Author: Lynda Jones

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Remembering The Boys Of Summer

When I was growing up in the 1950’s, we lived across the street from St. Peter’s Catholic School and playground. There were a lot of boys around my age who liked to play baseball and by late morning, we usually had six or eight kids ready to play ball. 

Leo Fortier was not available until after 11:00. Leo’s dad worked for the post office and had to get up at 4:30 in the morning. Leo’s mother, on the other hand, was a night owl. She made Leo stay up every night until midnight, watching the Jack Parr show. Leo would tell us the next day everything that Hermione Gingold or Charlie Weaver said. We couldn’t have cared less.

Since we only had three or four kids on a side, we had local rules to make the games competitive. Any hits to right field was an out. Each team had a pitcher, a shortstop and a left fielder. Since there was no first baseman, if a fielder threw the ball to the pitcher before the runner got to first base, the hitter was out. This was known as “Pitcher’s Hand Out.”

The batting team supplied the catcher and also the back-up catcher. The playground was higher than the street, and if the catcher missed the ball it would roll down the hill about a quarter of a block.

There was always a lot of arguing about balls and strikes, and if the pitcher caught the ball before the batter got to first. Did the catcher drop the ball on purpose when there was a play at home plate? The arguments were endless.

St. Peter’s had a baseball team and it was usually pretty good. Tryouts were during Holy Week (Easter vacation) and in 1956, I tried out for the outfield. Since I was a short, skinny sixth grader, a slow runner with a weak throwing arm, and seldom caught a fly ball that was right to me, I didn’t make the team that year.

The next year, 1957, I tried out again. I was still short and skinny, slow with a weak arm, but now I could catch most of the fly balls that were hit right to me. That was not enough. I didn’t make the team that year, either.

North St. Paul had a summer league. The St. Peter’s team was the Dodgers. The local American Legion Club sponsored the Braves, and I decided to try out for the Braves. I didn’t make that team, either, because my father was not a member of the American Legion.

Hy Ettle was the Braves coach. He told us kids who didn’t make the team that we should come to all the practices and if someone quit, we could get his uniform and be on the team. Hy was a local realtor so he was able to call practices during the day. These were usually on Tuesday and Thursday afternoon, at 1:00.

We would all ride our bikes down to the field behind Main Street and be waiting for Hy at 1:00. Hy never showed up for these practices, so we would then jump back on our bikes and ride up the alley to the American Legion Hall. We went in the back door and there was Hy, sitting at the bar with a shot and a beer in front of him.

“Oh,” he said. “Is it 1:00 already? The gear is in the trunk of my Cadillac. Take it to the field. I’ll be down in a half hour. If I don’t get there, just leave everything and I’ll pick it up on my way home.”

After the third game of season, Craig Longfellow didn’t show up. Hy said to me, “Do you know where Longfellow lives?”

“Sure,”  I said.

“Looks like he quit. Go over there and pick up his uniform. You’re on the team.”

Our pitcher that year was Don Arlich. He was a big left-hander who could throw the ball harder than anyone in town. He had a curve ball that no one could hit, and he hit the ball a mile. We won every game until he left for New York and the Boy Scout Jamboree. Mike O’Reilly was the catcher and he went to New York, too.

That left my friend, Leo Fortier, as the catcher, and I was the defensive replacement in right field in the last innings. Hy Ettle had a rule that if one of your parents came to the game, you would get to play.

Leo was short like me. He was fat, while I was skinny, but he could still run faster and throw the ball farther than I could. But he still couldn’t throw the ball from home to second base if a runner was stealing the base. The plan was for him to throw the ball back to the pitcher, who would then turn and throw to the short-stop for the out. It never worked. The runner was always safe.

In one of our games, there was a pop-up behind home plate. Leo flipped his mask off and started running to catch the ball. Unfortunately, he stepped  into his mask and fell flat on his face.

Hy told Leo, “ Next time this happens, stand up and find where the ball is, then throw your mask the other way and go catch the ball.”

Luckily, Leo had another chance in the next game. He stood up, saw the ball, but in his haste he threw off his glove and stood there with his mask on.

We didn’t win a single game when Don Arlich was gone. When he came back for the last few games of the season. Mike O’Reilly had quit and another kid got his uniform. Leo was a permanent replacement as catcher. He came back to the bench after every inning with tears streaming down his cheeks, his left hand all red and swollen from catching Don’s fastball and curve.

