Avenue
Bridge Mexico
-
a narrative history
The town can be changed,
but the well cannot be changed.
People come and go and draw from the well.
If the bucket breaks,
or the rope does not
reach -
there is misfortune. [- I Ching -]
Go ahead look back
you can still see them
in old photographs
before any bridge across the river
they came over in crowded wagons
those first tourists
already
burdened with prejudice
and exotic
love
their
high round wheels
a
cut
above
the shallow water
searching for the mythical
Tia Juana Aunt Jane
and her delicious
adobe restaurant bar .
This arroyo at this end of the earth
was not always so easy to cross -
the California desert river
ran wild
every forty years
until 1920 dams
blocked its
mountain flow
but
not before those
floods devoured the first
old west town
in this sandy river bottom
28 February 1891 .
The founders rebuilt their little city
on padre Serra’s flat
open space
just above the river
safely out of reach
from any deluge .
A handful of cantinas, gambling,
customs office
now
welcomed the 20th c e n t u r y
______________________________________________
Big Curio Store. Bullfights on the Border!
______________________________________________
Visit Tijuana in Olde Mexico !
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5¢ Beer !
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sang the new old town
horses houses corrals burros
and the dirt road bent
slightly downhill
toward the almost always dry water
crossing with excursion wagons
again coming over
Yee - Ha !
The first bridge
of wood
planks stretched across
trestle stumps
connected to the same dirt road
but
instead of dust and water
this ride shook and rumbled
rocked and rolled
under heavy wagons
then automobiles .
They called it la marimba
“resonators beneath each bar”
[-Webster-] .
Visitors thrilled just to reach
the far shore
and rattle up the little hill
into
town .
The age of Prohibition changed
everything .
Gold and silver flowed
downhill like water .
Barkeepers swept silver dollars from the floor .
Streets were paved, electric lights lit
.
Up-river
at the old hot springs
outside of town
a consortium of investors
created the
new & luxurious
Agua Caliente Touristic Complex
with hotel, golf course, race
track,
baths, private airstrip,
railroad station
restaurants,
nightclub-bar and
– of course – gambling
salon .
The main hotel was all in Mission-Moorish style, while
private bungalows accommodated
more reclusive clients .
The Agua Caliente casino welcomed
the Hollywood crowd .
Charlie Chaplin and Laurel & Hardy
played here .
Rita Moreno was discovered
and became Rita Hayworth .
A dancing girl – la Faraona – was murdered –
they say she still
haunts the hot spring ground .
Then the President of Mexico
outlawed gambling
in 1938 and the
casino was shut
down –
and Tijuana finally entered
the Great
Depression .
The suffering town has never forgiven
Mexico City for that act of central power
and in fact then rioted after a young girl
was brutally raped and murdered .
A federal soldier accused of the crime
was escorted to the old cemetery
ordered to run
a n d s h o t
by his own comrades in arms .
His tomb has since
become a shrine
strange twist of fate
where victims of authority
offer their prayers of thanks to Juan Soldado
for their deliverance across the border line
and
where no one remembers
in their prayers that
even his wife
said he was guilty .
Yet after that Golden Age
of gambling heaven and
legal drinking and
murdered hell
a new California style cement
highway bridge
now connected the border
to the same gentle slope as
the vanished la marimba –
to the same
street of the bridge
Avenida Puente México
where pedestrians
still walk
into town today
up the hill
from the river
but after 1974
only broken stubs remain from the
second bridge its feet poking up
in the concrete flood channel
on your right as you
approach afoot .
Ramón Huerta was crossing the new old bridge
there in 1963 when
the beer carnival ferris wheel
fell over on your left .
He watched it rattle
around
and
around
until finally
it settled
down
like a big ugly
penny
in clouds of dust
and
screams .
Under that vanished cement bridge
there once was a
shanty town
in sandy ground
called
cardboardland
– Cartolandia .
This remembered
political legend
got
swept away by deluge and
government
reconstruction .
Oil-Boom river renewal
planned a flood-control channel
and then
one dark (and stormy) night opened
like caudillo cliché the
Rodriguez Dam flood-gates
to transform the cardboard slum
into a “new Tijuana”
of malls and boulevards
and then
strung a pedestrian crossing
next to the old highway bridge
torn down
to its rebar
toes
and
then
raised a new monster
puente México
quarter-mile upstream
ten lanes feeding into spaghetti
swirling ramps
morning and weekend traffic
backing up from U.S. gate
to the mall a
mile away .
Better you should walk
the old route to
see it all on foot
a-venida
puente México with
Sunday families or
morning drunks or
evening party dancers
rising up that slow grade
past the taco stands
and old bus station
with mosaic map illustrating in
ornamental tile the long long route
from Tijuana to
Mexico City
and
then
the wax museum
and on up the gentle slope
toward
the new silver metal
millennial arch
standing here
at the end of time
& this
poem .
You really should come and enjoy this walk. Who cares if the river stinks like sewage or the U.S. blimp has sharpshooting snipers ready to dart you unconscious or bang bang you doornail deaddeaddead on the least suspicion of terror on your part by your part for your part....