Mr. Presidente of Mexico (Or any facsimile thereof) "bienvenido paisano"( and everbody else 20 minutes of your time please),
I live in the United States where my wife and I operate a small business and earn enough money to live fairly well. The latest chapter in a two year odyssey to help one of your nationals earn a decent wage took me north into Canada last week where I quietly went about the business of helping my friend, who lived with us for 5 years, look for work and maybe move there. Visiting Canada is a lot different then visiting your country like I did on 4 different occasions over two years, after my guest, now looking to start from scratch in Canada, returned home from the states.
But never mind my friend for a few minutes, and this might sound nuts, but the experiences I accumulated in Mexico, in contrast to boring Canada, injected new life into a jaded mid-aged male and made him feel like a young dude again. Unfortunately for some, ever since I returned home I’ve become a pain in the behind....
Operator, can you help me, help me if you please.
Give me the right area code and the number that I need.
My rider left upon the midnight flyer,
Singin like a summer breeze.
I think he’s somewhere down south, down about baton rouge,
But I just can’t remember no number, a number I can use.
Directory don’t have it, central done forgot it,
I’ve gotta find a number to use. The Grateful Dead
....incessantly badgering my compatriots when describing all the fascinating idiosyncrasies of Mexico. Canada left me deflated; it’s so much like the United States. It’s been 6 months since I was last in your country and I’m running on empty lately, but I am looking forward to going back to Mexico some day again. Because that’s where all the action and the good story is!
The Mexico chronicles are getting a little long in the tooth, but let me tell you anyway what it’s like as an average observer, visiting and comparing Canada to Mexico. Just so you know (I know) no place is perfect, I’ll tell you that my home is a once great place to live called New Jersey, and we’ve been experiencing our own sorts of difficulties as of late.
My Mexican sidekick, who should be the main interest in this story, not me, rendezvoused with me in Toronto. Unlike me, he’s not looking for adventure, just a good solid paycheck, and I was determined to help him find it in Canada because the average Mexican can barely survive on 100 pesos a day back home. Why it’s a requirement for him to leave home again, so soon after leaving the United States, is criminal considering that all three of our countries share the same land mass, and from what I’ve seen of Mexico with its southerly latitude- it should be sitting prettier then all of us. Like I said, it’s a little slow in Canada (and it’s just now starting to get warm up there), but I’ll give them this, visiting and not getting sick once with stomach problems is a plus, but it comes at a price, because for the life of me I couldn’t get myself arrested or noticed. If I’m going to help him find work I’d at least like to write an interesting story on the side about it.
On April 30th I crossed into Quebec from Buffalo, N.Y. by car. When I saw a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer in an idling patrol car on the QEM highway, I pulled over on the shoulder and asked him for directions. I was curious to compare this with my previous experiences with the Federale police force. My Jersey license plates couldn’t have been more conspicuous, but it was no provocation - and maybe a bad omen since several days later, I believe I was still foolishly looking forward to a rush like I got on a daily basis in Mexico (with the help of the said Federale police force.) I hoped this duel mission of mine wasn’t mutually exclusive. I wanted to try and ruffle a few feathers in Canada, yet still help him find work. .
I was sure there would be some action down the road. My friend flew in from Mexico City on May 1st with no symptoms of being ill with the flu, but without a temporary work visa or any job prospects (a visa is not required to visit- if you’re a Mexican tourist with a nice bank account).... and with what sounded like some half-baked idea about meeting a white knighted American who would help him get situated in Canada. This politically conservative, late blooming activist, diarist, and a long time office cleaner by night, almost had the first incident worth blogging about on the liberal Democratic forum called the Daily Kos, after the Canadian customs agents pulled your citizen out of line and waited for the American to show up, knocking on their door looking for him- if they ever thought I was real to begin with. However things went well and we got the OK to continue beyond the airport perimeter without breaking a sweat or costing us a dime. One week to look around, instructions for him to go home for at least 3 months before coming back again; thus establishing a pattern of good behavior..... and with what sounded like their blessings? It seems that the Canadians will be far easier for him to deal with then the American border patrol. Incredibly the Canadian custom agents at the airport vaguely held the possibility of even citizenship for him down the road (off the record) and spoke of the many opportunities available in Canada. If my friend hadn’t been caught 7 times at the American-Mexico border last year trying to come back to, I guess New Jersey, and wound up in the shared computer system of both countries we might not have had any scrape with the Canadians at all. Over the next several days we would see and appreciate that Canada is really a very culturally diverse place, but not very exciting (to write about) like I say many times over.
