A New
Chapter, a New Life: Chapter 5- Married in Mexico
New, New,
New, and Old… (Begun Sunday, October 17, 2004)
As the title of this
chapter suggests and perhaps unfairly misleads, I was not married in
Mexico but arrived there shortly after my marriage in Los Angeles at
the Latter-day Saint Church of Jesus Christ temple on Santa Monica
Boulevard. That said, my first days and nights as a married man were
spent in the new Mexican state for me and my bride, southern Baja, or
California Baja South.
And thus my Mexican
observations and living experiences were amplified more than ever
before.
Up until then I had
spent one short day in Tamaulipas (1982), a long day in Quintana Roo
(1983), two afternoons and a night stay in California Baja North
(1993, 1995, 1999): a total of three states in almost as many days.
But I was now to go a good stay in 2000, a practical marathon of 11
days. Added to this new experience was the novelty of being newly
married; an event that happened not long after my December search of
the previous year in Mexicali (1999).
I was earnestly
looking still, a week after New Year’s of 2000, and it finally
happened on a Sunday evening in Highland, California. The chapel that
I attended had a multi-stake fireside that night and that is
precisely when I met my future wife, Jennifer Fisher of San
Bernardino. By April she had met all of my family and I proposed by
the end of that month. We were engaged for nine weeks and married
June 24, 2000.
We
had friends (Jen through her sister’s husband in Yucaipa,
California) who had a house in Los Barriles, Mexico. They agreed to
let us stay there the majority of the time allotted in Mexico for the
honeymoon. This is a very small town on the Mar de Cortes a ways down
the coast from the capital city, La Paz. It is rather out of the way
from major tourism but it had definitely been touched by a number of
us northerners, including those of whom we were staying with among
others along the rural seaside and its occasional hotel resorts.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzrrrrrrre
Cabo San Lucas
We arrived in the
later afternoon at the airport a good bit inland from the tourist
havens of San Jose del Cabo and Cabo San Lucas located at the end tip
of the peninsula. It was Saturday. It took a while to figure out
which was the best transportation to our hotel, called the
Finisterra, a few leagues southwest of the bay on the coast of CSL
(aka “Cabo”. This was a good little trip and we had to decide
between a taxi or bus, or perhaps some nice passerby with nothing
better to do. Not only did we start a quick comparison of
transportation but we began regular being accosted by time share
sellers, some of whom we entertained more than others, while walking
the streets and walkways or simply moving from one major destination,
such as the airport, to another.
We took the bus, and
took in the many giant hotel resorts and hotels of various colors and
styles along the ocean. This ocean was pointing south towards the
Pacific.
________________________________________________________
Time blurb—October 24, 2004—today I heard a very interesting
piece of data: there are 4 million Americans living abroad with one
fourth of them, one million American citizens living in Mexico. This
puts some interesting considerations into perspective.
This was a new state
for both of us, and I should note that my wife had a few experiences
in Mexico, thus adding to our collective experience and knowledge of
this land of some one fourth of all American ex-patriots abroad.
My wife had taken
visits into the border areas of California with her family as a child
and had done some camping there, as well as taken a flight with her
mother to Guadalajara and Puerto Vallarta as a 14 year-old. Her
experiences growing up with Latinos in San Bernardino and her mission
in Spain acquainted her with many things Hispanic, and her natural
affinity to cooking also led her to different Hispanic cuisines.
I was 29 and she was
26. Our combined 55 years of living experience was now venturing to
the Southern Baja state together in a new state of matrimony as well.
A few months prior to
this, a woman, the sister or mother of one of my students at Pacific
High School mentioned a good hotel at Cabo named “Finisterra”.
The Latin name implies it’s at the very end of the earth, so I
assumed this would be a suitable place for the beginning of our
married lives together…
The end of everything
is the beginning of everything else.
Our beginning included
time-share sales pitches, ocean vistas and multi-colored hotel
resorts along sandy beaches beside our speed bump endowed highway. It
was nice.
First 24 Hours
This was a luxury
hotel; our concierge was accommodating and I believe spoke
English, as the clerks at the front desk did as any luxury hotel in
Mexico would have their employees do.
Our first night
together had more to do with universal things than anything Mexican
or American, but the following morning’s events were dictated by
our desire to observe the Sabbath as best we could. We left the hotel
Finisterra with our luggage and took a hotel taxi back to the town to
attend the local LDS Church that we asked about at the front desk.
The church was a few
blocks away from where we were let off after our cab driver, who
claimed to know its location, finally found the right one after
driving by another one, and we managed to attend the sacrament
meeting, or perhaps another one, like priesthood and Relief Society.
