In early ’74 we opened Amigoland Mall in Brownsville, Texas. This coincided with a shopping center leasing convention in Dallas and we came up with the brainstorm of flying the retailers down for the grand opening.
The plan was to load up two jets with the deal makers attending the conference, go to the new mall’s cocktail party, take buses over to the “Drive In” restaurant in Matamoros, Mexico for dinner, then return everyone to the airport and fly them back to Dallas.
In mid afternoon, we loaded buses outside the Fairmont Hotel in Dallas, put large sombrero on everyone's heads, took them to the planes at Love Field and boarded for the ride to south Texas. These guys did not get out much and this was a real adventure for them. They drank a lot on the plane, landed, got to the mall and drank a lot more at the cocktail reception.
I was part of the crew that herded them onto buses to take them to Mexico for dinner. Now, Mexico has always frightened me. We are playing by their rules and their rules are slippery and subject to change at a moments notice. We had permission to go across the border, feed these 70 or so clowns and go straight back across the border to home. I watched the door of the restaurant to make sure no one attempted to leave our protected environment and would shoo any transgressors back to their table if they made an effort to escape. More drinks, more revelry and more declarations of a desire to tour the barrios of Matamoros and “see the sights.”
No, no, no…it is not going to happen. We would never get you back onto the bus, you would be lost in Mexico and we only have permission to go to dinner and return, without serious inspection. If you want to see the sights, do it on your own dime and not when we are responsible for your life.
Dinner is over, we point them back to the buses. From the front door of the restaurant to the door of the bus, these knuckleheads are peeling off and scattering like a sack of B-B’s poured onto a linoleum floor. I look around and a good percentage have vanished to the dark recesses of the Mexican night.
Fred Simon said, “Well, we can’t leave them over here…we will leave you a bus and take the rest back with us. Go find them.” My compatriots and I started hitting all the bars, “hostess” salons and dance halls to round up our strays. Fortunately, they stood out by wearing suits, sombreros and Amigoland Mall name tags. We would find 2-3 at a time, put them in the care of one of my associates, who dragged them back to the bus. There was no violence, only a few embarrassing scenes and a lot of cash was passed to expedite our search.
At the end of a long evening, we rounded up everyone we could find and got them to the plane. I never heard of anyone left behind and we eventually landed in Dallas as the sun was rising. We did seem to get back with more passengers than when we left, including two ladies who said they had married a couple of guys in our group. I left it to them to sort this all out.
I thanked the good Lord for getting us through the night and safely out of Mexico. I hope we did not leave a retail deal maker or two over there, but it has been over 40 years and if someone was left, they must have started a new life. I wish them and their new Mexican family a lot of happiness.
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