Adios a Don Geraldo

What a wonderful, heartfelt tribute, ROb.
He sounds like yet another of the many colorful denizens of Zihua I wish I'd been able to meet.

Yesterday at Gerald's remembrance get together my wife Lupita recalled first meeting Gerald back in '63 when he first arrived here with his wife Sally and her 2 girls Sara and Abi. She remembered how he'd don his red bikini and swim from the downtown beach to Contramar and to La Ropa. How he had a perfect physique back then, and how she perfected her own swimming style by learning from him. Later she would help teach his stepdaughters to swim.

I first met Gerald in '74 in the lobby of the Sotavento where he'd come to make a phone call. He was quite friendly for a self-described hermit, and he let us know that there were only 4 phones in town at the time: one at the Sotavento, one at Don Fernando Bravo's (my future father-in-law), and two at a Caseta de Larga Distancia where folks would make and receive long-distance calls.

I also met Lupita during that same period and it was love at first sight, but a tragedy in her family sent her into a period or mourning that lasted months. It was after several months of not being able to be with Lupita that I had a romance with one of Gerald's stepdaughters, Sara. On my way to see her at Gerald's house in the eastern hills of La Ropa one night I was walking the road through the La Ropa huerta (not the straight road that exists now but one that followed the base of the hills) on a dark moonless night with barely enough light from the stars to be able to follow the road when something fell from a palm tree onto my neck, and in the split second it took me to slap it off I was stung 3 times on the hand by a scorpion. It hurt like the devil until my whole hand went numb. For 3 months I had no feeling in one of my fingers.

A few weeks later my mother, brother and I changed houses from La Ropa to El Almacén hill, a place that eventually became the discoteque at Puerto Mío. One day during a hurricane Sara walked clear around the bay from La Ropa to our house and said we should go get married. Seemed like a great idea except for the hurricane picking up steam and pounding down on us, so we sheltered at home in El Almacén instead. After the storm of course everyone was distracted with other things. Before the matter came up again Sara and her sister Abi left for Papua, New Guinea to be with their biological father.

Sara was unable to come but Abi came and took care of all the arrangements with a little help from her friends. Although we're friends on Facebook we hadn't seen each other in over 4 decades, so it was great to see her again. She is like family to both Lupita and me.