Epistles from Pap: Letters from the man known as 'The Will Rogers of Indiana' Part 26

My hope is there are no mink south of Key West. And besides, the more I get the few glimpses of that neck piece the more I am convinced they're house cats made up to look like anything that has to pay a duty.

INTERVIEWED BY THE URUGUAY PRESS

To The Graphic Greencastle, Ind.

The evening of Dec. 10th we sailed out of Santos, redolent of coffee, and the next morning docked in Montevideo, to be met by another "angel" from one of those heaven sent Companies we've been blessed with so far. . . With the aid of an interpreter, we were to have our pictures taken and give an interview to a reporter for one of the newspapers.

They wanted to know how we liked Uruguay and Montevideo.

Naturally, we didn't know, not having set foot on either yet.

Well, where were we going and what were we going to do--business, pleasure or diplomatic? And all this time I was repeatedly asked what advice I had to give to the people of Uruguay. You bet I had none--none whatever.

When this filtered to the reporter, he looked amazed and puzzled.

He was thinking. The next perplexed question that came through the strainer was, "But you are a lawyer, aren't you?"

"Yes, I am a lawyer, but a lawyer is the last fellow you want to go to up home for advice--except politicians, veterinarians and undertakers."

They caught the "politician" part of it, but I don't think the reporter ever did unravel the rest of it.

He was a persistent pressman, however, and kept firing the advice question at me.

I finally said, "I have no advice whatsoever to whomsoever," etc.

(using other big sounding words lawyers use when they don't know) "to give you splendid sovereign peoples of Uruguay. If I had to give something, it would be this: observe International Law and your Treaties to the letter, and then run your own country in your own way and without let or hindrance from anybody outside."

The interview was an unqualified success judged from the nods, gesticulations and shaking of hands. I got so I thought it was pretty good myself.

But alas. You should read what came out in the paper next morning. . . I was quoted to have said Uruguay had a most forward and socially stable government, or something like that.

LIVESTOCK--REAL AND BRONZED

Our friend, the manager of the company, proved to be most capable. . . We drove over the city after picking up his wife. .

. Montevideo is much cleaner and more mechanized than is Rio or Santos, or so it seemed to me. The docks were less littered up.

Perhaps people and business moved faster and more orderly. . .

Saw a world of sheep. Sheep is a big industry in Uruguay--perhaps its biggest. There were also pen after pen of cattle. I never saw a steer there as good as Oscar Clodfelter's worst one.

If I have worked kilos into pounds and pesos into dollars correctly, prime steers are selling on the hoof there at the market at five to six cents per pound, our money. But always remember they're probably gra.s.sers and not the way the Hazlett boys or Jude Grimes corn feeds them.

Another thing in Montevideo. I've seen a real piece of art, a bronze piece of statuary "of heroic size." It sets in a park. It is called La Carreta, and depicts an early settler on a horse beside a two-wheeled pioneer cart with one big wheel sunk in the mud plumb down to the axle pulled by one bull and seven steers or oxen all yoked together, and with a spare ox tied on behind. I looked to see about that ox. He was an ox and the only possible criticism I have is that he should have been a cow tied on behind. Otherwise the thing is perfection to me. The cart slopes just right, the oxen look hard-worked, the bull like a bull, thick neck and all, the horse like a thin, tired horse ought to look, and the man like some men up on Racc.o.o.n I've seen in my time. Only he had on some local trappings my men never had. But there they are, the man yelling, the bull and oxen set and straining for every ounce, and all trying like h.e.l.l to get out.

Maybe that cow was following behind a half quarter or so, and I failed to see her.

CLEARED FOR BUENOS AIRES

We sailed out at 6 p.m. Dec. 13 for Buenos Aires. In the meantime the Argentine doctors had come aboard to look us over and sort out the rots and specks. They, along with our s.h.i.+p's doctor and some of the officers were in the bar when Sugar Foot and I came back to s.h.i.+p. One man who had traveled before said they were being mellowed-up so they wouldn't be too technical with us. If they were, it took a long time. . . The Purser handed in Sugar Foot's pa.s.sport. The doctor found the right page, took one look at her and stamped her "sound", remarked something about the beautiful senorita. They are good at that down here--mighty good.

I don't know how many men have kissed her hand to date on introduction. . .They stamped me next and we were off.

A man from one of those blessed firms met us at B.A., and got us through customs in record time. Not only that, he got us and our luggage to a waiting car, and said, "This car and the chauffeur are at your disposal day and night during your stay in Buenos Aires, which we hope will be most pleasant. . . Don't hesitate to ask us for any information."

And here I had been worrying about two extra cartons of cigarettes all the way from St. Thomas.

We first got settled at the Plaza Hotel and then drove to see many of the sights. In B.A. they also drive pretty much by horn.

I am told it is the second sized city in the Western Hemisphere-- bigger than Chicago even. Anyway, it is big.

The sights of Buenos Aires are many and varied. About like any other S.A. city, only bigger. . . The shops are elaborate. . .

Prices are reputedly relatively higher in B.A. than at home. I sincerely doubt this. I positively do. Especially if you get your money changed into pesos at what some are willing to give for American dollars. It may be a bit shady, but it is done rather openly. Never go to a bank. The banks are pegged. They can give you 9.3 pesos per dollar. Our blessed friend at the dock warned us. He told us to have our (get that possessive) chauffeur stop at one of the cambios, I think they call them, and go in--just like that. . .We got 15 for 1.

