MY fIRST VISIT TO A HOUSE OF ILL REPUTE

                                            

The following is a true story and was the subject of a composition that I wrote for an English class at Purdue in 1971.  The complete essay was a lot longer but this will get the job done.

  In 1958 I was a brand new Army recruit at Ft. Bliss, Texas in El Paso.  A new friend was expounding about the exciting times to be experienced in Juarez, Mexico, just across the international bridge.  I decided that I just had to see it for myself.

  As we crossed the bridge over the Rio Grande, a muddy ditch, I saw a group of small children lining the river bank.  They were waving long poles with large cardboard funnels attached to the ends.  The purpose was to catch coins tossed over the rail by the tourists.  The coins that they missed were gathered up by smaller kids.  Some even jumped into the muddy river to get the coins.  I asked my guide where these kids came from.  He told me that when one of the prostitutes in Juarez became pregnant and could not afford a back alley coat hanger abortion, she had the child and he or she became a street urchin and beggar.  I decided then that I would never allow my first born child to end up in such a situation.  I have never regretted that decision.

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  We walked down the street and entered one of the first bars we came to, The Golden Horseshoe.  It had a large U-shaped bar.  I sat down on a bar stool and ordered a tequila sour.  I thought that I was some poop on a stick.  Here I was, twenty years old, in a foreign country, drinking a foreign drink.  Then it happened !!!.

  A slim brown arm snaked over my shoulder.  I could see that it belonged to a female.  SHE THEN GRABBED MY PLUMBING.  I grabbed her arm and pulled her loose.  I looked around to see if anyone had seen it happen as I was embarrassed.  Then it happened again.  Another arm came over my other shoulder AND GRABBED MY PLUMBING AGAIN.  I shook her loose again.  She retreated to her bar stool around the curve in the bar.  She and a friend held a conference and apparently felt they had reached a solution to MY and their problem.  They started to throw peanuts at me and called out, “CHERRY, CHERRY"

I was so mortified that I felt about two inches high.  I jumped off my bar stool and ran out the bat-winged doors.  It seemed that everyone in the place was laughing at me.

  My English professor at Purdue said it was one of the funniest essays that he had ever read and then proceeded to read it to the whole class. I acted as though I knew nothing about it.  I got an “A” on the report and an “A” for the course.  I figured that I could handle college pretty well.  Nothing has changed in Juarez in the past fifty years except for all the murder and drugs.

Dal.