Over and Back: a Daring Band of American Pilots Flying North to South into Mexico!: The Untold True Stories Smuggling Contraband into Mexico

By Wild Bill Callahan

A fast-paced, riveting andvividly told story of unknown and true aviation adventure in the spirit of the legendary Air America. An abundance of actual photos accompany the 328 pages of text. Throughout, the author entertains with gut busting laughs and anecdotes of some truly extraordinary aviating the likes of which will never be seen again.

Summer 1984. A lone, desperate pilot arrives in the blistering heat of the south Texas border city of McAllen. Searching for a flying job, he finds old aircraft flying south in the dead of night, their cabins overloaded with electronic contraband. They were headed for clandestine airstrips deep into Mexico's interior. With pockets full of hope and not much else, the pilot's fragile lives hung literally on both engines running. Read about the incredibleadventures, the hair raising escapes, the long prison terms and death that await them south of the border. Read about the inherent danger in flying the dark, sinister Sierras and landing at blacked out, improvised airstrips. Dealing with corruptand ruthless Mexican authorities, pilots found their well-being hung by a tenuous thread. Everyone, north and south, had a price. For more than a few, that price was death.

"While not exactly a fountain of information, Chuck did manage to leave me with an uplifting reflection as I ambled away from his esteemed presence. I think he had sensed my apprehension. Offhandedly, he said that no one had been killed since early June. My pace slowed a bit as that uncertain benediction hit home like a June bug smackin' a Harley driver's eyeball. Whap! I took a quick look at my Seiko watch, a long-lived holdover from another asylum of anxiety called Vietnam. The day/date showed Jun/21. Maybe he meant last June? I thought. I turned to ask but changed my mind. With a somewhat dampened spirit, I returned to my metal abode for more contemplation. Keeping my options open grew more appealing for now."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 25, 2013
• ISBN: 9781479798100

Book preview

Copyright © 2013 by Wild Bill Callahan.

Library of Congress Control Number:      2013903142

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-4797-9809-4

Softcover      978-1-4797-9808-7

eBook      978-1-4797-9810-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,

recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 02/20/2015

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

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Contents

Chapter 1 The Beginning

Chapter 2 Throttle Jockey Blues

Chapter 3 Welcome to McAllen!

Chapter 4 The Business

Revised Version - Special Chapter

Sky Cowboys of the Night

Chapter 5 First Fright

Chapter 6 The Cast of Characters

Chapter 7 Northbound and Down

Chapter 8 Pan Am Wings

Chapter 9 Yes, we have no bananas!

Chapter 10 Tuxpan Tango for Two

Chapter 11 Pepe the Glider Pilot

Chapter 12 The Funny Side of Life

Chapter 13 Fandango

Chapter 14 XC-HCX

Chapter 15 Rocky’s Last Flight

Chapter 16 Leon Layaway

Chapter 17 Fickle Lady Luck

Chapter 18 X Marks the Spot

Chapter 19 Dust Storm at Rio Verde

Chapter 20 Northern Exposure

Afterword

Glossary

Life’s Notables:

Dedication and Remembrance:

For my wife, Gayle Anne, a fiery redhead with a soft heart, eternal patience and a credit rating better than mine. She had to drag me kicking and screaming into the degraded, dumbed-down, pathetically-correct ruin that is 21st century dependent America. Having partially arrived, I’m still not convinced it’s a good place to be.

This book is dedicated to my Mom and Dad who are in the loving hands of God. Both were highly qualified, card carrying members of The Greatest Generation. They let me fly the roost in 1967 to skydive in Hammond, Louisiana where I began my life’s journey.

To my Uncle Sam, the used and much abused American taxpayer, for the privilege and honor of serving my country in Vietnam and who later rewarded me with an aviation education. Thank you.

For Sgt. Toby Edward Jaeckels, a U.S. Army Salvage Diver and my best friend in Vietnam. Trapped underwater, he died during a 1969 diving accident in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam. For U.S. Army Specialist 4 Christopher Chulamanis, a good friend and Vietnam veteran who honored that war’s divers with a great website before he passed away.

For John J. Harris, an ass bustin’ jungle infantryman with the 101st Airborne Division. Jay is a survivor of two deadly invitations to Vietnam’s A Shau Valley. He’s damn lucky to have made it home. These bug bitten, sweat slinging, foot slogging, overloaded jungle veterans deserve all the recognition possible.

I’ll never forget two special veterans who served with honor in some very dangerous water in Vietnam: Lt. Luis Villafana and Sgt. Danny (Dusty Roads) Draper. I was inspired by their leadership and dedication to duty. For my fellow black water divers, Donald Olsen, Bruce Dobransky, and Victor Silvera. Brave fellows all, they risked their lives searching for and recovering American soldiers under water as black as ink.

