David K - 7-18-2015 at 05:30 PM
Last week I was invited to spend the day with long time friend and fellow Baja book collector, Neal Johns.
Neal allowed me to borrow a book I had not yet read, written by the famous mystery author (and creator of Perry Mason), Erle Stanley Gardner.
This may have been the last or one of his last books, published in 1969. Gardner died the following year at his ranch home in Temecula, California.
Host With The Big Hat is about the extremely friendly Mexican people who go out of their way to entertain travelers and share their large and diverse
country.
Unlike most of Gardner's real-life adventure books (The Land of Shorter Shadows, Hunting the Desert Whale, Hovering over Baja, The Hidden Heart of
Baja, Off the Beaten Track in Baja, Mexico's Magic Square), Host With The Big Hat has very little to do with Baja.
His adventures do begin and ends in Tijuana, but he travels by station wagon to Mexicali, goes on the rail line to Puerto Peñasco and to Los Mochis
then up the Copper Canyon (only it wasn't called that yet) to Chihuahua and eventually to Mexico City, Guadalajara, Mazatlan, and the ferry to La Paz.
Erle flies back to Tijuana.
A large part of this book deals with the 30,000 + unearthed (or forged) historic statues from Acámbaro that shows dinosaurs and humans (together),
among other things. More than one trip makes up the book's story. The Acámbaro figurine mystery is a big part of it.
As with his other adventure books, it is filled with photos and all the dignitaries are his "good friends". Baja's famous Captain Muñoz is features as
well as many of the others often included in Gardner's expeditions.
There is just one more Gardner book that may be about Baja, I have not read: 'Neighborhood Frontiers'.
Here is Gardner's 1969 book:
Fatboy - 7-20-2015 at 03:13 PM
His book Baja books are generally such a pleasure to read.... To think I have never read a Perry Mason book yet I have spent upwards of $60 to
purchase some of his Baja books.