In 1958, now in the eighth grade, I finally made the St. Peter’s baseball team. Leo Fortier never played baseball after seventh grade. He concentrated on golf and tennis. I haven’t seen him for over fifty years, but I understand that he is realtor, much like our coach, Hy Ettle.                                                         ~Bob Jones

Bob Jones is a retired dentist. He still plays softball in the Roseville Senior Softball League. He has played on a team every year since 1962. Bob is still short, but not skinny any more. He still roams in right field. He’s still a slow runner with a bad arm, but he catches most of the fly balls that are hit right to him. 

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Max Hein Scores Again!

My grandson’s name is Maxfield, but everyone calls him Max. Born six weeks premature, he is one tough dude. Max weighed just three pounds when he was born. He was determined to make it. And he did. 

I came home from Mexico soon after Max was born and rented an apartment close enough to walk to the hospital every day. I looked at him through the incubator and watched his skinny little chest rise and fall with every breath. I marveled at the number of tubes in his tiny body. I told him that I was proud of him. I always will be.

As a little boy, Max had asthma but that didn’t stop him. One day Jason was driving home from work and spotted a little boy up in a tree, where he obviously didn’t belong. As  he turned the corner, the boy fell out of the tree, dusted himself off and walked away. That’s Max.

When he was in elementary school, Max went to a week-long, sleep-away camp for children with asthma. The motto of the camp was” “No excuses, no adaptations, no whining” (or something like that.) Max, of course, loved it.

Up in the mountains, high above Denver, Max went hiking, kayaking and swimming. He tried archery and lacrosse for the first time. He played baseball, slept in a cabin and made friends with everyone. That’s Max.  

Max has so much athletic ability, I wonder if he really belongs in our family. He looks a lot like Jason did as a little boy, except with jet black hair and dark chocolate eyes.  Max is one of those children who learns a new sport just by watching.

In elementary school, he took gymnastic lessons and wowed both me and his instructor with his ability to do tricks the first time he tried. In middle school, he ran track and easily sprinted to the finish line at every meet. If Max were a race horse, he would come from behind in every race and win the Triple Crown.

Max has played baseball every summer since joining an Aurora Recreation team in third grade. He runs like the wind and easily slides into base. Max goes home from every game with the dirtiest white pants on his team. When he’s not covering first base or the outfield, he pitches.

In his free time, Max likes to go to Skate City and roller blade for hours. He’s also a great dancer. One time he tried to teach me to “floss” ~ the dance move, not my teeth. 

Max has boundless energy and a happy disposition. He loves his family and his friends. Max turns fourteen on June 1st. FOURTEEN! Next year he will be in high school. That tiny baby is now taller than I am. His hands and feet are bigger than Jason’s. 

I know Max misses his Mom. Kortnee died when Max was in third grade. I asked Max what he missed most about her. “Her hugs,” was his answer. I’m sure that’s true. Now Max, like his Mom, is a great “hugger.” A hug from Max feels like warm sun on a cold winter day.

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Doc ~ A Tribute To My Father

They called him “Doc.”  As a Pharmacist Mate 3, my father was the highest ranking medical officer on his ship ~ an LST (Tank Landing Ship) used during WWII.

Dad graduated from pharmacy college at the University of Minnesota in June, 1941. Pearl Harbor was attacked six months later. My father knew he didn’t want to be drafted into the Army, so he enlisted in the Navy in June, 1942. He was twenty-four years old.

Dad did not go through traditional “boot camp” but was sent, instead, for medical training at the Great Lakes Naval Hospital, north of Chicago. His first assignment was the Brooklyn Naval Hospital and my mother joined him there.

My father was transferred to Geneva, New York, where I was born in May. In June, 1943, Dad was sent to Maryland for amphibious training and my mother and I went to live with Dad’s family in St. Paul.

Dad was assigned to LST 492. It would be his home for the next two years. The ship was commissioned on December 8, 1943 and immediately sailed to England, to prepare for the first wave on Omaha Beach, June 6, 1944. 

The following is from an article written by David Chrisinger, published in the New York Times Magazine, June 5, 2019:

“Most of the men in the first wave never stood a chance. In the predawn darkness of June 6, 1944, thousands of American soldiers crawled down swaying cargo nets and thudded into steel landing craft bound for the Normandy coast.”

My father’s ship was one of those landing crafts. When they reach Normandy, the doors to the LST swung open. Tanks, and soldiers rolled into the ocean. As a medical officer, my father stay on the ship with the other sailors, waiting to treat wounded American soldiers and German prisoners of war.

