It was easy to make phony ID cards in the 60’s when I was a teenager. Not that we needed them. The drinking age was 21 and we didn’t have the courage to try buying a drink in El Paso with phony ID anyway. On the other hand, if we wanted to drink all we had to do was go across the border to Juarez, Mexico where nobody cared about ID. We left the car on the U.S. side, put two pennies in our shoes, then walked through Mexican Customs and on to the strip.
The act of putting two pennies in our shoes dated back several decades. In order to return to the U.S. from Mexico, one had to declare citizenship and pay a two cent toll. Crossing to the U.S. was, back then, a simple matter of saying “American” to the U.S. official then dropping the two pennies into a slot in the toll both. The older men of our generation would tell us to put two pennies in our shoes just in case we lost our wallets or spent all our money while partying in Juarez. I never knew anyone whose citizenship was questioned but the two cent toll was never waived.
The only instance of entry denied that I know of came from a story my uncles told me at a family picnic. They had been forced to spend the night sleeping in the alleys in Juarez after disrespecting a U.S. Border Agent. The pair had spent a Saturday night cruising the bars along Avenida Juarez and paying street musicians to play their favorite songs. They were three sheets to the wind by two A.M and ready to go home. A pair of drunks staggering towards the border crossing was common enough. Most times they were singing or talking very loudly to each other. In other words: stupid-drunk but harmless.
When the Border Agent asked my Uncle Juan’s citizenship, he replied “American Cheese”. The agent frowned and made him stand aside while he dealt with my other uncle who was busy digging into his pockets for the two cent toll. Not finding the coins, he kept searching his pockets over and over.
“Citizen?” he asked.
“U.S.”, said my Uncle Tomas.
He tried hard to stay on his feet while searching deep for the missing coins but finding only the family jewels he looked quizzically at the agent and said, “Figs? I don’t remember buying figs.”
The bars in Juarez catered to the GI’s going through boot camp at Fort Bliss. Back in the 60’s thousands of kids passed through the camp before being shipped to Vietnam like so many disposable towlettes. After eight weeks of hard training they were given Cinderella furloughs which they spent drunkenly all along Avenida Juarez or the red light district on Calle Mariscal nearby.
As soon as you crossed the border, the bars were there. A single block could have as many as 10 bars side by side. Some were clean and well lit, but for the most part they were dark and cramped. American kids looking for booze would be assailed by barkers at every bar entrance. “Come in, boys! Nice girls inside! Cheap!” Of course, there weren’t any nice girls inside but I guess that was the point. Their job was to entice the guys to buy grossly overpriced “drinks”. Most of us were too scared to go in those places. I peaked inside once and saw a row of fearsome women who looked like peregrine falcons with their hoods removed perched on barstools along one wall. We looked for bars that had live music and cheap drinks instead.
On weekends Avenida Juarez would be filled with groups of young American soldiers in civvies walking or staggering from bar to bar, their buzz cuts clearly marking them as prey; lots of horseplay and friendly swearing, all the time checking their watches. They had to be back on base by midnight or else. The MP’s waited at the toll booth on the other side of the border to gather up the boots who were too drunk to make their way across town to the base.
I was reminded of my own teenaged adventures on Avenida Juarez the other day when my MP3 player selected a Mexican tune played on marimbas. The band was playing a Cumbia, a type of music that combines tropical musical instruments and complicated rhythms with traditional Mexican instruments. The marimba sound reminded me of the Kentucky Bar on Avenida Juarez.
I didn’t go to Avenida Juarez unless I went with a group or with my friend Gabriel. Gabe and I would go to there on weekends if we weren’t otherwise busy with our girlfriends. The bar itself was just a large, well lit room about 30ft by 50ft and a fairly high ceiling. As you entered, the bartender was on the left side serving up drinks from the rows of bottles on the counter behind him. Mirrors reflected the long, narrow bandstand on the opposite wall. On the bare wooden floor, in between the bar and the bandstand there were about two or three dozen small wooden tables that would seat four customers each. Thanks to the 12 foot high ceilings a blue/gray haze of a hundred lit cigarettes floated about eight feet above the floor. The place smelled of sweat, beer, and old tobacco smoke. The light green walls were stained and smeared with grime from years of neglect. The attraction for me and Gabe was the six member marimba band.
