pretty girl invited me to thanksgiving with her pretty friends.
seemed like a lot of pressure plus i dont have fancy clothes. im an uber driver with a new hole in the knee of my jeans and smoosh on my twenty-five dollar sneakers. plus what is there to say to these upwardly mobile kids who eat right and buy things and listen to unz unz unz music?
worse, i assumed afterwards she’d ask them if i was right for her. of course im not. nor is she for me. why we hit it off was a miracle that should have ended in a romp in her loft. but i dont romp any more.
i drive.
so thats what i did thursday and was rewarded with a trip from the most interesting man of hawaiian gardens.
the founders named it hawaiian gardens because they were liars trying to trick people into moving to a pleasant sounding one square mile city that’s cool most of the time but in the winter it floods like mad.
it flooded the city hall, the library, and even the burger shack with the palm fronds arranged in tiki style spelling out hawaiian gardens, which is where the city got its name.
but my man was not a liar. he was an 88-year-old ecuadorian who was led to my car by his daughter and granddaughter who hugged and kissed him and told him many times they loved him and he said it right back while holding his hands on their faces.
it was dark but i saw everything. i saw so much sweetness my eyes got cavities and my heart pounded with applause.
his name was francisco. he was clear-headed, quick, loud, and didn’t need a cane. he sat in the back and answered everything i asked him. halfway through i told him about you. i said, sometimes i write stories about the cool people i meet, would you mind if i told your story because leaving out any detail would be a crime.
he said of course, all i ask is you spell my name correctly: it’s francisco.
i called him general, jokingly, as you will learn later why, but he never corrected me. he was born in ecuador and moved to the US at 20 to become a pilot in the air force. the year was 1956. the US military he said, told several countries in south america to send their men and they’d train them for free.
i alerted him that i was not a smart person and admitted i couldn’t find ecuador on a map even if he gave me a hint. he said, oh it’s easy, we are between columbia and peru.
when i think of columbia i think of pure cocaine, i said, and when i think of peru i envision the perfect place to do ayahuasca. does ecuador have anything like that there?
no, we are a small country with neither of those distractions. instead the galapagos islands belongs to ecuador.
it does? i said, learning something. ever read galapagos by kurt vonnegut?
no.
who is the most famous person living or dead from ecuador? i asked.
me! he joked. but he wasn’t really joking unless you include mike judge the creator of beavis and butthead, but that’s it.
i called him general because when i asked him what he did before he retired from the air force who taught him how to fly the first jets, he ended up becoming the consul general for his country, but based out of LA.
he was so good at it they kept him on for a long time and he met all types of dignitaries and celebrities and even presidents of the united states.
who was your favorite?
i met ronald reagan, he said, nice guy, but my favorite was meeting my third wife, who i still miss. she passed away a year ago.
he then showed me his phone lock screen and there she was, blonde, smiling, beautiful, blue eyes, rosy cheeks.
GEN-ER-AL! i congratulated, was she a cohort, a visitor, a guest?
she was the consul general of iceland he said, looking at the picture for the millionth time, adoringly.
how cool is that! i said.
the coolest thing that ever happened, he agreed.
when you look at that picture, what memory pops up first? i asked.
on one of my birthdays, she rented a plane for me to fly her in. i had not flown in many years. it was a surprise. we drove to a little airport, we walked into the office and they told me which plane was mine. we got in and we flew to santa barbara for a beautiful lunch and we flew back.
general! have you heard of a flex?
no, what is this?
a flex is when you show off in a casual, nonchalant way, i explained. here you hadn’t flown a plane in years. but you just climbed in flicked some switches, kissed her on the cheek and zipped off into the sky. she must have thought what a man i have!
we loved each other very much. we were very happy together. but i will say this of happiness: you can make your life and paint it the way you want, using any color of the rainbow that you find beautiful. it’s up to you.
i see why you were a good ambassador to your country, i said, thinking about what colors i should stop using to paint my life and which i should stock up on.
oh i was not the ambassador. the ambassador was my boss, i only took care of Los Angeles.
what was the hardest part of being a consul general? i wondered aloud, sincerely. but again he hit me with some wisdom i didn’t expect.
everything was easy in every role i had: pilot, consul, husband, papi. because i loved them all. it is easy when your heart is in it. for example, i can tell you love to drive. and i am loving this drive because you seem genuinely interested in being here. and i am enjoying our conversation. many drivers have frowns and are honking and changing lanes, fighting the journey. i can see you are one with the vehicle, just like i was one with my jets.
omg thank you, i said, honestly amazed by this man. tell me about these jets.
when i was a teenager i wanted to be a pilot but i was told if you can’t handle a roller coaster without puking youd never make it in a military plane. did you ever puke from the spinning or dipping?
i never vomited, he laughed, but the planes i flew were nothing compared to the ones above us now. remember you are talking to an 88 year old man. any plane i flew 68 years ago could only do a fraction of what they do now, so it makes no sense to compare.
whats the fastest you flew?
i never broke the speed of sound, which is good, today almost all of them go that fast. i must correct one thing though, he said, one thing wasn’t easy, now that i recall. when i was first learning to fly here in the US, i did not speak english very well and all of our instruction was in english, so i had to learn two things: the language and the lesson. but because i love to learn, it was not insurmountable.
i asked him about a rumor i had heard that the reason people want to be ambassadors is because wealthy people are always trying to skirt the system and get passports for friends and relatives who should not get passports, so they bribe the ambassadors who pocket the cash and get very rich very quickly.
ecuador does not have people like that.
general? i said mockingly, accusingly, jokingly.
i promise you, we are an honest country and i am an honest man. i would not love myself if i helped let someone into the USA who didn’t belong here.
and see, thats why you had the job for 40 years.
oh no, i wasn’t the consul general for that long, i was a general in our air force for a long time and when i retired i was offered to be consul general.
and that’s why he never corrected me.
ok, i don’t like to talk politics to my passengers, i lied, but i must ask you this: since youre so worldly and smart and you have answered everything ive asked, which i thank you, you met reagan, the man who told gorby to tear down the wall. you love the US, you’re a veteran who has seen so much. what do you think of trump and these other republicans seemingly siding with Russia in the war in the ukraine? i ask because it seems crazy to me.
i have learned that not all politicians say things in public that they really mean. sometimes they say things to get elected, or stay in power, or to use as leverage, or for diplomatic reasons.
and when i got to his beautiful home i said, muchas gracias!
and he said, adios amigo!