“Allied troops kept landing, wave after wave, and by midday they had crossed the 300 yards of sandy killing ground, scaled the bluffs and overpowered the German defenses. By the end of the day, the beaches had been secured and the heaviest fighting had moved at least a mile inland.

In the biggest and most complicated amphibious operation in military history, it wasn’t bombs, artillery or tanks that overwhelmed the Germans; it was men — many of them boys, really — slogging up the beaches and crawling over the corpses of their friends that won the Allies a toehold at the western edge of Europe.” ~ David Chrisinger

This week  I came across a letter, written by Lt. Commander, Ralph Newman, commander of the LST 492, to my mother on July 4, 1944:

“Dear Mrs. Jones, I would like to take this opportunity to write a few words about your husband, Robert. We point with some pride to the record of the good old 492. No one has so much as broken a little finger. And no one has more friends than Bob. The “doc” has the respect of his officers and shipmates, alike.’

From Normandy, the LST 492 traveled to North Africa, Italy and Sicily, with German POW’s still onboard. On August 15, 1944, the ship was part of the second D-Day invasion, Operation Dragoon, an assault against German forces in Southern France that eventually led to the liberation of Paris.

After leaving the  south of  France in September, 1944, the LST 492 was assigned to the Pacific fleet and traveled to Hawaii, Guam, the Philippines and the Wake Islands. The ship was based in Okinawa. Japan, as bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

When asked about his feelings about the atom bomb, my father wrote, “I felt relieved that the war was going to be terminated and I could return to my family and my normal lifestyle. I was happy only for myself. I had no feelings for the eventual consequences of it. I suppose that was selfish. Now I don’t believe it was justified.”

After the war, my father returned to Minnesota and his family. He seldom spoke of his time in the Navy. He went to work at Swanson Drug in St. Paul, where he worked as a pharmacist for almost forty-five years. 

My father has always been a kind-hearted, quiet man. I can’t imagine how difficult war must have been for him. But he was also a man who always did what he was called upon to do. Later, reflecting back on his time in the Navy, my father commented that  he felt that WWII was necessary to defeat Hitler. But overall, he was opposed to all wars. He believed they were  “senseless.”

Every year, on Memorial Day, my father took his trumpet out of its case, stood outside in the dark, and played Taps. I know he was thinking of his days on the LST 492,  as those sweet sounds floated through the air for all the neighbors to hear. 

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Chance ~ A Boy With Magic In His Heart

Some children are born with a touch of magic . My oldest grandson, Connor, believed in leprechauns. My youngest one, Max,  believed in Elf on the Shelf. Chance, my middle grandson IS a leprechaun and the Christmas Elf, rolled into one.

Chance is cute and charming, with an incredibly kind heart and a vivid imagination. As an only child, Chance’s best friend has always been his creativity. An early, voracious reader, he devoured fantasy books. While other students were kicking a soccer ball around the playground at recess, Chance and his friends were playing elaborate games that involved dragons, heroes and villains. 

I once asked Chance what he wanted to be when he grew up. “A librarian and a spy,” was his answer. “That’s good,” I thought. I’ve met a number of librarians who had the same double major.

For a while, Chance wanted to be a pirate, after playing the part of the drunken sailor, Mr. Smee, in his preschool rendition of Peter Pan.

Some years later, Chance came to Mexico with his parents and met up with me and Neto in Sayulita. While his parents were swimming in the ocean, Chance stayed back with us. He put his hand on Neto’s knee and said, “Someday I’m going to build a pirate ship that flies through the sky. Only special people can get on board. But you two ~ you will definitely be part of my crew.”

The highlight of my summers, when Chance was little, were the weeks he spent with me while he attended camp at the Denver Zoo and the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. One summer I told him I wanted to build a fairy garden, and he was “all-in.” We went to the local nursery to pick out a fairy castle. Chance dug through his stash of miniature cars and found a golf cart and a convertible to add to the mix. We installed a tiny bird bath, an outdoor table, and some benches. Every year, when I set up the fairy garden again, I think of Chance and smile. 

In middle school, Chance went to a week-long camp at UC-Boulder and again stayed with me. We spent a couple nights in Boulder, rather than make the drive to and from Aurora every day. What fun! Our apartment was designed to look like a tree-house, complete with a swing suspended from the ceiling. We felt like two birds, high up in the trees. It was a perfect get-away for a boy with a vivid imagination and his grandmother, who sometimes likes to pretend she’s a bird, too.  