That night I mused about whether it was necessary to steer the authorities at the airport customs office to my two web sites like I did, showing I was the "Rock the Boat" candidate for congress in NJ’s 2nd district last year, and if I might have helped or hurt to expedite his processing? Was it the secret weapon that might open every door, or just get us ridiculed behind our backs? It’s a lonely job being a one man immigration caped crusader; no-one seems to understand that fact.
My friend, who was sitting next to their computer terminal at the airport when they searched my name, said the customs people saw the picture of the "boat" with the likeness of me sitting in it holding two paddles. It’s a long story but like I said above, the old me never would have had the moxie to run for dog catcher, let alone Congress had my Mexican buddy not stayed in our house for 5 years, went back home to Mexico to his everlasting regret, and me consequently then getting hooked on the intriguing under world of illegal immigrants and Mexican-American strained relations. I’ve got it covered like an algae bloom in The Gulf of Mexico on my old web site the Yokel News.
Let’s go back to Nov. of 07, the first of my four eventful visits to Mexico that year- Mr. Calderon- because there’s no suspense building here - nothing out of the mainstream happened in Canada, other then us looking for work? The results of that effort I’ll save for the very end of this diary.
Mexico on the other hand.....is different When my buddy and his brother flew back home to their country I joined them, on what was my first trip back to Mexico in over two decades. It started out well as the US airline had to comp us two times before we ever left the states, thanks totally to the US Customs requirements, which we had taken the time to apprise ourselves of , but can change without any prior notice; which they did, several times! But neither we nor the airline had a heads up from our State Department and it wasn’t my or the two Mexican friends (or the airlines fault) that they’d needed more documentation to re-board during our layover in Charlotte. We got turned right back to Philadelphia where our flight originated and we took care of the new paper work needed to go again three days later. We doubled down when we got back to Charlotte though. We cashed in a second time because other Mexicans, not my clever guys, ran head first into even stricter requirements to return home then even the toughened requirements from three days earlier. This is really counter intuitive if illegal aliens are not welcome here in the first place. At the Mexican consulate three days earlier my friend wisely insisted on exceeding the documentation to return home asked for by customs earlier that week.
We where good to go that second try when the connecting flight in Charlotte was overbooked and we volunteered to get bounced (I needed to explain this phenomenon to my "unsophisticated" friends). We very coolly then got back on, a just as quickly under booked flight, after two dozen other Mexicans incredibly where turned away for improper documentation- which twenty minutes prior was perfectly....proper and legal. We watched them leave the Charlotte airport in search of some good answers. I doubt they found any in Charlotte. What a mess, and this is just what my friend worried about when he didn’t settle for a stamped paper from the consulate in Philadelphia (what Customs asked for 3 days prior) saying he was a Mexican citizen, and went the extra mile to get a passport. A passport issued in Philadelphia -which means it could never be used again if you think about it. Worthless, except as a one way document to get home; makes sense? Less then one week earlier any illegal foolish enough to travel home in the face of an ever tightening border needed only to show an identity card to get on a plane. The acceptable documentation changed twice. At least give them a chance to plan ahead instead of screwing them at the airport.
Three people times the two free transferable round trip vouchers for each of us equals........ 6 free airline tickets. Now I could have flown off to Mexico either day without them. That would have been quite interesting for me; therefore I appreciate the immediate and reasonable position of US Airways giving me the vouchers both times (instantly). The whole thing was very empowering to me in retrospect, and a good story in itself for the national press to have written about, instead it’s up to me to make history as the first janitor-ersatz reporter to try for the Pulitzer. And this was just a warm up to the real heart pounding stuff on the Mexican side of the border- if you drive a truck instead of flying. And more reason still for any news organizations with any imagination to contact me and tell this story the right way. But even though I’ve been e-mailing them for what seems like an eternity, there not interested. This is what you get in lieu of.
Drive a truck down is what I did a month later knowing I could cash in one voucher and fly home for free. I was met there by my one cohort, back home for that last month. The other brother was really not that close to me and doesn’t enter into the story hereafter. The Chevy Suburban plus all the goods and supplies included where going to help my friend in his business selling schlock at outdoor markets.
