Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth
to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!
This Episode: The Beer Bottle that Disabled a Mexican Police Car!
There are times when, I suppose, one tends to sit quietly and reflect upon things, specific, noteworthy things. It may be a preoccupation or a proclivity of those of us who can view life from the elevation of GeezerHood, looking back or down upon one's own rich tapestry of life in general.
Many years and many adventures and mis-adventures ago -- long before GeezerHood occupied my mind and body -- I was a newly enlisted member of the US Armed Services. Following basic training, I was assigned to a tech or training school in west - central Texas, approximately 150 miles from the Mexican border village of Ciudad Acuna.
(Acuna has a "tilde" about the "n"... giving it a pronunciation such as "señor" in Spanish. As such, it is pronounced something like "A-coon-ya," accent on the second syllable! Thought we should make this clear for our vast reading public!)
Military chums and I would frequently visit that fine little community in Mexico at weekends when we had no other duties commanding our attention. It was, at the time, an exotic destination, complete with great food, music, cheap beer, more dangerously spirited potables... other attractions and diversions as well.
My usual routine: I enjoyed an initial visit to "Ma Crosby's" (at least that's the name I remember... might be wrong!...) It was, maybe still is, a great-looking restaurant designed in classic Spanish or Mexican hacienda style architecture. It had different levels! They served excellent and authentic Mexican foodstuffs. Then we'd venture to the less elegant part of the town where drunkenness and other vices prevailed! I won't burden the reading public with further lurid details...
Upon leaving Ciudad Acuna, on a particular occasion, one of my traveling companions insisted that all so-called contraband had to be discarded for fear of Mexican police intervention, possibly arrest. I was skeptical, but decided "discretion... " you know the phrase... I had an empty or near-empty beer bottle in my sturdy 1950 Hudson that I bought for $50.00 and eventually sold for $50.00 just prior to leaving the US for an overseas assignment.
(On one occasion, my good friend and I were driving along near San Angelo, Texas prior to "going to town." It was a very cold, wintry day. We opened a full bottle of frozen beer that subsequently sprayed the windscreen with frozen beer, obscuring our
vision. We hit a tree that did far more damage to the tree than to the durable 1950 Hudson!!!)
Apologies for the brief digression! Anyway, back to Acuna and the beer bottle. I decided -- not very environmentally responsibly, I confess, but at the time I was quite young and rather irresponsible! -- to pitch the bottle from my hand-painted, light blue 1950 Hudson. Through the now open driver-side window that I'd cranked down, my left arm and hand extended, I hurled the beer bottle over the top of the car hoping it
would land softly and inaudibly on the other side of the vehicle, into what I also hoped was soft mud, a pool of muck or a grassy expanse. (It was dark when we departed!!) This was prior to crossing the bridge over the Rio Grande River leading back into Texas and the United States.
Shortly following that toss of the fateful beer bottle, I heard a siren emanating from what was apparently a police vehicle. It was a police vehicle. I aimed the Hudson to the side of the road to await our fate! I cranked down the window.
"¡Has desactivado un vehículo oficial de la policía con tu botella de cerveza! Eres un
borracho!," said the police person with his head in my window about an inch from my nose.
"Powdered hand soap?" I queried, confused.
At the time, my knowledge of Mexican-Spanish was not so good. "¡Ahora te arresto por la destrucción de propiedad policial y por tirar basura!" The beer bottle apparently was a kind of guided missile bomb that had the power to disable or destroy official vehicles!!
My gorgeous hand-painted Hudson was commandeered by the police, their policia coche having been "murdered" by the aforementioned beer bottle. Somehow the siren still worked, however! An amazing thing! I was instructed to drive the police persons along with my own fellow servicemen pals to the local Estación de policía! That phrase I understood. They instructed me how to get there via hand signals and bops in the head, indicating a la izquierda, a la derecha, derecho! ("Left turn, Right turn, Straight ahead... tu drunken gringo... y Cuidado!!")
Upon arrival at the estacion, I was placed into a jail cell with straw on the floor. There I spent a relatively uncomfortable night. The cell was never locked, but the presence of a heavily-mustacheioed and rather formidable looking policia officer would have deterred any attempt at escape!! My good friend, PT, kept me company, not inside the cell, but, as I recall, on a comfortable looking chair just outside my cage.
