Back from the Border

Was in the Rio Grande Valley over the weekend for a wedding (wife's niece). Here are the highlights:

The wedding took place at the small mission in the ranching community where the missus grew up. Her father was a farmer and rancher there and their home and remaining property (much of what they had was sold off for low cost "subdivisions") is right on Military Highway--the two lane stretch of what eventually turns into Highway 281. The ranch house sits literally a three wood from the Rio Grande. Of course, you can't actually see the river; the levee blocks the view, but it's there. What's different now is that the top of the levee has been prepped with a nice, uniform layer of caliche for the imminent construction of The Wall. The border wall is coming their way. The furor over the wall has largely died down and jobs have been created to build the thing so people there are somewhat indifferent and resigned about it. It's purpose would have been more helpful five or ten or fifteen years ago when illegals were coming across the Rio Bravo in waves but now it's mostly a trickle since the jobs have dried up on this side and coyotes are charging upwards to six grand to cross someone. Anyway, standing outside at the wedding reception there at the ranch, we all reminisced of how the Valley used to be before the wall and the subdivisions and cable television and microwaves and Wal-Mart. But mostly, what it was like before the drugs. Because, the drugs changed it all. Oh, it's still largely a place of smiling people, infinitely more happy than those trudging through snow and ice on their way to work this morning in Scranton or Milwaukee or wherever. But when the dope started coming over big time, the Valley that my wife and those that grew up there knew and loved changed with it. Those small ranching communities began taking casualties, as sons and daughters and cousins and tios got hooked and what's happened in a thousand other places happened there. The dope takes down lives and scars families and rattles or destroys faith and brings on the multiple locks and security cameras and not trusting your neighbors. Sure, folks move on and find ways to live and will still exchange pleasantries, but the joy they once had in this life has been cored out from the inside. Their son or brother or cousin is a casualty. But unlike Iraq or Afghanistan, he isn't at the VA getting treated or buried with his fallen comrades. No, he's lurking somewhere nearby. Maybe they caught a glimpse of him coming out of a dingy apartment building or a motel or he showed up at the house under the pretext of a visit while everyone knows he's only there hoping for some cash. Or, they got a call from some low life asking if they've seen him. It just doesn't go away and they die a little each day as he slowly withers away. It just doesn't let up. And the happy Valley lives on only in billboards.

Anyone living there knows very well the trouble happening on the other side. If you don't, here's a fairly good primer from this past Saturday's WSJ: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123518102536038463.html. This was the first visit in 25 years where we did not go across for dinner and shopping and everyone we came in contact with did not go either and for exactly the same reason: they're having gunfights right and left on the other side at every time of day. In fact, the State Department just issued a fairly strong warning to U.S. citizens regarding travel there. This has been going on for some time now in Nuevo Laredo and Juarez, but the Valley has largely been spared until recently. The bad guys haven't shown a proclivity for involving gringos, but it's a matter of time before some American gets hit by crossfire, or is in fact taken as a hostage and it will probably continue to get worse before it gets better. Really, the reason it is awful over there right now is because the Mexican Army is actually taking some fight to the cartels. Time will tell if they have the will to continue the battle.

I have a relative sitting on the grand jury in one of the main cities in the Valley and a lot of what the jury hears are cases related to drugs. Here are a couple of methods that drugs are getting crossed: U.S. customs agents are getting bribed with incredible sums of money. The agent will place a call on his cell phone as he walks to his assigned lane. At that point, the drug runners will stack four or so cars in a row packed with product that have been waiting and they'll cut into the line. Then, the customs guy will allow them to pass through without inspection. Or, the dealers will approach a shopper in Matamoros or other border town in Mexico who has Texas or other U.S. plates. He'll pay them to "go shopping for a few hours" while they relinquish keys to their car. While they shop, the bad guys will install their shipment somewhere in the vehicle and then bring the car back to the same spot. The shopper will then be instructed to drive across and then park at a mall in the U.S. and again go shopping for a few hours while the drugs are then removed for further distribution. If the shopper is caught going through U.S. customs, he or she has no idea what is in the car or where. It's still largely a numbers game, just like the Tony Montana days--the cartels are fully prepared to see shipments seized because they're flooding the market and know that most of the stuff will make it through.

I had a first on Saturday morning while eating breakfast at the hotel. While finishing my plate of chilaquiles, I spied something that did not look exactly congruous. On closer inspection, it was, yes, a perfect specimen of an expired roach. A lot of people would have been outraged and I certainly wasn't happy about it, but I'm fairly sure that I've eaten a lot of them during my long career of chowing down at some less than spectacular venues and this place was pretty nice and new. I simply called attention to it to the staff and expressed a small amount of concern. Essentially, not an asshole but with a little bit of a furrowed brow--you know, the kind of look where they're not really sure what this guy might do. The result was that my little amigo significantly helped with the cost of the hotel stay. As the song says, it can sometimes be good to have friends in low places.