The first run in with his Mexican police wasn’t even 2 miles inside Mexico in Matamoras; bienvenido paisano; and it was a $5 inconvenience which was fine; the travel books I’d glanced at before I left make it sound so quaint and routine. And the grinning cop on a 50cc moped asking for that bribe was going to be an amusing anecdote to tell the friends back home about later on. We took care of business, the two of us and the new partner, and then we forged ahead, but just a little bit concerned now. Where even more serious tests of our resolve to reach his home (with just the shirts on our backs) lying ahead. Had we known? Or had we seen the very amusing, but dead on Mexican made movie, about a family getting fleeced by the police after crossing the border en route to a family members funeral, called bienvenido paisano, we might have.....drove at night. That’s what the war veterans of all this mishegoss do. But we saw the movie months later on a long distance bus, no more cars by then for me, and it was in Spanish. But I didn’t really need a translation then because I was going to live it first hand soon enough and I could fill in the words later on my own. Incidentally if I needed translation it would have been my buddy, who would be sitting right next to me on that bus laughing hysterically, as was everyone else on the bus. Rarely has there been a better example of if you don’t laugh- you'd have to cry. I felt a real sense of community that day. On with the nightmare...
The $800 bribe and high stakes poker, further down the road in Puebla was just another variation from the movie, up to a point. Canadian and U.S police don’t touch their citizens (hearts) the same way. And what a fine police department Puebla had. I personally got to meet the captain and some very untypical 6 foot officers who ride American made Harleys. I think those Harleys weigh in at about 700 lbs. and run about 1400 cc’s. And they aren’t cheap. I'd throw this bunch of renegades into the fracas at the border against the cartels if I could. They have the macho and they think big. (I hope they took some of that $800 and invested in better phones, because the one who stopped us used his cell to call ahead to headquarters when we didn’t pony up right away; and that’s when the negotiations moved over to the station house.) Being physically threatened with bodily harm where it wouldn’t show up, after stubbornly holding back the mucho dinero, didn't surprise us at this point, because the day before in Tampico, we were pulled to the side the same way even though- again we where doing absolutely nothing wrong- and their methodology was also suspect at best. We were asked politely (and again they are always smiling) by a much shorter group of policemen this time (in uniform), to split up, me going in my Suburban and he in the unmarked police car. I got to sit in the passenger seat of my car and wonder what’s next, and I never noticed when we where no longer within site of one another. He must have handled the negotiations just fine in the other vehicle because when we finally stopped further ahead, and they caught up, we paid $50 and where on our way again.... heading straight for that $800 big enchilada in Pueblo the next day.... and we where getting pissed by now. Of course we knew in our heads all along, that our options where limited and it’s sometimes necessary to throw in the towel if your righteous indignation doesn’t move them. But don’t wait till the bill is $800 dollars. There’s only so much room for negotiations when the negotiations start at $2000 and you are outnumbered, out gunned and have absolutely no standing. Do they have a Constitution or some similar document? And what if they did? Nothing stops them; they even made noises about keeping the Suburban after the $800 was tendered. By then they must have realized my butt wasn’t leaving that seat no matter what internal bruises they threatened me with, and hiding the American’s Suburban would be harder then covering up a few minor internal injuries to him.
Mexico law enforcement was making up very quickly for any naiveté of mine at that moment, but it’s had an effect on me, looking back 18 months later, because ever since I’ve been safely home, I’m ready to kick ass. Twenty years ago when I was younger and I was traveling in Baja California with my then young bride, about 200 miles inside Mexico, not the 2 minutes like in Matamoras, I got my first sample of a Mexican police shakedown. One was all we needed and we high tailed it back to the cousin’s place in San Diego. Things don’t get better they get worse is seems. The poor Mexican civilians get this same shoddy treatment by these farcical storm troopers all the time. The twentieth century witnessed great upheavals and monumental changes for the better, but nothing changes in your damned country. Excuse me for sermonizing, let me try and keep this droll and get back to the story.
Unlike my first taste of this nonsense twenty years ago, there was not the option of me and my guy turning back now. Poor Mexicans don’t have any options, nor do they have the security to write sarcastically about corruption from back in the States like me, therefore they think- why not come here? Get the hell out of there! The movie Bienvenito piassano was probably shot in the United States. It’s a daily battle to survive the corruption and it’s not just the police, it intrudes in every facet of their daily lives, literally from the time they are born. For instance Doctors, they’re another group of professionals that work these supplements into their personal incomes Mr. President. But let’s try sticking to the police, everything else I know about second hand.