At some point during the long night of incarceration, or in the early morning hours, a nice Mexican man magically appeared in the station. He both translated and ultimately effected my release from prison. He spoke fluent English. The man told me what the policeman had said, that my launch of the fated beer bottle had somehow broken the police car rendering it inoperable. Seems hard to believe, but that's what the police told him and what he translated in English to my companions and me.
Surprised and obviously amused by the revelation, PT broke out of his silence, his deep baritone, like an explosive aria suddenly emanating from a clock radio alarm, seemed to shake the officers out of a collective trance. "This is embarrassing," he said. "You mean to say a police car that wouldn't run, probably pushed down a small hill, caught up to the motorized Hudson... such as the ancient Hudson is; miraculous it still runs...?!"
My fingers wrapped around the jail cell bars, the classic pose of a scofflaw in a cage, eyes only half open and barely alert, I said, "Yeah, but they did have a working siren!" PT grinned and tried unsuccessfully not to chuckle.
More of the translation revealed... One of the officers labeled me a drunkard! And a litterer
too! Can't say I was or should have been offended, as the characterization of my condition at the time was accurate. And, I was happy to have learned the correct Mexican word or phrase for "drunkard"!... "Borracho." It's a good word... wonderful... one I've gladly added to my Mexican-Spanish vocabulary!!
The police persons, by the way, were kind and respectful overall, efficient and dutiful too, of course. But, too, they were somewhat put out by my destruction of the coche de policia! We discovered at some point in the proceedings that the nice man, the Mexican who translated into
English my various transgressions, was somehow attached to a Mexican-American consulate, or some such organization. I never found out precisely in what capacity, but it seemed he was a kind of liaison between Mexican authorities and misbehaving, drunken American GIs! It was enough that he was able to end my accommodation in the straw-matted jail cell. A great stroke of good fortune!!
I thanked the man profusely. I also thanked and apologized profusely to the good policemen. They did assess a hefty fine. PT and my other companions and I had to pool our remaining resources in order to be released from Mexico. Um... however, we had to plead with the nice police persons to return some of the fine money so that we could purchase gas for the Hudson in order to motor back to the base, thereby avoiding a charge of AWOL, possibly more incarceration!! Oh yeah, I think there may have been a toll as well to cross the Rio Grande. They grumbled a bit, the nice policemen did, but they grudgingly returned, not much, but a sufficient amount of the fine money!
I feel it important to append the story, just in moderate fashion, that these days I've mended my ways. My beverage of choice is a brown pop of the diet, but caffeinated variety, with a slice of lime preferably. Mexican-American relations have rarely been so tested, and so amiably as in the case of the kamikaze beer bottle. I've returned to Mexico many times over the years of my GeezerHood, never however, and probably fortunately, back to the beautiful town of Ciudad Acuna. Perhaps some day, if I can find a 1950s Hudson, a proper map... and maybe if Ma Crosby's is still there too!! SweetHeart (dulce Corazon) y me amoramos el gente de Mexico!!
There are times when, I suppose, one tends to sit quietly and reflect upon things, specific, noteworthy things. It may be a preoccupation or a proclivity of those of us who can view life from the elevation of GeezerHood, looking back or down upon one's own rich tapestry of life in general.
Many years and many adventures and mis-adventures ago -- long before GeezerHood occupied my mind and body -- I was a newly enlisted member of the US Armed Services. Following basic training, I was assigned to a tech or training school in west - central Texas, approximately 150 miles from the Mexican border village of Ciudad Acuna.
(Acuna has a "tilde" about the "n"... giving it a pronunciation such as "señor" in Spanish. As such, it is pronounced something like "A-coon-ya," accent on the second syllable! Thought we should make this clear for our vast reading public!)
Military chums and I would frequently visit that fine little community in Mexico at weekends when we had no other duties commanding our attention. It was, at the time, an exotic destination, complete with great food, music, cheap beer, more dangerously spirited potables... other attractions and diversions as well.
My usual routine: I enjoyed an initial visit to "Ma Crosby's" (at least that's the name I remember... might be wrong!...) It was, maybe still is, a great-looking restaurant designed in classic Spanish or Mexican hacienda style architecture. It had different levels! They served excellent and authentic Mexican foodstuffs. Then we'd venture to the less elegant part of the town where drunkenness and other vices prevailed! I won't burden the reading public with further lurid details...
