The sea was angry that day my friend… No wait! It wasn't angry at all, it was dead calm, but, I always thought that was a great lead sentence. How can I top that? Oh try this...

     The sea was calm that day…too calm! (Ahhh… that's even better, portents of doom, foreshadowing. Mrs. Treue would be proud of me. Eat your heart out Ernest Hemingway. No! I said eat your heart out, not shoot your brains out, Ernie; but I digress) OK, back to the story.

     The sea was calm that day…too calm! Having hit the water at 6:00AM on my friend John's boat, we went to the cove near the mouth of the river to catch some live bait. Now this ain't like fishing at Triangle Park . The fish they use as bait down here are bigger than anything you ever saw before. We hauled in 6-18 inch bait fish as fast as we could reel them in. As the sun came up and we headed out to try our luck on some game fish, the morning mist blurred the horizon so you couldn't tell where the sea stopped and the sky began.

     Now, I am not much of a fisherman. I do enjoy the boat ride, but I don't eat fish, so it seems pointless to kill them. It never seemed that exciting to outwit one of nature's stupider critters. I have only been out a few times, but whenever I go out with John, fantastic things happen. Now John is an avid fisherman. He has a beautiful new boat that is clearly designed for catching fish and nothing else.

     There is no cabin, no galley, just tons of well maintained fishing tackle, rod holders, and a fighting chair. He fishes virtually every day the weather and tides allow (which is most days around here) and always does really well. The first time I went, with John, I caught a good-sized Dorado. These are also known as Dolphin Fish and Mahi-Mahi, and are one of the most prized game fish in the Sea of Cortez . They are only caught when the water is warm.

     When the cold water comes, everyone starts chasing yellowtail. (All right, stop with the oriental prostitute jokes). A few weeks ago I went out with John and came back with a 20-pound yellowtail.

     But, that was then and this is now. So, back to the calm… too calm day:

     On this day we were trying for more yellowtail. I usually take my camera when I go fishing, but on this morning, since only the two of us were going, I was afraid, I would get the camera wet when I went in the river to help launch the boat, so I left it at home. We fished from 6:00 in the morning until about 1:00 in the afternoon. John had jigged up three pinto bass, but as far as any exciting fish we had been totally skunked. We had seen about a hundred dolphins in various pods, including quite a few who were jumping totally out of the water and putting on a show like they do at SeaWorld. In addition, we had a frigate bird come down and take a small fish not ten feet from us. In short, we had seen a bunch of nature, (the sea sure is full of nature) but not much fishing action.

     As we headed back in, we spotted a fin in the water on the horizon, I thought maybe it was another dolphin, maybe he had left his buddies and found some fish he might be willing to share with us. We motored over and I could see he had not one, but two fins showing, so now, I'm thinking “maybe a shark”, but John says, “Nope, that's a marlin”. He puts a mackerel on a hook and trolls it in front of the fish. You could see the bait fish get his attention, then he starts to accelerate and John says excitedly, “Fish On!”

     He yells “Sit Down!”. I think he wants me out of the way so he can play the fish, so I take the only available seat, the fighting chair. Then John shoves the rod into the socket and calmly walks away leaving me to fight this monster. Now we don't keep billfish around here. It is almost always catch and release. But, I'm already picturing this sucker hanging on my wall. I'm not sure I have a wall that's big enough. I wonder how much it will cost to build a new wall.

     I crank the slack out of the line, and the next thing I know this thing is on its tail and about eight jumps later, before I can even swivel the seat around, it's on the other side of the boat.

     I tighten the drag, and line is stripping off at a phenomenal rate. John starts the motor and follows the marlin while radioing for someone to come to us with a camera, but the only guy who responded couldn't find us. John says it's a striped marlin, about eleven feet long and maybe about 250 lbs. I'm remembering English class. Replaying in my mind “The Old Man and the Sea” where after 24 hours both the marlin and the fisherman are dead.

