Calexico: True Lives of the Borderlands

Tuesday: Whither Calexico? Wither All of Us When It’s 100 inthe Shade!

Dawn at the Barbara Worth Resort. The empty parking lot reinforces the sense of a bygone heyday. But it is a precious and gorgeous dawn. The huge, bushy trees around the motel are alive with an orchestra of songbirds. The temperature is a perfect San Diego–like seventy degrees or so, without a hint of the scorcher to come. Looking south toward the sparse traffic about a mile distant on The Eight, the irrigated desert is green with crops, the adjacent access roads cracked and dusty from the perpetual baking of the irrepressible Imperial Valley sunshine. “NO ANIMALS!” yells a sign posted on the field adjacent to Barbara Worth Road. “It’s a food safety violation!” This was where Harold Bell Wright wrote The Winning of Barbara Worth, a place he called Tecolote Rancho at Meloland. “And the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose,” Isaiah is quoted where Wright’s ashes were buried in San Diego, a site marked with a book-shaped sculpture. Breakfast in the Barbara Worth restaurant. The eight-by-ten glossy stars on the wall smile down at me as I pick from the roomful of empty tables for the continental breakfast. Packaged bagels. Individual containers of Philadelphia cream cheese. No lox. The 1960s-looking interior décor sits static in a state of arrested decay—water stains on the ceiling, a temperamental toaster for the self-service bagels. Orange juice, tea, and the Imperial Valley Press. Time to start the day. What’s happening here on the border? “Breezy and mostly sunny today.” Okay. But the high temperature is forecast to be ninety-eight. More details about the crash Sunday morning on Drew Road, the Chevy Suburban filled with twenty-two passengers that rolled over while being followed by the Border Patrol. The driver is in jail, seventeen years old and expected to be charged with vehicular manslaughter. It wasn’t a high-speed chase, Highway Patrol officer Wes Boerner reports. “From what I’ve heard from the Border    Tuesday Whither Calexico? Wither All of Us When It’s 100 in the Shade! Whither Calexico? 31 Patrol, they were tailing him and keeping an eye on him while they formulated a plan.” What else is border news? Controversy regarding the relining of the All-American Canal, the lifeline that diverts Colorado River water to the Valley. Should extra money be spent building ridges on the walls as a device to aid the escape of those who fall into the water, or are ladders placed every 250 feet adequate safety features? The Imperial Valley National Day of Prayer Task Force announces a service scheduled for Thursday. Barbara Worth Junior High in Brawley is hosting a “Family Fun Movie Night” featuring Grease! Free. Green’s Jewelry (“Since 1952 The Jeweler You Can Trust”), mentioned in a display ad set in typography that looks like 1952, reminds us that Mother’s Day is next Sunday. “Let us help you find a thoughtful and unique gift that’s just right for your mom.” It features an image of a diamond with cartoonlike lines representing its sparkle. On the Opinion page “Stories of the Past” notes the good-old-boy atmosphere of those days, reporting that fifty years ago “John Andrew Demay, 37, an assistant superintendent at Imperial County Juvenile Hall, was arrested early Monday morning when El Centro police found The Barbara Worth Resort: home away from home. 32 tuesday him in an allegedly intoxicated condition. ‘I work at Juvenile Hall. Doesn’t that make a difference?’ Demay asked officers, they said. Police reported Demay was caught trying to drive his car twice—once returning to it after police sent him home in a taxi. He was released without formal charges being filed. ‘To prevent embarrassment to the juvenile court and their County Probation Office,’ is the statement on Demay’s police record, explaining why he was released.” Ah, those innocent, naive, crony-filled days of 1958. On that same page, a harsh editorial suggests just such contemporary cronyism, under the headline, “Pacheco Should Resign from Board.” It attacks the Pacheco brothers: Salvador, the Calexico school board and city council member, for voting to hire, as an assistant school superintendent, Lewis, the mayor. “Nepotism and the ‘compadre’ have been caught dead to rights in Calexico,” screams the offended newspaper . “What is it about Calexico that the stench of it hangs thick in the air, a...