My friend had almost forgotten how tough they can be, he was in the states with us for 5 years after all. He’d been stopped several times by the American police and he had only positive things to say about them. He never had to grovel and pay them right then and there. And they (our police) don’t g.r.i.n. One time driving in the states he was doing nothing wrong and was profiled by the cops and pulled over, the same way we where profiled in Mexico. He was driving our car. The police called me on my cell, he supplied the number; but I was out of town and wouldn’t be able to pick up the car which he was now forbidden to drive, so I asked the police if I could call them back and I called my wife to pick up the car and him. They where kind enough not to tow the car and it didn’t cost us a dime! On an earlier occasion he was going a little too fast and got a speeding ticket like he deserved. Thankfully this was before he ever used our car and drove his own with the ph*** insurance we all know they use. After he paid court costs and the fine for speeding, he was able to do community service which involved helping the ladies at the local church set up for bingo for 8 consecutive weeks; whereupon his record was expunged (so they said).
It’s not unheard of for one of our police officers to take a bribe, but that’s the rare and the rogue cop risks everything, including jail. It’s called a deterrent Mr. President. Anyway our refresher course on how Mexico law enforcement works cost us 855 non-refundable dollars, or almost 9000 pesos. Plus.... a small fee for a new driver’s license which he needed to replace the one the he showed, that was returned to him in Tampico, and which was taken away in Puebla
Things slowed down a bit after we finally arrived in his home town, but not by much. We had an opportunity to be in several police stations in the next town the day after. Replacing that confiscated Mexican driver’s license only requires making stops at four, count them, four government offices, and no explanation was required for the confiscated, missing license, because no record of the previous two days existed. First we went to the motor vehicle office, and then we where off to three police stations, taking all day, this on the heels of the previous two simply wonderful((ly) exhausting)) travel days. Now if you speak any Spanish you’d know that in the one You-tube link I included, actual Mexicans citizens describe the shakedown process and the one guy mentions the uselessness of a government phone numbers to report abuse. My wife translated a little bit of the link for me; I don’t know any Spanish other then a few words....
..... Estoy muy consado. I’m very tired....
I asked for 20 minutes up top, could you indulge me and this marathon diary with several minutes more of your time?
.....To which my first Mexican friend, going back one or two years before our houseguest arrived, would say "Yes Gary, you’re always tired" Tu esta siempre consado. (Cindy, my wife just helped put together that last sentence) The first word I learned from Evett was lluvia, rain, or as I would spell it jubia. Our house guests spent five years with us which means they where included in five Thanksgivings, so another word, one that will impress any Hispanic who doesn’t believe you know any Spanish, is guahallote, or turkey, usually referred to as pavo. I spelled it wrong and I couldn’t google it so it’s definitely the more unusual of the two words for turkey. Joking around before my trip to Mexico by truck, I predicted that if I got pulled over I would call the cop a guallote and he’d think I was loco and let me go. It’s no laughing matter in reality.
Getting back to that one useless government phone number in the link, used to report abuse reminds me (tip of the iceberg folks) that in one police station I was at, which was more like another motor vehicle agency, a very nice gentleman (plane clothesman)sought me out based on my American appearance. He didn’t know what he was walking into; he was supposed to be a sort of a go to guy, an ombudsman of sorts. Needless to say he was powerless and useless, I knew it and he knew it too.
Paying this guy no mind we came to realize a little later on, that we weren’t the only ones totally aggravated with the police, because we saw other Mexicans paying for their (real or) imagined infractions- at a less dignified station house, (who needs traffic court- and this is where that other guy should have been- in the run down police station, not that other semi-modern office building.) where we saw how one ticket morphs into several if you didn’t pay for it on the spot the few hours before. One young lady thrust her head in the door and screamed at the cops that they were F’n rats. (Pigs is too kind. And where was this guy from the wannabe "internal affairs" when you needed him?) F’n rats, that was how my friend translated the incident for me later. The cops laughed at her.
Sometimes you don’t have an American with deep pockets in the car with you, or you barely have enough money for the gasoline to get home, and this necessitates the policeman who pulls you over to walk behind your car and unscrew your license plate, and creatively write more tickets besides waylaying the plates, and on top of the original "ticket." Sometimes they mysteriously loose the license plate even though you show up within 24 hrs holding the money you’ve collected from everybody in your family. I saw it with my own eyes. You’ll get a receipt for the lost plate. Good luck with the receipt. For this I didn’t need a translation, this rotten bad act might just as well have been mimed. I don’t think any Mexican cop, tall or not like in Puebla, has the chutzpah to remove a United States plate from a dully registered US car.... but threatening someone like me with physical harm is perfectly acceptable.