For early friends that I was fortunate enough to meet such as Don Weber, Johnny Blount and Beaver Borne, all of south Louisiana who helped a vet get his life together. I wish I could’ve done you guys better but I could’ve done much worse.

In special recognition of the great South African bush pilots like Colin Brock and Glen Matthee. Kurt Schnaubelt of Australia, Johannes Pilamp of New Guinea, the legendary bush pilot Hugh Pryor of Kenya and Scotland, Mark Hotson in England and Dick Dressler and J. Early from the U.S. Especially for the exceptional mechanics and engineers who performed nothing short of miracles to keep us in the air such as South Africans Mad Mike Dick and Barry Meyer in Sudan and the adopted son of the Phillipines; Ed Farren in T’Chad. With their positive attitudes and can-do spirits, they all made working in difficult circumstances much more acceptable. GALA helped too (a Chadian beer of which formaldehyde is a key ingredient and is similar to 33 Vietnamese beer).

A specific acknowledgement to Jim Lynch, a professional pilot and decades long veteran of Caribbean aviation. His expertise in things island-wise kept my fading memory straight. I had Montserrat confused with Dominica. A photo credit to him is the modern day Melville Hall airport. His informative website can be found at; www.craneforum.org.

For my friends, the daredevil contraband pilots of old Mexico; Ron Fox, Jimmy Young, Jimmy Spikes, Al Parker, Don Poe, Chuck R., Señor Pepe, Jim Falls, John Pate, Harry Gorley and the many others that grandfather time caused their names to fade from memory. I just thought I had a pair.

In remembrance of the many other border bandits, also in search of adventure, who took off in the dead of night, turned their old aircraft’s noses south and flew literally on a wing and a prayer into the danger laden skies of old Mexico. They paid the price when Lady Luck failed to take a seat. I hope all of you have found peace on the other side. You are not forgotten.

Like my friend and fellow survivor Ron Fox once said:

The best stories are those that didn’t get told by the ones who never returned.

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Introduction

This book is about the little known enterprise during the 1980s of the aerial smuggling of domestic goods across the Rio Grande into Mexico. There is vast public knowledge about pilots smuggling drugs north from Mexico and then into the United States – not in the other direction. I was one of those freelance pilots flying against the grain.

During those years, the Mexican government had imposed outrageous import duties of 100% or more for all types of goods brought into Mexico. As a result, these tariffs created a thriving black market in the country and became the lifeblood of a clandestine, south Texas-based aerial armada comprised of U.S. registered aircraft and pilots who crossed the Rio Grande and overflew airports where Mexican Customs agents were assigned to collect the tariffs.

The1980s were the height of this legal-illegal business. It was legal because U.S. Customs laws and Federal Air Regulations were strictly observed. Pilots flying into Mexico would first file a U.S. export declaration and fill out the required cargo manifests. In McAllen, Texas, for example, pilots would taxi their loaded aircraft over to the Customs checkpoint near the main terminal. Here they would have their paperwork stamped and have their cargo inspected. We were then legal, at least as long as we stayed in U.S. airspace, which wasn’t long as the Rio Grande border was only a three minute flight south. Once we flew across the Rio Grande and intentionally bypassed Mexican import duties, we became an illegal flight and subject to interception and prosecution or worse by Mexican authorities. By flying into Mexican airspace, we had become as illegal as the drug planes and pilots going north. The official penalty for smuggling domestic goods into Mexico was nine years in a Mexican penitentiary.

South Texas border airports were a beehive of aviation activity during this period. All types of goods, from Levis blue jeans to Baklava, Honda dirt bikes, TVs and VCRs, microwave ovens, blenders were flown south, mainly at night. Brownsville, McAllen and Laredo were the three main airports for contraband shipments departing south from Texas.

The pilots were properly known as Contrabandistas. That was a universal name used for Narco (drug) pilots. The most commonly used term by Mexicans for us pilots was Fayuquero or One that specializes in counterfeit products. The word Fayuca means imported illegal merchandise. They are both slang terms and not proper Castilian Spanish.

With the collapse of the Mexican economy in 1982, the business got much more serious. The value of the peso declined rapidly and dollars were in short supply for Mexican receivers to pay for contraband flights. With the passing years, operations became drastically reduced with increased competition between everyone involved. Weapons began to be carried and airstrips became armed camps with receivers willing to kill to protect their goods. At the end, it became a deadly serious business and many of the old timers such as Air America veterans, experienced in this type of flying, got out of it. Those willing to take more chances were left with a drastic increase in captures, intentional airstrip mishaps and tragic consequences.

Most of us were simply searching for new adventures. Mexico fulfilled that search. For many, it was their final quest. Sixty-two pilots were known to have been killed in Mexico during approximately ten years of operations. Like a rabid dog, Mexico could bite if you let your guard down. I never did.