Due to the number of us arriving via S.S. Del Mar, we were not required to go to the police station to register. The authorities detailed a man to come to the Plaza Hotel and do the job. . . He had a big sign, "Silence," on his desk; also a typewriter. He a.s.sumed a very important look, much the same as the one I took on when the lobbyists began calling me "Senator." The job was soon over. We received our tourist cards with instructions to carry them at all times--or else.

JOCKEY'S CLUB--WHERE THE BEEF IS

Beef is the staple food, killed that morning. No self-respecting Argentine would touch ripened meat or chilled or deep freeze stuff. He wants it right off the hoof. And yet, I am inclined to think they want it fairly well-done. Sugar Foot has been having trouble getting hers rare enough.

The best meat I have had was at the Jockey's Club. Every town down here seems to have a Jockey's Club. . . All of them are owned and operated by the same people. Who started them? The farmers of the Argentine. Away back there these beef growers began to get rich. Then they got feudal. They were the Aristocracy of hereabouts. Big holdings and immense herds. Then they moved to town and took over. Now some of them have gone to Monte Carlo and Cannes and New York while the overseers and hired men run the place back home. That is the way I am told. . . To be a member you have to be one of those farmers. Or else a descendant of one of those farmers--you've got to have Hereford blood somewhere in you.

The Club has all the dignity it is possible to have. Marble floors, big well-s.p.a.ced tables with large roomy chairs, heavy dark polished woodwork, immense wide stairways and steps with low risers, an enormous library with old men in dignified dress asleep here and there, kinda like English clubs, say.

On Sunday we went to the races at Palermo track. . . We had as our guests Captain Jones and Purser Stricker of the Del Mar and a Mrs. Somebody who operates a girls' school in Buenos Aires. The captain and Mrs. Somebody go to bet on the races, and bet they did, on every race. I said above that we were hosts. That's wrong. The good captain had the big thing--access to the Jockey's Club part of the track, the stand right at the wire. In my innocence I had asked them as guests. They had accepted as such.

Having sat at table with the good captain for about three weeks, he had long since gotten my number and what I knew about Palermo and everything else south of the Putnam County line. He just bided his time and then let me down as easy as possible. He's that way.

EVALUATING THE WOMEN

I remember what Claud Smith (now a pious, sedate lawyer and ex- judge down at Princeton) said once when we had gathered in a room at Indiana U for the usual talk. In his blunt, matter-of-fact way, Claud spoke up first. He said, "Well, shall we begin talking about the girls right off the bat, or gradually lead up to them like we've been doing?"

So let's talk about these beautiful women down here. They know how to dress in a striking way. Black-eyed, black-haired with smooth swarthy complexions. Some are as sinuous and graceful as all get out. But my observation is that the majority are from trifling bulky to good and bulky. But you must bear in mind that I do not see much of the younger set. It is the older women I get to see most. . . I do not understand Spanish. That is a terrible handicap. But if they talk as intelligently as they do animatedly and rapidly, they're honeys.

Nevertheless and notwithstanding, I think I know where the prettiest women on earth are to be found in the greatest numbers, and I'll tell you where to see them. Go sit on the Boulder in East College campus when cla.s.ses let out and you'll see them.

You'll see more per square inch there than you'll see here per square rod. If you are too self-conscious or too dignified now to go sit on the Boulder, then I'll tell you, . . . if we had brought Miss Bess Robbins and Miss Sedelia Starr down here some time ago they would have won 99 out of 100 of all the beauty contests hereabouts. I'll add my sister, Mrs. Margaret D.

Bridges. I thought she was the prettiest girl I ever saw.

OVER THE ANDES BY AIR

On a certain bright morning at 11:15 we started my biggest trial by fire or whatever the poets call it--going over the Andes in a flying machine. To me the plane didn't look any too new, or the paint any too fresh, or the pilot and crew any too much like I thought high-flying Andes pilots ought to look. The pa.s.sengers looked pretty heavy, and there was a world of baggage.

The takeoff was the usual one. We got higher and higher. The literature on the back of the seat just in front of me was none too a.s.suring. It said, "If you feel yourself getting sick just use the strong paper bags in the pocket on the back of the seat in front of you. Don't feel ashamed. Others before you have used them," or words to that effect.

We climbed and climbed. From time to time I thought I heard the engine sputter. We would hit bad going occasionally, the wings would dip up and down, and my seat would sort of try to get fully out from under me.

The best way I know to describe the scene is . . . rectangular straight sided patches of land of varying sizes and colors as far as one could see: green, purple, dirt color, straw color.

Sometimes I thought there were streams of water. Houses or barns were mere ballot-sized squares, evidently surrounded with trees in full leaf. . . Inevitably each town had a plaza with spokes running out like those of a wagon wheel.

At the foot of the Andes the ground was closer and looked like the crinkled hide of an elephant. Then came the Andes. Soon there was plenty of snow. Eventually we pa.s.sed to one side of Mt.

Aconcagua, the highest peak in South America, 23,000 and some feet. We must have been 21,000 feet up. Then we saw its glacier, blue-green and cold. Up there we saw lots of blue-green ice.