Editor-In-Chief
BROWNSVILLE, Texas - Perhaps Juan Montoya was born 100 years too late. Maybe he would have been a more-appreciated reporter had he offered his detailed writing about the Mexican Revolution of 1910. Juan, an old friend, is the last purist to be found along the scurrilous Texas-Mexico border.
Truth be known, we've had our differences lately. But that was about how we choose to approach our writing, how we choose to cover news here in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. I'd never do what Juan does on his Blog, RrunRrun.blogspot.com, but he'd likely say the same thing about me on The Tribune. It's a long story better suited for another time.
For now, we focus on Juan's recent jailing, this after being arrested earlier this week on charges of DWI and reckless driving. At present, we are told, he is being held in the Cameron County jail. We preface this by saying a Journalist in jail is never a good thing. Juan carved his reporting perimeter a bit wide, and that led to criticism that he was a "hired gun" for Brownsville politicians and not really the people's source for timely and dependable information. His knowledge of the local political geography can never be challenged; Juan knows his stuff.
We'd heard he'd been roughing it in town, but we hadn't seen him in a little more than a year, when he'd joined a handful of other friends at the 1-2-3 Lounge on tough 14th Street to drink a few chelas. He was the usual Juan, noting bullshit about the city's politicians as if talking about detailed baseball stats, laughing at the material in the manner that comedians laugh at their own jokes. We saw him briefly another time at a place called The Ice House on the road to the Port of Brownsville. He'd made fun of me that time, saying I still exhibited my penchant for interrupting people while they spoke and chiding me on my open contempt for the border. He was right on both counts.
An objective critic could find much to criticize Juan about. Brownsville is a low-flying town in many ways. Just as he could damn, well, those he damned always damned back. You had this idea that the scraps were a fun time for Juan. Who knows? As with most people in the cliquish Valley, he had people he liked and people he disliked. There is something to be said for a man who holds his ground, although Juan's ground was in a perpetual shake, like some mini-earthquake only he could feel there at his feet.
The jail sentence, we understand, has him incarcerated until the first days of 2011.
Something is lost. Something isn't the same. Small, insular towns can feel this readily. Brownsville without Juan Montoya is like North Fork without Lucas McCain, Virginia City without Ben Cartwright, San Francisco without Dirty Harry, Brownsville without Juan Cortina - Montoya's hero.
The days of this cooler season will arrive and roll-off all of us. Few will have Juan in mind when Thanksgiving comes along, when Christmas nears. He helped a slew of local politicians, such as hated former City Commissioner Ernie Hernandez and recently defeated Cameron County Judge candidate John Wood.
It'll be interesting to see if any of these politicos he helped across the line step up to help him. Knowing a bit about Brownsville, I'd find it novel if they did. A man behind bars is easily shunned aside.
Juan Montoya reminds me of another Journalist who danced across the border and lived his last days in Brownsville. Chuck Schwanitz was his name. Chuck was not the writer Juan became, but, like Juan, he liked to tip a cold one very now and then. It comes with the territory, he'd say back in the early 1980s, when Chuck's office was a back-wall table at La Palma Lounge, when his most powerful, across-the-bar utterance was, "Otro round!"
Let's believe that Juan Montoya can serve his time and make that turn toward a little better life. He's 56 and, as The Beatles sang in Sgt. Pepper's, "...it's getting very near the end..."
- 30 -
7 comments:
Juan Montoya a Jail Bird now, being at teh county palace is no joke.
Do you think it is possible he did it on purpose, a self fulling prophecy.
Mahbe, or maybe not, if you do the crime, you pay with time, or so the saying goes.
It's tough when people we like, admire, and respect, do things that we cannot accept. Their actions hurt not only themselves but society also, and therefore their actions must be stopped and they must bear the consequences. At the same time there should always be hope and a helpful hand extended because there is something worth redeeming in almost everyone (with the possible exception of Jake/Ralph/Ren, who chooses to assume the disguise of a chihuahua). It would be good if Juan Montoya would find support and caring, both during his incarceration and upon his release. It might mean the difference and the impetus in helping him fight his demons - we all have them in one form or another. M
Juan Montoya threw a quiet a few stones, and exposed quiet a bit of people on his blog.
Isn't there a saying about, throwing stones when living in glass houses.
I have been at the country club, known as Ruckers/Carrizales. And time sits still, you don't read newpapers, no radio, no sunlight, a tv on a channel that shows nothing but re-runs.
Unless you are a trustee, you are doomed to eating and sleeping.
Hopefully, Mr. Montoya will give some writing lessons to some of the morons/criminals who live at that place.
ANONYMOUSES & ANONYMOUS M:...We don't think Juan had a desire to one day end up in jail, so the self-fulfilling thing doesn't wash with us. He just drank one too many one day, so...(2.) It'll be interesting to see if he is offered rehab, and to see if Juan takes it. Beer is just too much a part of the border culture. (3.) Glass houses? They're all over the place in the RGV. As for life in the Ruckers, perhaps Juan will find a way to get his daily newspaper. The week's too long to spend one's days simply eating and sleeping... - Editor
At Ruckers thats all there is, "time and boredom," you loose track of the days, except when you have visiting days, like Thursdays and Sundays. You don't go out, no radios, newspapers are out of the question, church in jail, no coffee, just cool aid the tv is turned out at a certain time. It's like they took 30 days of my life.
Late child support paymenst was my problem. I swear, I will wash dishes at Denny's just to pay the lady, but jail, believe me, is no fun, is no joke and there is nothing romantic about that crap, as Juan will know. And from Carrizalez, to the Half way house and counseling. It is one bad expierence, people don't know how good it is to breath clean air and see the sunlight and the moonlight.
And drink nice hot coffee, how it is to get a cheese burger.
I have a story about Carrizales that goes alot deeper than that. I am just waiting for the right time to expose it. Juan has my 1000% support.
Gutsy Lady
Juan Motoya has a problem like million of American have, what is wrong with Brownsville Criminal Justice System is that it cannot offer rehab, it offers incarceration. We hope Juan will learn from his life and we continue to count him as a friend, we will be there when he is released ready to give him a helping hand.
May peace be with him and his family this Christmas.
from the PAC
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