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| These Marimberos are from Guatemala |
My memory isn’t very clear about the marimba itself. It may have been one 15 foot long instrument or to two shorter ones pushed together. Gabe, who eventually became a professional musician, marveled at the absurdity of hearing Frank “My Way” Sinatra, or Barbara “People” Streisand songs played on marimbas and with a lilting, happy go lucky Afro-tropical beat. All excited, Gabe would tell me to watch what the third marimba guy on the right was going to do next, then listen to the second guy pick up where guy three left off. On and on he went until he broke the songs down to their minutiae. The band played a mix of popular American and Mexican music with occasional forays into excerpts from well known classical favorites like the William Tell Overture. They didn’t play requests.
On Fridays the bar was always packed with GI’s when Gabe and I went but we were usually able to find stools at the bar. The boots were there because it was only a couple blocks from the border, the beer was cheap, and solo women were not allowed. They were noisy and rude to each other but we never saw any fights. Gabe’s theory was that the GI’s were scared straight by tales about Mexican cops and their inventive forms of law enforcement. It was at the Kentucky Bar that I first heard this joke:
You’ll get along in Mexico if you learn three phrases in Spanish:
Donde esta la cantina? Where’s the bar?
Buen dia, Juez. Good morning, Judge
Cuanto es la multa? How much is the fine?
It was Gabe who first discovered the marimbas at the Kentucky Bar. He wanted me to go with him but he wouldn’t tell me why. I went.
We crossed the border, pushed past the slimy barkers and the throngs of GI’s crowding the sidewalks, to the Kentucky Bar. The six marimba players ranged from early 20’s to mid 50’s by my reckoning. The leader was the last man on the left though the others switched positions according to which song they were playing. Gabe and I were just sipping our first drinks when they began to play “Amazing Grace”. It sounded so happy and lively I couldn’t believe I was singing along in my head. I looked at Gabe. Grinning widely, he slapped me on the back and gave me a thumbs up. Yeah, I wasn’t leaving until I ran out of money.
In the next 30 or 40 minutes they played a variety of American hits in their signature Cumbia style. I loved every second of it. I wondered if they knew how much they were changing the meanings of the songs by adapting them to tropical rhythms. I concluded that the band members didn’t understand the English lyrics but they liked the melodies and they were playing for a largely American audience. And like 17 year olds looking at a new car thinking, “If that were mine I’d put on some whitewalls, Baby Moons, lower the rear springs, and add fender skirts”, they must have listened to the original recordings and thought, “Ok, good melody. Can we make it fit our style?”
Then, as the Marimberos began plinking out the notes of a new song one by one, modifying and upping the tempo as their learning curve grew steeper, they arrived at their own, signed version. That night, the smarmy Pat Boone lament about his harrowed heart, “Love Letters in the Sand” sounded like an upbeat dance tune for a beach party.
When they finished playing the remodeled and improved “Love Letters in the Sand”, the bandleader announced that they were taking a break. I started to get up to go to the men's room but Gabe made me sit down. “No, no! This is the best part. You gotta hear this. You won’t believe it.”
“Para los soldados Americanos” (For the American soldiers), said the band leader and launched the Marimberos into a furious rendition of “The Stars and Stripes Forever”. The GI’s gaped open mouthed as the fired up band pounded the marimbas’ rosewood bars through every note of the American military classic. A few seconds into the piece the GI’s began stomping their feet and clapping to the rhythm. Every morning for eight weeks they had heard the U.S. Army Band rehearsing it. Now here, in a foreign country they were hearing it as they’d never heard it before, played by six Mexicans on marimbas. The ones who made it back from the war had at least one good story to tell about what happened one night when they were at the Kentucky Bar on Avenida Juarez.
