Mike Humfreville
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Reflections on Mama and Papa Diaz and Bahia de Los Angeles
Mama and Papa Diaz
I was in Bahia de Los Angeles a few years back, looking for information on the close culture from long-term locals. We knew many because we spent so
much time there, but you can?t learn the history from the present. Carolina, from the museum let me make a copy of an old newspaper article she had.
It was written by Luis Montes Pinal and published in the El Mexicano out of Ensenada on Sunday, July 17, 1988. It featured a review of the life and
times of Antero (Papa) Diaz, who had recently died. I started translating but gave up after too many trips to the Spanish-American dictionary. I?ll
give the article to the Spanish teacher at our local high school so he can assign the kids an ambitious project and learn some history to boot.
The effort of learning caused me to review what I knew personally of the patriarch and matriarch of the settlement.
I was late in my Baja travels in visiting the bay. Before the pavement went in, we were destined for more dramatic locations; the bay was a 66
kilometer drive on the dirt. We first went there, to live for the summer, in 1974.
The village was smaller in those years and most tourists arrived in private aircraft. The dirt airstrip was in the center of the village, terminated
at the gas station where Patricio pumped auto and aviation fuel. It was common to have cars, trucks and planes all in the same line, waiting for gas.
Antero had a good sized fishing boat, seems like about 40 feet, that he kept anchored a few hundred yards out in the bay. The life of the village
then, as today, was focused on fishing, for food and tourists both. I don?t know whether Antero held any official position in the town, but he was
clearly the senior male in the village. He dominated the tourist fishing concession. Antero appeared to have many high-powered bons vivants on both
sides of the border that came to visit him at his home.
The Diaz compound, much the same as today, was the center of the village activities and nightly many locals gathered on the elevated patio for visits
while children of all ages played soccer in the twilight.
Cruz (Mama) quietly ran the store attached to their patio in the compound. The store was a collection of dusty canned goods, beer, sodas, and no ice.
In those days you had to go to the original Dos Pinos to buy non-potable and half-melted block ice from Miguel. In the Diaz store Mama kept small
spiralbound notebooks and pencils tied to each rack of goods. The few customers would collect their goods, document them in one of the pads and sign
their names. Payment was made on departure, or payday, as the case might apply. Honesty was expected and maintained by all. On return from their
daily sea-bourn adventures the fishermen collected on the Diaz patio in the mid afternoons for a cerveza and the days? gossip.
Mail to the village was addressed to a Diaz post office box in Ensenada. Whenever anyone went there, they posted outgoing mail and brought the
incoming back to the village. Antero reviewed the mail. If there were posts for others, he placed them in a box fastened to the wall of his office.
When we came into the village for supplies, we?d always check the ?mail box.?
Meals were served at the Diaz ranch, if you had made a reservation so they could know in advance how much food to prepare. The service was family
style at a large common table and everything self-served. You never knew who you?d be seated next to, which added to the fun. It was mostly tourists
of course. The Diaz store, kitchen, and the dining room are attached and it was pleasant, in the afternoons to sit in the coolness of the building
and sip a cerveza and listen to the Spanish chatter from the young girls working in the kitchen. Mama always snitched us a sample of whatever they
were cooking for the evening meal.
Somewhere in the middle of summer, it was either Papa?s birthday of the 4th of July, the Diaz family threw a party. The entire town was invited. A
steer was sacrificed and the barbeque fired up. A huge sidetable was positioned outside the restaurant and loaded with chips, guacamole and salsa and
a large bowl of margaritas. Music was provided from an old tape player and the celebrating lasted throughout the afternoon and well into the night.
As we were leaving an east wind was building. Mary Ann dropped her purse. It fell open and the contents blew across the landscape. A scampering
went on with everyone collecting what they could. Among the papers were 19 hundred-dollar bills. I was totally dismayed. We had planned a year away
from work and that money was well needed. But everyone collected what they could and Sammy (Antero?s oldest son) handed me $1600. The villagers had
located all but three of the windblown bills. Hard to make a stronger statement toward true integrity than that.
Papa passed on in the late eighties. Mama lasted nearly until the new-century mark. After Papa was gone she spent more time with her daughters, in
Ensenada or points north. It will never be the same at the village. There are several markets now, and ice is always available. There is a
telephone kiosk and you can call out whenever they?re open for business. They even have several Internet cafes where you can come abreast of worldly
affairs from the heart of Baja.
