Mercedes Barcha & Gabriel Garcia Marquez

 

Gabriel “Gabo" and Mercedes met when they were 9 y 14 years young and he knew. She did not. Sandy and I met when we were 14 y 15 and I knew. Sandy did not. I really did. And I didn’t know much, but I knew.

We have to stay married for three more years to tie the Garcia Marquez’s. I have read many of his books. I always wondered why he would take two showers every day. An adventure to Colombia taught me why.

Is theirs a fabulous story or yes?  Sandy, Marnie and I have been to his casa in Cartagena, and even the bar at the El Hotel Santa Clara where he drank.

A friend, Charles Gregory of Albuquerque, New Mexico, pushed the book “One Hundred Years of Solitude" on me twenty years ago. Charles had spent much of his young life in a mission near the Alamo in San Antonio. 

I do not enjoy fiction. I read the whole book on the playa at Na Balam with my toes in the warm white sand. I did not like it. A little too fictional for me.

Years later on Isla Mujeres, Mexico, I found a copy of the novel abandoned at the free book table at “Cabanas" Maria del Mar. That copy sold for $3.95 in 1971. Once again. I reread it, thinking to myself. “Don’t be so serious. Enjoy the words.”  Last night in my casita on the bog, I reread the first three pages -- WOW!

Only 50 million copies sold? Published the same year Sandy and I were married. A coincidence? I think not.    

ja ja      

Have YOU read it ?

su servidor,           

Roberto Francisco Tocino

Follow this link to read Mercedes Barcha's obituary: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/23/books/mercedes-barcha-dead.html

Souvenirs

I am dusting the six lighted shelves in our kitchen, in what was once a broom closet. All kinds of cool memory-souvenir-travel stuff: 
• kachinas from the Hopi Mesa
• some awesome Maya statues from Coba, Uxmal, Tulum, Campeche and Chichen Itza
• pottery pieces from the ancient village above Agua Caliente, New Mexico
• a coffee cup from Cortez, Colorado near Mesa Verde
• a rug from Istanbul (OK OK we didn’t buy it, but it is a fun story)
• a stone statue from Portovenere (port of Venus) in Italy at the south end of Cinque Terra
• a carved Maya wall piece from Palenque in Chiapas 
• a cowboy statue from Disney Land 1967
• a beautiful sandstone with a natural red heart from Capital Reef National Park in Utah
• four kachinas from Santa Fe, Canyon de Chelly, Gallup and Flagstaff
• a stone from the bottom of the Grand Canyon on the Colorado River
• three pieces of cholla wood from the cholla cactus of the hills of Albuquerque
• a salad bowl that has a piece of medical tape on it that says "Nora Bacon" in my mom's own handwriting
• four types of railroad spikes that held the wooden ties of the Old Colony Railroad that once ran to the Cape through  our back yard (1845- 1939)
• a lava stone from Hawaii, and one from Phantom Ranch
• a small white Zeus or Poseidon bust from Athens
•  beat-up Pusser's Landing BVI tin cup that once held a Pain Killer drink or two
• Sandy’s father's WWII medals and his cigarette lighter
• a piece of white coral from Isla Mujeres 
• a slice of red rock from Sedona
• a flat wall rock from Connecticut that has imbedded fossils in it 
• a 6,000-year-old spearhead that I found on a pool excavation on the North River
• a rectangle rock labeled "2001 Montana" 
and 
• a Mohawk Trail plate with an elk in the center that Rich Busa gave me 19 years ago. I have family photos with my father's father on that very site on the Mohawk Trail on Route 2, at the top of the Hoosac Mountain Range. Thank you.

Why Did You Come Back?

Sandy & I came back from our winter in Mexico 10 days early. Some asked "Why?" We were afraid that we would be stranded there for months possibly. It probably is true that we would be safer in the Yucatan area of Mexico than here.

For a while we thought we would have to drive back.  How long would that have taken? It all started when a rumor spread that the Isla Holbox ferry was shutting down. It was only a rumor. When we are on vacation, we do not turn on the TV or read the news. My phone stays in my truck in Massachusetts. The last of the ten hotels we were staying at was on Isla Mujeres. Sandy said, “If they shut down the Puerto Juarez ferry, how will we get to the aeropuerto in Cancun?” 

