Originally entitled “F*CK TRUMP,” I decided better of it lest anyone think what follows lies outside the realm of art, but that is absolutely what I feel. How I got from there to here is beyond my comprehension, although faced with bullshit-spewing goons and traitors, not to mention my own travails—minor by comparison—much drug-free attitude adjustment was required. Herein lies at least one subtle seed of our salvation. Please subscribe if suitably impressed (paid would be amazing), and it will always be the Gulf of Mexico. - JHF
THE ONLY TIME I EVER CROSSED THE BORDER ON FOOT was way back in April ‘64 on a spring break trip to Big Bend National Park with two friends from my benighted freshman year at S.M.U.1 in Dallas and another dude I knew from Houston, six months after Kennedy’s head got blown open a few miles down the road and four months after John, Paul, George, and Ringo brought the joy again.
The way I remember it is, I drove us in my father’s ‘58 Volkswagen he’d all but given me so I could drive myself home on breaks, as if I’d be glad to see the fighting Farrs, but I also remember hitchhiking to Houston several times from Dallas and later Austin so that doesn’t make any sense unless I borrowed it. At any rate, we nearly got arrested or worse early on just for being kids I guess after stopping late at night in Sanderson,2 God help us. All we wanted was a snack in the cafe where several Texas highway patrolmen stared us down the whole time and followed us when we left for several miles, hanging on our bumper like they were trying to push us off the road. Pure thuggery. The only “contraband” on board was Jim Kellough’s morning glory seeds which weren’t against the law regardless and I didn’t know he had them until later—being an art major at U.T. though, as well as wild-eyed, squirmy, and suspicious,3 he may have had some weed or LSD. The rest of us had never tried either because hippies weren’t a thing just yet in Texas, but artsy types are often ahead of their time and Jim had been to San Francisco recently.
We must have driven through the night and the following morning. I don’t know if the “Entering LION COUNTRY” warning sign was posted just inside the park then but I would have proudly pointed it out to my companions. One of them was named Dick Ball I swear, from Chicago, possibly the happiest, healthiest, most centered fellow I’d ever met, attending S.M.U. on an athletic scholarship for the swim team. The other was named John Brown, if I recall, a tough as nails and cocky athlete (wrestler and tight end) from my old high school in Massapequa, New York, although I didn’t know him there but met him after graduation when we both ended up in Dallas. (There are no coincidences ever, even if they don’t make sense at first.) John B. was the one who later that semester tried to get Dick and me to join him working on a banana boat from Houston to Venezuela and back in the summer of ‘64. We were both in Air Force R.O.T.C. at S.M.U. He was just the type to end up flying a fighter jet in Vietnam and I’ve often wondered if that happened. Whether he went to sea or not, I never learned. Dick had to practice for the swim team anyway and I went off to southwest Washington state to work with bums and ex-cons in the pea harvest out of a labor camp run by the Jolly Green Giant Company, possibly the closest thing to being in prison I’ve ever experienced as if I’d really know. I’d lost my free tuition scholarship at S.M.U. and planned to earn the money there. Oh, sure. Guys squeezing poison alcohol from Sterno through a T-shirt to mix with orange juice concentrate, “better git the grease gun” yelled to shut you up. No wonder I needed to buy a ten pound Kay guitar from a pawn shop and didn’t make it home with any dough. 4
The plan upon arrival at Big Bend was to drive to the Rio Grande Village campground on the east side of the park where I had never been, miles and miles from the intersection with US 385 down from Marathon at Panther Junction. Along the way we spotted a large herd of javelinas, something none of us had ever seen before, and everyone went berserk. (It reminded me later of something from Lord of the Flies.) Dick leaped from the car with an axe, John B. grabbed an Army surplus shovel, and I pulled out my camera while Jim just laughed and cackled. The whole thing was so primal and instantaneous it never crossed my mind that we were actually trying to slay a pig for dinner in the middle of a national park. There wasn’t anyone around except the four of us, shrieking and leaping over the rocks and cactus waving weapons in the air while several dozen javelinas ran for cover. We never stood a chance of harming one, of course, and the sun was going down. Blood lust semi-satisfied, we piled back into the VW panting and whooping and headed east again. Just down the road we saw a herd of wild burros. John wanted to bean one with his shovel but we overruled him and kept on rolling down the road.
The campground we eventually reached was a lovely spot or seemed so in the dark, not crowded at all, with a nice green lawn in fact for us to crash on in our sleeping bags. In hindsight, the Chihuahuan Desert location didn’t jibe with all that grass but we were young and stupid. Before the sun had cleared the horizon a couple hours later, I awoke to find myself half-floating in icy water on my air mattress! I yelled to wake the others up and pandemonium ensued. Arriving late, we’d missed the signs telling everyone to move their tents because the campground was being flooded for irrigation that very day. This has never happened to me since, of course, or probably anybody else. I don’t remember where we ended up the next night but I’m sure that it was dry.