It?s just not quite the same heart as it was during the reign of Papa and Mama.
[Edited on 9-5-2003 by Mike Humfreville]
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David K
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Thank you Mike, keep 'em coming!
When my folks and I first drove to Bahia de los Angeles, in 1967, Casa Diaz WAS Bahia de los Angeles. Papa Diaz was the 'head honcho' and Cruz (never
call her 'Mama' then) ran the kitchen... Turtle steaks were her specialty.
Most Diaz customers arrived by plane then, including those using Capitain Francisco Munoz' BAJA AIR SERVICE.
Dick Daggett Jr. was the town mechanic and had a shop. just south of Diaz'. As a kid, I remember going to Sr. Daggett to obtain one of his customized
'Baja cap guns' all the village boys were playing with.
Daggett removed the porcelain and rod from the metal part of a spark plug. A large nail would fit into the hollowed plug body, and a cord was tied to
the nail and plug with enough slack to make a purse like handle. A wooded match head was inserted into the plug and the sulfurous match tip twisted
off, staying in the plug. The wooden match stick was removed and the nail was inserted. Holding the looped cord, you would slam the nail head end
against a wall. The bang was loud, like a cap gun... Baja style!
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Tim_Price
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I first visited Bay of LA by private plane in themid-60's. I first drove in to the Diaz place in 1971. I was 21, traveling with my new bride in a
3/4 ton Chevy truck loaned to us by my father, a veteran Baja pilot. We camped on the water's edge not 100 yards from the Diaz resort. I got Senor
Diaz to allow me to radio home on his marine radio which legally should have been out on his boat, the San Augustin. In reality, the radio was
permanently part of his office on dry land. Each time he heard me say, "We're fine, we're in Bay of Los Angeles", Senor Diaz would wince and whisper
emphatically to me, "No! No! San Augustin! San Augustin!" not wanting anyone listening on the radio to hear the real location of his radio equipment.
The food Mama Diaz would prepare was wonderful. If you were staying at the Diaz resort the beers you took from the cooler in the Diaz store were
accounted for by dropping the beer bottle cap into a container with your room number painted on it. By the mid seventies this practice was no more,
having been abused by a few selfish gringo fishermen. I recall a member of the Automobile Association mapping team asking that one of the Diaz kids
wipe the dust from the top of the beer he'd just purchased. What was that guy thinking!? He was lucky to have a cold beer in middle of Baja at all,
let alone one without dust on it. I remember the big winds that would come rushing down the mountain sounding like a locomotive and then hit the Diaz
resort with a "Boom!" I'll treasure those memories always.
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Mike Humfreville
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Tim,
The 1974 summer of which I wrote found me, too, with my new bride, at the bay. We built a small hut from the local cactus the road crews has uprooted
and discarded while grading the "new" road down the peninsula. I had been down further south in Baja many times before we visited, then lived for a
time, at Bahia de Los Angeles. After our summer, we fell in love with the bay and it has been our second home ever since. We raised our two boys
there across vacations and summers and we will be retiring there in the near future. Nice to know you had a similar experience. You must have other
memories from those days. Mas porfavor.
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Bob and Susan
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Mike
When you retire ... are you planning to put all this stuff in a book?
It will be great reading.
Bob
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bigaton
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I had been to Bahia de Los Angeles several times but had not met Papa Diaz until my trip in November 1988..... at least I thought it was 1988.... as I
get older my mind starts playing games with me on dates. Mike could you check the date on that article that you copied .... and see if it isn't
1989...???? I am going to check some of my slides from that period and see if I can get a little closer.
What ever date it is ....Papa Diaz was quite a guy..!!!!!
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Debra
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Debra
Mike......thanks once again for sharing your memories in print! As much as I travel with you and MA, I never get the 'whole' story, as I do when you
write it down......thanks.
PS: Those of you that keep asking for his book........My printer is 'burning up'! and I think I just put in for a 'copy-rite'! HA! what do you think
of THAT!?? PUTZ!!!!!!!!???????
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Mike Humfreville
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Thanks for the plug, Deb. You're just happy I leave out the parts that are embarrassing, like the morning you woke up to find your pillow was the
inflatable bag out of a box of fine wine!
Regarding publication, I need some advice and more patience to send my stuff out to publishers. I'd much rather write that deal with all that. Maybe
in retirement (when, no doubt, I'll have a greater need for $$$).
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