small things went wrong there, starting with me falling on my face as I stepped out of the shuttle because the "safety" step exactly matched the color of the pavement at the hotel entrance. The front desk people--to a person--had no idea where the bus station was; it turned out to be three blocks away. I found that there was Greyhound service to Juarez, so I got a ticket for the next morning, still not really confident in what I was doing.

I walked over to the visitor center, and asked if the train station was nearby. It was, and when I mentioned that we'd walked with several passengers to a small park in the middle of the city to wait out the repairs on the train to California 51 years ago, they told me immediately that it must have been Plaza San Jacinto. With nothing else to do on a late and very hot afternoon, I found my way over to it and recognized it right away. Had some delicious corn on the cob with cheese and salsa from the little concession there, then bought a couple of cans of beer from the CVS around the corner to consume in my refrigerator-less room... another small annoyance. You can read my review--where I forgot to mention the non-refrigerator, falling out of the shuttle, and getting charged for the much ballyhooed complimentary breakfast buffet--here:

https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g60768-d1235675-r593490125-Double_Tree_by_Hilton_El_Paso_Downtown-El_Paso_Texas.html

Bright and early the next morning, my Mexico adventure began. Early on, I noticed that most people I met in Mexico had a hard time figuring out where I was from. I look like the classic Ugly American, but speak Spanish with only a light accent that's nonetheless heavy with peruanismos, or Peruvian Spanish vocabulary. The Greyhound bus, I'd learn as the trip got underway, would take us first to a border checkpoint where we'd get off and fill out paperwork. Then we'd all re-board and go on a few more miles to one of the several bus stations in Juiarez.

At this point, let's get out of the way my greatest pet-peeve about Latin America. It's the non-concept of public information. For everything you do, no one ever explains anything and no one ever announces anything. It just HAPPENS, usually several hours late. Signage--if there is any--is nearly always wrong. You can get on a bus plastered with signs indicating "Chihuahua," only to find that it's going to Mexicali. On top of this, the digital age has provided a whole new world of opportunities to spend virtually your entire time in Latin America utterly confused because information is almost always out of date. It's infuriating, and the only way to figure out what's going on is by asking fellow travelers and/or the person in charge... who eventually becomes cranky at having to explain the same thing over and over and over to the aimless mass of people.

I encountered this over and over when I lived in Peru, and everywhere I went in Mexico on this trip the phenomenon was worse, if anything. I'm convinced that this aspect of Latin American culture--more than any other--provides ample explanation for why so many things there seem chronically chaotic. Folks, if you're seeking a better life in a functional society, why don't you start by telling people things?!

As a nice welcome to this unique way of doing things, we stopped at the immigration checkpoint. I and the only other person who didn't look Mexican were immediately singled out and told to get into a line at a window with--you guessed it--no signage or instructions about what was going on or what we were to do. My fellow traveler commented that this seemed discriminatory, and I replied that though I agreed, this probably wouldn't be a great time to complain about it. We were hit up for a fee to enter the country as tourists, and after paying it asked what we were supposed to do next. There was a second window next to it, and the functionary pointed to it.

At the second window, there was some paper shuffling and our passports were returned to us wordlessly. Figuring this was the end of the process, we went back out to the bus where everyone else was waiting. As the bus prepared to pull out, another official ran out and stopped it. The two gringos had neglected to get their passports stamped! I went back inside, and someone actually directed me back to the first window, where I had to show all the paperwork from the second window. Then I got my stamp. Just to be sure, I asked if that were all. As no one answered, I presumed that was the case and got back on the bus.

At the bus station, the fellow gringo and I decided to hang together as far as Chihuahua. He was a public school teacher from New Mexico, and was trying to get his Spanish proficiency up because he was supposed to teach bilingual classes the following school year. This was surprising, as listening to his Spanish hurt my ears. I realized just how grating it must have been to listen to me when I first visited Guadalajara after high school graduation 45 years before. We rode along to Chihuahua, discussing our travel plans once there. At a rest stop, he got me a bottle of water as I hadn't changed any money for pesos yet. Once arrived in Chihuahua, we went our separate ways.

Here began my first of many not-bad experiences with taxi drivers. You tell them where you're going and perhaps ask if they know of a place to stay nearby. They give you a price, you haggle a bit if it's more than you've paid before for the same route, and you make sure the driver has change if you're carrying only large bills. In this first case, I had him take me by a currency exchange before going on to the hotel across from the train station that he'd recommended.