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This link will take you to a performance of Stars and Stripes Forever.
On Fridays the bar was always packed with GI’s when Gabe and I went but we were usually able to find stools at the bar. The boots were there because it was only a couple blocks from the border, the beer was cheap, and solo women were not allowed. They were noisy and rude to each other but we never saw any fights. Gabe’s theory was that the GI’s were scared straight by tales about Mexican cops and their inventive forms of law enforcement. It was at the Kentucky Bar that I first heard this joke:
You’ll get along in Mexico if you learn three phrases in Spanish:
Donde esta la cantina? Where’s the bar?
Buen dia, Juez. Good morning, Judge
Cuanto es la multa? How much is the fine?
It was Gabe who first discovered the marimbas at the Kentucky Bar. He wanted me to go with him but he wouldn’t tell me why. I went.
We crossed the border, pushed past the slimy barkers and the throngs of GI’s crowding the sidewalks, to the Kentucky Bar. The six marimba players ranged from early 20’s to mid 50’s by my reckoning. The leader was the last man on the left though the others switched positions according to which song they were playing. Gabe and I were just sipping our first drinks when they began to play “Amazing Grace”. It sounded so happy and lively I couldn’t believe I was singing along in my head. I looked at Gabe. Grinning widely, he slapped me on the back and gave me a thumbs up. Yeah, I wasn’t leaving until I ran out of money.
In the next 30 or 40 minutes they played a variety of American hits in their signature Cumbia style. I loved every second of it. I wondered if they knew how much they were changing the meanings of the songs by adapting them to tropical rhythms. I concluded that the band members didn’t understand the English lyrics but they liked the melodies and they were playing for a largely American audience. And like 17 year olds looking at a new car thinking, “If that were mine I’d put on some whitewalls, Baby Moons, lower the rear springs, and add fender skirts”, they must have listened to the original recordings and thought, “Ok, good melody. Can we make it fit our style?”
Then, as the Marimberos began plinking out the notes of a new song one by one, modifying and upping the tempo as their learning curve grew steeper, they arrived at their own, signed version. That night, the smarmy Pat Boone lament about his harrowed heart, “Love Letters in the Sand” sounded like an upbeat dance tune for a beach party.
When they finished playing the remodeled and improved “Love Letters in the Sand”, the bandleader announced that they were taking a break. I started to get up to go to the men's room but Gabe made me sit down. “No, no! This is the best part. You gotta hear this. You won’t believe it.”
“Para los soldados Americanos” (For the American soldiers), said the band leader and launched the Marimberos into a furious rendition of “The Stars and Stripes Forever”. The GI’s gaped open mouthed as the fired up band pounded the marimbas’ rosewood bars through every note of the American military classic. A few seconds into the piece the GI’s began stomping their feet and clapping to the rhythm. Every morning for eight weeks they had heard the U.S. Army Band rehearsing it. Now here, in a foreign country they were hearing it as they’d never heard it before, played by six Mexicans on marimbas. The ones who made it back from the war had at least one good story to tell about what happened one night when they were at the Kentucky Bar on Avenida Juarez.
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This link will take you to a performance of Stars and Stripes Forever.
This a sample of Cumbia music. It's a popular dance genre throughout Latin America.
This link is just for fun. These Marimberos really love their job. The guy in the dark suit and the drummer give outstanding performances.
Note from Time Served:
The Kentucky Bar may not be the actual name of the bar about which this story was written but it's the only name I remember now (drinks were very cheap $0.50 for bourbon and coke). There is one place I do remember well ~ Las Cavernas. It was a tiny bar located in a basement below another bar. The entrance was made to look like the mouth of a cave. Inside, the walls and ceiling had the same motif. The "charm" of the place was that the only lighting was black light which made teeth, eyeballs, and light clothing glow slightly blue. The effect was strangely appealing at first, but several dates I took there asked to leave after a short while. They were creeped out, they said.