My surname is also a Spanish female‘s first name. For this reason, Mexican Customs flight interception personnel referred to me as, La Gringa or The (American) Girl. This is my story and the story of others as told to me. I was one of the lucky ones. And by the way, I’m not a girl.

Author’s Note

This book is not intended for the politically

correct or the overly sensitive.

If four letter words offend you, stop now.

Opinions expressed herein are those of the author only.

I am not aware of ever having used a profane expletive in my life, but I would have the charity to excuse those who may have done so, if they were in charge of a train of Mexican pack mules.

– 2nd Lt. Ulysses S. Grant -

Mexican American War - 1846

Political Correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rapidly promoted by the mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a piece of shit by the clean end.

A student at Griffith’s University in Australia

The Beginning image002.jpg

Whoever said that you can’t live in the past is probably not old enough to have had a past worth remembering. - A Pastor of the Family of God Fellowship – Ocala, Florida.

Due to an abundance of coaching and coaxing from my ever persevering Mother, I’ve been a prolific reader all of my life. In the late 1950s, participation in the Carnegie Library’s Summer Book Club was mandatory to staying in her good graces. Reading finally caught on. I remember being in Nowhere, Africa with nothing to read and found myself perusing the fine print on a toilet paper wrapper. Five thousand books later, I thought reading alone would qualify me to write a book. I apologize now to those who think it didn’t. But what you’re holding here is over four years of hair pulling labor. I actually thought it would be easy because I experienced firsthand much of what is written. If nothing else, writing has given me a deep appreciation for those who put pen to paper or in my case, MS Word to electronic type. With pen and paper, I would’ve destroyed forests and emptied an ocean of inkwells. With plume and parchment, I would’ve fallen on my sword.

T his was one of those nights down south when I wished I’d stayed home. Come to think of it, I had a lot of nights like this. But on this dark evening, things would be truly impressive. Chuck had made a perfect approach. The smudge pots were dead ahead. Everything was coming up roses as the two end pots flew behind us. Chuck concentrated on keeping the old Douglas lined up with the other two red dots of fire blazing coffee cans at the far end of the pitch black strip. We had just touched down on a cow pasture come smuggler field about thirty miles northeast of Leon in southwest Mexico. Having cleared the eastern Sierra Madre mountain range, we looked forward to a quick unloading of our burden of electronics and getting the hell out. We should’ve known. Surprises were always just around the corner in this business. Nothing came easy. In what felt like firm left braking but accompanied by an odd sinking sensation, we were now headed nose downward in a left leaning arc. It felt like the old DC-3s left landing gear was slowly collapsing at about sixty knots. Through the windshield, to our stark disbelief, dark, grassy earth slowly rose up to meet us. The wing imbedded landing lights seemed to retract their beams and disappear as the nose continued down and the tail went up. The old girl groaned under tremendous twisting strain as tons of electronic contraband tumbled into any unoccupied space in the rear. I couldn’t believe what I was experiencing. Chuck had made a smuggler’s textbook approach with the night air smooth as glass coming down final. The touchdown was gentle and within the confines of the strip but just a bit off to the left of center.

Seconds later we were taken completely by surprise as it all went to hell. We were nosing over, totally helpless and fully expecting to go over the top and onto our back. With enough presence of mind, I anticipated the crushing weight of over eight thousand pounds of TVs and VCRs shoving me face first into the instrument panel. Leaning heavily to port, the frightening tilt finally stopped at what seemed like vertical. We hung there for long seconds while the laws of gravity and balance debated what to do next. We were at the tipping point of the arc, motionless - and might I say, scared witless. Isaac Newton had us by the short hairs as we dreaded the outcome. Stiff arming the glare shield was all I could do to keep my face from smacking the windshield. I couldn’t quite comprehend what I was experiencing. We sat there staring at shadowed earth and grass a few feet below while only seconds before we were rolling out smoothly. Chuck, helpless to do anything else, still had the wheel fully back in a vain attempt to keep us from going over. The left prop, beating the ground like a flail, vibrated the airframe unmercifully while sending damp earth slamming into the fuselage. After long seconds, it had finally shut itself down. Regaining my balance and composure, I pulled the mixture and shut down the right engine. Our receivers, waiting ahead in the dark, looked for a fiery explosion from this old dinosaur doing a hand stand. The entire sequence transpired in seconds. If I didn’t think that things could happen in the blink of an eye before, that fact had now made a permanent impression!

At this point, you might think this is just another book of aviation adventure stories. Take your hat off and sit a spell. For those pilots that don’t already know it all, you might even learn something. I know I did. And don’t forget to fasten your seatbelt, it reads faster than a McAllen airport jack rabbit with a DC-3 hot on his ass. CLEAR PROP!

