A red-faced attempt at Spanish

At the conclusion of World War II, a new crop of community leaders came into town. Oh, much of the old guard remained ? Paul Palmer, Theo Robins, Lancy Sherman, Walter Spicer, Harry Welch, A.B. Rouselle, Lew Wallace, Lloyd Claire ? a truly remarkable group that had dragged our town through the Great Depression and a World War, and had changed that town from a honky-tonk summer resort and small fishing village into a desirable community surrounding the foremost yachting harbor on the Pacific coast.

Then, at the conclusion of World War II, the new group arrived-- people like Dean Bradford, Moose Lagerlof, Ralph Hoyle, Van Hayes, Les Blakeslee, Harlan Erickson, Bill Lester, Ralph Holden ? and Joe Collins. Joe and his partner, Bob Ingraham, built more than 300 fine houses on Lido Isle. They put together the Jamaica Inn complex ? restaurant, bar and motel.

Joe and I were friends and neighbors. We were both into skin diving and heard that a new road had been built in San Felipe, a village in Baja heretofore accessible only by boat. Joe, and I and Bill Silzle, together with our wives and children, decided to be the first people to dive in San Felipe. It was a long drive, and when we got there we discovered that if there is something smaller than a village, this was it. We drove through the cluster of houses to camp on the beach. On our way, we noticed a small cantina perched on the edge of the bay. Joe and I decided to go back to the cantina after everyone else was bedded down on the beach.

We have all seen in the movies a group of Mexican banditos ? dirty, unshaven with crossed bandoleers. In the cantina was a group of guys who only needed crossed bandoleers to be banditos. Instead, they all carried machetes. Big difference.

As we entered, it was obvious we were not welcome. They began to push us around yelling, “Rojo! Rojo!”.

This was a word I knew because my daughter had a horse named Rojo. Joe Collins is a redhead. I told him they were talking about his red hair.

He asked, “What do I do?”

I said, “Agree with them.”

He said, “How?”

I said, “Just say, ‘Si.’ That’s ‘yes’ in Spanish. That will show you agree with them.”

Not one of my more brilliant ideas. The banditos began to beat up on us, particularly Joe. We made a run for it, and the group followed. We got to my car. They tried to turn it over, but we finally got away.

We went back to our camp on the beach and spent a sleepless night waiting for the mob, but no one came.

The next day we discovered that our trip had been a waste of time. San Felipe is too close to the Colorado River, and the water had the visibility of a chocolate milk shake.

On our way through town we passed a shrimp dock and stopped to buy some shrimp. An American ran to the dock.

He said, “Are you the guys that caused the riot at the cantina last night?”

We had to admit we were an involuntary part of it but were in the dark as to the reason.

The man laughed. He said that right then Mexico was having some kind of trouble with Russia. He said there was a rumor to the effect that a Russian submarine had landed a Russian spy in the area. The locals were all wary of the Russians, whom they called “reds.”

As the man was telling his story, Joe’s head slowly turned toward me.

He turned to the man. “And if someone mistakenly said he was ‘red’ that meant he was a Russian and presumably a Russian spy?”

The man agreed.

So much for my feeble efforts at being bilingual. Joe and I did quite a bit of skin diving in Baja after that, but he never again asked me to interpret for him.