     When the fish runs, he is so fast, I expect to see smoke rising from the reel. When he stops I crank furiously trying to get some line back. Forty minutes later, both the fish and I are pretty exhausted. He gives one more feeble attempt at a jump, and I make one more feeble attempt to reel him in. I finally had him about 20 feet from the boat, just starting to bring him in so we can measure him, when his bill sawed through the 50 lb test leader. Since I was going to release him anyway, it was no great loss. I only regret that I had no photo of him, so I commissioned an artist to imagine the fish for me.

     All in all, it was truly the thrill of a lifetime. I told John that I saw no reason to ever fish again, since that nothing could top this experience. However, after a few beers and tacos at the local bar, and a few retellings of the story (with both the fish and the struggle growing with each retelling), I found myself asking John,” Do you have any idea what kind of bait whales might bite on?”

Until Next time,

Cobra

     Did I mention that summer in Mulegé is where people go who find Hell insufficiently warm? No Americanos stay here except for the truly dedicated fishermen. So, in the summer we go back to the states and live in the motor home.

     This summer, number 2 son was getting married in Western Washington, so we took off with the grandson to attend the festivities. Afterwards we went to Willits, CA to visit the mother and sister o' the lovely Mrs. Kottler. This is a town so backwards it doesn't even have a Starbucks or any other public internet. So when in early September, Baja was threatened by Hurricane John, events were hard to follow. Once the storm bypassed the millionaire homes in Cabo, the U.S. press lost interest. So, imagine our surprise when early one morning, a Mulegé neighbor called from his U.S. home and told me that the storm had become a tropical depression and dropped over 20 inches of rain in the nearby mountains. The rain of course sought out the Mulegé River where it caused a 20 foot high flood. He said that he heard that our whole development, called The Orchard, was destroyed.

     Our first thought was to get some better information. We finally found a motel in town that had WiFi in its rooms and discovered that if we parked in the right spot in their lot, we could get on the web. We found that Mulegé had indeed flooded. There was no power, no water, no food, and no place to stay, and the road was impassable so hurrying back was not an option.

     There were pictures however. This one shows three houses about 150 yards from mine. And yes, they are two story houses.

This shows a house three doors down from mine.

OK, so now we were just a tad worried.

     About a week later, cell service was restored and a neighbor called to report that my house was still standing, but that it was a mess. It had muddy water standing in it for three days. She sent this picture of my living room.

     Then came the good news. My Mexican friend, José, and his family had started to work the day after the water subsided. They had shoveled out all the mud from both the house and yard. Hauled away the rotting carpet from upstairs, and were carefully washing everything of ours that they could find.

     Since there were no hotel rooms available in Mulegé we decided to take the motor home down. This both allowed us to carry a bunch of replacement stuff and provided a place to live. Driving an 8 and ½ foot vehicle 600 miles on lanes 9 ft wide is a thrill of a lifetime. Three inches on each side separating you from deadly drop offs really tends to focus your attention.

     When we arrived, we found the house remarkably free of structural damage. All the sheet rock ceilings had fallen in. The sheet rock walls all needed to be stripped to the studs and have the moldy, muddy, stinking insulation removed. This picture shows a piece of my kitchen wall. While mushrooms generally go well in a kitchen, I don't believe they usually grow right in the wall like this. (look at the bottom center of the photo)

     Well, to make a long story short, we stripped most of the walls down to the studs on one side, power washed everything (by the way, my fresh from the box power washer would not work, how much do I hate Black and Decker?).

     Washed with Clorox and other more exotic disinfecting brews, and moved back in. Someday, when the insurance pays off, our ship comes in, or Hell freezes over, whichever comes first, we will rebuild, making things as flood proof as possible. Until then, we will continue to enjoy our little frontier paradise as best we can. We once again learned the hard way that you can't fight Mother Nature, she always wins.

     Well … I take it back. Sometimes with the right equipment, a bunch of testosterone, and a lot of luck you can beat Mother Nature.

The victorious Cobra holds up his catch, a Dorado, or 'Mahi-Mahi' as it appears on the menu of your local all-you-can-eat fishateria.