Water fountains:

Growing up in the post war, laid back fifties and turbulent sixties, life for me was a mixture of fun, as little work as I could get away with and as much adventure as I could conjure up in the flat farmlands of northern Mississippi. My Dad had a small cotton and soybean farm which he somehow found sufficient to feed and support a wife and five kids. In the late 1950s, I saw my Dad seated atop that green John Deere single banger³ every hot summer, eating dust that matched his downwind speed and sweating a waterfall. It didn’t take long to figure out that farming wasn’t for me. One month we were praying for rain, the next month we were praying for the deluge to stop. Bug and weed infestations were a never ending worry. He knew how to weather a storm, from the elements or otherwise. Dad was expert at weaving a living from Mississippi buckshot while others floundered and fell by the wayside. Farming was for the strong willed and stout of heart. I’ll state right now, I could never have done it. He was remarkable. My Mother was equally so as she somehow found enough patience, stamina and green stamps to keep up with all five of us. They sacrificed thoroughly. I realized it too late like some of us do. We weren’t wealthy of course but neither were we considered very poor. We had familial stability, food on the table and a roof over our heads. In the tender years, that’s all that mattered.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention my parochial school education. It’s the equivalent of a university degree nowadays when many graduate college in near illiteracy. As an Altar Boy, I was a walking disaster. I could never figure out when to stand up, when to sit down, when to kneel, retrieve the wine, ring the bell etc. When I stood, the parishioners would sit, when I sat, they knelt. Retrieving the wine, I would find the Priest muttering with a pained expression; It isn’t time yet boy! I was awful and depended heavily on my older brother. However, I’m sure the audience enjoyed the show.

Summers were filled with caddying at the next door golf course at one dollar for eighteen holes. Talk about slave labor! Four hours spent chasing some duffer’s errant golf ball on a ninety-eight degree day will do-in anybody – even a newly minted teenager! My adventurous side was exposed one day at the golf course swimming pool. I tried to hold my breath underwater for four laps of the pool. I was within ten feet of the last wall when the lights went out. They said I was on the bottom for fifteen additional minutes before somebody figured out I couldn’t hold my breath that long. I survived but barely. By the way, I never saw that bright light everybody talks about.

Time off was also spent wrestling with the Negro boys who competed with me for caddying dollars. I gave as got and neither black nor white of the caddying crowd could quite figure what the racial strife in adults was about. When the Freedom Riders from up north appeared in town one day, I was happy as hell. I saw one of them and said how glad I was to see him. He told me to go to hell and that he wasn’t here to help white people. I was so damn naïve it hurt. I would drink at the Woolworth water fountain in town labeled for colored only just to see if their water tasted any different. It didn’t but I wondered why it was always warm. I discovered later that management had turned their refrigeration off to save money. I always thought it was broke. Poor innocent me. Some lady behind a counter used to look at me like I was nuts. You had to know me. I was the curious type. Always wondering what was over the next water fountain.

Ironically, I recently learned that Woolworth’s in South Africa has instituted a ban on hiring white people. I guess they go with the flow. Live long enough and the world comes full circle. But I’m still waiting on bell bottoms and Nehru suits.

Life breezed into the mid-sixties and grew more appealing. What made things especially interesting was a grass airstrip that my Dad leased out to some crop dusters. Three or four Piper Super Cubs filled the flight line with sixty gallon Sorensen spray tanks attached below the belly. Sitting for hours on a hot dirt road at the mid-point of the runway, I was awed by their takeoffs and landings and watched till they flew out of sight. I wanted to get close to the planes but was too shy to approach the pilots for permission. I would lay hidden between rows of my Dad’s cotton as they flew over me while dispensing DDT dust - so much for Rachel Carson’s literary work; Silent Spring. As this book is written, I’m a hale and hearty sixty-five thanks to DDT and other chemicals I later flew as a crop duster myself.

My bedroom, shared with two of my brothers, was filled with plastic model airplanes hanging from the ceiling. It wasn’t uncommon for taller adults to be attacked by F-89 Scorpions or B-24 Liberators as their heads ran into them. Thumb tacks did a poor job of keeping them up there. Once or twice a month, a plane, usually a heavy bomber would come crashing to the floor in the middle of the night scaring the hell out of everybody in the house.

The Mississippi Delta, at least our part of it south of Memphis, was composed of many Italian Catholic farmers, Jewish merchants and Negroes who mainly worked the fields. Not all Negroes were farm workers. Quite a few blacks were successful individuals. Some were landowner farmers, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, a radio station owner, general business proprietors etc. I hope you didn’t believe everything you heard on the news back then – or now for that matter. It was humanity from all points of the globe; Lebanese, Syrians, Chinese, Japanese, Europeans and numerous other nationalities. Adults in our town of the ‘50s and ‘60s were busy working and trying to make a living. We all got along pretty well and didn’t go around hanging people from trees every day — like descendants of northern slave holders thought we did.