I was just in Canada but I'm doing all this reminiscing about Mexico. I did figure 8's in my car when I made a wrong turn in Toronto and held my breath, but there were never any traffic stops let alone tickets. I brought extra money this time for a slush fund, just in case, but nothing happened so we decided to blow the money at the "Metro" watching the first place Toronto Blue Jays beat the Baltimore Orioles. Two different countries, each with separate approaches to stimulating their economy with my foreign dollars. I’m going to have to consider which method I prefer because the museums outside of Mexico City were devoid of people when I was there; they even kept the lights off because they certainly can’t expect the well off cops to help out with the overhead. And empty museums are what I saw before this swine flu mess hit.
But I was bored in prosperous Canada, even though I enjoyed a professional ballgame for the first time in 30 years. And I will never get used to soccer....Oh gees don’t let me get sidetracked again because there is quite a winding path one takes (bribes) if one is lucky enough to have the soccer skills to make it as a pro. My friend’s brother has such skills; and waits, and he’s also earned a teachers certificate, which has also thus far proven useless; up until his family accumulates the 30,000 pesos to compensate some teacher who’s thinking about retiring. You knew that Mr. President? You did, but will you care about it when and if this drug war is successfully won? This other battle line I’ve described might really be the harder and more dangerous one to wage some would say. I don’t think so; if you began arresting these no good swine in the small towns like I’ve been to; and word spread that the whole world was watching. Someday when one reporter wakes up and travels to the "real" Mexico, like you would see if you stayed "first class" in a real Mexicans house and writes about what I’m talking about, and after every embarrassed Hispanic in the United States stands up and demands changes in your country as a result of that article.... and then we stop blindly wasting billions on foreign aide to your country because feckless politicians in my country now get the hint....because all the once dormant Hispanics boycotted one political party over the other.... then maybe things will change and Mexicans won’t have to desperately break up their families like they do, running to other countries to find work. Because Mexico is gorgeous!
That’s a fantasy of mine, but let’s wraps up my impressions of Canada last week by writing some more about Mexico. But from a less urgent perspective, I’m just about spent anyway. The octane in the gasoline is as advertised in Canada so my car didn’t hesitate like it did in Mexico when we lurched from one police incident to another. The unlit streets in Mexico where very good at disguising the ubiquitous speed bumps that one time sent a 200lb- 32in TV flying into the roof of that once nice suburban. I had to look hard in Canada to find even one speed bump. The quick reflexes and survival skills I honed in Mexico are atrophied now. I found one speed bump in a Canadian shopping mall, Mr. Presidente, and the speed limit was 15 mph and that would never blow out your tires, wreck your suspension or rattle your nerves like the continuous series of speed bumps on your main drags. I even had the opportunity to point out to my friend when we where driving in Canada another thing I had been criticizing in Mexico. An elegant arched walkway over the road, unlike the concrete monstrosities that stretch every half mile it seemed in your country and which would never survive a minor earthquake.
What’s this all about already? Mr. President I think you’re a brave guy who’s done a lot more then those other presidents that preceded you, especially on the drug battle front, but I don’t think you have a clue how bad it is for the average Mexican coping with the petty corruption and trying to jump start a business, which they can never seem to do-is it any surprise? Did you grow up privileged, never circulating with poor Mexicans which in my book include an imaginary middle class? Did you campaign in the small towns? Hillary and Barrack did. She managed to drink a few beers with working stiffs in Western Pennsylvania last year and Mr. Obama got to meet an average schnook or two in your typical American town on the campaign trial last year. One guy by the name of Joe Wurzelbacher went on to big and better things amazingly.
Is this rant embarrassing? Don’t worry it will never see the light of day, just a 10 or 15 minute long run on a blog that posts hundreds of diaries per day, which get circulated down and then out into eventual oblivion as other new stories are posted by other free press lovers like me. The elite got us shut out, but we can still vent all we want for free on the Daily Kos.