Chance  lives in Fraser, with his parents, Garth and Bethany, and goes to Middle Park High School in Granby. He studies hard, operates the sound board for school plays, and volunteers  in his community. He holds down a job washing dishes at a local restaurant, skis in the winter and rides his mountain bike in the summer. In his spare time ~ meager that it is ~ he collects Magic Cards and goes to Magic Card game nights with his friends.

Next year, Chance will be a high school senior. I love our FaceTime calls. Chance reads my blog every week and he is my go-to person for computer help. He’s thinking about where he wants to go to college and may go somewhere far away. I will miss him.

Wherever the journey takes him, I know that Chance will thrive. He will work hard and maintain his kind, generous spirit. I hope he keeps his imagination alive. I hope that Neto and I will always be part of his pirate crew.

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The Woman Who Lived In a Little House

My mother, Marianne Jones, grew up in North St. Paul, Minnesota. Her father, my grandfather, was a huge, strong German man ~  the oldest of eight children. His parents were early pioneer farmers in St. Paul. When his father died at an early age, my grandfather was left in charge of the farm and the younger children. He valued hard-work and saving money. He was a distant, loud, often difficult man.

Grandpa and Grandma were married when he was twenty-six and she was eighteen. He started a successful sauerkraut and pickle factory that same year, but his heart wasn’t in it. After sixteen years of running the factory, he sold the business and bought a farm. By this time, he had six strong sons and two daughters, including my mother, who was the youngest.

My grandmother was the sixth oldest of ten children. Her brothers were fun-loving, charming, and often irresponsible with money, which infuriated my grandfather. My grandparents argued a lot of the time, usually about money and raising children.

My grandfather worried constantly and was a harsh disciplinarian. My grandmother was in poor health, and often worn-out from cooking, cleaning and raising eight children. Although there was always enough food and warm clothing, the children learned to look elsewhere for attention and affection.

My mother reported  that her early life was good, however, because she enjoyed being with her brothers and playing with all the animals on the farm. She liked to roam the fields and pretend she was running away from home.

When my mother was ten years old, her older brother, Frank, age sixteen, died of a ruptured  appendix. My mother wrote: After that everything seemed to change. Frank was a sensitive, intelligent boy whom everyone loved. My mother grieved a great deal and my father became morose. He seemed to feel that everything was against him.

As was typical at that time, my mother’s family never referred to this tragedy.  My mother felt especially guilty when she remembered that one time she took a nickel from Frank’s piggy bank. 

My mother was a good student. She loved being in school plays and had a beautiful singing voice. She was outgoing, with a good sense of humor, and she had a lot of friends.. She remarked that she could have done better, academically, but knew that college was out of the question for her, so she concentrated on having fun instead.

This is my mother’s memory of meeting my father: When I was seventeen, and a senior in high school, I met the man I was to marry. He was playing his trumpet in a three-piece combo in one of the local hangouts. I can picture him now as I saw him then ~ on a platform high above us, magnificent in his black tuxedo with a blue cumber bun, blowing his trumpet and setting the pace for the Saturday night celebrators. I was out with his best friend and we were making our last stop of the evening. Is there a fate that destines our future? I think so. Is there love at first sight? I know there is. This particularly beautiful human being was the answer to my prayers.”

My father’s family was very different from my mother’s. Dad was raised in a middle-class family, in which every child went to college. My mother’s family were farmers, often with dirt under their fingernails. My father’s family were gentle people, while my mother smoked cigarettes and swore like a sailor (but never in front of my grandparents!) Dad was emotional, and cried easily. My mother wouldn’t shed a tear.

My parents loved each other and never argued. My mother appreciated that my Dad worked hard and gave her a good life, filled with thoughtful gifts and trips to interesting places. But she knew that my father’s family never truly accepted her. The fact that my personality was more like my father’s and not much like hers, created friction between us.

My father died when he was seventy-nine and my mother was seventy-five. From that day forward, she considered herself old and frail. She went to the doctor and asked for handicapped license plates. When the doctor said, “Marianne, I don’t know what your handicap is,” she answered, “put down that I’m old.” She was younger than I am now!

Mom taught me a lot. She taught me to work hard, to cook and to sew. She had an exceedingly fine mind for politics. She loved watching the news, especially CNN and C-Span.