Until next time,

Cobra

P.S. Here are a few bonus pics...

     Don Thompson has been begging me for a new article for well over a year now. The lack of anything resembling a glimmer of an idea, combined with my pleasure in Thompson's obvious discomfort at the lack of filler for his right wing political blog which he tries to pass off as a class website, has kept me from actually sitting down and writing anything. (There is also the little item of my obvious lack of both creativity and talent).

Thompson (in drag) requesting me to write an article.

     However, recently, in a small footnote to an aside hidden deep within a pun accompanying an exchange of rude jokes, Pastor (who among us saw that one coming!?) Jim Lawton foolishly included those fateful words “Paul, tell me about Mexico .” Since I have been terrified of Lawton ever since he kicked the crap out of me on the wrestling mat senior year when Coach Eby foolishly decided that all football aspirants should wrestle (I was a worse wrestler than football player, if you can imagine, and furthermore, while it was rumored that football could get you a ticket to attend the DeWeese Parkway submarine races, I harbored no illusions that wrestling was gonna help get me anything except heat stroke from trying to lose 17 lbs overnight by living in a rubber suit), and since his request provided me with the opportunity to write about my favorite subject (that would be me) I decided I would sit down and start typing.

     I am living in a little town called Mulegé (pronounced moo-le-hay with accent on the hay) in the state of Baja California Sur, Mexico.

     The sign outside of town says 3111 people, but no one seems to know when the count was taken, or if it includes the Americans (most of whom are part time residents). The town is known as Heroic Mulegé because the locals repulsed an American invasion during the Mexican war. The mission was built in 1705 so it is quite an old village.

     The town is on the Mulegé river (the only navigable fresh water river in Baja) Aerial Photo with my house circled.

     This river flows through a desert filled with giant cacti, caves with Indian art, really big lizards, etc. The presence of the river means that the area is a Palm lined oasis in the middle of a vast desert. It is ten miles to Bahia Concepcion, a world famous destination of turquoise waters and white sand beaches. The waters of the Sea of Cortez (1 mile down the river) are famous for their game fish.

     I live in a former RV park that has been converted to a housing development. There is a mixture of houses, roofed over RV spots, and vacation casitas. (Check out the “The Area” button at www.orchardvacationvillage.com for more pictures of the park and Mulegé).

Here is a picture of my house:

     I imagine that living in Mulegé is a lot like living in small town USA in the twenties must have been. First off, the village is not really prepared for cars. It has narrow streets that meet at odd angles, no room for parking, and two foot high curbs that smash car doors. Secondly, everybody knows your name (actually, that would be more like living in an NBC Sitcom in the eighties). Finally, many things that we take for granted in the US are jarringly absent. For instance, there is no bank and the nearest ATM is in Santa Rosalia, 40 miles away). The machine gives mostly 500 peso (about $50 US) notes. Since no street vendors or small businesses can change these the money you get from the ATM is pretty useless anyway until you get to the grocery which has not much in the way of the packaged foods you are used to, but almost always has change.

     In the hotel where we stayed on our first trip, there was only a single outlet meaning you had a choice of TV or AC, but not both simultaneously. Since the TV had only a single channel and it was in Spanish, we opted for the AC.

     On the plus side, people come to your door selling fresh shrimp, scallops, fish, fruit, vegetables, tamales (mmmm!! tamales), building materials, pangas (fishing boats) or almost anything else you could need.

     Most importantly, it is a very friendly place, full of loving, trusting, and trustworthy people. Who, by the way, contrary to the opinion of most North Americans, are the most honest, hardest working folks you would ever hope to meet.

     On my first trip here, someone stole the unusual valve caps I had on my car tires. When I mentioned this to the clerk at the hotel he was incensed and said “Such things don't happen here. Some kids must have taken them for their bikes.” Since he coached a kids' soccer team, he called them all together and had them search for the missing valve caps. By the next afternoon, I had all four of them back. I thought, wow! This is like what Sheriff Andy would have done with Opie.

