MY WALL STORIES (continued)

I remember Los Ticos from years ago when I was visiting my Colorado friend, Rex Jones, in LaPalma, Costa Rica.

One resident in the small town had a tall skinny mustache reminiscent of the most hated man in the world. And of course the locals called him Hitler. The nervous, 90-pound, mustachioed stand-in was the local pharmacist and he sold cocaine to the few tourists that wandered into town. It quickly appeared to me that he may have had a thirsty nose too.

He scampered around the town from his Garcia Pharmacy to the local bar (called the Machete Club by some). One day he got careless or neglected to pay off the right people and was arrested for trafficking and an assortment of lesser crimes.

When the people told me about his demise they were neither happy or sad. It was in the stars.

Rex and I then headed back to his place because “We got it going on.” The rest of the day we spent chasing monkeys away from his banana crop. Later we visited a friend whose son had just returned from a year-long student exchange in Minnesota. We asked if it was cold for him up north. He smiled and said You betcha!

These days Costa Rica is overrun by American tourists and the people are probably less friendly due to the invasion. As always it’s a mixed bag with some natives benefitting from the growth and others not able to keep up with rising prices.