It was warm and I remember appreciating that some rooms of the
building had air conditioning. I remember ceiling fans. Both my wife
and I don’t recall a lot about the meeting there, because in times
since we have attended other services in Acapulco, Mexico City and
Hermosillo.
A
few things I do remember at the church was talking to a few American
missionaries, they were based in the Culiacan Mission, which is a
ferry ride across the sea to the east. I can’t recall who else we
talked to but it sort of seemed they were used to tourists from
abroad. We left our bags somewhere secure and after leaving the
Church in the heat of the day we found an affordable hotel a few
blocks closer to the bay called the “Mar de Cortes”.
It was small and
cheap-- but it was nice enough-- and we stayed there Sunday and
Monday nights before moving on in a rental car to the next stop up
the coast.
That Sunday night
found us walking about downtown and out to the end of the bay pier.
We were approached by another time share salesman, and somehow from
this and another commitment the following morning we managed a free
blanket and a rental car which we would need to go to Los Barriles a
good 100 kilometers away. The morning commitment also promised a free
breakfast of bacon and eggs? What the hey?
That night we went to
a downtown supermarket and I bought a Sunday Los Angeles Times and
Jen bought some bottled water and maybe some bread and a few
eatables. Our second night as a married couple had no television and
the bed was small but I had good reading and life was good; we were
happy.
The scare
That night, I believe
it was, if not the night after, a story we like to tell people
occurred: a young boy jumped out in front of us on the night sidewalk
and startled us loudly. He really upset my new wife and I yelled at
him in Spanish to the affect of “why would he do such a thing?”
My adrenaline was
flowing hard as well as my need for retribution as I signaled to be
quiet and wait to Jennifer as I carefully watched what the boy would
do after his fun little trick on two unsuspecting adults. I observed
intently as he peered into a large bar/restaurant, transfixed and
oblivious to anyone from mere seconds ago. His mistake.
My still adrenaline
surging fingers quickly dug into his sides as I simultaneously
shouted straight into his ear. I smiled as he recoiled far worse than
his previous stunt pulled on us. As I walked away I knowingly warned
him to be careful of losing sight of his prey, in this case, an
unsoliciting honeymoon couple whose husband was not to be bested by
some little street punk.
Monday: Day Three
We
went to the time share morning interview at a nice bay hotel with a
young and exuberant guy that tried hard to make it work. We gave our
reasons and went our ways after foiled arm bending and our repeated
wriggling out of his tricky sales-talk holds and maneuvers.
Later we went to “Los
Arcos” and had fun in the sand and some powerful waves along the
most famous part of Cabo San Lucas, the most picturesque and
photographed of the entire peninsula. I don’t know if this was the
most exotic locale of our honeymoon but it was among the most fun and
famous spots we traversed.
By the time it was
over, and we had walked the streets, dined at various restaurants and
gone through the time share gauntlet as well as spent our first three
nights in two different level hotels, Jen and I were ready to leave
this busy tourist town of fame and renown. I would not say it is
“over touristy”. Rather, this was still Mexico but with less
pristine intactness for its multiple visitors and simply more money
and movement and parties. It is a beautiful town with a bay and a
nice hill to the west, and a very notable point on most world maps.
This was a nice place to become acquainted with, but perhaps it hides
the deeper parts of Mexico, just as some might say the entire Baja
does not approach the “real” authentic Mexico as compared to the
rest of the 29 states on the “mainland”. I am not sure, however.
All of Mexico is the real Mexico, no matter how urban, rural,
touristy, rich or poor. And this was another key part of the
fantastically big whole of this immense nation.
To contemplate the
size and sheer mass of the Mexican people, one only has to look at
the economic refugees and migrant labor force of those who live in
the United States; constantly increasing in every state of the Union.
And for every visitor here, there are millions of cohorts rising in
the south. Granted, the demographic shift has kicked in and the
birthrate is decreasing while the older age groups are increasing in
percentage within Mexico. But the sheer numbers of Mexicans is a
large part of our globalizing world. It can be felt from small towns
in my home state of Indiana to the biggest cities of our nation, the
biggest economy on earth. (Not to mention California, which is the
6th biggest in the world). California as well as the other
Border States are “Mexico-Lite”, a mere extension of the United
States of Mexico (Estados Unidos Mexicanos).
Across the Baja Peninsula Desert
We
took our rental VW Bug across the bottom of the Baja peninsula. It
was my first time behind the wheel of a vehicle in Mexico. There were
a lot of speed bumps, retracing our way east along the coast past the
colorful resorts, idling by Jose del Cabo. We considered driving into
that town and seeing the central plaza and its oceanfront, but
thought better of it and continued going across the peninsula
northward, deeper into the interior.