Mom was supportive when I told her I was moving to Denver. She came to visit me every year and my boys spent summers in Minnesota while they were were growing up. Mom was excited when I told her I was moving to Mexico, and twice she came to visit me while I was there.

My mother died of pneumonia at the age of 96. She knew she was dying. She told her doctors to take her off antibiotics and let her die in peace. By the time I reached her, she was already unconscious. I hope she was able to hear me when held her hand and told her I loved her. I always will.

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Happy Birthday, Garth!

Most people, I believe, don’t really know what love is until they have their first child. People without children maybe experience the same joy when they first fall in love, or adopt a wonderful pet, or climb a mountain. I hope so.

For me, the first time I looked at my baby, Garth, on May 8, 1969, my heart exploded. I thought I knew what love was. I loved his father, but this love was different. When Garth was born, I would never be the same person again. I became a person who thought about him, day and night. A person who wanted only the best for him ~ even if I didn’t always know what that was. A person who would kill a mountain lion, if necessary, to keep him safe.

Jim and I lived in Idledale, Colorado, a small town in the foothills near Denver. Beginning May 1st, it rained every day. Flash floods caused the creek to overflow and flood the only road into Denver. Because I was close to my due date, the doctor suggested we find a place to stay in Denver, rather than taking a chance on not being able to get to a hospital in time. 

The afternoon of May 7th, I saw a doctor for early labor pains. The doctor thought maybe it was a false alarm and told Jim to take me out to dinner and get me a few “stiff drinks.” 

“If this is not true labor, the alcohol will stop the pain. If it really is labor, come back and we’ll deliver the baby.” 

Remember, this was 1969. Times have changed! Back then women drank and even smoked when they were pregnant. There was no way to know the gender of the baby, until s/he was born. “Natural childbirth” wasn’t a serious consideration until later, in the 1970’s.

Jim and I had a nice meal and a few drinks. Maybe I wasn’t actually drunk, but I certainly wasn’t sober, when we  walked into Jim’s parents’ house in Denver. At three in the morning, I awoke in full-blown labor and still tipsy. We checked into the hospital and Garth was born a few hours later. 

Garth was an easy, fun boy to raise. He grew up fast. He watched his little brother when I was working. He worked hard in school. At the age of thirteen, he took a bus ride from Denver to Minnesota by himself, changing bus stations in Des Moines. He went to work as a cook at a golf course when he was fourteen ~ a job he kept throughout high school. When my back gave out on a trip to the 1984 Olympics. Garth drove us all the way to Los Angeles and back to Denver, with just his learner’s permit. 

In many ways, Garth was lucky he inherited the genes he did. He has my ability to organize stuff and his father’s ability to fix things. Thank goodness it wasn’t the other way around! With his ready smile and quick wit, Garth is one of the funniest people I know.

Now Garth works as  an engineer with the Aurora Fire Department and drives a really big truck. He lives in Winter Park, where he skis in the winter and races mountain bikes in the summer. He is a good husband to Bethany, and a good father to  Chance. In his free time, he’s a volunteer DJ with the Winter Park public radio station. 

Garth was born fifty-two years ago. To me, he will always be that baby who stole my heart the day the doctor announced, “It’s a boy!”

Happy Birthday, Garth! You’ve always made me proud.

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Subversive To The End

I’ve written before about some of the more colorful branches on my family tree. Probably my most famous relative is Jeanne Audrey Powers, the first woman ordained an elder in the United Methodist church. 

Unlike my wild Irish uncles, Jeanne Audrey will be remembered for her many good deeds. Unlike my Irish uncles, she never went to jail, was never chased by the FBI, and was, frankly, not nearly as interesting.

Born in 1932 in Mankato, Minnesota, Jeanne Audrey was eleven years older than I was. We have the same great-grandfather, Evan David Jones, who immigrated from Wales. Our grandfathers were brothers. Her mother and my father were first cousins, but they didn’t see each other very often.

Jeanne Audrey lived with her mother, Florence Powers, her two unmarried aunts, Edna and Grace Jones, and her grandmother, Lizzie Jones, in a big house in Mankato, MN. I don’t know what happened to her father. Now, with a renewed interest in genealogy, I might try to find out.

One of my only memories of Jeanne Audrey was at the wedding of my Aunt Shirley. My brother, Bob, and I were part of the wedding. I was six years old and Bob was almost five. It was a large, beautiful wedding. Shirley carried  a huge bouquet of peonies as she walked down the aisle ~ flowers picked from my grandfather’s huge peony garden. Bob and I were both dressed in white and looked cute, except for the black eye on my brother’s face, the result of me slamming the front door on him the day before the wedding. 