     A while back, we had bought a Tee shirt to take to our son when we had to visit the States in January. When we went to pack, we couldn't find the shirt. A month later, while walking down the street, a shopkeeper called me into his store and handed me a bag with the shirt. We had left it there a month earlier (no, we did not purchase it from him), and he had taken care to set it aside and see that it was returned the next time we saw him.

     The prison is now the town museum and here is a picture of the lovely Mrs. Kottler standing in front of it.

     I mean, if the town is trusting enough that they would let prisoners run around all day on the promise that they would behave themselves, they certainly are not going to allow anyone to steal my precious valve caps and are going to take great pride in returning my mislaid Tee shirt.

     Basically, if you expect Mexico to be like the US only warmer and cheaper, you will hate it here. If you come in with the attitude that “it is what it is”, adapt yourself to the local culture and revel in the differences, you can find a little paradise here. The local slogan is “No Bad Days in Mulegé”.

     So, to keep from making a long story even longer, I think I will stop here. I know that this doesn't really respond to Jim's request to tell him about Mexico (an impossible task by the way, kind of like—tell me about the United States), but perhaps in a 1000 Arabian Nights sort of way, it will buy me enough time to write further articles on how we got to Mulegé, and what life is like here, for us.

Until next time,

Cobra

Author's note: Concerning my article "Devoid". (I know it is confusing because I usually fool around with these things, but no... this is really me, Paul, writing seriously for a change)

     I just heard that Mrs. Treue died recently. I want to make it clear to anyone who might have missed the point that the article, “Devoid”, was intended to show that everything I thought in High School was wrong. Any remarks about Mrs. Treue were meant to show that she was absolutely right about the college experience and as I sat in class mocking her, I was absolutely wrong. She was a terrific teacher who challenged me academically while going along with the irrelevant foolishness of me and my Root Club buds. I respected her greatly, appreciated what she taught me, and mourn her passing.

Don,

     I know I have promised you an article for some time now, but I am totally devoid of ideas. I can’t come up with anything. Zip, bupkis, nada. However,I recently found an old spiral notebook that I have had since high school and it included some thoughts I hope you will find entertaining. I retyped it since, while I can barely read my handwriting, there is no chance that you could. Remember, this is for your personal entertainment only. Do not publish it on the web site.

     Jesus H. Christ. If Treue keeps droning on like this, I am absolutely going to pass out. What an old bag, she’s gotta be at least 40. Who the hell could gut making out with someone that old. I hope they shoot me before I get that old. She keeps on with the same crap every day. “Learn to write or you will be sent home from college on the first bus.” Who the hell needs to write. I am never going to write again when I get out of here. I can’t gut this class
anymore.

     Boy, I guess I had too much of that wine last night. Melvin said his neighbor,Artie Bonanno, lifted it from his old man who is in the wine business. How can anybody drink that sweet crap. Wine really sucks. I can’t imagine anyone thinking that Americans can be sold this stuff. All it does is make me think of Pass-over. They should call it Pass-outer instead. The poor Bonanno family is going to be
broke soon. No one will ever get grown ups to drink wine. Adults drink good beers like Schoenling and Hudepohl. Always will.