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Humble beginnings. It builds character. Five kids, two adults, three bedrooms, one bathroom, sixteen inches of snow and one heater.

Clarksdale, Mississippi - 1962

Top Dressing – Italian Style!

Growing up Italian was an experience in itself. I think it’s where my limitless sense of humor originated. One particularly funny story was of an old Italian who was the Grandfather of a good friend of mine. He told me one day that his Granddad had taken to getting dressed for work on the roof of his house every morning. Of course I burst out laughing and thought this was knee-slapping hilarious. My friend said that his Granddad had made his wife so mad that she threw all of his damn clothes on the roof. He’d bring them back down every day after work but soon thereafter, he’d find them back on the roof again – victims of endless arguments. He got tired of retrieving them and just started getting dressed on the roof amid laughter from neighbors and passersby. Relatives eventually shamed her for the dastardly deeds and his Granddad was able to resume his daily functions inside his bedroom like normal people. My Dad said he’d rather have stumbled ashore with the first wave on Iwo Jima than have to live with that battle axe of a woman!

Italian Catholic Idiosyncrasies:

The Sign of the Cross. This was the 50s and 60s. Everybody did it - made the sign of the Cross. I had no problem with it in church but some Italians took it to the extreme. For example, every time we passed a graveyard, my Mother would make the sign of the cross for the poor souls resting there for eternity. Pass a bad car wreck, same thing. Pass a church, same thing but it had to be a Catholic church. Others didn’t qualify in the hierarchy of Cross signing. Nothing wrong with it of course and maybe the tradition should be carried on today. Mexican Catholics still do it, especially drug runners who pass Catholic churches in Mexico. More on that later.

Confession:

There is no human on mother earth who hated Confession more than me. Every Friday afternoon, we had to march into the back of the church and confess our sins to some priest. As a young kid, the whole operation scared the shit out of me. The priest wanted to know all the gory details and guess what? I couldn’t remember a damn thing. Stage fright they call it. Froze right up as he slid open his little door that revealed a darkened screen so we supposedly wouldn’t know him and vise-versa. Yeah, right. My solution? A sin list I made up beforehand. It was dark in there so I had to look closely and no flashlights allowed. It worked. I was still scared but at least I had my sins together.

Then there were the Penances or penalties for your sins as dished out by the Priest. If you sinned a lot, you were sentenced to pray a lot, right then and there, in church and on your knees. I had an Uncle who confessed his sins about once every ten years. He’d pack a lunch, a sleeping bag and plan to stay overnight doing penance. As I grew older and my sins got lengthier, I used to lie about the quantity and severity to keep from having to pray for forgiveness so much. That was a Catch 22 situation as later, once your conscience kicked in, you’d have to confess that you’d lied. Like an IRS audit, your lies could come back to haunt you in the dark world of a Confessional booth. Scary stuff!

About the only entertainment value I could derive from the experience was observing fellow reprobates who stayed late praying their sin sentences. You knew without a doubt who was screwing up big time. Also, the loud mouths and old people who didn’t know they were talking so loud and the need to confess their sins in a quiet voice. I enjoyed listening to who did what to whom, the bar brawls, the drunks, the shoplifters, the jealousies, the infidelities. My virgin ears had never heard such. Our own little Peyton Place it was. You only had to hang around the Confessional on Fridays to learn who did what to whom. Confession got interesting at times but I still deplored the entire experience. What an ordeal for a young kid.

Purgatory:

This is a good one. Location: the Vatican II Council in Rome, Italy, 1962. They changed all the rules. My Dad hated them doing that. Thought he was going to blow a gasket over it. No more Latin Masses, all in English now. When you think old school, consider my Dad before schools were invented – old school. But here’s the kicker, a big one! Vatican II Council folks decided it was now okay to eat meat on Fridays. If you know anything about Catholicism, you’d know it was a sin to eat meat on Fridays prior to 1962. However, I liked living life on the edge, even back then. I would eat baloney on Fridays just to see if I would die, be struck by lightning, get bubonic plague or something. Nothing ever happened that severe but I did bust my nuts while walking on top of our board fence. I slipped and that damn board went straight into my crotch! Damn that hurt! It happened on a Friday no less – after eating baloney! Was Somebody trying to tell me something? But the point I’m getting at is this; what happened to all the poor sops who ate meat on Fridays BEFORE the ruling from on high came down that it was now okay to do so? They were all down in Purgatory doing penance for their unauthorized Friday baloney eating wondering what the hell! and why they had to go there in the first place! Talk about a revolting development! I presented their case to my Mom, a devout Catholic. Her reply: Oh shut the hell up Billy! The only time I ever heard her curse.

Respecting the Dead:

My Mom was big on this one too. Don’t talk bad about dead people Billy and don’t disrespect the dead. she’d tell me. At that age I thought; what the hell do they care? Even back then a graveyard would’ve been most appropriate for a few assholes I knew. I couldn’t see her point. Now that I’m nearly dead myself, well, it’s funny how time changes your perspective.

