Our "fleet" of rooms is the noisiest place in town. And that is saying something. One night long after midnight I sat at one of these windows in my sleeping outfit looking at the crowd (yes, a crowd), thinking and trying to count the different noises. I was also thinking about my creditors, and how I was now getting closer and closer to them, and sooner or later, I'd have to face them. Well, what I have remaining in money value is getting pretty low. As to the noises, I got up to 14 but there are lots more than that. The honks, street cars and newsboys drown out the culls and low grade noises.
As Aura May has disappeared more and more from her father's side, he has ventured more and more in the marts of trade and commerce. About the first venture here was into the banana situation. I had seen push carts of fruit everywhere. Close observation, at a discreet distance, disclosed customers bought, peeled and ate the fruit and then dropped the peels in a receptacle on the cart. I could do that. I did.
Lightning calculation disclosed I was paying about two cents American each for the biggest ones. A young Indian had preceded me. I offered him one. He accepted. Word got over the grape vine. My clientele increased, and there we stood blithely peeling and eating and aiming at the waste basket. Aura May would have been ashamed for me. When a client missed, I cut him off the list. They caught onto that easily although no English was spoken except by me. The adventure cost me a full 90 cents. Try having fun buying 90 cents worth of bananas back home.
The Grace Line decided to sail the Santa Margarita a day early (Jan. 9). That can be accounted for in that these ships are for cargo first, and secondarily for passengers. We sailed at 8 p.m. promptly. No, my friends. We are not at the captain's table, but we are doing our level best.
In my opinion to date, the Southern Cross is among the most overestimated sights down this way. Counting all three ships, I have been shown four or five Southern Crosses, all different, and at least a pair of False Crosses. From our patio outside the French doors of the hotel in Buenos Aires, I had picked out what I thought was the real thing, and was pretty well satisfied. Now I'm not so sure.
Last night, for instance, I was out alone and had selected my Southern Cross for the evening. . . Along came one of the seamen and I asked him to show me the Southern Cross. He said, "It is below the horizon now. It might be visible just before daylight."
Today the sea was calm and it is that way tonight. Today, by Act of Providence I won a shuffleboard game from the steward. That is about the first since the man with heart trouble who voted for Garfield defaulted to me off Brazil somewhere.
We arrived at Paita, Peru, Jan. 11, and anchored off shore about a half mile in 160 feet of water. We began loading from a sizable ship bearing the U.S. flag, named Washington Star, 40 tons of decapitated frozen tuna, weighing 20 to 60 pounds each, and cotton from the interior. Around us are row boats peddling bananas, mangos, alligator pears, wool blankets, silverware, leather boots, and "authentic Inca relics made down the coast," the owner of the Washington Star tells me. Some of the "art" figures are not to be found in D.A.R. collections. Two New Jersey doctors bought out the entire stock.
At SeaJanuary 13, 1950
We are just now crossing the Equator northbound. One long blast announced our crossing. The temperature of the sea water is 78 degrees.
The 40-mile trip "up the river" to Guayaquil, principal port of Ecuador, was made in a Grace Line yacht, Santa Rosita, formerly a submarine chaser powered by a General Motors diesel capable of 27 knots. She is fast. She has to be. The Guayas River is not only fast but seems to cover about all outdoors hereabout. It takes power to buck the river's current. And when the tide is running out it takes still more power.
Guayaquil is a pretty rusty looking city to me. The population is about 250,000. The rain had stopped before our arrival. The day was cloudy, but it was very, very hot and humid nonetheless. The town was full of pushcart and sidewalk salesmen, all sorts of outdoor food sales and the ever-present Coca Cola. Our hats are off to the Coca Cola people. Perhaps in only one or two places in far south Chile were we without the jurisdiction of a "refreshing pause."
Here were bananas and pineapples galore. A vendor would take an 18 to 20-inch pineapple by the stalk, pare off the outer shell quite deftly, slice it crosswise, and sell it by the slice at the end of a long sharp butcher knife. I don't know the price, probably two slices for a cent. Foreigners are told to lay off food here on the streets.