     There are really a bunch of good-looking girls in this class. I wish I had the guts to ask some of them out, but it is really hard. First of all, they gotta pass inspection from all the Roots. Anytime I mention some girl to them, Felix, Sylvester, or Lamar always find some imperfection, like she has scrawny ankles, or she had a big zit last week, that they use to convince me that she is unacceptable. Then, I can’t really date anyone but seniors, since I don’t know anyone in the other classes and I don’t think any of them know who I am. Can’t date a Jewish girl cause their moms all play Mahjong with mine, and if I ever went out with any of them more than once, our moms would be making wedding plans. Maybe that new one, Skolnik that just moved here from Chicago. She doesn’t know me well enough to hate me yet. I don’t know though. I staked out her house a couple of times and she was making out with Slack on the porch. Anyway, I hear Lake is gonna ask her to the prom. I don’t think she’ll go though. I hear she is hot for the older brother of some guy from Fairview. Can’t date a girl from Jefferson, they’ve all known me since I was a little kid. Hard to try and make out with someone you learned the Cha Cha with at Mrs. Botts’ dancing school. Maybe some of the shiksas would go out with me. I wouldn’t mind taking Barb Fennell to the prom, but everyone knows she is going with Sammy, and anyway, I don’t think I could get any off of her. She just isn’t that kind of girl. I hear that Linda Lewis will make out with anybody. I should ask her out as soon as she dumps that Don Thompson character. It’s gotta’ be soon, what the hell she sees in him, I’ll never know. Maybe Bonnie Best. She is pretty cool but I guess she and Scott will be going steady forever. Probably end up married for 50 years. Anyway, I really doubt if she would go out with anyone Jewish. God----, if I don’t get myself together, I’ll end up drivin’ to Cincinnati for a Coke with Lamar when everyone else goes to the prom.

     There goes Treue again. “Look at your neighbor. If he doesn’t know how to write, he will be driving home after one week of college.” What a tough gut this class is. Driving. Damn, I need to do a brake job on the Hillman. I love that car, but parts are so hard to find. I wonder if I should get a regular car like a Desoto or a Rambler.

     They never stop making those Big Four Cars. I could get parts for one of those forever. Jeez, those cars that Lamar’s mom keeps bringing back from Germany sure are weird. They look like a big box on wheels with a gun sight for a hood ornament. Who ever heard of a Mercedes Benz? Lamar must be embarrassed to death, having to be seen in that thing. Know what would be cool? If I could take a truck like that one from the Bargain Barn, that Joel peeled the lid off of when he misjudged the low bridge last summer, and
build a little apartment in the back. You know, make a place for a cooler of brew, a sleeping bag, maybe a bucket to pee in. Cut a few windows into the side. You could practically live in something like that. Let’s see, 10 miles to the gallon. Gas costs a quarter a gallon. You could go 1000 miles for 25 bucks. I could earn that in 3 days
at the Bargain Barn. Boy, if I had something like that, I could hit the road and really see some cool stuff. Like some real cowboys. I always loved the cowboy movies at the Davue when I was little. Wow, two movies, a serial, and a cartoon every Saturday. Not
like those phony cowboys I used to see singing on Midwestern hayride, but real ones like Gene Autry or Roy Rogers. Maybe I could drive the house to Texas. Or just go a little further. I think California is right after Texas. California must be really cool and I have dug the Beach Boys ever since Lamar brought their new album over. That Brian Wilson sure has it made. He is a great surfer. He and his buds surf all day long, then go sing a few songs and have gorgeous girls in bikinis all over them. With the bread he makes, he is gonna have a great life I’m sure. What could he ever have to worry about? I’m sure California is just like in those beach movies. They say LA is like paradise. Everybody lives right on the beach and you can drive anywhere in 10 minutes. I’d have to be careful though. If I get too loaded I could keep driving right into Mexico. That would be awful. Don’t think I could gut that place.

     Oh no! What’s Treue babbling about now! “Cobra it’s time for your weekly presentation.” Now what am I gonna do? I was gonna write something while Felix gave his speech, but I daydreamed through the whole damn class. All I can think of is that damn Beach Boys album. Those car songs are so cool. “She’s so fine my 409”. I know, I’ll recite some lyrics. When you’ve got nothing to say you can always fall back on song lyrics. I can’t wait for graduation so I can get out of here. Then I’ll never have to think about this horrible school or these annoying kids again. I just can’t gut it here. OK here goes nothing. I’m gonna get an F on this one for sure:

“Well, I saved my pennies and I saved my dimes…”

Remember: This piece is not for publication. I just thought you might find my forty-year-old thinking amusing.

- Paul

Ed. Note: I decided to run this whole piece exactly as received, including Kottler’s disingenuous appeal to keep it under wraps. No matter. No body reads this stuff anyway.