Doc Livingston and Golf Balls:

I mentioned the golf course next to our house in an earlier paragraph. Don’t compare our former cow pasture surrounded by cotton and soybean fields with Pebble Beach or Augusta National please! You’d never find Gary Player, Ben Hogan or Slammin’ Sammy Snead at our course. What you would find is left-over dried cow plop. In a summer dry spell, our number 7 fairway resembled a miniature Grand Canyon. Not only could your ball be lost forever in one of its dried chasms, an unwary golfer could be found with only his head showing above the earth’s surface screaming for help. I’m completely serious.

For us kids, both black and white, caddying was not the only way we made a little extra money. We also looked for lost golf balls in one hundred degree heat with humidity approaching same. We had a big soybean field to the right and immediately adjacent the 500 yard number 2 fairway. Many beans were harvested prematurely from humming slicers headed that way. That’s a golf ball that makes a hard right after you hit it when you’d rather it go straight. When the beans were short, it was pretty easy for the duffers themselves to find their lost balls. As the growing season lengthened, that’s when the colored boys and me got busy; down on our hands and knees busy because that’s the only way you could find them in four foot tall beans. My side kick was a little black boy named M.A. Jr. The only ten year old kid I ever knew that had initials for a name. We called him Emma Jr. He never knew the difference. He was short and wiry but tough as nails. I could barely kick his ass in a wrestling match and I was bigger than him.

Now think of heavy summer rain, mud and mosquitos galore and us. Me and Emma worked and sweated for every damn sorry-ass, cheap skate duffer golf ball we could find. Finding a gleaming white, mint condition Titliest was the Holy Grail of ball searchers but they were as rare as getting twenty-five cents for one ball from Doc Livingston.

Doc was a pot-bellied, semi-bald golf pro from what I think was Germanic descent. I never knew his real first name but everybody called him Doc, possibly because he looked like one – mildly serious and condescending. He and his wife Victoria kept the filter-less Pall Mall Cancer Company in business by themselves; three to four packs per day – each. No kidding. Doc, get me a pack of Pall Malls out of the machine. Back and forth, all day long in the pro shop. They were thirty-five cents a pack back then. They both died of lung cancer fairly early in life but you probably figured that out before I completed this sentence.

Doc was the guy we presented our newly recovered balls to for bail money. That’s after cleaning them up in ball washers that were sprinkled about the golf course, usually with no soap or water in them. We did the best we could. Doc could be a decent guy at times to us kids both black and white. However, his judging the investment return quality of our balls was a sticking point. When presented to him at the back door of the pro shack, we were always met with a nasty look, more like a grimace maybe. I don’t know why. Maybe it was his conscience doing a number on him. He knew he was about to screw us over while looking down at our sweaty, bug bitten, mud covered hands and arms with blue jeans and shoes equally smeared with soybean slime. We didn’t have a damn leg to stand on, totally at his mercy. He’d grab one out of our sweaty palms and state, Range ball, ain’t worth shit. And another, Range ball, ain’t worth shit. And another, Range ball, ain’t worth shit. To emphasize his point, he’d throw each one that ain’t worth shit, over our heads and into the yard behind us. For Emma, it was tough seeing his next meal fly over his head. At least I had food at home. A ten year old boy, nappy headed or lily white didn’t argue with the Doc. We both got screwed over equally. No discrimination at Doc’s back door.

Range balls, if you’re not up to speed, were used on the practice tee for duffers to hit and pretend they were improving their game. Doc would furnish the duffers a wire caged bundle of them for fifty cents. We made a little extra money from Doc by picking them up after the practice tee idiots scattered them to hell and gone. So maybe it all worked out in the wash? When you’re young, you’ll believe anything.

Anyway, for pockets full of balls that we thought were worth five dollars, we’d receive maybe fifteen cents for four hours of drudgery crawling in hot, muddy, bug invested earth. That was enough for a ten cent Big Baby Ruth with five cents leftover for a sorry-ass Cho-Cho ice cream bar that melted before you got the damn wrapper off. And don’t get me started on Doc’s year old Stage Planks and Sponge Crackers. What a life.

Elvis and me:

Doc had a son named William. What a jerk. Spoiled rotten and had everything I didn’t have. Had a 45 rpm record player that played Elvis tunes all day long. In 1958 I heard Elvis’s Hound Dog for the first time. William asked me if I knew who Elvis was. I said hell no. He let me know I wasn’t hip. If this had been now, he would’ve had an iPad, iPod, laptop, desktop and everything but a flattop. I survived this kid at nine years of age but little did I know; I had many more jerks to follow that would make this one seem Angelic.