We
soon passed the Tropic of Capricorn, and Jennifer marveled at the
arid desert of which she had not expected. I don’t know if I had
many preconceived notions of the topography; perhaps I had some
notion of the Baja due to my trip to the mountains southwest of
Mexicali, or perhaps from my childhood visions of Zorro in both black
and white film and color-splashed cartoon animation. Jen had smartly
packed some bottled water which was handy when we spotted a car
pulled over to the side of the road and steaming with a small family
huddled in the shade of a scrub bush nearby. It was approaching
mid-day and it was hot. The family appreciated our water and perhaps
it helped them in cooling down their engine or quenching their
thirst, I don’t recall if we ever knew.
Not
long from there we stopped at a small shop in the middle of this flat
cactus and brush desert with no sight of the sea, and little else but
distant mountains. A little time in the stifling sun was good enough
to recognize that hanging out closer to the ocean was a better place
to hang out by far. I guess I stayed in the car while my wife went in
for more bottled water. Was that how it was1?
I can’t say for sure. How many little stores do we stop at in our
lifetime while traveling our thousands of miles?
Getting to our
final week’s destination: Los Barriles
We approached
the small town of Los Barriles by the sea, and to our left inland was
a large hill with an accompanying monument that had a large Mexican
flag. Not far past it was the edge of Los Barriles, sitting on the
edge of the Sea of Cortez lying expansively to the east. It was
around midday and we then had to follow directions on how to get to
the homes owned by the friend of Miles Bogh. We had our VW rental to
find our new temporary residence, and we were to return it to the
edge of the town on the highway so that the rental company could pick
up their property. We went through the whole town and across a wide
dry arroyo and found the entrance of our new estate.
American Homeowners in Mexico: A Profile
Here
I will dedicate a small bit of this chapter to Miles Bogh, a man I
never have known very well but who has had an impact on me and my
family for his generosity with his friend’s house and his
connection to my wife’s family here in California. He recently had
a brother pass away (Larry, October 2004). Also, one can see into
American homeowners through this one example as a prototype of
outsiders owning Mexican interests.
The
Boghs are a successful family from Southern California. They worked
in tower construction before switching to steel building here in San
Bernardino, California. Jay Bogh, our brother-in-law, works for KCB
Towers and his father’s business in metal structure building. They
live in Yucaipa and Jen and I have visited them multiple times. One
of Jay’s uncles is Miles, who is a bidder for his family’s
company. He owned a house down in Los Barriles, Baja Sur. First they
built what was called the guest house. (This same edifice was later
washed out this past year). It was built close to a wide arroyo and
then the larger house with two stories was constructed next to it.
Apparently this was all done in the early nineties by a cement guy
named Pete who worked with the Boghs.
Pete
and Miles had a man called Sergio, a local Mexican and his wife,
taking care of the homes as permanent caretakers while they were left
unattended. Jay’s family had a plane to go down there; I don’t
know about Pete’s transportation to and fro.
Jen
had arranged with Kari, her oldest sibling who is married to Jay
Bogh, the owners’ nephew, that we could use this house for our last
week of our honeymoon, basically for free. Jen and I met in January
of 2000, the same month I met the Boghs in Yucaipa. A short six
months later we were using their connections to live it up affordably
in the southern Baja, complete with access to a Suburban vehicle, a
dune buggy, and a boat with the assistance of Sergio (the part time
assistant or perhaps servant of the small estate).
Since
this fun and fortuitous event some four years ago, we have learned of
the demise of the guest house lying closer to the wide arroyo
emptying into the Sea of Cortes. This arroyo is just slightly further
down from the sandy road winding down the long east coast of Baja
South.
I
don’t know how often they actually stay at this little private post
far from any major attractions. We saw Miles and his boys leaving the
day we arrived and talked to them briefly. It was interesting to see
this slice of America in full force hundreds of miles south of the
border of the USA.
I
suppose, in summary, that I can say that Americans living and
investing in Mexico (as one million currently do and perhaps many
more millions invest there from abroad) are a vital and intrinsic
part of the economic makeup of this land. But I would assert that
more importantly, the Mexican people have inextricably wound
themselves into the United States and therefore this cross marriage
of the countries is complete. I will talk more about another American
enterprise south of the border in a later chapter, probably chapter
number 7.
Los
Barriles: A Town Passed by… Steinbeck?
This
is a revisionist story about Mexico, and I might as well insert John
Steinbeck. Steinbeck became a larger literary figure nationwide in
2003 because of Oprah Winfrey, and this hyperbole had its effect on
me. I t didn’t lead to me reading his accounts of travels through
his explorations and documentations of the Baja Peninsula and the Sea
of Cortez, but it lead me to read about this magnificent author and
his trips there. It gave me a revisionist appreciation for this
jutting land that goes on and on and eventually reaches the tropics.