The wedding reception was at my grandparent’s home. Bob and I were playing in the back yard, swinging on a big four-person swing that went back and forth, faster and faster, higher and higher, until Jeanne Audrey came to tell us that we needed to stop. She reprimanded us for misbehaving at a wedding. And, to make matters worse, we were having fun all dressed up in wedding clothes. 

Jeanne Audrey must have been wicked smart. After getting her bachelor of science degree at Mankato State University in 1954, she studied theology at Princeton and the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. She also took graduate courses in England, Switzerland and Boston University School of Theology.

I didn’t follow Jeanne Audrey’s career. My family didn’t talk about her very much, although she lived nearby in Minneapolis. I recently read that she was nominated to be a bishop in the Methodist church in 1972 and 1976. Although it was considered an extremely rare honor for a woman to be ordained a bishop, Jeanne Audrey declined both times. She didn’t want people to scrutinize her private life.  

Rev. Jeanne Audrey was a volunteer with The United Methodist Commission on the Status and Role of Women. Throughout her life, she was committed to feminist issues and was a champion for LGBTQ rights. She was well-known for insisting that all language be gender-neutral. She relished the idea of being a “she-ro.”

Jeanne Audrey was a driving force in the Reconciling Ministries Movement. In her final sermon at its national gathering in New York City in 1995, she declared that she was lesbian. The church elders were horrified and Jeanne Audrey was immediately ex-communicated. 

According to a 2018 article, “Wrestling With The Angel of Death” in Sojourners magazine, Cathy Lynn Grosssman wrote, “Jeanne Audrey Powers, 85 years and counting, wanted to stop counting. She felt herself growing more frail, less clear-header. She was losing her sight. Worst of all, the woman who once spoke on international podiums was losing her words.”  

Jeanne Audrey was technically not terminally ill, in spite of a series of mini-strokes. She was not a candidate for hospice but “she was dying to herself, as she knew herself to be.” 

Jeanne Audrey knew that the doctrines of the United Methodist Church included one against suicide, just as it included a doctrine against homosexuality in 1995.  And yet, she bought herself a one-way ticket to Switzerland and died, according to her friends, “at peace with her decision.” in a euthanasia facility. Her final wish was that these words would be etched on her tombstone: Subversive to the End.

Jeanne Audrey declared in her obituary, that her death ended the lineage of the Jones and Powers families. I beg to differ. My grandparents had nineteen grandchildren. We are all still here. 

Rest in Peace, Jeanne Audrey. I’m sorry I never knew you.

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No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

I met Marisol Segundo in La Cruz de Huanacastle in 2010.  She had a taco stand with four tables on a corner near our condo. Her tacos were heavenly! Originally from Mexico City, Marisol had the prettiest smile I’d ever seen. Neto and I went to see her every day for lunch.

The following year, when we were back in La Cruz again, Marisol confided that her dream was to create a small restaurant in that same space, a corner owned by her father. We wished her well.

In 2012, Neto and I were staying in Bucerias, but took a bus one day to check on Marisol and her restaurant. The restaurant was only halfway finished and Marisol was still serving lunch on the patio. All the city workers had discovered, like we did, that Marisol’s cooking was fantastic. She served comida corrida, a daily special with a main course, rice and beans. Her specialties were chicken enchiladas, marlin burritos and tortas cubanas. The cost was usually $3.50 (U.S.)

Before we left the restaurant, Marisol asked if she could talk to me. She explained that the restaurant was costing her more than she had counted on. She needed to apply for additional “permits” (bribes) and didn’t have enough money to finish the bathroom. Marisol wanted to know if I would lend her some money and assured me that she would pay me back.

I agreed to lend Marisol the money to finish her restaurant. I came back a week later and told Marisol that she didn’t need to replay me. The money was un regalo, a gift. I felt like Oprah, except that Oprah gives away cars and I gave away a toilet.

That was the beginning of a lovely friendship. Marisol opened her restaurant, The Little Hot Grill, and got great reviews on Trip Advisor. For the next few years, whenever Neto and I vacationed in La Cruz, we hired Marisol to be our personal chef. I gave her an envelope of cash at the beginning of the week and she cooked for us. 

