Growing Up Then and Now

Daniel was the manager’s name.  Eight hundred pesos was the rate for una semana ($62 for the week).  Mike had not yet told me that the only rule at Daniel’s place was:  Do Not Get In-between Daniel and Any Girl He Is Hitting On.  Can you see what’s coming?

I didn’t appreciate yet how good it was that Daniel thought I was her brother.  For me, at that moment, just know I couldn’t wait to see her again.  Before finding out what happened next, a digression for readers more interested in the beauties of Playa Zipolite than the true story about me, Daniel and ______________.  (I didn’t know her name yet.  She had told me and Mike what it was, but all I could remember is that it sounded pretty and all Mike could remember is that it was French for a plant matter which in English we call nasturtium.)

Yes, Playa Zipolite is perhaps the most beautiful beach in the world, and it’s the beach that makes everything happen; but it’s the not-yet-overrun-by-big-buck-tacky-places that makes it the greatest beach in the world.  That, and that it is a mecca for hippies from all over the world.

Watching the sunrise my second morning, I met Robin who first did LSD in Norman, Oklahoma, in 1967.  Robin mostly writes these days (good Haiku) and gets material by asking new-comers if they have ever met anybody famous or know someone who has met somebody famous.  One of the other friendly Zipolites I’d met the night before, a guy named Bo from Sweden, a fan of Shel Silverstein’s, joined me and Robin for coffee, so I thought I’d try Robin’s conversation-opener:  “So Bo, ever met anybody famous or know somebody who met somebody famous?”

“Yah,” he says, “a friend of mine’s mother once shook hands with Albert Hofmann at a psychiatrists’ convention in Germany in the 40s.”  You’ve got to be kidding me – Albert Hofmann was the discoverer of LSD – but once you know Bo, he’d be the one who’d come up with that for an answer.

Now you’re getting a feel for Playa Zipolite.  I spent the week lying in the hammock, catching the breezes, reading, watching whales breach, drinking coffee, smoking pot and meeting new people.  I also enjoyed body surfing, listening to the birds sing in the courtyard on waking, and having waves lull me to sleep.  The waves just keep coming by.  Pretty great for less than $10 a night.  (The actual room was sparse – no TV – but clean.)

Capucine at Sunrise

One of my favorite times was watching the sun set that first night with my new U of C friend.  Not only does Zipolite have the best sunrises, it also has the best sunsets – that’s the advantage of a south facing beach.  And not only does Zipolite have a jutting land mass at the east to assist in sunrises, it also has a configuration of rocky cliffs and caverns at its west end, the caverns providing narrow passageways for the water to rush through.

Think of a journey to the center of the earth starting with a horizontal entrance way.  As the sun sets in the narrows, our entrance way becomes firery and red.  Our jagged cliffs are pointed.  Silhouetted they look like the tip-tops of evergreen trees, so dark and so sharp in the sky.  Meanwhile, down below, the waves are crashing like white frosting on the rocks while a not imperceptible milky-way, faint and seeming far-away, of ocean spray goes fleetingly across the sand.  Up above the evergreen tips have caught fire!  Glowing red-hot embers or maybe the blood of the sun.  Then one of the shorter evergreens in the back of the cavern pierces that huge bright ball, and right before our eyes, in the middle of the passageway, all the blood spills and the sun drops into the ocean journeying to the center of the earth.  On the beach the denizens clap.  (Later I learned it is only at this time of the year you get the double dose of rocks included.)

That’s how great a day on the beach at Zipolite is – stupendous at both ends, relaxed in the middle, and music by night.  Always 85 degrees and sunny, but the ocean a tetch cooler for comfort (except in the early morning, when it’s a tetch warmer).  Buena Suerte all this can last forever.

Tomorrow:  Donde estan las damas?

That Night at Red’s Juke Joint  [third daily dose of The Mississippi South of Winona]

Juke Joints are whatever you want to imagine, they just sound good even before you see one.*  Red’s doesn’t look like much from the outside, no lights, just an old weathered sign.  Walking in, it’s like a basement, only on the first floor.  $5 bucks at the door and $3 bucks for a beer – help yourself out of the ice chest.  Red is lying on a couch watching the NBA on TV while the band is playing just to his left.  There’s no bartender, just a guy sitting in the audience to take your money, and no bar – just a bunch of tables and chairs and a counter stretching from front to back (maybe 25 feet) to set beers down on, all in a tender red glow of neon lights. 