This
was a small town where I suppose he may have passed. There are other
places up and down the coast where people were inhabiting, but this
was more or less a good sized concentration.
There
were signs up for the presidential election.
The Environs of this Foreign Owned Home
The
main house was two stories high: there was a garage downstairs and
some bedrooms where we would sleep. The guest house (the one built
first) was behind the house not far away to the south.
The
accoutrements of the homes were nice comforts and luxuries. There
were not a lot of television stations on the satellite service but
just enough to stay entertained. There were many videos at the house,
some of which I had seen (“Ghost”) but wanted to see again
because Jen had not. We watched a few like that, and I suppose I saw
a few new ones that I don’t recall too well. The main television
broadcast that I remember rather clearly was the National Convention
of the Libertarian Party. I found it a new experience and it helped
me appreciate the world of ideas and my own country and its (our)
democracy more. It’s funny how your home country can seem from a
thousand miles away and a few days of distance.
The
next door house was one only one floor and was a long rectangle
divided into about three rooms. It was placed perpendicular to the
two story home and was accessible from the driveway walking past the
first house. There was a garage next to both houses, in the direction
west closest to the road, which was a good 100 yards away. They owned
quite a bit of land , and it was even longer to reach the beach along
the Sea of Cortez
We
slept on the bottom floor which had little other than a few hallways
and the bathroom. The second floor had the TV room and the kitchen
area. The kitchen overlooked the garage and the little side house.
The Town
I
got used to going to the local store and searching for the paper and
looking forward to the draft of 2000. Any news like that was exciting
to me, and I’ve always been a fanatic of the NBA, especially since
the 1985-86 season. Maybe it was because I knew some of the guys from
college going in those years in my early teen years. I went quite a
few days before the draft addition came out. It was a great arrival
during our week.
We
visited a resort place one night with its relaxed swimming pool and
maybe tiki torches or some kind of night lights. Other evenings we
frequented some other restaurants that were off the main strip.
There
was a long strip of a street that served as the main thoroughfare
through the town, parallel to the ocean, north and south. Jennifer’s
first impression of the place was how odd it was to have a nursery
playground between two major roadways. (Not that Los Barriles had
major anything, but the idea of vehicles whizzing by at all seemed
disconcerting, and the fact the children had to cross at least one to
get there.
The town had
its share of regular homes and civil infrastructure, plus the resort
that I mentioned. There were boats along the shore that weren’t too
visible, and maybe a small airfield south of town. There was a
congregation of shops at the entrance of the town off the road; it
formed a three sided square with parking in the middle. We would
leave our dune buggy there to go up to La Paz.
We talked a few times
with a couple different cash register workers and waitresses around,
mostly small talk.
Things to Do
We broke up our days
traveling a bit: taking the suburban one day, exploring up the arroyo
and walking a ways up a narrow canyon erroneously thinking we would
find water. Not in late June. We drove back through some back trail
roads that dead ended and seemed to be little hidden ranches with
goats among the trees.
Another day we took
the suburban down (or up the coast north) to Pinto Pescadero. The
road was bumpy, curvy, and made of dirt with assorted rocks. Part of
the road was on a steep incline and looked down on a beautiful vista
of the sandy beaches and rocks and crashing waves below. It was a
scary thought of making one false move because it would not have been
a forgiving slip over the edge. This road was not made for much
traffic; it was what you would imagine a rough, isolated road to look
like.
Fishing
Adventure
Jennifer
wanted to go fishing one day so the house helper (Sergio) agreed to
take us out on a boat to fish one morning. We went somewhat early
with him down to the beachside on the other side of town. We took one
boat to get into the fishing boat already docked in the water. He
took us out due east and he figured to get the best Dorado, or sword
fish, that we had to be far away from the shore. You could see the
surrounding mountains both north and south along the coast of the
peninsula. Eventually we got far enough away where the cloudy haze
made the horizon disappear.
We
tried unsuccessfully to fish anything out of the water. The waves
were choppy and the weather was sunny and not too hot, but the
catching was lousy. Jen was excited to catch something and I was
hopeful, too, but there was no success. Maybe we tried for a half an
hour of forty-five minutes, and then we decided to go back to shore.
Jen was exhibiting bad signs of sea sickness by then, and proceeded
to heave her guts out.
This
is when the GPS and our trusty Mexican guide got us off track quite a
ways. I knew where land was, and it laid to the west, from whence we
had come. But Sergio chose to trust the GPS dial he had in the boat,
and continued more or less due north. I talked to him more than once
but he wouldn’t budge. Fine, his stubborn mistake, but it was my
new wife who lay on the floor of the boat suffering, occasionally
emptying her liquids violently into the sea off the side of the boat,
which was not a great feeling as a newly married couple and me as the
“protector”. This was not the high light of our honeymoon.
