What's goin' on now??? Boy, right here in my crib waiting till around one pm. I will head into Coxen Hole, our municipalidad, and pay my 2012 municipal tax payment as this is prerequisite to our getting a building permit for a new home me and my guys will build out at Palmetto Bay.
We almost always have projects going on, but this end of 2011 and into the new year has seen us unemployed. This a rarity which none of us are crazy about. I guess not an unusual trend considering what they have been calling such an economic downturn worldwide which has been going on quite some time. We also can't forget that to the investigative eye taking the time to look into Honduras facts, this country has been getting alot of bad press in the last months which doesn't exactly behoove someone to wanna invest down here. Although the islands are separated geographically and culturally from mainland Central America we have seen many unwanted changes on our landscape as well. But the cruise ship visitors seem to always love their four hour sojourns here when compared to other stops on their itenerary. Alot of recent investment here reflect that many of these same visitors make a return visit of longer duration with just that in mind. So let's see how it goes. I will hope we can break ground next Monday.
During this lull in the action I have some time on my hands.
Where I live at present is an apartment which was constructed a stone's throw from the beach, and not hard for me to take. An expat friend of mine built these two rustic three plexes on this piece of Sandy Bay beach back in the 90's. He christened his homestead "Ship's Inn".
Arthur John Campos retired here back in those days after leading a colorful and actionfilled life in Central California where he was born. In the late 80's his nephew Steve became employed here in Honduras with some botanical oriented work on the mainland and then over here on the island. Uncle Art made a visit and fell in love. The rest is history. He put what he had together and built his little tropical kingdom and settled in. A fixture around here is what he became in the best sense. Mixing street smarts with compassion and a big heart Arturo treated everyone well and equal as long as you were straight with him. Having put in 18 years in the San Jose PD he was not someone you could bs by any stretch. His Mexican American ancestory also prepared him to communicate on all levels, whether local English speaking islander or mainland Spanish speaking transplant.
His bigger than life persona and rumbling laugh was contagious. A life long music lover of all genres, he saw all the greats of the blues, as well as classic late sixties into the seventies "hippy" days. He reminiced on a number of occasions the impact of seeing Jimmy Reed live in Visalia honky tonks in the early sixties. As the years of that era moved on to the '67 "summer of love" he and his homies would roll into SF to the Fillmore Auditorium and it was on!!!! You name the group of that era and he'd seen them. Joplin, Hendrix, Santana, CCR, Pink Floyd...... name'em.
I remember his unabashed joy a few years back when he scored the CD "Super Sessions" by Al Kooper featuring guitarists Mike Bloomfield and Stephen Stills from an expat down in West End. The sounds which he hadn't heard for decades. I burned him a copy from the original on my little Gateway before he had to return it. He wore that CD out on his truck stereo. You could hear the lines of "Season of the Witch" being belted out on the stereo and Arturo's personal accompanyment as his Dodge truck rolled in to Ship's Inn from a little nightime hiatus down to the West End nightlife. After pulling into his parking spot he remained inside savoring the notes until the songs' eleven minutes duration had elapsed, whereupon he would exit his vehicle with a little war whoop "oy-oy-oooy!!!"
Don Arturo is no longer with us having passed onto tropical heaven a few years back, but I still feel his presence here.
