MAMA, DON'T LET YOUR BABIES GROW UP TO BE SHRIMPERS!

Martin Milner, Route 66 TV Show

Had Paul Sanders been a bragger, I would not have believed his story.  But Paul didn't have to exaggerate to impress.

Closely resembling actor Martin Milner of the Route 66 TV show, with a gymnast's body, four years of Spanish at Oregon State, Paul got noticed at the desk of the V.I.C.C. Motel on Central Blvd.

Brownsville Observer Editor, c. 1966,
wearing my Mr. John's suit

Alongside Paul at the V.I.C.C. night desk was another blonde guy from the Pacific Northwest, the current editor of this blog.  

While Paul reconciled the books, I managed the switchboard, not just for the motel, but for all the V.I.C.C. homes and condos, connecting callers with a long distance operator or another room, condo or the restaurant  or bar.  In the morning we gave verbal "wake-up" reminders, using a mechanical timer to remind us of the guest's request.(If someone in one of the condos left their phone off the hook, I had to drive over there and knock on their door as they had tied up a line.  (A much older lady did this several times, answering the door in bra and panties, but I never succumbed.)

I also dealt with complaints, typically about the air conditioning in the VICC's poorly constructed and maintained buildings.  When country singer Rusty Draper and his wife got stuck in a "hot" room,  I moved him to a condo.  Flipping me a quarter, he said:  "Get yourself a beer kid!"

Oh, Paul's story?

Paul left Oregon State two credits short of his degree, leaving behind a college classmate fiance' and his Lutheran minister dad.

He bolted to the Gulf Coast, letting his hair and beard grow out.  He wanted to "taste life," he told me, before living out his predictable one, "the treadmill" as he called it.

At some unidentified place, he launched his kayak into the gulf, carrying food for several days and a pistol, not for self-protection, but to kill himself in case of shark attack.  He likely overestimated his kayaking skill and the suitability of his vessel for the gulf.

But, it was a sudden storm, not sharks, that threatened his life and eventually dumped his limp, unconscious body on a remote shore along the Yucatan peninsula.  Local indigenous people found Paul, mistaking the blonde, bearded 25 year old for the reincarnation of the great god Quetzalcoatl, giving him nourishment and shelter.

Universidad Nacional de Mexico

When he gained strength, they brought him into the village to meet an attractive female professor who taught at the Universidad Nacional de Mexico. The pair became lovers and she introduced him to academic Mexican society.  Paul eschewed formal wear normally required of dinner parties and met the federal district's intellectuals in tee shirt and jeans. His fluent Spanish, intelligence and long blonde beard added credibility to the role of "El Profesor Americano" that his new girlfriend had created for him.

Paul tired of that scene and the woman, confiding in me that even their lovemaking had grown stale.  He took a bus to the closest entry into the United States, Brownsville, filling out several job applications after cutting his hair and beard.

Paul took the worst paying, but for him, most interesting of the job offers: working alongside me as a night desk clerk at the VICC for $1.10 per hour. 

Either of us could check up in an hour or so, barring some huge discrepancy, but Paul's main focus was conversation, interviewing people who came through our lobby after traveling through Mexico and Central America, shrimpers, local entertainers, prostitutes and pimps. Paul was not only bi-lingual but conversant on many topics, considering himself a citizen of the world, who enjoyed ethnic and other diversity. I was similarly loquacious, despite being four years younger.

We dealt with some strange requests.  During one shift, well after midnight, a guest called the switchboard requesting a Mercedes mechanic poste haste to give his vehicle a tune up.

I called Hector at the Philips 66 station on Central Blvd. and he actually came out to check out the Mercedes.  

Minutes later, I got a call from the room with a lot of screaming.  Checking things out, I found the guest, pulling a complete set of Mercedes tools out of his trunk.

"I'll do the work myself," he shouted.  

"Thanks for nothing!"

Another night, the switchboard lit up with complaints about loud screaming in the pool.

I found an extremely drunk guy treading water in the middle of the pool.

When I asked him to quiet down, he shouted:  "Let's get to the bottom of this.  Who's making all this god damn noise?"

When I mumbled something about letting the cops deal with this, he got out of the pool, running to his room totally in the nude.

We had several regulars like Santiago Name.  He pronounced his name as Na.may, but I suspect he'd just answered "yes" to his name being Name to the police or Border Patrol and so had to go by it.

Santiago was a classical guitarist and singer, who played in the bar, then typically serenaded a lady customer in the garden area between the bar and office. We would give Santiago an unoccupied room the maids had not cleaned to entertain his lady friend. 

We registered a guest as Mr. Fried Chicken several times a week, as he would never give his name.  He checked in around midnight two or three times a week, always accompanied by a different lady.  By 1:30 am  he would call the desk requesting two fried chicken dinners.

I would drive downtown to Higgies Cafe, the only restaurant I knew to be open all night, picking up the dinners.

A shrimp boat captain, Albert, from Houma, Louisiana, about 5'3", built like a truck, entertained us with various displays of strength. He kept a wash cloth and 16 penny nail in his back pocket.  To any who would watch, he would cover his palm with the wash cloth, then drive the nail into a 2 X 4 with his open hand.

Paul and I got intrigued by the idea of becoming shrimpers, Paul more than me.  We had an offer to join a boat as headers, the entry level job of taking of the heads off the shrimp.

The motel manager called us into her office, trying to dissuade us from going out to sea.  She wasn't concerned as much about replacing us as she was about one or both of us succumbing to the notorious shrimper lifestyle of "wine, women and song," ruining our lives.

We thanked her kindly for her concern but scoffed at the idea we could be corrupted.

Paul went.  I didn't.

Months later, while Nena and I were on our first date at the Texas Bar in Matamoros, a drunken, dirty man with a ZZ Top length beard stumbled toward us.

"Do you know WHO I AM???" he shouted as he pretended to vomit on our table.

"I'm Jesus Fuckin' Christ!"

It was Paul.  He was now a shrimper.