Generations of wild stories in Tijuana, Mexico
Got a note today from one of my fellow hotrod pals over on the HAMB….
Anyway, he was curious if i was related to an old pal of his, Gene Noteboom. You see Gene and him were in boot camp together in 1964 and he wondered what happened to him.
I replied stating that I didnt know Gene, but if he could tell me where he was from– i’d be glad to ask some family. Out of curiousity and my love for south of the border adventures– i also asked if him and his Navy buddies made it over to Tijuana back in their day. As a result came a gem of a story:
“Yeah,we made it to TJ more than once. Friend of mine had a ’56 ‘bird interior done complete less top for $110. I had a ’54 Chev hardtop lowered for $1.25. The most memorable was the night 4 of us went down in a ’55 Chev ragtop, 283 3 speed that ran fair good. All night long a carload of locals in a ’57 Century rag kept trying to race us. finally after half a dozen bars & beers, he decided to give it a shot just for the hell of it. Wasn’t a bad race, the Buick pulling the Chev by 1 car out on the outskirts of town. After the race, we pulled over to bullshit. They wanted to go again, but my bud said no,he didn’t think he could beat him. The Mexicans all agreed it was a good race, & then pulled badges, arrested us & had us follow them downtown where they stripped, searched,& relieved us of all our money, & then gave the driver back $5 to get us home. I’ll try to find Gene’s hometown in my bootcamp book.”
Same town, just fast forward to the early 1990′s….
Actually Anissa and I were married in Tijuana. Why you ask? Well, at the time we were broke as a joke– barely keeping a roof on our head. With barely any cash, I dropped the question, she agreed, and we went to the place where shit happens via adventure at an affordable cost– good ol’ T.J.
Once we made it across the border we bought cheapy “es real” silver rings, was married by a dude with gold teeth and a long macho mexican name, and then it starting pouring rain (TJ smells when it rains.) Next my piece of shit pickup truck broke down by the border. Cold, broken down, drenched in the rain… After some tension we got it started again (damn lucky too, as we were down to our last $20, and this truck was a glorious piece of shit– the TMR 80′s Chevy S-10) and made it home in one piece to Hollywood. The curse tried to get us, but we had none of that. After we got home i remember laying in bed thinking “what the fuck did i just do?” Then i just held my girl tight and crashed out for rest.
That was 13 years ago. The piece of shit S-10 pickup was passed on to another TMR brother, in need at the time. The wife– well we’ve kept eachother and im happy about that. Wonder what happened to the gold toothed Senor who married us though?
Here’s a link to my Flickr Vintage Tijuana photo set– cool stuff: http://www.flickr.com/photos/notebooms/sets/72157604186011491/
Viva el Guero de Tijuana!
-scott noteboom
Add comment March 21st, 2008
