An American Fly on Mexican Walls: A Memoir

By Valaria Joan McCaw Lincoln

Valarias friend, Penny, says out of the blue the Tuesday before Labor Day in 1985, Lets go to Mexico.
Valaria says, Okay! Lets go! and the two friends set out on an adventure that will forever change their lives.
In Mexico, they discover people who care about and trust each otherand a culture where family is intact. Its a place where womanhood is revered, where love is treasured, and where beautiful music meets your ears night and day.
They make it a priority to fully enjoy the Mexican experience, avoiding other Americans and tourists who treat the natives like servants.
The two friends sit on the edge of cliffs overhanging calm, emerald colored waters. They use sparkling clean outhouses in the middle of nowhere. They watch women slowly drive cattle down the riverbed.
Valaria also makes new friends, including one close oneOscarwho tells her, I cannot take care of you in the States, but when you are in my country I will always see to it you have food to eat and a place to sleep.
Youll be touched by the discoveries Valaria makes about herself and life in An American Fly on Mexican Walls.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jul 7, 2016
• ISBN: 9781532000874

Valaria Joan McCaw Lincoln

Valaria Joan McCaw Lincoln, a native of Omaha, Nebraska, moved to Los Angeles with her children in 1961. She was the first female engineer employed by the Engineering Division of the Los Angeles District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. She was named “Woman of the Year 2003” by the California Legislature and has received many commendations for her years of community service.

Book preview

Copyright © 2016 Valaria Joan McCaw Lincoln.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

iUniverse

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.iuniverse.com

1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-5320-0086-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-0087-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016910401

iUniverse rev. date: 07/06/2016

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

PROLOGUE

I THE TRIP DOWN

II MAMA’S VISIT

III THE NINETH STREET APARTMENT

IV THE FERTILITY PIN

V CHAMPAGNEA

VI RICH ARMANDO

VII THE BAPTISMAL PARTY

VIII MY HOUSE

IX RUDY

X ORLANDO

XI OSCAR’S NEW BUSINESS

XII KEEPER OF THE FLASHLIGHT

XIII THE FEDERALIS AND MUNICIPAL POLICIA

XIV THE HARVEST*

EPILOGUE

IN MEMORIA

Dedicated to my children,

Kim E’lin and Kent Arthur, who have stood beside me. Without their unrestricted love, loyalty, honest criticism and friendship, I could not have survived.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

None of us stands alone. I wish to express my gratitude to:

God for His gifts;

Mommy, Valaria Lee McCaw, who saw each of our talents; who motivated and inspired us; who insisted my words be committed to paper;

Margaret (Peggy) Guilbert, my friend of twenty years, who provided the initial experience, jarred my memory, had the patience to read and listen, and whose great desire was for my written work to come out of the shoebox onto her bookshelf;

Carrie Lee Taylor, my telephone friend, for her many years of patient listening, for her honesty, for her commitment to our friendship, and for her love of God;

Janis McCaw Johnson, my sister, E. Lucille Gatewood, my aunt, Margaret Ross (Peggy’s mother), Lillie Allen, and Elinor Branson for their prayers and encouragement;

Oscar Heras Verdusio for his love, his help in compiling this book, and the peace and happiness he brought to my life; which allowed me the emotional freedom necessary to write.

Special thanks to Kim, Kent and Shawn for their generous contribution to this project.

PROLOGUE

Within this volume I shall tell you a few stories, give you a few chuckles, combined with taking you on a short trip to one of the most beautiful areas on the continent. I wish, also, to dispel the propaganda that it is so-o-o dangerous in Baja. I do not and have not left my house after dark in Los Angeles for many years. I will leave my house after dark in Ensenada.

Many of us in our inability to dispel pre-existing philosophy declare,  …you cannot change the hearts of men … Untrue! Minds and hearts can be opened.