Practically all shops and stores are open air affairs. You just walk in and there you are among the dry goods. All have more or less useless trinkets. The small rooms are crowded to suffocation, with no room to turn around in. Panama hats are a staple. . . On the other hand, all shopkeepers and salesmen were courteous, attentive and tried to help. No high pressure salesmanship anywhere as you and I know it.
In one shop, a woman was carefully watching me. I thought it was to keep me from filching one or more articles. But no. She finally had the audacity to touch me lightly where the old wallet should be, and the proprietor spoke up, "My wife wants to know if the senor will tell us where he got his suit of clothes, and how much he paid for it?" Seeing my chance to try to repay Haspel, the maker, who had gone to the trouble to send several different styles to the store across the street from the Roosevelt Hotel in New Orleans, I peeled off my coat and wrote down everything in the label except the number of the patent. And so, Messrs. Haspel up there in New Orleans, if a prepaid order comes from Guayaquil at the retail price of $22.50, please remember I am your "drummer" without portfolio and that I am not adverse to an unreasonable commission.
Coming back down the river to the ship, the passengers got into a general discussion of what they had seen and what they enjoyed. Some liked one thing and some another. But the consensus seemed to center on the beautiful, graceful and elaborate marble tombstones and mausoleums at the cemetery. So next time when in Guayaquil, go out and have a look at its No. 1 attraction.
Of the present passenger list, one of the most interesting to me is a piano playing timber buyer, or let us say, a timber buying piano player. I have seen a great many piano players and lots of timber buyers in my time, but this, I think, is the first combination of the two professions in any one man I have had the good fortune to encounter. The load he carries must be Herculean. At one time I was a piano player. That was after father and I decided the life of a pool expert was not the life for me. At the zenith of my interpretation and rending of the masters I was also enrolled in college, but even my best friends on the faculty were unanimous in agreeing I was not both a student and a piano player.
My new friend buys balsa by the ship load and sends it to the U.S. and England. We talked about walnut, oak, mahogany and then some Brazil and South American heavy woods. He got red oak mixed up with California redwood. We got that straightened out. Some enterprising Californians had inveigled him into buying some big red oak (redwood) wine casks and selling them to Chilean vintners. He got run out of Chile for that. "Baad taazt. No goot."
I finally worked out his pedigree. He was a Czech. A real pianist, he had played in Prague, Zurich, Vienna and all around. When World War II started, he started looking for a new home. He became a refugee and finally wound up in Guayaquil, where he expected to teach piano. That was optimism supreme.
Buenaventura, ColombiaJan. 14, 15, 16, 1950
We have gone into the coffee business in a rather big way. We are to take on 43,000 bags, about 150 pounds to the bag. That makes over 3,200 tons, or more than enough to run Margaret and Frances over Labor Day.
This town has perhaps 30,000 population. Some tell me it has 65,000, some as low as 10,000. You guess. I went around into town. It is about like Guayaquil on a smaller scale. A native who is employed by Grace Line told me he was half Indian—his mother a full-blooded Indian—I don't know what the other half is. Colombia, according to him, is 60 percent Negro and 10 percent white. Spanish is the language.
It happened here in Buenaventura, of all places, and on shipboard. Something was said about Greencastle, Ind. A young Mrs. Burt and her husband were returning to the states after six years with the Kennicott Copper Co. in Chile. Mrs. Burt heard the remark and said her father and mother were both born in or near Greencastle. His name was Jack Reeves. He taught in the grade school in Greencastle. His mother was a Schafer. We knew her uncle, Frank Schafer.
We are tardy. We were to have sailed last evening (Sunday) at 6, then 9 p.m., then 6 a.m. today, then 9 a.m. The reason for the delay was too much coffee to load—and rain. I am told it rains here every day and that the annual rainfall is 360 odd inches.
We got away at 10 a.m. We are now on the high seas headed for where the Pacific discovered Balboa.
Canal Zone Jan. 18-21, 1950To The Graphic,Greencastle, Ind.
The ride to the Canal Zone was uneventful. Enroute, the question arose whether to stay with the ship and ride through the locks and canal to the east side to Cristobal, or to get off at Balboa and hunt our way to the Tivoli Hotel, as originally planned.
