Friday, January 25, 2013

Adiós to the Valley - part eight


Well, now I’m leaving, here's some of what I’ll remember about the Valley. I don’t want to simply repeat images from past years; these are pictures from this season. 

The Valley has one of the highest rates of poverty and obesity in the United States. Social problems abound. Violence, including spillover from Mexico, is worrying. That said, I’ve always felt safe on the American side and, so often, have been made to feel welcome. 

In Palmview, this loco is slowly making its way through the weeds. Border Pacific has a 51 kilometre line paralleling the Rio Grande. According to its website, it carries ‘silica sand, ballast, crushed stone, asphalt, scrap paper, and feed grains.’ 


Engineer Jesse Longoria comes down, chats about the line, opened in 1925, and where to stop for a snack.


At a gas station in Mission, I spot this pickup and hesitantly ask the rather tough looking owner if I can take a picture.


Delightful smile.


A barbecue’s ideal to meet locals. Cue impressive grills and smokers, lots of wood and American flags.


Cue more wood.


There are big grills and little grills. Don’t know about the pink boots …


This chef insists I stop awhile and learn how to make a really good cookin’ fire.


He offers the best, warm cowboy biscuits I’ve ever had … and that was before meat of Texan proportions. 


I don’t meet many in the Valley who’ve been in Toronto, but Fred has. In Harlingen, he poses with a, uh, well used car. I thought he said it was a 1937 Plymouth Coupe, but it doesn’t match pictures, so perhaps I misheard. Perhaps someone can identify it for me. 


Fred has a remarkable face.


This time of year brings out one of my favourite characters, the Liberty man (or woman) touting for a tax preparation chain. In San Benito, this Liberty man dances through an intersection.


Finally, in Mexico, I’m taking shots of a campaign sign from the recent presidential election. Northern Mexico is particularly murderous with horror piled upon horror. From out of nowhere, an unknown man passes in front of the sign, poses, waves and disappears around the corner. 


Humour survives.

Last post coming up.

Friday, January 18, 2013

Adiós to the Valley - part seven


With some regret - but relief, given the market - I've sold my Texas home. Here are Kevin and Linda from Colorado.  After years holidaying in this little trailer, they wanted a bigger, more permanent place.


Despite the Rio Grande Valley’s idiosyncratic appeal - and being near Don and Jode - I’ve learned that I'm not prepared to commit to a winter bolt-hole, however modest. 

I and my little ‘sleeping Mexican’ (yes, I know, given comments in my previous posts, you’re horrified I have one!) must pack. 


We have another three weeks or so to say adiós to the Valley. A final few posts coming up.

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Adiós to the Valley - part six



This is a prewar postcard showing the Casa de Palmas, a quite splendid hotel in McAllen, a small city near my little winter abode.

The hotel opened in 1918 in what was then a rough ‘n’ ready sort of place, incorporated a few years before. Most towns and cities in my part of the Valley only came into existence in the early Twentieth Century as the railroad arrived. It has the 'mission revival' style of architecture I so enjoy and continues to be McAllen’s premier hostelry. 




I’ll tell you a little secret, well, not so much as a secret as something many here would prefer forgotten. In 1956, Fidel Castro was a visitor and, at the time, the visit certainly was secret.

Castro entered the U.S. by dressing as a Mexican worker and swimming across the Rio Grande. On the American side, he was met by supporters who took him to McAllen. In a suite at the Casa de Palmas, he asked Cuba’s former president, Dr. Carlos Prío Socarrás, to back an invasion of Cuba. Although the amount is uncertain, many of the expedition’s costs were covered with money provided by Prío. And, of course, the tiny ‘invasion’ eventually led to the overthrow of the Batista government.

No plaque for Castro as, in this country, mention of El Commandante’s stay would not be seen as useful advertising. Even the guides on a McAllen history tour I took didn’t know.

Sunday, January 13, 2013

Adiós to the Valley - part five



One of the Valley's more intriguing places is the former Val Verde Country Club, opened in the late Twenties at a cost of $101,000. The train stopped virtually at the resort's front door.


For a brief spell, the Valley was the destination of the rich and famous. Not only was there winter sun, but 'old Mexico' with its quaint 'sleeping Mexicans', markets and colourful pottery was a peso's throw away. Even more attractive during Prohibition was in Mexico (as in Canada) you could legally drink until your liver expired.

If you click on the picture above, on the left, you can just see a trailer from when they were the fashion for some quite wealthy people. In the postcard below, note the wonderful 1930s murals on the buildings.


It's claimed Esther Williams, Dorothy Lamour and Bette Davis were among the stars who frolicked in the Olympic-size pool. That may be wishful thinking, but by the 1970s the resort was certainly owned by 'Rock Around the Clock' Bill Haley. Haley, who's said to have enjoyed mowing the lawn, was proprietor as the resort declined into terminal seediness.

By the 1990s, Val Verde had become, to put it kindly, an inexpensive RV and trailer park. That said, as I wander around, it's obvious there's a gritty sense of community. I suspect it would have the makings of a novel, if I wasn't so disinclined to creatively compose. 

My cheerful guide is Al, a retired autoworker, who first came here twenty years ago. 


In fact, Al helped put a chain around the, by then, structurally dangerous tower you can see in the postcards above and pull it down. The concrete structure just behind Al was next to the tower's base. The pool has long since been filled in; the bare patch marks where Esther, Dorothy and Bette supposedly splashed.