God loved me so much that knowing my unfounded prejudice toward Mexicans, he placed me in Mexico. The location where I found the love of my life and was taken in a time capsule forty years in the past to one of the happiest times of my life. I am referring to Omaha, Nebraska in the nineteen fifties. A time when people cared about one another; when people could trust one another; when nature was unhampered by man.

He put me in a land where there was no racial issue, no seatbelts required, and the only smoking and no-smoking edifices were the ones inhabited by American Caucasians.

A place where people share everything. Where womanhood is revered. A culture where the family unit is intact.

A place where love is foremost. Beautiful music meets your ear night and day. Once en route to Ensenada I stopped at the first toll gate of highway ID. One of the Federalis was cleaning the woman’s toilet. (The Federal police control the highways.) He allowed me to enter, and, while I relieved myself, he stood just outside, toilet brush in hand, and he sang to the clear skies in great voice a beautiful Mexican love song.

What was a literate, fifty-year-old, socially upper-class, black activist, a flag waver from the wonderful U.S. of A., divorced mother, doing in a country of people with whom a few years before she had voluntarily competed for programs in community actions in Los Angeles? People from whom she had kept secret, methods of political action with the realism that the blacks and browns were being pitted against one another in order to retard their growth. A real, live, yankee-doodle-dandy who never forgot her blackness; because she was not allowed to forget it. An American who taught her children, as she was taught, to remember and be proud of their heritage; know that they represented their race in every endeavor. A lady who insisted that her children learn to read upside down; so that they would know what the white man was writing about them.

What was this person doing in a country where she didn’t even speak the language?

This person was raised to be International. She specialized in international law and classical languages in the university. Her parents had represented this country all over the world. Her father, Arthur B. McCaw, was the first black to fill a State of Nebraska Governor’s Cabinet position; he served as budget director of the State of Nebraska; he had fought for equality in that State. He had been with U.S.A.I.D. (U. S. Agency for International Development) as Controller in Korea, Sudan, Zambia, Tunisia, Washington, D.C., and had fought for the rights of the people wherever he was located. He had directed the food stamp program under the U. S. Department of Agriculture where he originated the hot lunch program in the public schools of the United States. He travelled across this country to make sure people were fed.

Her brother, Melvin Arthur McCaw, had been jailed with Martin Luther King twice, in the Civil Rights Movement of Atlanta, Jail Without Bail. He was a student at Morehouse College at that time, and was an exchange student at the University of Hamburg and at the Free University of Berlin (where he helped people over the Berlin Wall and was detained once by Soviet authorities). After he achieved his degree from Morehouse, Mel dedicated his life to positions of direction with agencies dedicated to African affairs; including following the footsteps of their father, as Deputy Director of U.S.A.I.D. Mission in Senegal. He was a high achiever.

What was this person whose paternal grandfather, First Sergeant Melvin McCaw, was the first black Sergeant of the Calvary at West Point Academy where her father’s family lived until he was twelve years of age, and where Cadet Dwight D. Eisenhower was his Sunday school teacher, and whose mother, Valaria Lee McCaw, a degreed, professional Fine Artist with relatives who are largely educators, doing across the border down Mexico way?

She certainly was well bred, she certainly had the background for the adjustment. She certainly had the intellect to treat it as a learning experience. She certainly had the family training to abide by the customs and respect cultural requirements in this country. She had the poise to become the proverbial fly on the wall. She had a love affair with Mexico and the Mexican people. They in turn loved and respected her.

I

THE TRIP DOWN

Twice a week it was Penny’s and my practice to go to Santa Monica beach. We had a ritual. I provided the chicken, beach chairs, and beach mats; Penny provided the cokes, lifesaver candies, transportation and parking. We enjoy the beach better in the afternoon; so we would always arrive just as most of the people were leaving.