What about my friends search for a job in Canada? I get my priorities screwed up and this is maybe why my story will never be told, but it’s why I keep begging one reporter who writes better than me to sit down with us. Don’t worry that I e-mail reporters all the time Mr. President because they never get back to me. But if by some miracle they do and they write about this mess, don’t anybody in Mexico hurts one hair on his head in the next several months or I’ll go nuclear (safe and sound from the basement computer room in New Jersey). In the next several months, did anybody catch that? Here’s an e-mail I sent to (JADED) reporters on my list announcing sweet success in Canada. Viva Canada. He gets to put his life and any plans for a family on hold again and start from scratch when he gets an opportunity to come back and work on this one farm, assuming all the paperwork work goes through. He’s not complaining.
Not sure if this mornings e-mail made it out. Computers keep shutting down every 20 minutes at this hotel without warning and screws me up. Here’s the e-mail again, with a few corrections and an add-on at the end because I'm still in Toronto with my Hispanic side kick.
the e-mail re-sent...
Thank you for a resounding response to yesterday’s e-mail-100% apathy. I wrote you a progress report of where we were on our last full in Canada before my friend flies back home to filthy, disgusting Mexico. I’m happy to report that thanks to, as is usually the case, the generosity and toughness of private individuals trumps; my friend will be back in a few months with a job. The bureaucrats and assistants on the other hand where either nervous or worthless
But (still) if it wasn't for that neurotic lady in the immigration office on the second floor where they teach English as a second language (to Indians (the country)) not letting us use the computer less her supervisor gets angry, we wouldn’t have gone back out onto the street, walked into the store selling fabrics and asked for directions to the library- wouldn’t have been guided out the back door by a lady (not scared by a Mexican guy and an American 20 years older then him) and pointed in the (wrong) direction (she warned us the library might have moved), we never would have asked another lady for directions.... and she was the key!!!! She invited us into her messy (her words) car because it was easier to drive us over then explain where the library was. On the ride over she gave us a name of a farm where she knew the manager, and after we got nowhere looking at one more government internet site at the library, we headed off to the farm she mentioned and we met the owner.
That would have been the fourth farm driveway we pulled into in two days. Every farmer was helpful and tempted to get involved with the paperwork (one would have just taken him as an undocumented, that day, but no good.) Every last person in the area was aware of a raid that netted hundreds of illegals the previous month. The illegals where from south-east Asia.)
This last farmer and super hero was in the process of filling in his name and address on a form saying he would promise employment to my friend- on what would have likely been the wrong form. That's when his strictly business, Venezuelan wife, walked into the offices, and after sizing us up and asking how in the world we wound up on her doorstep she got down to the business of properly arranging for his future employment. She will have to advertise for employment in the area, including Toronto, and prove to the government that no one else will take the job. She was well versed on everything he would have to do in Mexico City when he got home and warned him (which we knew already) to just stick, or focus on saying he's looking for field picking work and not to mention any other skills he has. He's smart enough to know that instinctively. I was smart enough not to mention any nonsense about Stein for Congress, the Yokel News, the Daily Kos or maybe Stein for Governor. She's going to be lucky when she gets him in hopefully less then a year.
Speaking of US politics, here's a Yokels idea for saving a not insignificant amount of money I'd like to pass along to the Obama administration. Tell Americans to grow up and re-issue the one-dollar coin and even better, a two-dollar coin, like they have here in Canada. Begin removing the one-dollar bills immediately. The 13 % sales tax in Canada is a story for another day (e-mail). Must be tough on restaurants when you can buy groceries and cook at home and not pay any tax. 13% on new cars etc, etc. Gas costs about $3.50 a gallon or 92cents per liter. Free health care here, not too many seniors around yet though, then watch out. Got to get him to airport soon. He must check in with customs three hours ahead.
When I went to Mexico I lost the book I took along. In a used bookstore I was lucky enough to find one novel in English: The Ugly American. If you know the book then you know why I was amazed that it was that book that fell into my hands. Last night on TCM we watched this movie together.
Border Incident (1949)
Police try to crack down on the illegal immigration racket.
Cast: Ricardo Montalban, George Murphy, Howard Da Silva, James Mitchell Dir: Anthony Mann BW-96 mins, TV-PG
This is where this morning’s e-mail ended but I don't think it successfully was sent because the computer shuts down automatically after 20 minutes. Well I'm still here with him because his flight has been canceled for days now and we didn't know. Their ability to contact one another is primitive at best. That's Mexico!!!!!! We where comped a room. Big deal- still wound up costing me more money to stay over with him, food, parking etc.
We and a few others where not on record at the hotel being booked through Air Mexicanna. The hotel graciously will figure out this mess in the morning when hopefully Mexicanna picks up the phone on their end, and we are all long gone (private sector does that).