     So, where were we? Oh yeah, baseball. Well, my eight year old grandson, Logan, came to visit me in San Diego . Now, sports seem to be a generation skipping obsession in my family. My kids have no interest whatsoever. However, I thought since I had Logan to myself, and I am still bigger and stronger than him, I would drag him to a game to see if I could make him into a fan.

     So we went to a Sunday afternoon game against the Dodgers at Petco. Forty two thousand rabid fans, The Dodgers win it 2-1 with a 12 th inning homer, and miracle of miracles, even though Logan didn't really know what was going on, he got into the excitement of it all and had a great time. So great, in fact, that on our way out, he had me buy tickets to Tuesday's game against the Phills. Well the Padres lost again and Logan insisted he wanted to see a San Diego victory, so we decided to try one more time. We dug around in the couch cushions and came up with enough spare change to sign up for Friday night's game against Pittsburgh (I am a great believer in the cheap seats).

     Friday afternoon we were downtown, sailing a tall ship in San Diego harbor, so the lovely Mrs. Paul (yes, there really is a lovely Mrs. Paul) dropped us at the ball yard two hours before game time. I told Logan we would watch batting practice from beyond the outfield and maybe, if we were really lucky, we could get a genuine major league baseball. As future events showed, I probably should have kept my mouth shut.

Logan and I sailing in San Diego harbor

     It was tee shirt night. As we watched BP the Padres ace closer Trevor Hoffman was signing shirts near where we were standing. I threw Logan 's shirt over the chain link fence and Trevor graciously signed it and threw it back to him. So far, so good. About a dozen batting practice balls had rolled up against this fence right by where we were standing.

San Diego's ace closer Trevor Hoffman

     In the quest for souvenirs and to impress my grandson, when a Pirate outfielder came over to retrieve the loose balls, I asked him to toss me one for the kid. Amazingly enough, he flipped one over the fence right to me. The ball hit me in the hands. Now I never could hit and I never could field either, so, of course, I dropped the ball. As the ball hit the ground, a little kid dove for it, undercut me, and got the ball. I fell to the sand covered pavement and got a lovely scrape on my knee which was bleeding all over. An usher came over and graciously offered to take me to the first aid station but I was too embarrassed to go. How could I tell them that I had been injured by a seven year old who was a better fielder than me?

     About ten minutes later, just as the blood was finally beginning to clot, a pirate laced a Batting Practice hit into the adjacent sandy area known as the beach. I still wanted to buy Logan 's admiration with a souvenir ball, so I immediately raced (by raced, I, of course, mean walked a little faster than usual) to the half buried sphere. As I dove for the ball, another little kid who had, naturally, beaten me to it, raised the ball in triumph. His upraised elbow met my diving eyeball, driving my glasses into my face.

My shiner

     By the time I got back to my feet, my eye was already black and swelling, and my face was bleeding. This time, I felt I really did need medical attention. As I headed for the first aid station, I ran into the usher who had gone to get band-aids for my first injury.

     She escorted me under the stands to the medical area. Now these people had a lovely facility and really well trained personnel, but it was obvious they had little to do. They were so grateful to have a patient that four of them fell on me immediately. One worked on my knee, one on my eye, one took my pulse and another took my blood pressure. They were like little kids, finally getting to play with the doctor stuff they got for Christmas. While all this was going on, I thanked the usher and told her that this all happened because I was obsessed with getting a ball for Logan . She said she would try to get me one and came back a few minutes later with a member of the “Pad Squad”, the Padre's PR crew. This lady, not only gave us a ball, but also asked Logan if he would like to be the “Play Ball Kid” for that night.

     They escorted us onto the field, introduced Logan to the crowd of 40,000, put his face on the Big Scoreboard and he got to yell “PLAY BALL” to start the game. Needless to say, he was thrilled. He got the ball, his Trevor Hoffman tee shirt, a photo of him doing his thing, and a video of the whole game including his essential role in the evening's festivities.

My grandson Logan