It’s crowded and rowdy and everybody’s friendly, like we’re all in Red’s living room and known each other forever.  There was Mariana from Mexico, a guy from Amsterdam, Celia from NYC doing a piece for NPR on the catfish farm inspection issue, a rock band promoter from Florida, and his girlfriend, and even another twosome from Minnesota, Pam & Grant, plus maybe a dozen others, mostly local denizens.  The Heather Crosse Trio was playing old time soul, R & B, Boogie-Woogie and the Blues.

From one end of the place to the other it was easy to start great conversations, and it really is the magic amongst the people as much as the music that makes a juke joint great.  Not as much dancing as I’d hoped, mostly just dancing in place, but then she walked in the door and I knew she was the one to ask to dance, beautiful, in her 30s and with her mom & dad – or so I thought.   Since the other two looked so much older I just assumed she was a wonderful daughter, bringing her mom & dad to see a juke joint.  Being the conversationalist I am, I thought I’d start with “This must be your mother and father,” but no, with a rather icy glare I learned it was her fiancé and a friend – so much for dancing.

Turns out the Florida couple had checked into the same motel as me & Rich, so we ended the night hanging with them.  Next morning on to Fred’s Lounge in Mamou, Louisiana, the Cajun music capital of the world, and another Dawkins faux pas, but that’s another whole story.  (Fred’s is famous for its Saturday morning dancing and has a sign, “No Standing on the Jukebox.”)

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*We all know what a jukebox is.  Some of us know a shifty football halfback can “juke” a tackler and run for a touchdown.  It’s also a nickname for jizz.  But the actual derivation is from a Gullah word “joog” meaning rowdy or disorderly – or, some say, from a Gaelic word spelled d-e-o-c-h and pronounced “jook” meaning a drink.  No matter the name, the places derive from plantation days and Jim Crow days when sharecroppers needed a community space to relax after a hard week’s work.

The Mississippi South of Winona

Clarksdale, for example, a little south of Memphis, near The Crossroads of Highways 61 & 49, is a wonderful mix of Black & White but jarring sensibilities.  For starters, Clarksdale is in Coahoma County, the poorest county in Mississippi – and Mississippi the poorest of 50 states.  Then there’s the old Five and Dime store, now a brightly lit Wi-Fi café with condos on top, the only place open on Yazoo Avenue (the main street) – even though it’s 2 o’clock on a Friday afternoon.  But right at the edge of town at the end of main street’s 3 block run, just on the other side of the tracks, is Red’s Juke Joint.  Here’s the story of those 12 hours, written-up in under three pages.

First we noticed the desertion.  Then we saw the Wi-Fi café was open.  Then we found the only motel in town had a room to rent, so back to the café with a room for the night.   As we’re parking, this sombrero wearing skinny old white guy comes running up.   “Oh hey!   I see your from Minnesota – your plates – just wanted you to know you can rent the condo upstairs!”

In Memphis we also visited the spot MLK was assassinated

Rich and I, two retired guys, were on “a talking with the locals” trip, taking Hwy. 61 all the way from Winona to New Orleans.  Our goal was to uncover the cute lady historian working at the local history museum – who we never found by the way – but we did meet some great people while looking, including the poet laureatress of urbane St. Louis and the Kellogg’s Corn Flakes strikers in Memphis.  But on to Clarksdale because we’ve heard about Red’s.

This sombrero fellow, then, in one breathless minute, discloses that he grew up in Wisconsin, oversaw plantations in Honduras for a living, loves the Blues, has made one of the upstairs condos (which he owns) into an art museum, voted this last election for the first White Mayor of Clarkdale in 40 years, and “for sure, you really want to meet my girlfriend Maddy and I hope you want to stay here tonight.”

We disclosed we already had a room – “. . . maybe tomorrow night – but yes let’s see the art museum.”  While touring the art museum, we learned so much more about Win (the sombrero fellow) – he kept chattering away – and the stuff we learned just about made us want to barf so much we couldn’t wait to leave.  Rich and I only had one rule (besides not getting into each other’s hair) and that was to always count to ten before discussing any of the locals we met.  1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10….

…..Win was a proud white supremacist with a machete from Thailand amongst his ancient art work collection.  His collection worthy of mid-town Manhattan  – befitting someone fancying himself living the life of a plantation owner, even today, – “. . . but boy!” he told us, “can these boys play the Blues right here in the old cotton fields back home!”

I was already at the door, ignoring his yippy dog, Maggie (wearing a bow tie), when Win started wielding the machete, telling Rich “You don’t know anything about Thailand!  The reason they lasted so long as a country is because they are such a vicious people!”  Rich, despite my cautioning otherwise, had been trying to dispassionately let Win know we thought he was a racist pig.  Rich leaves with me, telling Win “It’s because the Thais knew how to win the peace without fighting.”

Tomorrow:  The Next Few Hours