Against the wall of the concrete apartment we lived in for a couple-three months prior to finding the one-bedroom on Avenida Cinco de Mayo. This is where Paladin began growing up. He was a tiny puppy when I got him from the Humane Society and presented him to Margarita. She was delighted. He was delightful. Very cheerful temperament, and much like one of his successors, Zip, quick to learn.

I was trying to rebuild my strength after living on little food for some time, and had a supply of Hoffman's protein tablets. The dog loved them. Using a "successive approximations" technique learned while training rats at UCR, I taught him several behaviors. The most remarkable was: I could speak to him from any room in the house and he would perform, even without a sight line to me. Never had a dog before or since who would do that. "Paladin," I'd say, "Stand up." He would. "Come here," and he'd come around the corner, walking on his hind legs, pretty as you please, and looking for that protein pill.

He also learned to take himself for a walk to do his duty, and he always got as far from houses as he could. His favorite spot was on the nonexistent white line down the center of the Avenida. There he'd be, bent in the middle, traffic whizzing by on both sides.

I was watching him as he came home from one of his rambles. He had picked up a goat's foreleg bone at a local diner. Carrying it crossways in his mouth, he came up to the wrought-iron fence around the yard and the bone clanged against the bars he was used to passing between. He tried once more, to no avail. He put the leg bone down, picked it up by the end, and walked on through.

He apparently learned where the food was, and was not welcome in at least one place: one night he came home sick, and died. We were told he had learned to trot into a diner, pick a taco off a table, and zoom on out without permission or payment. The proprietor set out a poisoned tidbit, and that was all she wrote.

We took him to his favorite place, Playas de Tijuana, and buried him with his toys and sleeping rug on a cliff with a lovely view.



The concrete apartment was quite a place. High ceilings, near-cubical rooms. The entire floor was paved with one-inch hexagonal tiles, like the singalong bar Bob Munns and I used to frequent in Little Rock. That was like drinking (and singing) in a public restroom. This was like living in one. The sink did get stopped up once, but I was able to open it using my quarter-inch power drill and an MG TD tachometer cable.

This is where we were living when Kennedy was shot. I was working 2:30 to 10:30 PM, and first I knew of it was when I got to work. When I tried to drive home to Tijuana, the border was closed. I don't know when it opened, but I had to spend money on a motel in San Ysidro. Four fifty, if I recall correctly. Lucky I had it. By the time I woke up and tried the border at about 10 AM it was open. Margarita didn't know it had been closed. She thought she might have seen the last of me.

It's also where we lived when my Dad gave us the little refrigerator. He brought it down from San Bernardino in his Jeep Wagoneer, and we lifted it into the passenger seat of my Austin-Healey 100. After work , 10:30 PM. I was a little worried about not being able to see to the right as I drove to Tijuana. It turned out that was not a problem. The difficulty was getting it into Mexico. Mr. Friendly border-tender-official told me to park and go with him into the Aduana, customs office. It was cold and I was wearing my (second pair of) rabbit-fur-lined leather gloves. I took them off and left them on the cowl of the Healey, between the windscreen and the steering wheel.

We went inside and commenced negotiations. The official kept looking over my shoulder into the parking area. After a few minutes of "You gotta pay duty" "It's a gift for a Mexican lady" "You gotta pay duty" "I can't afford it, how much?" "How much you got?" "Forget it, I'll take it back", he apparently got the high-sign from someone outside, and said, "OK, go ahead, but next time . . . " Needless to say, my refrigerator was still there, but the gloves were gone.

I had lost my first pair of rabbit-fur-lined leather gloves to a thief who took them from the glove box of the TD while Dad and I were inside Little Rock Central High, visiting with Joanne Woodward. I mean the Principal who was represented by Joanne Woodward in the movie. Name of which I forget ("Crisis At Central High", Elizabeth Huckaby). At least the thief left my recently-made box of slides from Sebring, 1958.

Margarita made some curtains (I don't remember there being any windows to put them on) and washed them prior to putting them up. There were clothes lines on the roof where she hung them to dry. She went back five minutes later, and they were gone.

We moved within a week.

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