What was once the country club's restaurant is now the park community centre where residents get mail, check the coffee pot and play bingo.


Some odd murals, presumably dating to more prosperous times, flake away on the wall above the mail boxes and washing up.



Old timers - but not so old that they were here - say this trapdoor led to a Prohibition speakeasy. I dunno. 


Still, there's a whiff of what once was - white tuxedos, illicit cocktails, gramophones, sultry nights and nocturnal shenanigans among the Spanish arches and in the little 'cottages' now catering to those who delight in a nearby Wal-Mart.


Friday, January 11, 2013

Adiós to the Valley - part four



Late afternoon and I'm on my deck with a glass of Texas claret. The sun has that seductive quality found in tourist brochures. 

Passersby say, 'How ya doin'?' and make the usual comment about temperatures back in Winnipeg or Fargo, North Dakota. We agree that warm is better than frostbite. Neighbours also remark on the size, quality and abundance of my lemons. Feeling generous, I grandly offer a lemon or two.


In my case, drinking leads to musing pleasantly tinged with melancholy.  Much of what I like about the Valley is an enjoyable sense of loss. I continue to make discoveries, well, discoveries to me.

Poking around downtown Brownsville, I come across the Hotel El Jardin, overlooking the Mexican city of Matamoros. In 1927, The Brownsville Herald said it embodied 'The Finest Of Architectural And Construction Art' with 'luxury rivaling the most beautiful places of Mohammedan and Byzantine princes.' Wow! Imagine sipping a Margarita here!


And what Valley postcard back then could resist the (now infamous) 'sleeping Mexican'? A recurrent theme, sometimes reinforced by a picturesque burro.



As for the Hotel El Jardin, 'holding out promise of gorgeousness and joy,' it's now an abandoned wreck.


Across the street is the Capitol Theater. In 1928, the Spanish Colonial Revival showplace touted its splendid organ, installed for $2,642.50.

Boarded up with faint hopes of restoration.


In the 1950s, Pharr had the Texan Hotel, 'one of the finest smaller hotels in the United States. Located on U. S. 281 from Canada to Mexico. Completely airconditioned, excellent food and luxurious living, the Texan Hotel is the hospitality and social center of the bustling, progressive and modern city of Pharr.'

At the top of the little tower, a cowboy waved invitingly to passersby.


What a dump now. Vacant windows, a closed Chinese restaurant and no jolly cowboy.


However, in the nearby old fire station, I poke my camera through a window (no glass) for a picture of this wonderful Ford. Battered and dusty, but could be restored.


Raymondville has the 1940s Texas Theater on a street lined with pawn and loan shops, and cheap clothes stores. Among its showings in 1959 were 'Pork Chop Hill' and 'Teenager from Outer Space.'


Efforts have been made to preserve something of its period charm and it's occasionally rented for private events. The original exterior touches are delightful.


No restoration is likely (or warranted) for the Delta State Bank in the forgettable town of Edcouch. Architecturally dismal, it's gutted inside. What makes the bank modestly interesting is that it opened in 1927 during the boom years of the late Twenties and closed four years later at the height of the Depression. 'Delta' refers to the Rio Grande delta as the river reaches the Gulf of Mexico.

(April 3, 2013 - Apparently the building is being renovated for medical offices. So much for my prediction. I'd have thought it would be easier to rip it down and start over, but what do I know?)


San Benito is Freddy Fender's ('Wasted Days and Wasted Nights') hometown and where he's buried.

This extraordinary retro drive-in stands unloved on the town's main street.


A few blocks away is what's left of the Hotel Stonewall Jackson. A 1991 review spoke of being 'whisked back in time to 1928 by the original ceiling fans whirring mightily over the old hotel dining hall ... and ornate Mexican floor tiles.'


Last autumn, after the town cited safety concerns, the few remaining tenants ($250 a month) were evicted and the building sits empty. Those ceiling fans have been stolen.


In McAllen, I wonder about this mid-century structure in what used to be the largely Anglo, three or four downtown blocks. The facade looks similar to one in Toronto. 


A closer look reveals the former owner and a little Internet research that this was one of hundreds of American Woolworth's closed in 1997 (Woolworth's in Canada shut down in 1994). The mention of air conditioning on the door handle reminds that artificially cooled air - even in places as brutally hot as Texas - was not always taken for granted.


As shopping shifted to car friendly malls on town and city outskirts, main street stores were vacated. Anglos, who once dominated business and politics in the Valley, abandoned older, often quite lovely, homes and gardens near their businesses. Poor Mexicans, who had faced considerable discrimination, understandably moved in to take advantage of cheap store rents and accommodation. 

Hispanics (the Valley is 90% Hispanic) saved some of the Valley's traditional main streets. But downtowns now lined with tacky discount stores, muscle shops and loudspeakers blasting Tejano music, once had hardware, drug and stationery stores, banks, cinemas, 'blue plate special' restaurants and perhaps a supermarket or two. Business, as well as much of a town's social, life was centered downtown. No more.

So often, there seems to be little Hispanic interest in (or, to be fair, money for) preservation of buildings connected with the vanished Anglos. President Dwight Eisenhower passed through McAllen in 1953 and appeared to crowds on this balcony. 


It's not that McAllen (pop. 133,000) has had scores of presidential visits. In a Republican state as rabidly patriotic as Texas you'd have thought a Republican president would at least warrant a plaque. The building degenerated into a rooming house, which eventually closed. Not a hint of its one moment of glory.