Two New Jersey doctors and their wives, the timber buying piano player and his wife and some of the ship's officers advised staying with the ship and then coming back here by train or bus, as suited best. Mr. and Mrs. Burt (nee Reeves) were also for sticking with the ship. All the women were going shopping on the Atlantic side for linens, ivory and oriental silks, etc. "at wonderful prices" (and they were—Tiffany prices). Then after dinner everybody was to go to a night club the two doctors' wives knew about. The ship's officers were ignored as to sailing time and matters of other unimportance to Grace Line stockholders.
We reversed ourselves and stayed with the ship.
I shall not try to describe the feats of engineering the building of the Panama Canal involved: Ridding the place of mosquitoes and malaria; damming the outlet of a river so the mean level of the new, partly man-made lake would be about 87 feet above the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans; making cuts of 100 feet or more in solid rock; dredging the channel so our ship drawing almost 30 feet could steam through.
Three giant locks on the Pacific side lifted us almost 30 feet per lock, so at the third lock we could sail out into first a winding canal and then into that tremendous lake whose new level left thousands of islands of its former jungle hill tops in size all the way from a few square feet to hundreds and probably thousands of acres. Studded all along were thousands of dead bare tree trunks and forks still sticking up out of the water, and some of those trees went by us not any too far off.
Entering an approach to the first lock, six electric "mules" (three on each side) would take hold of us by heavy wire cables, get us midway from the sides of the giant cement walls. We would creep along into the lock proper. There we were, way down there below the surface of the lock, with a monster set of double steel doors ahead barring our further progress. Another pair of steel doors would close behind us. No way to get out. Then the water below started bubbling and we started rising.
The way that lock filled with water was a marvel. All the Baptists in the Southern jurisdiction pumping simultaneously wouldn't have raised us the first foot in an hour. A young fellow standing at the rail with me said it took eight or 10 minutes and, after a rapid mental calculation, three million cubic feet of water. I made it 20 minutes and three billion cubic feet of water. The young man said he worked at the locks. Let's give him the benefit. So when I get home don't come bringing me a lot of authentic figures.
We got out into the canal and on into the lake and to the Atlantic locks, where the process was reversed and we were lowered about 87 feet. We docked after 7 p.m. We had started in about 9:30 a.m.
Now, for my advice. Go through it once by all means. Then never repeat. It becomes very monotonous and very hot. At times we only crept. The high temperature yesterday was 89. The low last night 77.
We went down the gang plank alone and unattended and into the early night and the arms of customs. He slapped on five blobs of glue, five stickers at the few remaining places for stickers and added five banker's initials and pronounced us pure and undefiled.
A Grace Line representative called and made a reservation for us at the Washington Hotel. An eager taxi cab driver loaded us and off we went.
All along I had been amazed at the size of the linen in South American hotel rooms. Some bath towels were as long as I was. At the Washington Hotel we got out of the 5x6 foot bath towel area. The cotton manufacturers hereabouts must have lost control over the Legislature.
We hied ourselves to the shopping rendezvous, with Aura May in the lead. With true feminine instinct and bird dog accuracy she never faltered a step as we hotfooted it down to the "shopping district" of a strange town. She said, "They should be right along about here." And sure enough, there, three doors on down, they were—every one of them—the two doctors' wives buried under the two biggest tablecloths. . .
Trading slowed down. The ship's passengers went back to stow packages and get ready to night club. They were to come to the Washington and pick up A.M. Nothing was said about me. They never came. The Santa Margarita, faithful to the winds of commerce, sailed at midnight.
The night before we had been put to sleep by the gentle roll of the Pacific. That night we went to sleep with the Atlantic beating at the foundations of our hotel—almost.
I knew the general manager of the Panama Railway. Met him through a college friend. . . The railroad people gave us passes. They would send the railroad "jitney" to our hotel to pick up the baggage and us to catch the 12 o'clock train for Balboa. They would have a van at Balboa to take us to the Tivoli hotel.
