THOSE WERE THE DAYS

With the violence in Mexico as bad as Afghanistan and Iraq, nights across the river are a distant memory. It is a tragedy beyond the ruthless killing. There was a time when eating and drinking at Garcia's was considered beneath the dignity of a true Matamoros connoisseur.

But to sit next to one of Garcia's big windows in a deep chair over a bowl of peanuts and a cold beer to accompany the salty treat with a trio strumming the classics in the background!

Brownsville is benefiting in the short run, but without the siren song of the south, the border has lost its flavor.

The forays to the boxing venues are over. El Bravo, the leading daily, half-heartedly promotes cards to stir the enthusiasm of a paranoid populace. Confronting a bloody reality, the propaganda fails miserably.

Among his many other duties, Max Maxwell, dean of the Rio Grande Valley sportswriters and The McHale Report's sports editor, once penned a boxing column for The Brownsville Herald. He reminisced about an adventure on the other side.

"I went to see Lupe Pintor at his room in the Hotel Ritz the night before his fight at the Arena Mexico," recalled Maxwell. "Pintor was an ascendant name who would capture championships in both the bantamweight and featherweight divisions.

"'What round are you going to knock out this sacrificial lamb?' I asked him. 'The second,' he answered. I accepted bets at ringside taking only the second round. Everyone was happy to pocket the crazy gringo's money, but when Lupe decapitated his inferior foe with a Frazier left hook midway through the second, my credentials were permanently established among the regulars."