One of the books I devoured while on vacation was Paul Theroux's “On the Plain of Snakes” (October 2019). He drove from Cape Cod to Mexico. He toured only the western part of Mexico, and it was scary. Maybe even scary enough for us not to visit Mexico City or Cuernavaca next year, or ever. 30,000 cartel people were killed in one year.

One of the girls on Marnie's Belize Yoga Retreat told of her recent escapade. She and her sister were traveling in Barcelona and Lisbon. Her sister had a serious fall in Portugal. After the hospital stay, she could not fly. They managed to get on a cruise ship to Great Britain, even though they were told that it was impossible to do so. Then they managed to get on a second cruise ship that was heading for St. Marten, full of drunken Englishmen. They got off in Florida. It took 40 days and it cost $30,000 for them to get home.

I broke a tooth in Mexico. I went to the dentist on Isla Mujeres. She said, “You need a crown.” I think that is what she said. 

My dentist from the Navy told me the same thing for years. I never got one. He retired after being my dentist for 40 years. My new Duxbury dentist has been trying to get me to do one for only $1600. I am old. I am in no pain. But now, in Mexico, I have to get it done. 

I ask, "How much?" ("Cuanto cuesta?")

She says 6,800 pesos. 

It is still early in the vacation. Tom and Sandy are figuring out all the meal bills. A margarita -- rockes y sal with Don Julio -- is $4.00. I get that. But when it comes to big things like motor scooters or refrigerators or a house, I don’t know where to put the decimal point. You have to divide everything by 20. Twenty pesos to the dollar. Right now it is 24.2 pesos per dollar. In 1988 it was only 10 pesos to the U.S.dollar. 

Anyway, after three separate trips to Dra. Victoria Arteaga, up in the Colonias, I have a brand new Mexican crown. Alfredo, our private taxi driver, drove me. His grandson is attending West Point.  ycmthissup

I paid her in cash. It cost $211 US. 

Stop by our casa some time if you want to admire it.

All-inclusives are not this much fun.        

Keep traveling!   

Tocino

Don't Look Down

The Bacon compound on 90 and 92 Howland Avenue Adams Massachusetts, October 2019.

My father’s mother and father lived in the big house, and we lived in the small house to the left. The first time I experienced fear of heights was when my father decided that he would put a slate roof on Frank & Hattie’s house. The big house. I went up into the attic, and then up through the partially torn-out roof, and knew right away that I did not like heights, and departed.

The comedian George Carlin said that he is not afraid of heights. He said he is afraid of falling from heights.

Not having any idea what I would do after high school, like my father I signed on with the Navy Seabees. They were called Seabees because they were the construction battalion for the Navy during World War II and Vietnam. Get it? C.B.’s

I wanted to operate bulldozers like John Wayne in the movie “The Fighting Seabees.” We build, we fight. We wore Marines uniforms overseas. To this day, the Marines love the Seabees. On a walking tour through Sicily, I found myself one night at dinner sitting across from a female retired Army Colonel. She didn’t have a lot to say. She was stoic. She sat up very straight. I didn’t know how get her to open up. She had been stationed everywhere. I finally asked her if she'd had any contact with the Navy Seabees. She blossomed, smiled, and said, “I love the @$#&* Seabees.”

Eventually an Electrical Construction school opened up in California for three months during the winter. California for the winter sounded good. The last phase of electrical school turned out to be pole climbing. In pole climbing school, when rookie Seabee climbers first strap on their gaffs, at least half put them on inside out. Try not to gaff into a knot hole. Your next step will be interesting to say the least. 

It was the first time that I heard of the country called Vietnam. I did not have a choice. To pass school, I needed to become a pole climber or flunk. A telephone pole, really a power pole, is 32 feet. Some are as tall as 90 feet. When I completed school, Dad was really proud that I had conquered my fear of heights. With gaffs nonetheless strapped to the insides of my legs. Spurs and tree climbing spikes. Specifically Buckingham steel climbers. 

That is me gaffed in on the forward pole with Elmer Berkee sitting on the crossbars. That was 1964. How do I remember that and so clearly? The second pole down is a red-haired real sailor from the fleet, who shipped over to the Seabees. He called every one Mate. He probably was from Ohio. I don’t know who his partner on the power pole is. But I can picture his face. Just like runners, pole climbers have different styles.