I was proud of Marisol. As an unmarried woman, she worked hard and learned to speak English. She provided for her entire family with the money she earned. She hired her niece to help her in the kitchen. But I could see that, while Marisol was still the best cook in La Cruz, she wasn’t happy. She was working too many hours. Her family was always asking for more money. She couldn’t find anyone to help her run the restaurant.

One day, Marisol called me in Denver. 

“I have good news,” she told me. “I’m getting married.”

“Who is he?” I asked. 

“An older man who lives near the restaurant. He wants me to move in with him, but I can’t do that unless we are married.”

“How long have you known him?” I wanted to know.

“Just a couple of months. But he says he has a lot of money and he will take good care of me.”

Marisol asked me to come to La Cruz in the middle of July for her wedding. She wanted me to be her madrina ~ the godmother. I told Marisol that I was sorry, but I couldn’t come to Mexico in the middle of July. The weather in July is simply too hot. 

I also told Marisol that couldn’t be her madrina. It’s considered an honor to be asked to be a madrina. As a Mexican friend told me, “People are chosen to be the madrina because they are the wealthiest person in the neighborhood.” 

I’ve been asked to be madrina in other situations and I’ve always said no. It’s a custom that doesn’t translate well for me. Madrinas are expected to buy big fancy cakes. Madrinas are suppose to pay for a dinner for 100 people. 

I told Marisol that I appreciated being asked. “I understand that it’s an honor, but I’m not a wealthy woman.” I said.

I tried to explain that I was happy to help her with her restaurant, but I couldn’t pay for a wedding. I certainly couldn’t pay for a wedding to a man I never met. A man who I wasn’t sure would be a good husband. 

Marisol got married without me. When Neto and I went back to La Cruz the following November, we once again gave her an envelope of money and asked her to be our personal chef.  She agreed and, once again, we often ate at the Little Hot Grill. 

But Marisol didn’t seem happy. I noticed that while we were eating, an older man stood in the doorway, watching Neto and I eat. 

When Neto stepped outside to smoke a cigarette I asked Marisol, “Who is that man?”

“That’s my husband. He’s jealous of my customers. He wants to make sure I’m not flirting with any of the men.”

Neto and I didn’t go to the restaurant very often after that. The day before we were scheduled to leave, Neto went alone to pick up our dinner. He told Marisol that I would come by in the morning to say goodby. 

As Neto was leaving with our food, Marisol stopped him and said, “Aren’t you going to pay for your dinner?” 

Neto was embarrassed. His Mexican pride was hurt. He didn’t bring extra money with him because we had  already paid for more than a week’s worth of food when we arrived.

When Neto came home and told me what happened, I gave him additional money to take back to the restaurant. We decided that we’d helped Marisol as much as we could.

Marisol called me in Denver after Christmas. She wanted to know if I could send her some money because she didn’t have very many customers. I told her no. 

I will always think of Marisol with great fondness. But I know I won’t eat at the Little Hot Grill again. 

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Clean-Up Week At Punta Burros

Selling my home in Mazatlán allowed Neto and me to explore other parts of Mexico ~ Ensanada, Cuernavaca, Guadalajara, Puerto Vallarta, and my favorite place, La Cruz de Huanacastle, a beautiful, small fishing village known for its friendly local residents and marina full of fancy yachts belonging to rich tourists.

In March, 2010, we rented an elegant apartment in the La Jolla condominiums. The cost was so reasonable, we stayed there for six weeks, often walking to the marina to buy fresh fish or to the shore at night to breathe fresh, salt-water air. We went to yoga class in the morning and swam every day in a gorgeous on-site swimming pool, built with an island of palm trees in the middle. We felt like movie stars!

Neto met me at the airport in Puerto Vallarta in his truck ~ a bright blue Ford Ranger with big tires ~ that he drove from Mazatlán. One of the first things Neto wanted to do was to find a nearby surfing spot, Punta Burros, known for its high waves and secluded access. I went along to check it out.

We parked the truck near the entrance to the Grand Palladium Resort, on the highway to Punta Mita. From there, we walked through the jungle until we reached Punta Burros. Neto walked, carrying his board, as sure-footed as a cat. I lurched and stumbled over fallen trees and muddy streams. The hike took twenty minutes. It felt like an hour. 

The beach was indeed deserted. We set up our blanket and towels by a pile of rocks, away from the shore. Only a few other surfers and paddle-boarders were in the water. The waves were enormous. Neto was in heaven. Again, he was the best surfer in the water. He took ride after ride, for about thirty minutes, before coming in to rest.