So
we then headed due north for a while against my better judgment or
wishes, and good ole Sergio was following the “GPS” (Global
Positioning System). I don’t know if it was faulty as a device or
he just had no clue how to read it, but we made it all the way up to
the Bahia de los Muertos, and we were right by a long and
mountainous, seemingly uninhabited island. Its names escapes me but
the island is easily found on the map up the coast from Punto
Pescadero going north of Los Barriles and the Cabos on the Sea of
Cortez (Gulf of California).
At
this point I was resigned to be being incredibly off course and
having to wait a while for our return trip to Los Barriles a good
ways down the coast. Jen was mostly sleeping and she was dealing as
best as she could with her sickness. I actually enjoyed seeing this
large island with a daunting elevation towering above is to the west.
What capped it off was seeing a large group of dolphins swimming and
jumping through the isolated sunny waters off the shore. We had seen
a few jumping dorado a while before but it is a whole other thing to
see an organized team of intelligent mammals work their way through
the water. I struggled with waking Jennifer up because she seemed to
finally be at ease asleep.
By
now Sergio knew for sure that we were, as I had unconvincingly
suggested an hour earlier, way off course. We turned around and began
the tedious return down the coast. Due to embarrassment, perhaps, he
tried to move fast in our speed boat, but after many minutes of heavy
pounding on the hull of the boat that sounded like it might crack it
open I told him he could let off the speed. Gratefully, he did. I
figured that it was better that we arrived 20 minutes later than
split our boat open in the middle of the sea.
I
had one more sandwich that Jen packed, but my mistake was that I
remembered it and decided to finish it off as we were approaching the
end of our errant swing in what turned out to be a very big triangle.
Jennifer, who had puked enough soda pop, solids, and other innards to
last till pregnancy, was already emptied by the time we stopped and I
helped latch the fishing boat to another anchor in the small bay
offshore, and became green and nauseous. I had to stay still a small
while to gain my equilibrium. I was grateful that I we made hope with
nothing more lost.
And
now a small aside on cultural frustrations: sometimes a person like
me from the United States has expectations or pre-conceived notions
of how things should be which do not necessarily gel well with those
in or from another culture. I learned a few of these lessons growing
up, as an adult in Spain and certainly in Chile and elsewhere. So
this was another case where these differences come up between people,
and they are even more pronounced because of linguistic or cultural
gulfs, sometimes that seem as wide as the Gulf of California. But we
learn patience and we try to avoid such problems for the future, or
at least we better prepare ourselves to handle such conflicts. It was
a long and memorable day, anyway. We were happy to be back to our
honeymoon abode and on dry land. Keep the nausea back at sea.
Hanging
Around the Premises
We
watched our share of movies and read a few things let around the
house. We saw the funny shows broadcast from the States via
satellite. Jen still had the yearning for catching a fish, and she
would go down to the shore of the house and try there. I mostly
stayed inside where it was much cooler. I think we had an air
conditioner. Yes, we did, definitely. The other house had one but it
wasn’t turned on until we tried it one time.
Sunday
in La Paz
Sunday
came and we planned to get a bus at the highway stop at the entrance
to town. We sat for a long time and the bus never came. Jen seemed
pretty flustered and times were getting short for church attendance
as we desired. The temperature was getting hotter and there was not
much shade on the cement bench. A guy drove by, and I can’t
remember exactly, but I believe he stopped and offered us a ride. He
seemed kind and he was alone in a small car. I rode in the front with
him and Jen climbed in the back, and up north we went to the capital
city of Baja California South.
Historic
Day in Mexico
As
I explained that this was my first long term stay in the country
ever, this also turned out to be the first time I was in the country
while something big and historic happened. This particular Sunday was
the presidential election day, and the longest running elected party
in the world was up for a vote. Vicente Fox represented the
challenge, the first non PRI candidate to usurp the status quo in 70
plus years.
The
PRI, the party of Pancho Villa, the “revolucionario”, was the
longest standing party in executive power in the world to that time.
This all changed because of the historic vote that Sunday. As we
drove into this largest town of Baja California South, we saw people
lined up waiting to vote at different spots, like the town park and
other places. It was a sight to behold, especially thinking back onto
the results of that day.
We
knew where to go because our driver was familiar with our church. I
can’t remember his name but he was very friendly and open minded,
and he showed such genuine interest in me and my faith and the Book
of Mormon that I left very energized and pleased by our hour or so
conversation. He was one of the nicer guys I suppose I have ever met.