Up to that point I had not done much that pleased him. That was my fault.

Eventually orders come and I am stationed at the Naval Air Station in South Weymouth Massachusetts. I work out of the Public Works electrical shop. We change fluorescent light bulbs, install duplex receptacles, and maintain the emergency generator and all the taxiway and runway lights. One runway was called 826. The second one was 17/35. I forget the other one. Occasionally we have work to do at the two ammunition dumps in Hingham, Wompatuck and Bare Cove.

One day at 0800 muster, Chief Harley Taylor tells my section leader, Urbati, to take three sailors and go to Bare Cove and change the light on top of the rusty 80-year-old water tower. It is like the joke: How many Polacks does it take to change a light bulb? Two to turn the ladder, and one to install the lightbulb.” Urbati takes me aside and says, “I don’t need to take three men to the Hingham Ammunition Dump to change a lightbulb. It’s Friday. Why don’t you take an early liberty and go visit your girlfriend in Adams.”

Oh I forgot to tell you, we also took care of the lights on the blimp hanger, which was 148 feet high. 

I got really good at giving tours to new Seabees, or anyone if they dared. Taylor gave me half a day off every time I climbed the inside stairs to reach the top and the magnificent view. Even sailors that didn’t like me had to admire my new-found courage at age twenty.

Look how little the orange and white water tower looks, compared to being on top of Hangar One!

Monday 0800 muster. The first thing out of the chief’s mouth is, “Did Bacon climb, or did he chicken out?” Urbati said, “He climbed.”

Time goes by. Muster 0800. Urbati gets orders to Ethiopia of all places. He is gone. I have advanced in rank. The light on the rusty tower goes out again. Taylor says we need to fix it before a small plane crashes into it. "Bacon, take three men and go over to Bare Cove.”

I do not know how tall that water tower was, but it was high.  

It looked like this.

There were no safety belts. You are free climbing on your own. 

The last twenty feet leans out before the roof peaks. A rusty ladder is welded to the floor of the roof. There are no hand rails. I remember the climbers rule: Never look down, and don’t stay on top ogling the view. You might freeze up, and then you are basically screwed. Oh, and then there is the red shouldered hawk who might dive bomb you, a clear objection to you being in his air space.

Mission accomplished. We drank beer on the way back to the base. There were no medals issued. But I should have received one.

I’m almost 75 now, and Sandy will not let me go on our 30-foot roof to clean the gutters. It is a good thing.

- Bacon R. F. 10-93-63 United States Navy Seabee CEW 2

Planet Zylonite

“I know he had a mustache.”

This is from Eugene Michalenko who is responsible for the Adams Massachusetts Historical Newsletter. He sings in the Saint Stanislaw Choir on Hoosac Street also. Sandy Zabek and I married there. Well, she is Polish.  We attended on Sunday with Cioci Flo. 

Sandy and I spent this whole last weekend in the Adams area celebrating our 52 second anniversary. Jack’s Hot Dogs, SWAT teams with drawn pistols on Howland Avenue, Mt. Greylock, Porches Hotel, Grazie Italian Restaurant, apples and cider, Hairpin Turn, my grandmother Hatties’ kitchen, fall foliage, St. Stan’s, train ride from Adams to North Adams, Mass MOCA, Angelina’s, George Haddad at the Red Carpet Restaurant on Park Street (opened in 1927 -- WOW!) Midgie Bechard, blah blah blah. It was so much fun that I just might write a blog about it. Or maybe I just did.

No wonder I like Eat-alian food. I spent my first eighteen years here. You probably did also. Aldo and Santino and Alvin and Etalo were common names. Taut, Hipe, Shorty. And I thought we had good nicknames. Remember Reno and Rose and Red and the beautiful Rosetta at Carnazola’s Store? Saturday night dances at the French Church, dandelion wine, anyone? Or how about a game of Kick the Can? Raise your hand if you went to Howland Avenue School. WRGB. Meet you for a pick-up game of baseball? See you at Eileen’s Dairy Bar. Did we have fun or what?

Kipper Avenue is now, and was for us, Apremont Street with a terrific story of why the name changed. 

The Quaker House, built in 1782, is on Friend Street. Some of the Friends fought at Bennington against the British.

 Comedian Steven Wright says he likes to reminisce with people he doesn’t know. But I remember you.  

 Bob Bacon