OCR Text |
Show PAGE 2 THE ZEPHYRMARCH 1994 a He shook his head again. "The banks are all downtown. You must get a cab." "But I don't even have cab fare! I don't have a peso to my name." "You have a big problem." I started looking around I My Belizean friend turned and walked away. Now what, thought. for a tall building to jump off of. But there weren't any of sufficient height, and before I could cpfwiHw an alternative way to end my suffering, I heard that voice again. My Guardian Angel was calling to me from a cab. "Come on!" he yelled. "But I don't have any maney.J can't pay for the cab." He just grinned. "It is OK...I am going to help you." We drove downtown, to foe Banco Atlantico. It was 120. 1 thanked Robert, and ran for the ' bank. I could barely squeeze in the door. There must have been 200 people in there trying to cash I pay checks on a Friday afternoon. Soldiers with machine guns were everywhere. couldn't even find the end of the line. Finally, I spotted a woman at the end of the long counter. She was not dealing with the crowd and appeared to be checking out or preparing to go home for the day. But she looked friendly. "Habla usted ingles?" I asked hesitantly, my Berlitz phrase book clutched in my cold, dammy hands. The woman looked blankly at me. "No." She returned to her paperwork. I feverishly raced through my phrase book searching for foe word for 'traveler' s check.' "Pardone," I said. "Cheque de viajero?" "No." she shook her head...everyone kept shaking their head at me. Wouldn't someone nod? Just once? I felt that I was beginning to annoy this woman, and I sympathized with her completely. How many times had I lost patience with some foreign traveler when I was a park ranger? How many times had I become downright hostile? This woman, I thought, was showing remarkable restraint. Still, she was my last, best hope. isn't so much that I traveled thousands of miles just to get bit by the same bugs that made life a living hell a couple of years ago. Or that upon returning to Houston (on Taca my airlines...foe greatest airline in the world), I suddenly and without much thought, rented a car and drove hundreds of miles to see Pastor Don and Judy Falke (beloved and greatly missed former Moabites), so Don could show me how he'd taught his dog to say "Amen," and I could It eat Judy's jambalaya. No...none of that troubled me much. Or that I really need to know more Spanish than, "Uno mas cerveza, par favor," before I even consider traveling to Mexico again. Or that in Las Vegas, where many of the gas stations have automated gas pumps, I almost hit the unleaded pump because it wouldn't accept my credit card. Or that traveling down the Oregon and California coast for the first time in a decade, I got a taste of what we can look forward to in a few years. No problem. What really troubled me, what still troubles me is this: Why? Why do I have to put my seat in the upright position before landing? It only goes back about three inches in foe first place. What difference could three indies play in my destiny? Anyway, I got out of town for five weeks, while the weather here by all reports was beautiful, flew on a plane, rode some Belizean and Mexican buses, rented a Dodge Shadow in East Texas, and drove my own Japanese Yuppie Scum car, "The Silver Cube," to foe Pacific Northwest. Here is some of the information and experience I gathered during my trip: First, if you intend to travel to a foreign country, learn to speak foe language. Some of you may remember a story I wrote last summer about foreign visitors to our area. I related a few anecdotes about encounters with, and took a few pot shots at the Germans and foe French. Funny stuff, I thought Talk about karma. I got on a bus in Belize City one morning that took me across the border to Chetumal, Mexico. It was one of my unplanned, spontaneous little adventures that have led me to disaster before. For some reason, I had traded all my U.S. currency for Belizean dollars, but felt confident there would be plenty of money-changein Chetumal to cash my traveler's checks. After we'd passed .through customs, and after we'd all exited foe bus so the authorities could fumigate it, we finally arrived in a shopping plaza parking lot There were no money changers at all. Nobody. I had no pesos, and I didn't even know how to ask anyone where I needed to go to get pesos. I stood there in the parking lot, alone and lonely, feeling like a deaf, mute pauper, because that is exactly what I was. I didn't know what to do. I think I wanted to cry. "Are yo OK?" a voice said to me over my shoulder. It was a guy I'd noticed earlier on the bus. He'd come to Chetumal with his wife to do some shopping, but lived in Corozal, Belize. "I'm totally screwed," is what I think I said in reply. I told him my predicament. He shook his head. "This is very bad. You must cash your traveler's checks at a bank and this is Friday afternoon. They close in" he looked at his watch, "twenty minutes." "Is there a bank nearby?" I asked. "Pardoner The teller glared at me from across the counter. I fully expected her to call out to one of the I armed guards. How would Sam Taylor carry this in the wondered.. ."Publisher of Small Moab Alternative Newspaper Shot Dead In Mexican Bank By Guards While Trying to Cash Traveler's Check." The teller, meanwhile, had given me her undivided attention. I pointed to myself and said, "Stupido Americano...cheque de viajero?" She chuckled. ..a little, and finally, reluctantly, nodded her head. The transaction only took a few minutes, I thanked her profusely, and walked back out into the afternoon. Across the street was