It was getting to be late afternoon on Friday when I checked into the small hotel, which as far as I could see had no other guests who were planning to catch the train. The lady at the front desk said the ticket office was certainly closed. I walked across to see for myself, and it was open as could be. Now was the moment of truth: Was it, or was it not, impossible to buy a ticket on such short notice? Online information was contradictory on the matter. Well, it turned out to be no problem at all, and easily handled by credit card payment. Before you knew it, I was set to leave at 6:00 the following morning, with a planned two-day stop in Creel before going on to Los Mochis. Not bad for someone who doesn't know WTF he's doing!

Now I was beginning to feel a bit more confident in myself, and in a country I'd once had a great deal of affection for but had come to be apprehensive of... not because of personal experience but because of what everyone else had been telling me. I had a nice relaxing meal of roasted chicken, and bought some beer and potable water at a convenience store. Every day for the rest of the trip, I felt peace of mind. Though I used common sense and was always "aware of my surroundings, " I found every part of Mexico I visited to be as safe or safer than the average American city.

The downside of playing things by ear and having no detailed plans was that I didn't do much of anything besides travel. I'd chosen to stop in Creel because it was about a third of the way along the route, and was one of the few place names I recognized. The trains left a little past 6:00, with the usual lack of announcements or guidance. Apparently the first class and second class trains start out separately, then the cars are combined into one very long sequence somewhere along the way. There actually were signs indicating which was which, but nothing to indicate the car numbers so that you could find your assigned seat. More asking asking asking... I ended up next to a group of tourists who were pleasantly surprised when I recognized their New Zealand accents.

In Creel, there were a number of outdoor activities available. Me, I was utterly exhausted and spent much of Saturday napping. Part of it, I guess, was the tension of traveling in an unfamiliar part of a foreign country with half the people I'd talked to about it thinking I was nuts. Things were going well, and I just wanted to relax and count my blessings. I strolled around town, and ate at some excellent restaurants. The town had a touristy feel, but wasn't very fancy at all. It had an incredible number of homeless dogs that lounged around wherever there was shade.

On Sunday, I walked a mile or so out of town in the direction of a Ferris wheel in the distance. Next to the amusement park, there was a memorial of some sort. I asked one of the workers at the park, and they told me about the "Creel Massacre," pretty much as recounted in the link here. Sobering stuff:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/aug/19/mexico.drugstrade

On Monday July 9, I got on the train again to finish up the trip to Los Mochis on the Pacific Coast. Ended up sitting next to an American mining engineer, originally from El Salvador, who'd been around the world managing mostly silver mines. He was there on business, investigating an accident at one of the mines. We talked a bit about things, the memorable tidbit from him being his take on Latin American culture: No one ever feels happy about a friend's or neighbor's or cousin's success. There's always an undercurrent of jealousy or envy present. I hadn't ever thought about it that way before, but it occurred to me from my own experiences over the years that he was probably right.

He got out somewhere about two-thirds from the end, and the train proceeded on toward the coast. It passed through terrain that varied from alpine to jungle to high desert. At some point, I got the idea of standing out on the area where the cars connect and enjoying the "aire libre." The sun was setting as we pulled into El Fuerte. It was supposed to be some sort of great tourist destination, but looked pretty pud-in-the-mud to me. On and on we went, until long after dark. Finally the train stopped, and didn't move on again. No announcement, of course, but with everyone getting off I figured it must be Los Mochis. It was.

Los Mochis is a no-nonsense port town on the Sea of Cortes. Mazatlan, about six hours to the south by bus, is a better known port with a touristy vibe. It has some surfing beaches because it's just where the Sea of Cortes ends and the Mexican mainland becomes the west coast of the Pacific Ocean. Some online sources stated that the ferry to La Paz in Baja California no longer ran from Los Mochis, but only from Mazatlan. Each and every online source said that catching a ferry from Mazatlan was a sure bet. Either way, it was past 10:00 PM when I caught a taxi with several other passengers from the train and we headed for a hotel the driver recommended that was to be near the bus station.