The next day we intended to walk to Mexico. There was a shallow river crossing of the Rio Grande opposite Boquillas on the Mexican side. By the time we got there, the sun was hot and John B. was anxious to have a beer in the village half a mile away. Little did we know the place had no electricity—things are different now—and that the beer would be quite warm. I didn’t care because I’d never had one, cold or not. He also was a smoker and wanted to try those cheap cigarettes he’d heard were made from butts harvested off the streets in Mexico City, if he could only find them here. (This sounds apocryphal and likely was, but he was into it.) Before we got our feet wet, Jim and I walked downriver to a shady spot beside a cliff and spelled out “END THE WAR IN VIETNAM” with rocks along a strip of sandy beach. The war had hardly even started but as students we were hip and thought this was immensely cool.
The Rio Grande wasn’t all that wide or deep at that point, but Dick was wearing jeans instead of shorts because that’s what one did in April in Chicago, I suppose. Not wanting to get them wet, he pulled them off and proceeded to wade across in his underwear. John did too, I think. About the time we reached the other side, a couple boys about ten years old came over the rise leading donkeys for hire to take us to Boquillas. We demurred, pulling pants back on as necessary, and walked the rest of the way. When we arrived we saw a wide dirt street with no cars and several widely scattered buildings. It was very, very quiet, no tourists anywhere. John B. scored a couple warm beers and what he hoped were really awful cigarettes—they were—while the rest of us bought mystery soft drinks and pan dulce. After walking back across the river to the U.S.A., a rite of passage if there ever was one, we paused to take a break. John polished off a whole hot beer and smoked a cigarette. Dick poured his out, declaring it undrinkable. Within a short time John threw up but kept on smoking, proud as hell. I think we resurrected ourselves with Dinty Moore beef stew back at camp, wherever that was. Thus ended the adventure with a message in a time that’s gone for good, and I wonder where they all are now.
Meaningful Pause and Epilogue
Swinging back to present time, I turn 80 years old on August 9th this year. For those of you in disbelief, I can’t explain it either, though I’m not your father’s Oldsmobile and quite glad of it. Almost everyone I ever knew is dead already but I’m grateful for the few who aren’t and for my health as well. What you see above is my latest secret weapon in the struggle to survive the Golden Age of Hell and does it ever work: the small but mighty Vox AC10 tube amp, which I can’t recommend enough. The thing weighs only 27 pounds, the gain and volume controls let me dial in however much overdrive I want, and to quote a sophisticated professional friend of mine originally from Alabama, it’s “LOUD AS FUCK.” I took it out of the box, plugged it in, turned a couple knobs, and instantly found the perfect tone. To get the same quality of sound out of my hydrogen bomb 100 watt Fender Twin Reverb, I have to crank it up to suicidal volume that wilts plants, breaks walls, and makes buzzards fall out of the sky. Barely turned on, the 10 watt Vox already screams like a scalded hyena, surely loud enough to kill a chicken at close range if one shows up and bothers me.
That’s not all I’ve done recently. I just renewed a perfectly good passport with three years left on it because, well, you can add now, can’t you? Who knows if I’d be able to get another one in 2028 or if there’ll even be a State Department. Hell, I might be staring through barbed wire with my bare feet in the mud.5 I don’t want a passport to escape, you understand, but maybe I’ll be visiting down south of Silver City, Deming, or wherever and want to cross the border at Columbus for a nice dinner or to actually get vaccinated.6 Can’t just walk across now like we did then, have to prove you’re real.
I am.
Southern Methodist University in Dallas, chosen from a college catalog in my 3rd high school guidance counselor’s office in New York during my last semester because they offered me a full tuition scholarship based solely on my grades—and also since I’d soon be back in Texas.
Looking at my road atlas, it might have been closer to Del Rio on old US 90. There’s really nothing out there though and never was.
We picked him up in Houston. Can’t remember how we got there in the first place, though. Maybe finagled a ride?
Fortunately as it turned out when the old man packed me up and literally dumped me in Austin after I got back because tuition was only $50 a semester for Texas residents. Happily, attending the University of Texas from ‘64 to ‘68 was one of the greatest things that ever happened to me. Austin in the ‘60s, man. Come on.
Can’t kill that which never dies, though.
THINK, for godsakes, and take care of yourselves!
Excellent piece, amigo. I tend to look back more frequently these days, too, but not quite as lyrically. I try, though. Hang tough, man; you are doing this sweep of years just right, from what I can tell.
It’s always a treat when you publish, John, whether photographs or essays. I have enjoyed your company for the last few of your 80 years and I am forever grateful for your friendship. Wish I had met you decades ago. My life is greatly enhanced with you in it.
Keep going ❤️