Upon leaving Ciudad Acuna, on a particular occasion, one of my traveling companions insisted that all so-called contraband had to be discarded for fear of Mexican police intervention, possibly arrest. I was skeptical, but decided "discretion... " you know the phrase... I had an empty or near-empty beer bottle in my sturdy 1950 Hudson that I bought for $50.00 and eventually sold for $50.00 just prior to leaving the US for an overseas assignment.
(On one occasion, my good friend and I were driving along near San Angelo, Texas prior to "going to town." It was a very cold, wintry day. We opened a full bottle of frozen beer that subsequently sprayed the windscreen with frozen beer, obscuring our
Apologies for the brief digression! Anyway, back to Acuna and the beer bottle. I decided -- not very environmentally responsibly, I confess, but at the time I was quite young and rather irresponsible! -- to pitch the bottle from my hand-painted, light blue 1950 Hudson. Through the now open driver-side window that I'd cranked down, my left arm and hand extended, I hurled the beer bottle over the top of the car hoping it
Shortly following that toss of the fateful beer bottle, I heard a siren emanating from what was apparently a police vehicle. It was a police vehicle. I aimed the Hudson to the side of the road to await our fate! I cranked down the window.
"¡Has desactivado un vehículo oficial de la policía con tu botella de cerveza! Eres un
"Powdered hand soap?" I queried, confused.
 |
At the time, my knowledge of Mexican-Spanish was not so good. "¡Ahora te arresto por la destrucción de propiedad policial y por tirar basura!" The beer bottle apparently was a kind of guided missile bomb that had the power to disable or destroy official vehicles!!
My gorgeous hand-painted Hudson was commandeered by the police, their policia coche having been "murdered" by the aforementioned beer bottle. Somehow the siren still worked, however! An amazing thing! I was instructed to drive the police persons along with my own fellow servicemen pals to the local Estación de policía! That phrase I understood. They instructed me how to get there via hand signals and bops in the head, indicating a la izquierda, a la derecha, derecho! ("Left turn, Right turn, Straight ahead... tu drunken gringo... y Cuidado!!")
Upon arrival at the estacion, I was placed into a jail cell with straw on the floor. There I spent a relatively uncomfortable night. The cell was never locked, but the presence of a heavily-mustacheioed and rather formidable looking policia officer would have deterred any attempt at escape!! My good friend, PT, kept me company, not inside the cell, but, as I recall, on a comfortable looking chair just outside my cage.
Surprised and obviously amused by the revelation, PT broke out of his silence, his deep baritone, like an explosive aria suddenly emanating from a clock radio alarm, seemed to shake the officers out of a collective trance. "This is embarrassing," he said. "You mean to say a police car that wouldn't run, probably pushed down a small hill, caught up to the motorized Hudson... such as the ancient Hudson is; miraculous it still runs...?!"
My fingers wrapped around the jail cell bars, the classic pose of a scofflaw in a cage, eyes only half open and barely alert, I said, "Yeah, but they did have a working siren!" PT grinned and tried unsuccessfully not to chuckle.
More of the translation revealed... One of the officers labeled me a drunkard! And a litterer
The police persons, by the way, were kind and respectful overall, efficient and dutiful too, of course. But, too, they were somewhat put out by my destruction of the coche de policia! We discovered at some point in the proceedings that the nice man, the Mexican who translated into
I thanked the man profusely. I also thanked and apologized profusely to the good policemen. They did assess a hefty fine. PT and my other companions and I had to pool our remaining resources in order to be released from Mexico. Um... however, we had to plead with the nice police persons to return some of the fine money so that we could purchase gas for the Hudson in order to motor back to the base, thereby avoiding a charge of AWOL, possibly more incarceration!! Oh yeah, I think there may have been a toll as well to cross the Rio Grande. They grumbled a bit, the nice policemen did, but they grudgingly returned, not much, but a sufficient amount of the fine money! I feel it important to append the story, just in moderate fashion, that these days I've mended my ways. My beverage of choice is a brown pop of the diet, but caffeinated variety, with a slice of lime preferably. Mexican-American relations have rarely been so tested, and so amiably as in the case of the kamikaze beer bottle. I've returned to Mexico many times over the years of my GeezerHood, never however, and probably fortunately, back to the beautiful town of Ciudad Acuna. Perhaps some day, if I can find a 1950s Hudson, a proper map... and maybe if Ma Crosby's is still there too!! SweetHeart (dulce Corazon) y me amoramos el gente de Mexico!!
Humbly Submitted 04-17-19 -- Joel K.
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