He was good to his word. For less than $40, I found myself in a comfortable room in a hotel that wouldn't look out of place on a side street in South Beach. Those bozos in El Paso could take a hint from them as far as running a quality establishment goes. I gave it a review here:

https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g319820-d5416413-r601942697-Hotel_Santa_Cruz_Mochis-Los_Mochis_Pacific_Coast.html

In the morning, I walked over to the bus station, bought a ticket, and waited all of fifteen minutes for the next bus to Mazatlan. It was a longer ride than I'd remembered from thirty years ago, taking most of the day. On the way, I carefully weighed the options and made the decision that I should make the most of my time exploring Baja; I could fly to Guadalajara anytime on a separate trip now that my mind was becoming more comfortable with and open to the concept of traveling in Mexico again. This was my frame of mind as the bus pulled into Mazatlan.

Well sir, I caught a taxi out to the ferry port, having a nice talk with the driver about the security situation in Sinaloa. He said it was much improved over ten years ago, when it actually was a dangerous place to travel. He dropped me off, and was about to pull away when the security guard at the entrance asked us both to wait. He explained that the ferry had broken down a month or so ago, and wouldn't be running again for some time. If I wanted to catch a ferry to La Paz, I'd have to go to--get ready for it--LOS MOCHIS!!!

Hmmm... The security situation may be much improved, but the War on Accurate Information apparently continues. I was absolutely floored. I had the driver take me back to the bus station, and then sat there for awhile trying to figure out WTF I should do now. After about a half hour of pondering, I decided to catch a night bus to Guadalajara afterall, since I was actually closer to there than to Los Mochis now. I hung out for several hours, enjoying some seafood tacos and beer and walking around the place a bit. The bus left reasonably on time, and I nodded out so soundly that the next thing I knew it was daybreak and we were on the outskirts of a city I had many a strong feeling about.

Caught a taxi into town after talking to the ticket desk about the schedule of buses back to Los Mochis. I decided then to stay four days in Guadalajara, and to try to time my arrival back in Los Mochis to be convenient for catching the ferry. I'd be shorting myself on the Baja part of the trip, but felt that I could always go back on another trip, in the same way I'd planned before to fly to Guadalajara... before this  ferry business intervened. The driver recommended a rather unattractive but conveniently located and inexpensive hotel just off the Calzada de Independéncia, a few blocks south of the Mercado Libertád.

I slept awhile on arriving, then noticed that just about everyone else in the hotel was a federal police officer. The hotel is used to billet them during their tours of duty, which apparently change often enough that they house them that way. It wasn't too much of an issue, aside from the discomfort of seeing uniformed men with automatic weapons and armored vehicles milling about everywhere. I wasn't much inclined to chat them up, but they were polite and pleasant enough. Not quite oriented yet, I found my way to the cathedral with a few wrong turns, then headed north toward the UdeG.

It wasn't as far as I'd remembered it being. The buildings and the neighborhood had changed a little, but were still recognizable. I found the PROULEX office, not far from where the program started in 1987. The director was happy to meet me, and we talked for about half an hour. He'd been around since the early 1990's, and remembered a few of the people I'd worked with. I walked around by the old classrooms, had lunch at one of the restaurants in the strip mall we used to frequent, and got my fill of nostalgic feeling. Actually, I'd been pretty fed up with the place at the time I left, and never thought I'd come back... but I suppose time wounds all heels.

Walking back, I got myself a little better oriented. I hung out in the plaza behind the cathedral, then found Calle Belén and the complex where the Spanish classes were held the first time I stayed here in summer 1973. The gate guard let me go inside for a look. I made my way to the Mercado Libertád, then to the place next to it that was once the Plaza of the Mariachis. There were a number of mariachis morosely hanging around, but not playing any music. Apparently it ceased to be officially their plaza sometime in the early 1990's, when the guy who popularized mariachi music passed away.

The next day, I walked the entire distance from the cathedral to Chapalita, where I'd stayed in 1973 and lived for a time later in 1987/88. The Mendoza's family home at Cubilete 13 was no longer there, to no surprise. Even in the late 1980's, it was obvious that the area was undergoing a re-zoning to commercial properties. The address was now an orthodontic surgeon's office. Though my feet were getting tired, I continued on one more mile to the Plaza del Sol shopping center for a look around, recalling that first day in Guadalajara in 1973 when my new roommate and I walked there and heard the Beatles' version of Til There Was You playing on the public address system. Was able to catch a bus back downtown, but still had to walk quite a ways to get back to the hotel.

