Tom Rutherford was the guy I met who eventually brought me here to Todos Santos. But he wasn’t as altruistic as I make me out to be.

Tom was with his friend Pancho who was also from Todos Santos.  Pancho grew up to be the Mayor of Todos Santos and I knew his children and grandchildren.

Time drove a big flatbed truck when he came down to Todos some to us from Oceanside. He had boxes of stuff and tires and refrigerators and other things he was bringing for people down here. It wasn’t contraband; it was for people in the town.

He wanted to hook up with Evelyn and me because he used us a couple of times to get around customs crossings.

There was a customs and immigrations stop on the highway just south of Ensenada, perhaps an hour or two down the road. It was called Maneadero. It was there until about five years ago. You had to stop and go in there and show them your tourist visa and blah blah blah.

Tom told Evelyn and me that even though it said “stop” we didn’t have to stop. He told us that this sign didn’t apply to us. He gave us some sort of story.

So when Evelyn and I drove past, the guy got out in his patrol car and chased us down the road. Now there were only two guys in this customs station. So while they were chasing us Tom turned off on a dirt road!

Well the cops didn’t care about Tom and his stuff. They were more concerned about checking out the two crazy gringa girls who blew right through the customs station!

Tom used this trick twice on that trip.

I used to property manage the white house. Minerva, who works as a maid, would always tell me the stories. She had small children and she would be often awake in the middle of the night taking care of them. She told me about boats coming to shore meeting trucks.


Mysteries of the Desert Night

I always thought Minerva, the maid, had an active imagination, but she was right on about when the planeload of drugs crash that night. She was awake and had heard the plane. She heard a low-flying plane. She just thought it was another drug deal going on because she knew about these deals.

Then she described five big flatbed trucks rolling through the desert at two or three or four in the morning. It was dark. The next day we heard there was a crumbling plane but all the cocaine was gone. The human took the engines. They had enough time to drop those engines; they must have dropped them on the truck. Those engines are valuable, I guess.

We always think the Federal police had something to do with it as well. They found some of the people who were from the plane. They had no cocaine on them, but they were in the desert, hitching rides. The police grab them and interrogated them.

People always say this and attend to believe it. The first restaurant on the way out of town on the left hand side was started with cocaine money. These people were poor farmers and all of a sudden they had a restaurant.

The plane? I don’t know where it is. I’m sure Minerva knows where it is.