I suppose that is an unexpected thing on any given Sunday.
More
unexpected for us was that when our new friend finally managed to
leave us off at the local LDS Church in La Paz was that we found out
that the services that could have been available were not because of
the funeral service of a small child. Discovering this, we were left
in a quandary as to what to do with ourselves.
As
fate would have it, another family from California was looking for
Church services that day. We both realized that is would be
impossible to partake of sacrament and we hastily decided to gather
in prayer and a short dialogue about the Book of Mormon. That was
enough, it seemed.
And
then, the Chinese food lunch! We decided to all eat together. There
was a nice authentic restaurant not far from the Bay, and we all
shared a good meal together, heavy on the sea food. They were a
successful young couple from the Bay Area with three very well
behaved children, or maybe four. We ate like little kings, and I
believe the brother paid for ours! We were really living our
religion, I guess. Latter-day Saints break bread and share. I think
we paid the tip and I offered to pay ice cream on the way home. We
went back the way we came (the way of our generous stranger from Los
Barriles coming up north), and stopped in a beautiful mountain
canyon. They had no ice cream. I bought some candy bars for everyone,
but it wasn’t quite the same.
We
had some good religious conversations on the way home, about
dialogues between the faiths. Now that I think of it, they were from
San Jose, and believe she was Asian-American. We were a nice little
spontaneous anomaly happily traversing the back roads of Baja
peninsula.
The
nice vacationing family dropped us off at the familiar entrance to
Los Barriles and we wished each other well. This turned out to be an
unplanned but pleasurable Sunday, and even though it included no
formal Sunday services, it was a very nice way to attempt a religious
undertaking, informal as it was.
Coming Home
We finished our mostly
restful week and honeymoon, and we prepared to fly back on the Fourth
of July, 2000. We had been married Saturday, June 24th, so
our complete experience in Baja California South lasted 11 days and
11 nights. We had done and seen enough to go back to the real world
at last. It was what I considered an ideal honeymoon: just enough to
do but enough time to be together with few distractions as compared
to a big monumental voyage. The generosity of friends made this trip
very nice as well.
Our decision that
morning to be bumped led to what will be Chapter 7 (Way Down Mexico
Way) of this book. It was Independence Day when Sergio drove us to
the airport in the morning. At the terminal they asked for two people
be “bumped” and take a later flight. We quickly asked until when,
and they said likely later that afternoon. We jumped at the deal, a
five hundred dollar voucher or so within a year with Alaskan
Airlines. I had missed some bump opportunities in the past and had
regretted it. We happily took it and promptly called Linda Fisher,
Jennifer’s mother in San Bernardino who was about to go out the
door to LAX 80 miles away when we called and told her of the delay.
Jen and I found ourselves at Los Cabos air port a few more hours (I’m
sure we read and shopped a bit, plus ate,) and then we did get our
flight later that same afternoon.
The
sun was close to setting as we took off and circled into the air
towards the northwest. It must have been the most beautiful time of
the day, (and maybe year), as there seemed to be orange and purple
hues through our windows. We could look out and down and see the vast
Sea of Cortez stretch to the east, the assorted islands off the coast
of the peninsula, the little resorts sprinkling across the beaches to
the east and south, and then islands of greater or smaller size
across the Bay of La Paz. I saw the mountainous island where we had
been lost and nauseated fisherman, biding our time in returning home.
And in some real or newly perceived ways life had changed for a new
turn. And maybe here was born a certain fascination rooted in a place
first named for the Mexic ancients of yester year. We came form the
land of Zorro; the periphery of the magnificent older empire at the
center of so many dreams from before.
This
day’s bump we chose would lead us to the very center, mere six
months later.
Reflections
We
were leaving this place different than we had arrived. We were 11
days older but also almost two weeks experienced as a newly married
people, and the lives of two single people had become one. Our lives
change like this over time. Personal histories evolve and progress as
do grander histories, and at times the large ones influence us and
occasionally we might slightly, ever so slightly, influence them. How
do we interact with the greater world? Do our prayers have some
grander effect than what happens around our smaller, intimate sphere,
to the God we believe rules all? If so, how do these petitions play
out?
LAX,
and Tim and Sasha
We
flew over the wide city of Los Angeles that Independence Day evening
as the sun was setting, and we saw an array of sparkly bottle rockets
and other fireworks lighting below us locally. They may have been
high above the local community homes but seemed slightly above the
earth to us. It was a pretty sight. Rather than picking us up at the
International Airport in the morning as originally planned, Linda
arranged for her third and youngest son to pick us up. He came with
his wife Sasha, who was married to Tim for over a year (married at
the same time as his and Jen’s older brother Chris).
