NO MOONWALKING AT BOCA CHICA BURGER KING!

Within two notes I realized    Michael Jackson's "Billy Jean" was playing over Burger King's sound system, not the vocals, just the back beat.  

I could visualize patrons at the New Orleans BK snapping their fingers, whole booths swaying to the Musak                                                 

At the Memphis Burger King, someone is breaking out into falsetto, while in Chicago, they are moonwalking across the Whopper floor space.

In Brownsville, at the Boca Chica store, the customers are oblivious to the King of Pop, there to eat, not sing, dance or even hum along.

A tough looking guy with tattooed arms, a wife and three pre-school kids doesn't even blink when Nikki at the cash register charges him $31.00 for assorted junk food.  Minutes later, he smiles, when he lifts the wrapper on his Whopper, seeing its been done his way.

Two heavily-stomached P.U.B. workers get in line, both with plasticized I.D. cards around their neck and a huge key ring on their belt.  Grandson Jack thinks they are police.  I tell him police are fatter than that.

"April Is Child Abuse Prevention Month
Proclaimed at Burger King June 4

Fifty-one years ago KRIO in McAllen, the valley's only rock n' roll station, had a Beatles vs. Monkeys contest.  The Monkeys got a lot of votes with the soon-to-be departing disc jockey mumbling "only in the valley."  KRIO gave us a taste of the outside world, but not a very large dose.

That was 1967. The next year, Tom Robinson, now an administrator at the Southmost Library, stayed in his car until the last note of Steppenwolf's "Born to Be Wild" played on the radio.  That same year Tom also gave Nena and I a low-numbered copy of the Beatles White Album for a wedding present, then knocked on our door wedding night to hear the record.

That was a time of innocence for Brownsville.  No Jerry McHale,  No Bobby Wightman-Cervantes.  Juan Montoya was in junior high.

At night I tuned my radio into Larry Lujack of WLS Chicago or to Radio Belize tracking Hurricane Beulah in the Gulf.