At some point, I bought two leather eyeglass cases at the Mercado Libertád to replace the worn out ones I'd gotten there in 1987. I had one of the old ones with me, as I nearly always do. It had been all around the world with me, and now I found myself throwing it away in the same place where I'd bought it! The market of course looked the same, but the merchandise seems to be extremely heavy on sneakers. I went to the place where Rosa Rojas once worked. Even by 1987 she'd moved on, yet I couldn't help thinking of her and wondering where she is now.

There was a festival in the plaza celebrating the various cultural aspects of Jalisco. I hung around listening to music and watching various performances, then--being properly dressed for a change--I took a look at the inside of the cathedral during a Mass. I called one of my old Cubilete 13 roommates from the plaza, a surprisingly easy thing to do in this day and age. He still lives in Oxnard, and we've stayed in loose contact over the past 45 years. He had no trouble guessing where I was calling from, and we had a nice chat about old times and more recent things like the wildfires that were affecting him. Later in the day, I walked to Parque Agua Azul, not realizing that it was just down Calzada de Independéncia not far from my hotel.

On a late Saturday morning, I checked out of the hotel and spent much of the day at the festival. Had dinner at a mediocre Chinese buffet near the plaza, and hung out a little longer. Around dusk, I caught a taxi back to the "new" bus terminal; the old one was next to Agua Azul and is used only for short routes nowadays. It was a rather long wait for the bus back to Los Mochis, which was several hours late. As before, I had no trouble falling asleep on it and was surprised to wake up with us on the outskirts of town.

The ferry portion of the trip was by far the most tedious and aggravating aspect of it. The port is about 15 miles out of town, though taxis are quite inexpensive compared to the U.S. I caught one out there, and bought a ticket for that evening. It was to leave at 2:00 AM rather than at 11:00 AM, as all the online information said. I went back into town and checked into the same hotel as before, wanting just to rest there during the day and check out before midnight. I used the hotel's pool, walked around looking for a place to eat, and finally got some delicious tostadas at an outdoor restaurant. They didn't serve beer, but also didn't mind if I got one at the convenience store down the street and drank it with my meal.

About 11:00 PM, I returned to the ferry terminal. It wasn't that crowded, and people seemed to be buying tickets on the spot without problems. Still, I was glad I got mine in advance. The ferry ended up leaving almost 6 hours late, with the loading process taking forever. For once, there was someone guiding the crowd along as we passed through a military checkpoint and had our bags inspected. For some reason, men and women had to be in separate lines. Once we got to the ship, it was the usual instructionless chaos. I followed people upstairs to a common area adjacent to the ship's restaurant. It had a door to the outside, with a pretty good view from the back of the ferry. There I stayed, alternating between nodding out on a sofa and standing on the deck outside.

As we pulled into La Paz, there were--believe it or not--several announcements over the world's lousiest public address system. Though each announcement was made in both Spanish and English, I couldn't understand a word of what was being said. Nobody in the room was doing much of anything, so I just stayed there. Once in port, I watched the ferry unload many heavy commercial trucks. It was an orderly, well organized process that was interesting to observe. I didn't see any passengers disembarking, and in fact it didn't look like any sort of passenger terminal. I figured the ferry might move on to another terminal to let off the passengers.

Finally, after another incomprehensible bilingual announcement, people began to line up. I got in the line, and as I approached the exit the woman in charge told me in English, "This is for the drivers. You go out the other door." Well, so I did, only to find that the other passengers had disembarked long ago. I still don't know WTF the process was, how I came to be in that particular room, or what I should have done differently.

There were "colectivos" into La Paz, which are cheaper than taxis. I rode with five or six other people, including two women who kept arguing with the driver about the fare. At one point, she looked over at me and commented that I probably couldn't understand Spanish... The driver let us off at the bus station along El Malecón, or boardwalk. I found a place to stay at the rather upscale but still inexpensive Hotel La Perla; I think it's the only time in Mexico that I spent more than $50 for a room. 