Speaking of Elvis; fast forward to 1975. I had a Beech 18 I was paying for by the skin of my teeth by hauling skydivers and lying to my banker. Elvis was in concert in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. My wife and I attended. The place was packed. She loved him. I could care less except for his Trilogy song. Now that is one soul stirring son of a bitch. Makes you want to join old man Pickett and the boys in their ill-fated charge at Gettysburg. Anyway, Elvis got deathly sick before the concert even began and canceled on an audience of thousands. Elvis was in urgent need of a quick flight back to Memphis about 350 miles north. They couldn’t use the plane Elvis arrived in because it didn’t have a cargo door. He was in bad shape, on drugs and vastly overweight. Anyway, believe it or not, I found out the following day that his people and our local FBO were looking for me to fly Elvis back to Memphis that night. They wanted my plane because it was on-site and had a cargo door which could fit Elvis on a stretcher. This was a couple of years before he died. I can only imagine what effect my old Beech 18 would’ve had on a sickly King suckin’ exhaust fumes from a pair of reluctant 985s all the way to Graceland. That’s if both of ‘em decided to keep working. Damn, I would’ve been famous if not in a Mississippi cotton field with Elvis on a stretcher and both engines feathered!

Eddie Montgomery and Flying Clubs:

I believe that a young boy is most impressionable between the ages of ten to fifteen. Beyond that, most fairly intelligent boys realize that what they see and hear from adults is a bunch of shit. Fortunately, between those ages is when I met Mr. Eddie Montgomery. He was a golfer and from such was born a true master of foul language and a gifted virtuoso of club hurling! I was impressed.

He was short but bulky and looked like he was ready to kick anybody’s ass who mentioned his height. He scared me. He had a trim flattop cut of salt and pepper hair with military sidewalls. His hair even scared me. He always looked like he was pissed off at somebody or some-thing and always carried his own clubs in a pull cart. Never had a caddy but I was always scared he’d ask me. Didn’t say much but cussed a lot. The man was tough as nails. If he wasn’t, he sure as hell looked like he was. He taught me how to cuss a blue streak. I still do. That’s why I gave that four letter warning at the beginning of this book. Eddie would cuss even if he made a good shot. I figured he did it because he knew his next shot wouldn’t be worth shit and wanted to stay ahead of the game. I learned all my cuss words from Eddie and I am grateful to him. He took no prisoners. A solid; I don’t give a shit if nobody likes it, type of guy. He was my hero. Strange I know but there it is.

Then there was his golf club throwing. The guy could hurl a club further than a line drive from Ted Williams. If you don’t know who he is, you’re not old enough to be reading this book. Go play with your cell phone. Eddie’s most magnificent moment occurred one hot, steaming day in August of 1963. I’ll never forget it. It was memorable, of epic proportions, and worthy of its own paragraph.

I saw him get so pissed off at one of his many errant tee shots that he grabbed his battered golf bag, jerked it off his cart in a nonstop spasm of spittle-spewing, red-faced cursing and threw the whole damn bag down the fairway. Yes, it was full of his clubs which scattered in a graceful twenty foot arc. I thought it was over but I was wrong. He grabbed his empty cart by the long handle and with two vein-bulging, tattooed forearms – one said Guadalcanal USMC, the other I Love Mama - swung it round and round while his four fellow golfers, myself included, scattered to the winds. Having gathered a head of steam, that poor cart, with life now measured in seconds, was flung in a twisting, tumbling arc. It gained a good ten feet of altitude as it flew about thirty feet down the fairway. It managed to clear his bag and clubs then tumbled end over end for maybe another twenty feet. Its life ended as a mass of mangled metal never to suffer the abuse of its enraged owner again. Meanwhile, a litany of four letter words continued blasting forth for the ears of anyone within a 300 yard radius; especially if they were downwind. I do remember one of our braver, more robust golfers having the courage to say; Oh Eddie. That was it. Oh Eddie was the only effort I ever heard from anyone trying to calm the storm that raged inside the man. This seething tempest must’ve had its origins in childhood. Probably abused by a Dad who deemed little Eddie unworthy of his affection. Poor guy. At least his Mama loved him!

I am glad dear Eddie passed away long before political correctness blossomed in all its pansy ass glory. If not, let’s just say that Eddie would’ve spent most of his life behind bars for beating the shit out of anyone claiming to be politically correct.

So that, my friends, in a nutshell, was my childhood. It prepared me for one of life’s next great adventures of that era. Well, except for the girls at the swimming pool dressing room for which I drilled a hole in the plywood separation but we’ll save that for another book.

