Where are the Minutemen when you really need them?
OK, one more Arizona vacation story. When you’re that close to Mexico, of course you have to see what’s on the other side.

Dad had traveled quite a bit when he was in the Army during the Korean War. He’s been to both Alaska and Hawaii (before either one of them was a state). Mom, not so much. In fact, she may not even have made it outside of Nebraska until they went to the Black Hills on their honeymoon. And so we celebrated each visit to a new state with some fanfare.

Back in the day that gasoline cost fifteen cents a gallon, air conditioners were a fortune. So the accepted summer pastime was to roll the windows down and take a drive into the country. This often took us in the vicinity of that old river city, Brownville, and across the Brownville Bridge, across the wide Missouri, into the State of Missouri, just far enough to turn around before we got to the toll booth. Speaking of Geographic Thrills, during one short trip to Kansas City we drove down State Line, our left tire in Missouri and our right tire in Kansas.

So it was pretty much a no-brainer to add Mexico to our belt notch. Nogales was the chosen tourist trap.

Mom soon discovered that being South of the Border was uncomfortably like being in another country. And I discovered that Mexico is nothing like a good Speedy Gonzales cartoon. So after an hour or two of poking around the shops, we headed back to the car and back to the border crossing.

As we walked along, I must have dawdled, probably at a rock shop, and the family disappeared around a corner heading to the parking lot. I hurried after them, turned the corner, and ran into an older boy. He took a black handle from his pants pocket and flicked open a switch-blade knife.

I had borrowed a camera for our trip from the Newspaper office. It was hanging around my neck. He raised the metal blade to eye level. It glinted in the sun. I seriously wondered, if he robs me, how many Funeral Notices would I have to deliver to pay back my dad’s boss for losing his camera in Nogales, Mexico.

He pushed the switch-blade towards me and said, “You like? Ten dollars.”

“I only have three fifty,” I blurted, still scared. For sure he was going to slash me, take the camera and my three dollars and fifty cents, all for want of enough change to cover his wholesale costs. I hoped that it was true that he would not be able to cash my Traveler’s Cheques.

“Okay,” he said. I gave him everything in my wallet and pants pocket, and he gave me the knife. He disappeared. I stood there holding a switch-blade. I soon realized, the mechanical genius I am not, that I hadn’t a clue as to how the knife worked. I could not get the blade retracted back into the handle.

As I walked to the car, the thought occurred to me that it was probably illegal to purchase weapons in Mexico and smuggle them into the US. Never-the-less, all I could manage was to stuff the knife handle into my sock and stick the blade up my pants leg. Fortunately all the border agent appeared interested in was fresh fruit and Mexican meat products.

The knife has made a nice letter opener all these years.