The train ride of 30 miles took about one and a quarter hours— diesel power. We came first class. The right-of-way was bound by wild banana, reed and semi-jungle. The road had a good many bridges, cuts, curves, considerable grade and evidently cost a good deal of money. No featherbedding, I was told, like our roads unfortunately have.
We stepped off the train at Balboa and into a car chauffeured by a cap with three letters on it; drove four or five blocks and when we got out at the Hotel Tivoli we were in Ancon. And right down there a block at the foot of the hill is Panama City—the relatively new Panama.
Where oh where have our two-letter corporation guardians gone? Those alleged evaders of the anti-trust laws, who have so faithfully shepherded us these thousands of miles through the mazes of Portuguese and Spanish gyrations and possible malefactions?
We registered and A.M. asked for mail. There was none.
"Are you sure."
"Yes!"
"Haven't we had a reservation here for two months?"
"No."
"Sure?"
"Yes!"
Later I came down and went through the same procedure with another man, with the same results. Not satisfied, I tackled another clerk. He went through the books. Yes, we had had a reservation, but hadn't shown up the proper day. "Any mail?" He rummaged around and threw out a handful, all but one for A.M., . . . also a card noting we had not arrived as per schedule and if we should arrive later to call a certain number.
We did. He was the faithful manager of one of our two faithful conservators. He came around and took us sight-seeing: Through the slums, good residential sections, up and down narrow crowded one-way streets and the Broadway of Panama (Fifth Avenue) past the Oriental stores.
He took us out to the ruins of old Panama—the original Panama. It is on a bluff seven or eight miles up the Pacific to the left of present Panama. The monks who laid it out had an eye to safety. Up there the Pacific deepens very slowly from the shore. The bottom is mud and a sort of quicksand. You can drag one leg after another out nearly a half mile before you get over your head. Invasion ships would have to anchor a long way out, and that would give the town more time to get ready for the assault. On each side and in back was impenetrable jungle.
In about 1560 they built a wooden church. It burned down. They built another and it burned. Then they really built a church—of stone. The walls of one part of that church still stand, say 60 feet high. Then a convent. Things were really going good. The town prospered and everybody was safe.
In 100 years or so here comes Henry Morgan. He really knew how to set a fire. He pillaged, killed, sacked and burned things— completely. He did such a complete job the monks lost heart and came to the present Panama and set out building again.
Old Panama is a shambles. Pieces of stone wall stand out everywhere, as do crumbled stone pillars of foundations. All is desolation. The ruins, I am told, extend far back into the present jungle. Nobody seems to care to preserve what is left. We drove the car into the convent. There were the square holes where floor supports of wooden beams used to enter.
We don't particularly like this hotel. It is a mammoth sort of a wooden building. Big rooms, high ceiling, big doors, big windows, big halls, big slow elevator, big bathrooms, all of wood and everything could stand painting. Somehow I feel if the termites would let go hands, the place would crumble. We are on the third floor and I hope no Henry Morgan comes along.
Sightseeing, we passed government buildings, government tile-roofed homes for canal workers and PXs. Whenever you see government property you see order and paint. You fellers up there are paying for it.
We went to the San Jose Church, one of the oldest in Panama. It contains the gold altar the priests painted black on the occasion of an invasion. The invaders thought it had no value and left it alone. It looked to me like it had a lot of gold leaf somebody had overlooked intentionally.
We went to where "Congress" was in session. Senators in white suits had their heads stuck out windows and were conversing in low important tones. Inside, one Senator was gesticulating and yelling at the top of his voice how he had saved and now was again saving the glorious country of Panama from bankruptcy and ruin. Our host, who knew heated Spanish, said the oratory had something to do with another sizable raise in salary.
Our last day, A.M. decided to do some shopping on foot and by herself. I made final preparations for our flight early in the morning to Mexico City. This done, I also went out on my own but not for the same purpose.
I had the National City Bank of New York branch bank in mind as one of my objectives; a bowl of Yardley's shaving soap as another; a shoe shine and a pair of shoe laces as two others. It is remarkable how many stores you can get into with good grace with that combination, if you are always careful to ask for the thing you feel sure they don't have. That opens the way gracefully for a pleasant conversation.