Tim
was a young married man of some 23 years, working for Sprint
Communications as others in the family did, and living not far from
Linda’s house in San Bernardino. Sasha was about the same age and
became a nutritionist and worked and attended school in California.
Her parents lived between Salt Lake City and Las Vegas, she being
raised in Farmington, Utah. They were both young and finished their
first year of marriage; it was nice to spend a little time talking to
another young couple after being newly married ourselves. It was
funny, too, because they were considerably younger than us (29 and
26) but more experienced as a couple and as companions.
We
enjoyed the different colorful firework displays on the way home.
This was my second Fourth of July in the greater LA area, the first
being in Summer of 1996, mostly in Long Beach or nearby. It was neat
to have a new California family. This was new stuff for me. I don’t
remember about coming home to our new apartment that night much, but
our life together had begun, Jen working four hours every morning and
me with the rest of the summer to get over my first year of teaching
high school fulltime.
In-Laws
My
wife’s family is composed of her father who she doesn’t see that
much, her mother who we have lived with since July of 2003 (it is now
March, 2005), and seven siblings. I just mentioned Tim, he is the
last of three boys, and the sixth of eight siblings. The eight were
born in a period of over twelve years from 1968 to 1981. Keri was
born first; she married Jay Bogh from San Bernardino and they have
three children near the mountains in Yucaipa. He served an LDS
mission in southernmost Italy and works for his family steel business
based in San Bernardino. Keri has never lived outside of California.
Next
comes Doug, who is married with four children and lives in Kelso,
Washington, about an hour north of Portland, Oregon. He joined the
Coast Guard at a young age and married D.-------, and then lived in
Guam with the military and Washington state ever since. He works in
radio communications and maintenance and their youngest is a boy
after three girls, the oldest of whom is now in high school.
Traci
was born around the same time as me (1970), and she married Dale
Stockton who was born a while before me (1959). They have three girls
and have never lived outside of San Bernardino. Traci stays at home,
as does Keri the oldest, and Dale commutes to Mount Baldy north of
Upland at a private recreational park.
Then
comes Jennifer, who was born in January, 1974. She was number four.
We met a few weeks before her 26th birthday. She is
married to me and is also a stay at home mom like three of her four
other sisters, since March of 2004. We currently live in the mother’s
home in San Bernardino, the house she grew up in, and are most likely
moving this summer. She served a mission in Morocco and Spain, and
afterwards lived in Washington, D.C., and later Las Vegas, Nevada.
Next
is Chris, a year younger than Jen. He grew up here in San Bernardino
like all of the rest and then served a mission in southern Portugal
and Cape Verde. After returning he spent a while with Doug up in
Washington state and then returned. He has been here ever since and
currently works at the US consulate organizing legal matters. (Fix
this later)
Tim
served a mission in Baguio, Philippines, and learned fluent Tagalog.
He now lives in Utah with his wife and new baby. He works for a
communications company and has an MBA from the University of Redlands
here in the Inland Empire.
Amy
is next and she is the seventh. She always lived here in San
Bernardino and married Ethan Stubbs a few months after Jennifer and
I, on September 22, 2000. I became friends with Ethan in the fall of
1999 when he had just come home off his mission in Santiago South. He
was friends with David Zavala, from whom I was renting a room since
that August. A week prior to my wedding in June to Jennifer, the four
of us drove to Lake Havasu and spent a couple nights by the Colorado
River in Jen’s dad’s camper. With him was his family of four:
Lori, the second wife, and her two sons, S----- and Brecht.
Amy and Ethan have been living in Yucaipa for a few years and now
have two children, a girl and a boy. Ethan has lived here in San
Bernardino briefly with Amy and now they have two small daughters and
works for Sprint Communications and he does well in sales. We enjoy
talking to each other and watching football; we have gone on four
road trips to see BYU play in Las Vegas, Provo, San Diego, and Palo
Alto. We have good conversations.
Finally, there is Stephanie, the last of the eight. The actual order I first
met the Fishers was first Stephanie in the fall of 1999, Amy later
that fall after she was getting to know Ethan, and then in January of
2000 I finally met their older sister, my wife. The first night Jen
and I met, Stephanie remembered me and recounted what she could to
Jen to introduce her to me at the Highland Stake Center. It was a
good reference and things worked out.
Stephanie
graduated from her high school in two years and got her Bachelor’s
at Cal State-San Bernardino at 19, then went on a mission to Spain
(same mission as Jennifer, only switched headquarters from Malaga to
Sevilla) and was here with us for a year and now lives in Provo, Utah
with her friend Shelley. She became the fourth member of the family
to speak Spanish, or fifth if you consider that Chris speaks
Portuguese and also has picked up a lot of Spanish. Even Linda
communicates in it somewhat She is the only single one left.