Growing in Agriculture and Industry:

I hate to end this youthful soiree on a sad note but times like that are no longer. Now in my former; Welcome to Clarksdale – Growing in Agriculture and Industry those days are long gone. We now have gangs, drugs and murders on a frequent basis in a town of 19,000. In 2014, we had a family acquaintance shot in the face by two sixteen year old punks at a convenience store while sitting in his car. Of course, we’ve had several elderly women’s homes broken into. They were robbed and beaten nearly to death. We even had the usual idiotic judge fail to prosecute one punk because his victim died before the trial. I wonder why? Let me guess. Could it be from trauma? What’s wrong with the world now? What’s to blame besides incredible idiocy and a lack of common sense? I’m glad I will not have to live through what I know is coming. My greatest fear is reincarnation.

Vietnam:

High school, mercifully, was over fairly quick. My mind was not on school. In 1967 it was on girls, music and the Vietnam War taking a turn for the worse in Southeast Asia. Petula Clark and Herb Alpert were popular. The Fab Four had made an indelible impression and the musical genius of Phil Spector was sweeping the land from coast to coast. It was a great time to be alive.

Meanwhile, Uncle Sam was in a hell of a jam, way down yonder in an unknown land. He was at a loss on how to win his new war. I figured I’d lend a hand and volunteered for the Army as a salvage diver. Lloyd Bridges of TVs Sea Hunt fame pointed the way. He was my hero. I had guessed (correctly) that it would be difficult to get shot at if I was under water. However, I never considered that I’d be diving in the Mekong and Saigon Rivers, the ecological sewer systems for all of Southeast Asia. Neither did I figure that C-123 spray aircraft would be dumping millions of gallons of Agent Orange into the soup. But that’s why I got paid an extra sixty-five dollars per month so who was I to complain?

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What really jolted me though was the black water I had to work with in Vietnam. Zero visibility while looking for bodies on the bottom of a deep river will scare the hell out of anybody. Descending into a black abyss, you have the sense of leaving behind a world of light and life only to penetrate an alien realm of darkness and death. One day I was trying to unbuckle a young chopper pilot from his seat. Working close to him in the intense blackness, a gloved hand and arm, propelled by the current, kept slapping me in the side of the head. It frightened me but I couldn’t help but think he was trying to communicate. In the language of the dead, he seemed to say leave me alone! He didn’t want to leave his God-forsaken, dark tomb of crushed aluminum and didn’t want his family and friends to see him in a casket. He’d never see the other side of nineteen and he was pissed – even in death.

I was not a true combat veteran of Vietnam though the exposure was there and I took considerable risks in my job. My worst night was laying behind an M-60 machine gun within thirty feet of a 2,000 pound stack of C-4 plastic explosive sitting on the diving barge deck. We were under a mortar attack. Twelve pounds of C-4, properly placed, will rip a 36 inch I-beam clean in two. A ton of it going off at that distance would’ve sent my molecules into orbit, blown the bridge we were anchored beside and registered on the Richter scale in San Francisco. That’s along with six of my fellow divers in the nowhere land of the Mekong Delta while under the protection of a platoon of ARVN (Republic of Vietnam) soldiers. We got lucky but one of us got a Purple Heart. That only proves the following point.

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Hard Hat diver Victor Silvera of Kingston, Jamaica with that all too common worried look on his face; also known as the why me look. This dive involved recovering 105 mm artillery shells that had fallen overboard from another barge. John Sine of Rhinelander, Wisconsin is tending at top with Donald Olsen of Long Island, New York in white T-shirt. Photo courtesy of Sgt. Danny Draper.

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The Vietnam Mud Water Divers

Top row, left to right:

John Sine, Danny Draper, Author, Nathaniel Cooper

Kneeling: Dean Dixon

(Purple Heart), Joe Kahikina, Victor Silvera.

Not pictured: Lt. Luis Villafana,

Donald Olsen and Bruce Dobransky.

I stepped on a nerve:

While writing this book, I got an email from a good friend of over forty years ago. His name was Danny Dusty Roads Draper. Dusty had taken some umbrage at my stating that we were not combat veterans. Dusty said something that made me think deeper. He stated: I agree that we were not stumbling through the jungle but who the hell would want our job of diving into deep, black, muck laden water looking for bodies with no idea of what we were about to bump into or stumble over. The man made a damn good point. Dusty’s reflection was one of the reasons I knew I had to revise this book. There were many dives into stygian depths where I wished I was anywhere else but where I was at the moment. I know that same thought held true for all of us.

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Photo courtesy of Donald Olsen

My good friend and fellow diver, Donald Olsen, on a body recovery assignment in Vietnam. Bodies would often get washed into wooded debris by fast moving rivers and streams. With zero visibility, none of us looked forward to this work as it was very dangerous as evidenced by the look of concern on Don’s face. Over 10,000 American G.I.s were killed by accident in Vietnam. Indeed, my closest friend, Toby Jaeckels was killed doing a dive such as this one. In search of a body, he became entangled himself and drowned.

Groping, is an intransitive verb that I like to use when describing our type of diving. We groped