I gained friendly entrance to a world of places looking for the shaving soap, before I unexpectedly found it. That left the bank and the shoe laces to attain. The bank was a certainty, but in due time I actually became worried about brown shoe laces. I had asked in vain at too many places. Then all of a sudden my troubles were over—on ahead half a block was a sign, Florsheim Shoes.
I went to about where I thought shoe laces were located and asked the man for a pair of brown shoe laces. He answered he had none. He had black and white laces, but no browns. Brown shoes were outdated and always had been outdated. They were a thing a man of today was not using. The truth, so help me.
Shortly thereafter, still shoelaceless, I came to the National City branch, went in, introduced myself as a banker representing a bank that had had an account with the parent bank for over 50 years. The manager, a Mr. Cramer, was originally from Vermont, and therefore a hard man to crack, but the 50 years and the brown shoe lace trouble did the trick. He took me to lunch at the Union Club, a pretty nifty club quite near his bank and right against the Pacific Ocean. When we arrived the tide was out and the city's big cement sewer tiles were exposed for a quarter of a mile out. After lunch, which was delayed by three or four different kinds of rum, the rum or something had pulled the tide in and all the tiles were covered with water.
We got the brown shoe laces at a cobbler's shop, but they did have to dig under a big pile of old scrap leather and shoe shop saw dust to get them.
In late mid-afternoon our big corporation host and his wife came to take us to one of the nearby jungles about 20 miles out. Not big like the Brazilian jungles, but thick as a new bride's potato peelings. The new highway now crosses the old Spanish Trail, which is in a part of that jungle. The Trail was laid out to cross the isthmus to get to the Atlantic. And there it was, round rocks and all. Not in good repair, of course, but a trace of what it once was.
The Trail was made for a purpose. The Spaniards would go down to Peru and rob the Incas. Then they would make slaves of some of them and bring them and the gold and other loot by ship to Panama. Then make the slaves carry the booty over that Trail to Puerto Bello on the Atlantic side, where the king's representatives would take their "cut". The balance went to Spain, as I have heretofore told you.
Our host wanted us to try some coconut water when we got back to town. The proprietor took two green coconuts out of the box, cut the ends off of each with a hatchet, reamed out a core into the hollow inside where the water is, set the nuts on the table and stuck soda water straws in the holes. The rest was up to us. . . It isn't particularly bad. There isn't much taste to it. Sort of insipid, like water in southwest Kansas in summer.
Our host took us to his home. I knew all along there was a good deal to this young fellow. His conversation was too bright and keen. His wit was too original, and to the point. . . But the house! Holy Nellie, what a house!! I presume it was his father's. However that may be, our host and his wife also lived there. Wrought iron grillwork, tile floors, furniture, rugs, silver and china tableware, oil paintings.
I shall try to describe just one item—a heavy, closely and beautifully woven wool rug that hung on one of the big walls. It had to be about 20x14 or 16 feet, and perhaps two inches thick. It was a reproduction of the Seal of West Point—eagle, arrows, colors and all. The names of the father and three boys were woven in the rug. It was made by Ecuador Indians who had only a post card to guide them, together with dimensions supplied by the father. Those Indians could not read and were otherwise as primitive as could be. But they knew how to weave and they knew their colors and keen eyes gave them the proportions.
Let me give you a part of the fellow's pedigree, verified by a banker of good repute—if the latter is possible. He, his two brothers and his father are all graduates of West Point. His father was ambassador to the United States from Ecuador. And his paternal grandfather was a former president of the Republic of Ecuador.
Yesterday (Jan. 21) we flew from Panama City. It took all day. The going was bad enough all along, but over high ridges and mountains or deep valleys it overdid things way too far. Somebody said wind currents caused it.
Then too, I saw what I thought were three loose screws sticking up on the wing on my side. I watched them closely, what time I wasn't getting things back level or watching that infernal electric sign up ahead that advised, "Tighten seat belt." It was the only honest thing about the ship—it never overstated.
The loose screws worried me considerably, so I went over and looked at the other wing, but they had them over there too. All looked of the same size, spaced alike, and equally rusted, so I didn't move over. One side was as good as the other.
