Chapter Five

Before I continue the story, I just want to explain that I am not very good at using this blog program. I am posting Maris's letters and artwork the best I can, but it is from the 1970's and 1980's, and some a little worn. I am trying to post everything in relatively chronological order to show as was said "in the day"- where his head was at. 

CONTINUE The Journey

The summer of 1973 was my most memorable times before I was married and had my two daughters. Maris was living on the ranch with me and we were having a good time. So what would top that time, Well, a trip to Mexico would be great. I grew up in San Diego and had learned some Spanish.

My sister had already invited me to go with her, her daughter who was few years old and her husband to go to Guadalajara, where her husband was from. So I had plans to go to Mexico. Maris was in the area because he had just separated from his wife and he needed time and space to get away. I invited him to come to Mexico with me.

He took the bus from Tijuana to Guadalajara to meet me there. (He told me that the music on the bus reminded him of American country western music, and I told him it was Ranchera or Norteno or even Tex-Mex music)  We stayed few days there with my now ex-brother-in-law's family and had a good time. For some reason, their business friends thought we were shoe merchants, and we almost ended up in the shoe selling business. It was fun and funny. My sister and her family returned to the US, while Maris and I took the bus to Mexico City. We had a good time touring the City and the pyramids at Teotihuacan.

Maris told me that his friend Jon, who I met in Seattle years before was on a summer teaching job at the University of Mexico (UNAM). So we decided to go to UNAM to look for him. We were staying in a cheap hotel downtown Mexico City, so we needed to take the subway (METRO) there. So while on the subway platform we were trying to figure out what train to take, a friendly and attractive woman who was with a male friend came up to us and asked us in English if she could help us. Well of course, we could use the help and have a nice conversation. So we talked for a while with her limited English and my limited Spanish. We were able to get her name and address. She was a student at UNAM.

Needless to say, we did get to UNAM, but could not find Jon, whom just recently told me that he was not there.

Another of Maris's attributes was his sense of humor and that great Latvian baritone laugh. I now have the feeling that he never knew where Jon was that summer.

When we got back to our hotel, I told him that I was interested in the woman from the Metro and I was going to find her. He said he wanted to rest, and I guess he wanted me to go alone. Somehow, I managed to find her home by bus outside of Mexico City, and I met her family and we talked some more and walked around her town. We kept in touch by letters and telephone after I left. She had gone to Texas to work for a while. We met again a year later and we married in her hometown. We returned to the US and have been married ever since with two daughters and five grandchildren. Maris will always be in our memories because of that trip to Mexico.

But that was not all. We returned by bus from Mexico City. We took the bus to Puerta Vallarta since we both wanted to go there. We spent most of our time wandering around the town or at the beach. We had a good time. We met one man who only spoke Spanish, but Maris was interested in listening to him. He was only wearing a bathing suit and a white t-shirt, and was a little unkempt. I tried to translate the best I could. Apparently he was talking about some under sea city that people could live in or lived in, but whatever he was talking about Maris listened to him a for a half hour or more. We had more adventures on our trip. In Mazatlan, we had our money stolen while we were swimming. Luckily we still had our bus tickets and made it home.

Maris and I returned to the ranch in Petaluma. I returned to College and he decided it was time to go back to Seattle to settle his personal problems.

I did not see him again, until about 1979 when he came by with his girl friend to visit us in Los Angeles and continue on to San Diego. My daughters were born by then. Most visitors or relatives who visit from out of Southern California want to go to Disneyland. But not Maris. He wanted us to take him to the Watts Towers which is a very interesting work of art. We also toured Los Angeles and its mural art. He and his girl friend (he never remarried) stayed a few months in San Diego and then returned to Seattle. I did not see him again until 2004. We had lost contact a couple of times due to his moving around and we moved around also. I got reconnected with him in the 1990's, and my youngest daughter and a girl friend went to Seattle where they stayed with him. Then in 2004, we finally took a trip up North as far as Vancouver BC for a month. It was my wife's first visit to the Northwest. We were able to see him then and a couple more times after that. He always was generous person with his time and a gracious host for Seattle as he showed us around.

We had lost contact a couple times, but I was able to Google his name and recontact him. Once, I found out that he was performing at a coffee house and was able to e-mail the place and got in contact with him that way. We kept in touch by telephone, e-mail or Skype, but they are not the same as the letters he had sent me through the years.

I will be posting a lot of stuff from the 70's and 80's with no editing. Also, a lot of the publications are collaborative efforts, but do not have dates or signatures. I have a few things in the publications but not much. I had more pictures from Japan and the ranch, but have not found them probably due to all my moving around.