Robert; he'd returned to see if I had been able to cash the "cheque de viajero." He hailed me a cab, told the driver to take me to the bus station and advised him not to overcharge me. I never saw Robert again. Somehow I managed to buy a ticket and got on the right bus. I sat next to a little Idd on the four hour ride and every time we came to a town, I'd look at her and say, "Tulum?" And she would roll her eyes and giggle and say, "No, Senor." And we'd come to the next town and I'd say, "Tulum?" And she'd say.... The bottom line to this story is: If you're going to be a stupid tourist in a foreign land and you I hope can't even speak foe language, rememher..JiumUity. Humility is foe key to survival. I still remember next summer to show the same patience that was afforded me. Times-lndepende- nt, I : rs "All the news that causes fits." THE CANYON COUNTRY ZEPHYR P.O. BOX 327 MOAB, UTAH 84532 (801) 259-77- 73 publisher & editor Jim Stiles political specialist & features Ken Davey contributing writers Jack Cambell Jane S. Jones Cherie Gilmore T. Scott Groene Mary Yates Hank Rutter historical photos Herb Ringer food editor Willie Flocko Roving Reporter Robert Fulghum production & circulation assistant Jennifer Rodocker Karen Downey photographs & art are by the publisher unless noted otherwise. The Zephyr, copyright 1993, all rights reserved The Canyon Country Zephyr is a monthly newspaper, published eleven times a year at Moab, Utah. The opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of its vendors, advertisers, or even at times of its publisher . The next part of this story is mostly for the parish oners of the First Baptist Church of Moab and for the parishoners of what came to be known as the Broiler Parish of Moab. Pastor Don and Judy Falke are alive and well in a little east Texas lumber town called Pineland. I didn't realize how much I missed them until I saw them. Though I must have suspected, because I came back a few days early from Belize, rented a car in Houston from an agency that couldn't even find Pineland on their map, and drove north as if on a pilgrimmage. and rolled into Pineland a couple I'd finally found their new home on a map I bought in a I hours later. I found the church and their house next door, but could not find Don and Judy, so I drove up to the local Dairy Queen, a couple blocks away. There were several girls working behind the counter, and I asked them collectively, "Are any of you Baptists?" They looked a little startled at first, but finally one of than confessed to being of the faith and added, "My daddy's a deacon." I told her I was looking for her preacher, so she called the deacon, and came back a few minutes later to tell me that Brother Don and Judy were on a youth outing. They'd be back at 9. I returned to foe church, cranked bade my seat, and waited in an east Texas rain for the return of the Falkes. Promptly at 9 PM, a big blue van rolled up and discharged a bunch of teenagers. I stepped out of my car and into the fog. Don stared at me, almost disbelievingly, for a moment. As a Baptist preacher, I assume he is supposed to see visions from time to time, but I doubt if this is what he had in mind. Then Judy screamed. I scared the hell out of her, right there in a Baptist church parking lot. Somehow, in my own small way, I felt I'd helped drive the devil out of Texas. I stayed with Don and Judy for three nights. They even got me to go to church on Sunday evening. Don introduced me to the congregation and everyone smiled sweetly at me. Then Don added, "We're partidarly grateful for Brother Stiles' presence here tonight buause this is only the second time I've ever been able to get him to listen to one of my sermons. The first time he came was because he knew I was leaving town." However, I got even with him later without lifting a finger, when I learned that many members of the church had assumed I was his son. "For cryin'out loud," Don complained, Tm only a year older than you, Stiles. Where have I gone wrong with this parish that they could be so misguided in their thinking?" "How do you think I feel?" asked Judy. "They probably thought I'm Don's son from a previous marriage," I tried to explain. Judy and Don, nonetheless, were gracious hosts, fed me unsurpassed cajin meals, and Judy, at her insistance, ironed my clothes while wearing pearls, once more establishing the comparison to Donna Reed. Don showed me how he had taught his dog Teton to say "Amen." Teton, which means breast in French (and in fairness to them, was actually named by their son Damon), will raise his paw on command and look meaningly to the heavens for redemption. "If I don't save anyone else in east Texas, at least I can say I saved my dawg." Don and I took a road trip one day, traveling as far as Natchitoches, Louisiana, and argued about God and the Meaning of Life for the better part of the afternoon. "Lord, I miss this, " said Don. We made the "morning rounds," including a stop at the nursing home; in a place where death seems to be lurking in every comer, there was Don, cracking jokes, whittling with the Boys, trying to bring a little light to the place. He does. "Get up! And engage in the Realities of Existance!" Those were Don's words of wisdom for this skeptic admirer. He and Judy, in a few short weeks in Pineland, have already found a place in the hearts of this small Texas town, much the way they affected and Believers and Doubters. I strongly encouraged both of them to return to Moab and suggested that they start a new restaurant called "Pastor Don & Judy's Cajin Kitchen." And on Sundays they 7-1- 1, . us-Bap- tists non-Baptis-ts, |