Going up and coming down they gave us gum to chew. In a place such as I was, I always obeyed the stewardess or anybody in a blue suit and white cap. Chewing gum would, along with yawning, keep our ears from stopping up—maybe. Something went wrong. All of a sudden it came to me that everything had become absolutely quiet, like walking around in new snow. I listened for the roar of the motors. They had stopped. We were in a pickle. I turned to Aura May and said something, but I couldn't hear what I said.
It took a lot of gum chewing, yawning and calisthenics at the next stop to get partially unstopped. And my jaws are tired and sore. I'm not a regular gum-chewer.
We got off the ground early in the morning, circled over Panama City and the ocean, then back over land and a densely forested area. The tree tops looked like closely packed mushroom buttons, only the colors were varying shades of green. I couldn't see a field, road or house, and only rarely a stream.
Our first stop was at Managua, capital of Nicaragua. We went overLake Nicaragua, a big lake.
We set down next at San Salvador. We approached it over comparatively level terrain. Thatched houses and cultivated fields were thick. The airport was as neat and nice as I have seen. It served coffee and shoeshines free. But I almost got caught.
Alligator bags are the vogue there. Aura May rather liked one. Just to test the man I asked the price. To my amazement he said $18. I said too much. He said, "What you give?" I said, $10. Before it was over, he was down to $12.50 and I was getting panicky. He was too close. I shook my head. He shook his. I left without looking back and never did go around that part of the building thereafter.
We next set down at Guatemala, with a two and a half hour wait. We hired a taxi and went to town. Enroute we passed two small coffee plantations. The driver told us Guatemala coffee was the finest in the world. They said the same thing at Santos and everywhere else, particularly Buenaventura and its mocha coffee.
We went to the presidential palace and got in. It's a fine place for the size and wealth of the country. Particularly the tile and stained glass murals depicting historical scenes of Guatemala. Splendid features were enormous glass chandeliers with prismatic glass tassels, and mahogany woodwork and floors of the banquet and reception rooms. The outside walls and windows had considerable bullet marks depicting the various revolutions the country had undergone. Also something to see is the one-piece table-top, sides, lower shelf and legs, with its intricate carvings, behind which the dictator of the day presides, listening to the wham of bullets outside.
The hillside Indian market took my eye. I yelled, "Whoa," and jumped out and got right in among them—kids, dogs, squatting women, tied-up hens, herbs, overripe bananas and other fruits, baskets, blankets, dolls, piles of yams, some pretty bony meats and a world of other things. To progress, you had to step over, through or around whatever was in front of you. I was making fair progress when our wild-eyed driver caught up and told me it was no place for me to be. My English caught the ear of a nearby fellow who had lost his wife and kid somewhere in the market. He was a House of God missionary from near Abilene, Texas, and had been down almost a month. We hit it up fine. The driver shrugged his shoulders and followed along. For my part, I had a pretty good time. The trip cost me five dimes and three nickels. I kept the quarter, had a good following, and everybody was on my side except the driver.
At the airport I ran into more trouble. The manager was paging me in an accent I never heard before. Aura May caught it. He told me a bottle of whiskey had broken in one of our bags and had leaked all over everything near. They didn't know what damage had been done or how I had broken the bottle.
"How I had broken the bottle?" I said. "Besides, I had no whiskey in any bag. Are you sure it was whiskey? Where is the bag?"
"It smells like whiskey," he said. "The bag has been transferred to the Mexico City plane. It is about time to leave. We admit the liability. We have made out the form. Just sign here."
"What amount did you fill in for the damage?" I asked.
"We left that blank to fill in later. We will do that for you."
We finally agreed he would radio their representative in Mexico City, and when we go through customs there we could all have a look.
Up from Guatemala we ran into higher and higher mountains and rougher and rougher land below. In time, Mt. Popocatepetl, 17,500-odd feet high, loomed in the distance, as did Mt. Ixtaccihuatl, a trifle lower. Now, you don't pass old Popo like you do an unattended traffic light on a bright Sunday morning. She stays in sight for a long time.