Just about everyone I met in La Paz insisted on addressing me in English, whether they were able to understand anything I said back or not. Very reminiscent of Japan... Nonetheless, I had a pleasant evening there, sitting on the hotel balcony over the boardwalk with a couple of beers. I was getting pressed for time, having several things to do in San Diego the upcoming weekend. I decided that I could see Cabo on a separate trip, as there are direct flights from San Diego and I was now once again quite comfortable about traveling in Mexico. This time, I was going to have to basically run through Baja.

Knowing very little about Baja, I decided to travel from La Paz to Guerrero Negro the next day. I wanted to travel during daylight, so that I could see the countryside. It was about a 15 hour trip, and arrived in the wee hours of the next morning. I did indeed get a nice "taste" of Baja as we passed through the deserty south part of the peninsula, over bare mountains and into the jungle-like area around Loreto, a place I'd like to spend some time in if I return. Much of Baja was beautiful, and the variety of geographic areas was surprising. I'd always imagined it as a big piece of sand with a few dry, windswept mountains.

This time I didn't sleep much on the bus, and arrived very tired in Guerrero Negro. I took a look at the bus schedule, and saw that there were only a few departures toward Tijuana each day. There didn't seem to be much around the bus station, but I found a small hotel a few blocks away. and slept until mid-morning. Back at the bus station, I bought a ticket for a late evening departure to Ensenada. The town had a large salt processing factory, and little else. It was a fairly prosperous place largely due to the factory, but that and whale watching in season seemed to be the only activities. For lack of anything else to do, I asked a lady in the park which way the sea was, and tried to walk to it on a deserted road in extreme heat. After a couple of miles, I turned back. I had a decent meal in town, and basically hung around for hours waiting for the bus.

We got into Ensenada around daybreak. Once again, there was no announcement of stops and no visible signage at any bus station as we arrived. Ask ask ask... Yes, this is Ensenada. I had no idea which part of town we were in, and hadn't been in Ensenada since 1984. A fellow selling breakfast sandwiches pointed me toward the port, and I stopped at several hotels to try to get a room. The street led right to the port area, which was less than a mile away. I got another inexpensive but nice hotel room there, after offering to pay for two nights since I was arriving at about 6:00 in the morning and planned to stay that night as well.

Ensenada did not impress me. The port area isn't very big, and a navy base takes up most of the waterfront area to the north. There's a public beach about a mile beyond it, but it's nothing to crow about, especially if you're from San Diego. The touristy area is just inland from the port, and includes Hussong's Cantina and Papas & Beer. I tried going into Hussong's, but it was extremely, ear-splittingly noisy inside, one of those crowd phenomena where all are trying to make themselves heard over everyone else until everyone is yelling at the top of their lungs. It's basically just a famous name, with four walls and little decor. Papas & Beer was bigger and less crowded, with several sections. I preferred just to get a couple more beers at the Oxxo and watch TV in my room.

On Friday July 20 at 8:00 AM, I was waiting to catch the bus to Tijuana. The attendant looked at my ticket, frowned, and told me the bus wasn't scheduled to leave until 9:00. Buses came and went, came and went, with no announcements and no signage. Each time I had to ask the driver if this was my bus. No señor, no señor... Two other buses were going to Tijuana, but they weren't the one I was supposed to get on. Mine was specifically going to "La Linea," which I figured out meant la frontera, or the border. Once I finally got on the bus, I was surprised by how quickly we found ourselves nearing Tijuana. The distance is only about 75 miles, while I'd thought it closer to 120 or so.

I followed the crowd through a big elevated metal tunnel that led to the American side, crossing over just before noon. Though the Mexican tourist card says that I'm required to return the card when I leave the country, there was no one at any point to give it to. Technically, my residence status is still as a tourist in Mexico! Though the crossing area has changed since the last time I was there, I recognized the bridge over the freeway and made my way to the trolley station. I don't ride the trolley that often, and found the instructions for buying a ticket to be written in the usual incomprehensible all-American gobbledy-gook, making me wonder if the Latin American way of providing no instructions at all really was any worse.

Seeing a Greyhound office near the trolley, I stopped to ask if they had a service similar to the one I used in El Paso, taking people across the border to their Mexican counterpart. No one spoke English well enough to understand what I was asking, and--being no longer in Mexico--I didn't feel like talking to them in Spanish.

Guadalajar Guadalajara!!!

More Guadalajara

The ferry from Los Mochis to La Paz