That was the first time Neto saw what I had seen from the beginning. The beach was disgusting! The water was pristine. The beach was horribly polluted from years of neglect. A beaten-up trash barrel was tipped on its side, spilling its contents on the sand. Bottles and cans, food and wrappers, dirty diapers and abandoned clothes were everywhere, as far as we could see. Seagulls screeched overhead, dove to the sand and gleefully picked through the garbage. 

Neto turned to me and said, “We’ve got to do something about this.” He was right. He loves the ocean. It is his home. It’s where he belongs. 

On the way back to La Jolla in the blue truck, Neto noticed a jeep trail going toward the ocean. We followed it and found a private entrance to Punta Burros. We made a pact to come back the next day and begin the clean-up.

And that’s what we did. We came back the next day, and every day for a week. We brought big canvas bags, the kind made for hauling discarded chunks of cement, and garden gloves. We filled bags, about four bags each day, tied them shut, and loaded them into the truck. At night we surreptitiously put the bags out in the street, where the trash man would find them and haul them away.

By day three, the beach was beginning to look more like a beach and less like the city dump. Other surfers jumped in. A few guests from the Grand Palladium hiked along the shore from their hotel and joined the efforts. By the end of the week, we had hauled away twenty large bags of garbage. The shore was beautiful. This is the way it was supposed to look ~ like someone’s home. 

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Neto ~ A Mexican Champion

Neto was fourteen years old, the first time he saw someone surfing. 

Walking along the beach one afternoon with his girlfriend, Luci, three boys glided across the ocean in front of  them, standing on something that looked like a long, flat ironing board. The boys, not much older than Neto, resembled giant birds, flapping their arms as they stood on top of the water. The ocean was alive with huge swells from an incoming storm. Neto was transfixed with the magic of people dancing on water. 

Neto and Luci had been fighting.  She thought that if  Neto was her boyfriend, he should want to hold her hand all the time. He told Luci that if she would let him kiss her, then he would hold her hand.  Finally, Neto turned to her and said, “See those guys in the ocean? I’m going to do that. And if I like it, I’m going to do it forever.” 

“I knew she didn’t believe me. I wondered if she loved me, even though she said she did,” Neto told me. “If you don’t love me, then leave me. I will join those guys and love the ocean instead.”  

Neto walked Luci home, but he couldn’t stop thinking about the boys he saw riding the waves.

“I pictured myself, flying on top of the ocean, my feet planted on the board beneath me, arms stretched out, holding me steady against the wind.”

 Finally, Neto turned to Luci one more time and said, “If I am going to leave you for something, it will be for riding waves in the ocean.”

That was the beginning of Neto’s love affair with surfing. He was one of the first surfers in Mazatlán. He’s still riding the waves today.

When Neto was twenty-two years old, he hitchhiked to Guerrero, Mexico, to compete in the Mexican National Surfing Competition in Pentacalco. He was the only surfer from Mazatlán, competing against men from Alapulco and Iztapa-Zihautanejo in El Libre, a free-style event for surfers of all ages and all levels.

Neto remembers that the waves that weekend were “perfect” ~ fifteen feet tall in the front and eight feet in the back, “with lots of barrels” to ride through. He came in sixth place, overall, and was eager to compete again the following year.

For the next ten months, Neto stayed in Guerrero, training for the next competition. He bought a bigger board and surfed every afternoon. He worked as a deep-sea fisherman at night. 

“We caught swordfish, marlin and sharks in huge nets. We were in small. motorized fishing boats called pangas, not the big sport-fishing boats that tourists rent today.” Some of the fish were forty-feet long, and weighed between 500-1000 pounds. 

“How were you able to get those fish back to shore in your small boats?” I asked.

“Oh, we beheaded them so they would fit inside our boat. We threw the bloody heads back in the water.”

“That seems like an awful mess,” I commented.

“Oh, yes. When the Great White sharks smelled the blood, they came looking for us. We’d leave them to feast on the fish heads, while we headed for shore to the congelador (freezer) for processing. The next night, we’d do it all over again.”

“So, what happened in the surf competition the next year?”

“It was cancelled. The waves weren’t high enough. I still wonder if I might have won first place, but it was time for me to go back home.”

Neto still surfs every day when the waves are high enough. One of the oldest surfers on Mazatlán’s beaches, young surfers often come up to him and want to shake his hand. They affectionately call him “Ruco.” (Old Man) They tell him that he’s the “godfather of surfing” in Mazatlán. The ocean is where he belongs.