We grounded just before dark. In customs we opened up for all to see and smell. People would go by, catch a whiff and raise their eyes just like they were experiencing a sensation of "My Sin" toilet water. It was a broken bottle of Chilean wine some stranger had put in the wrong bag—maybe.
Years ago, I learned something. Our railroads never kill anything except thoroughbred stock. That bottle of wine was nestled inside my brand new tuxedo, next to my brown suit and one of the Haspel tropicals and two or three of Aura May's dresses. Kindly tell Central Insurance Agency.
Saturday, we flew say 1,500 miles here from intense heat to comparative cold. We are 7,500 feet up. This room in the Geneva Hotel is none too hot. It has heat of course, but they don't turn it on enough. Electricity is rationed or something.
Today, Sunday, Aura May went to see the people she lived with when in school here three or four years ago, and they had quite a reunion. These Mexicans are that way if they like you.
I hunted up another native market and had another good time. Two or three blocks of sidewalk have been partly boxed in with old corrugated metal roofing and partly left open to walk along. Hot tamales, fruits of all kinds, women cooking rather dirty looking meats and foods over rusted, greasy home made charcoal burners. I saw sheep heads with the wool on at one place and stood around to learn what disposition of them was being made, but no customers came along.
We had been warned to drink no water or milk and to eat nothing like lettuce or strawberries, in fact to eat nothing that does not have a peeling on it. Anything out of a corked bottle is all right.
To The Graphic,Greencastle, Ind.
In Mexico City, we thought our string of rare good fortune had at last run out. But no. On Monday morning the manager of one of those heartwarming two corporations called to say he had just returned to town, and that a car and driver were at our disposal day and night for the one-week period of our stay.
That was the third time I had heard the combination "day and night" inserted in the conversation. It made me wonder whether some of my predecessors—old buzzards in their late 30s like me— had come down and vainly attempted to rejuvenate their youth with a pop gun burst of night life activity, or whether it was just a Latin American way of expressing an all out attitude toward guests. I found them a good deal that way as I went along.
That afternoon our driver showed up—capless and uniformless—but whatever he may have lacked in uniform, he made up for in ability, knowledge and intelligence. He was a wonder. He seemed to know everybody and what their weaknesses were—custodians, policemen, lottery ticket vendors, car watchers and parking place attendants. Known and liked by everybody, he probably hadn't a single enemy in town.
For instance, the cap of my shoe and the rest of the shoe had parted company. Did he know where a shoe sewing machine could be found? That may sound trite to you as we were in a city of 3 million people, but in Mexico City machines are as rare as bad women in Greencastle. Everything is hand work. All he said was, "We go." We did, a mile or two. The price was 50 centavos—a trifle over five cents in our money.
We looked around a big jewelry store. I happened to see a little sterling silver fork, the sort of thing you use to spear out olives and cherries or jab into canapes. The thing that caught my eye was that on the end of the handle was a rooster—good old Democratic stuff. It seems that a rooster in Mexico means something national—at least not political as we know it. I asked the saleswoman the price. She told me. I asked how much by the dozen. She multiplied by 12. Six dozen? She multiplied the last figure by six. I said, "Thank you," and turned to go.
Back at the car, we were talking about the forks and the design on them. Our trusty driver evidently caught the drift, because he said, "I think I know silver factory, Cheaper. We go?"
We did. How could I pass up a silver factory? There they were by the hundreds—roosters and all. Our driver went in with us. The price? It was considerably less for one than the other place. How much for a dozen? It was some less than 12 times the price of one. How much for five dozen? Some less than five times the dozen price. Fortunately, some people from Evansville came along just at the right time and I moved off.
In due time our faithful driver sidled up and said, "I get you 10% off your price."
My main idea had been to see a silver factory, but there is always a time to quit bluffing, even though you started out more or less in fun. I said, "Go buy them."
And so, I have 60 roosters. Even so, they're much cheaper than 60 roosters on the hoof.
Enrique is the name of our driver. He is a Colombian. Where and how and when he acquired his knowledge and information is probably a mystery even to his employers. Enrique is a philosopher too. His hobbies are art, fine homes and buying lottery tickets.