Penny and I had been friends for fifteen years, and had been through many phases together. The phase we were going through at that particular time was the adjustment to the weight-gain we hypo-thyroids were experiencing. Three years prior we had just accomplished the loss of 56 pounds, having been on Dr. Atkins’ Diet Revolution. Necessary medication caused us both to gain the weight back. In my case, I had complained to my physician of the vapors; he prescribed premarin, wherein I gained a pound a day for fifty days. Penny adjusted very well to her problem.

What added to my anxiety was the fact that a man I knew whom I had met when I was thin. His mother is thin, and he became more and more critical with each pound. Further, I had been going to a hair stylist, who, unfortunately, died. When he styled my hair people stopped us on the street inquiring Who styled your hair?, Where is he located? With Ernesto’s death and my physician’s prescription I was becoming very insecure. I was embarrassed to remove my moo-moo at the beach, until Penny pointed out that I should have noticed young men were flirting with us. All of the beautiful, thin blonds were alone, or with other lonely thin gorgeous people. She made me feel so much better that the insecurity never had a chance to set in.

These occasions of relaxation were spent reading, settling the world’s problems (wondering if we were the only people who noticed there was no smog and the ocean was clear the year of the Olympics; which was not an Act of God - but a man-made adjustment), and in quiet - much needed, quiet.

On the Tuesday before Labor Day in 1985, Penny said to me, Let’s go to Mexico. I’ve got a VISA I haven’t used. I said, Okay! Let’s go!

I had lost my father in the spring of that year, and, as is natural I was going through a period of re-evaluation.

Penny had suggested we take a trip many times before. Her suggestions were always, Let’s go to San Francisco or somewhere north within the State of California. I was always in anticipation of Kim’s or Kent’s birthdays, Mother’s Day, some gift giving or gift receiving event. Further, it just wasn’t my practice to jump up and go somewhere. I always made sure that my plans didn’t interfere with something expected of me from someone else.

So there I was, missing my Daddy, feeling a little fat, and each day trying desperately to make my hair look the way it did when Ernesto styled it. Trying to satisfy my boyfriend and the rest of the world; a very confused individual.

Penny said, since Labor Day was the following weekend, she would take Friday off from work. That way we could leave Thursday night ahead of the crowds. She said we would go to Ensenada.

I knew of Ensenada, but had never been there. In fact, I had only been to Mexico once. My friend Jean had taken Kim and I along with her husband and son in 1963 to spend one day in Tijuana.

Thursday night arrived. Kent had agreed to feed my dogs in my absence; my bags were packed. Penny had encouraged me to bring as little as possible. The reason being, if we could not find lodging we could sleep in the car, and when away from the car our belongings could be camouflaged. A neighbor of hers had given her directions to a parking lot at the harbor where fishermen slept in their cars when the motels were full. We would not be in any danger, for there was constant activity in this area.

The time, on this evening, got away from me, and the next thing I knew I received a call from Penny’s mother, saying Penny was on her way. Well, I hadn’t bathed nor shampooed my hair. Of course, after the shampoo, blow drying and curling were necessary to be pretty.

I rushed in accomplishing everything except the blow-drying and curling of my hair. I stuffed the blow dryer and curling iron into my suitcase just as Penny arrived. Off we went in Penny’s blue Toyota-hatchback.

I previously didn’t care for motor trips. I always reneged when my immediate family had taken them during my younger years. Since moving to California my mode of travel had been primarily by air; my folks lived so far away. My sister and her husband had lived in Hawaii for six years. He was a Lt. Colonel in the Army; so I traveled by air again. I had enjoyed motor trips in California: Monterey, San Francisco, Riverside. Not until my intended (boyfriend) planned to go to a Political Science convention in Chicago; wherein there were not enough funds for us both to fly -- we decided to take a Greyhound bus across the country and back. That was an adventure in itself. When we were about to embark upon the road, Penny and I were talking about what foodstuffs I would be carrying. I informed my friend, including jars of water, and, of course, Lysol. Penny could not stand the thought of me lugging jars