And
that is a composite of the family I have married into; some people
around here know me more as a “Fisher” than Clinch. It’s a very
nice family and I have enjoyed having a part in it.
Family
The
American LDS family has a few things in common with that of Mexico,
and I suppose that the size is a commonality to start with. Both
American-Anglo-Mormon families and Mexican families have historically
had many children, and thus procreation and abundance of relatives
typifies the lifestyle of both. I myself come from a first generation
LDS member family and we are relatively small, although now I count
three more step-siblings through remarriage (one of them nominally a
member of the church only, the only son of my step-father). My wife’s
family more fully typifies the numbers issue of a modern LDS family.
Eight is enough! The T.V. show of the 1970s was supposed to be
atypical in number for the US, and even the Brady bunch of six was
abnormal in that decade. Today it has further shrunk to the unnatural
average of 2.4 per family.
When
I ask my mostly adult Mexican students how many siblings they have, I
hear responses of 7, 8, 9, and at times up to 14 or 16! As the
demographic shift (transition) model states: industrial, health and
economic advances make it more likely that overall family size
decreases. This is true in our country and has been in effect longer
than Mexico, but we can see this demographic decrease occurring in
greater numbers. This is definitely true of those Mexican-Americans
who move here and integrate into our economy, but it is happening
within Mexico too, perhaps not as dramatically as Latinos here, but
it is a modern symptom of globalization.
The
LDS Mexican families that I know have average size numbers of 3 to 5
children, nothing as big as the Anglo LDS I see here in California or
elsewhere. Perhaps LDS Anglos have more children than LDS Latinos
here in the United States for economic factors. Numbers are worth
analyzing and perhaps there are some telling facts in some of these
demographic trends among both the Church of Jesus Christ and within
different Latino populations, LDS and non-member cohorts.
Then
there is the parent respect/ obedience/ morality angle. When I went
with Gustavo Cuevas in December of 1999 to Mexicali, he kept
emphasizing that girls in Mexico were chaste as a norm, as opposed to
the general looseness of American females (not to mention men). This
is also to be said among active LDS girls (and boys) in the United
States. Adolescents and young people in our church are generally
chaste and abstain from sexual activity until marriage. In this
sense, if Gustavo was indeed correct, then LDS Anglos have sexual
mores and taboos more in common with Latinos than we may think. This
is an interesting point to consider and would it be more true in
greater numbers with all involved. One could accuse these trends of
abstinence before marriage and sexual fidelity to be less modern or
“behind the times” of the rest of the western world, but I find
it necessarily prudent and refreshing.
Thirdly,
there is a social element that is considered to be something typical
in our church and perhaps also something shared among Latinos, and
many Mexicans, which is a collective consciousness when it comes to
sharing resources, helping out fellows in times of need, and
generally spending time together with people we would not ordinarily
spend time with. I suppose this is expected within many faiths and
ethnic sub-groups, but I am suggesting that Mexicans and Latter-day
Saints might demonstrate this quality even more than most other
groups. Perhaps I am wrong in saying so or I am prejudiced in my
views due to proximity, but I think there might be something to this
idea.
Finally,
there is the notion of a common thread of rising through the ranks
and doing one’s duty humbly with determination and earning a reward
from God. Both Latter-day Saints and Mexicans see work and toil and
sacrifice as keys to exaltation, and although they may share
different visions of so said “bliss” and recompense, I see many
commonalities in the simple or grandiose aspirations.
Again,
perhaps all of humanity can share in this forward looking ethic of
overcoming and establishing its own future Zion or utopia, but I
assert that Mormons and Mexicans are quite similar in believing in
some type of ultimate victory as a people though patience and long
suffering and simply expanding, and it would seem that in a few
significant ways they are both accomplishing it. It must be said that
as of 2004 the LDS population within Mexico reached its first
million, and in this way we may perceive that both populations are
achieving their respective manifest destinies with the help of one
another, hand in hand inheriting their final birth rights.
And
thus, one can blame a book like the Book of Mormon for uniting such
two unwitting causes as a Church started legally as a “restoration
of all things” in 1830, and a huge combination of peoples begun
approximately in the 16th century, a new race called
Hispanic spanning many nations in two continents, but most amply
represented in the land of the Aztecs and Mayas of Mesoamerica.
I
find myself on the cusp of both, time wise and location wise, and I
find this intriguing and to a certain degree, inspiring.
End
of part five (re-touched a tad early April 2023. This book may never see much light, attention, but it is good for me to re-visit, anyway.)
1
Jen can put her recollections here.
Editing this while some work on the Afghan book. Not a memoir. A reflection.
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