Enrique is thoroughly up on his churches, and there are lots of them in Mexico as well as all South America. He said the Basilica of Guadelupe was the richest in the New World, and one of the oldest. It is in the old part of town. We arrived during Mass. Hundreds were attending that afternoon. The altar is a massive structure, and evidently of tremendous value. In back is a mural the Pope gave the church for its success in extending the faith. Enrique got hold of a boy who unlocked the doors of a big wall case and showed us the gold service of the church.
We had parked the car at the side. When we left, Enrique gave some money to a man, not exactly a policeman, but somehow connected. I asked what it was for. He shrugged and said, "Graft. If I had not given him money he would have spotted the car and the next time he would have damaged it in some way. These fellows are bad that way."
We drove next day to the pyramids—quite a distance from town. The temple or shrine to the snake gods is something to see. Made entirely of stone masonry, the outside is adorned with those famous protruding gargoyles, still in a reasonably good state of preservation. The masonry is excellent. On top was a sacrificial altar where Enrique told us thousands of human beings, mostly women, were beheaded from time to time to appease the snakes. Troughs led down and to each side, where two sizable wells at last stopped and held the flow of blood.
The high stone walls of the fort enclosed an area of a good many acres. The walls are more or less hollow because the priests lived inside and thought up new and more vicious ways and means of torturing a simple people.
No one seems to know who built the pyramids, or when. They were erected prior to the advent of the Aztecs, 1,500 to 3,000 years ago. The Pyramid of the Sun is 200 feet high and big around in proportion. Its building entailed millions of man hours. The Temple to the Moon is much lower and smaller, but at that was no after school hours chore.
One afternoon Enrique suggested he show us some fine homes, but I suggested we go out among the Indians and the poorer peoples' markets.
He said, "Maybe you like to go to the Thieves Market, where they sell stolen goods and pick your pockets." . . . We could drive slowly, and stop now and then, and see from the car. . .
The street was crowded. Everything that wasn't old was shoddy. If all that stuff had been stolen goods, it would have taken the entire population months to have actually stolen the articles, and when they got done the value of the whole thing would have been in the low thousands of dollars. No the Thieves Market in my opinion is a part of the "dress" of Mexico City. The words sound mysterious and dangerous, and give the tourists a shot in the arm. Still I was glad I had taken Enrique's advice and kept to the car. Six or eight dirty hands in my pocket could have left enough germs to have contaminated everybody west of Stilesville.
We also encountered a singer and serenader and his band who assembled around our car and played for us for five pesos (less than 60 cents) a song. We had five fiddles, one cornet, three whopping big guitars, two regular size guitars and one mandolin. I was asked what I wanted. I suggested "The Fire Scene" from Wagner or Lilly Pon's latest song, but they didn't know those so I told them anything purely Mexican. . . It was what I would call a big Carnegie Hall success. We left amid profuse thanks.
I thought a change might not be a bad idea. We drove into what he said was the finest residential district—very fine and elaborate homes. The proportion will not equal that of any American city. The proportion of poor and poverty stricken people is high here. The most striking feature of these homes to me is the extravagant use of wrought iron grillwork in the openings in the walls surrounding the premises and the framing of all windows and gates. The designs are intricate. These homes are built with the idea of exclusion. It is hard to see the grounds unless a gate or doors are left open. Enrique would stop very candidly where there was an opening. What we saw was always immaculately kept. Labor is cheap.
Enrique saved "the three finest homes in Mexico" for last. They were really fine homes. And they were big of course. One was built by a rich Spanish merchant, the other two by politicians, both of whom at one time or another had been connected with the Treasury of Mexico. Quite a coincidence I thought—best two out of three.
End of:Title: Epistles from Pap: Letters from the man known as 'The WillRogers of Indiana'
Author: Andrew E. Durham. Compiled by J. Frank Durham, Edited byDouglas Hay. Copyright 1997. Permission granted to ProjectGutenberg to publish as a copyrighted etext April 10, 2000 byJFD. Guild Press of Indiana, Carmel, Indiana, 1997.