Both Shabazz and I had visas to enter the United States. The reason we were traveling by bus was because of my fear of airplanes. I remember thinking on that long, long bus trip, three to four days, how much rougher it would have been before the Escarcega road, and how cruel a trip it would have been for all those thousands and thousands of Belizeans who had traveled by bus from Chetumal to Tijuana without American visas through the years. These would be Belizeans who were intending to cross the American border illegally, Tijuana being the favorite border crossing then, and even now.

I?ve heard stories of Belizeans who made that Chetumal to Tijuana trip several times before getting across the Rio Grande. In other words, they would travel three/four days on buses, get busted in Tijuana, locked down and deported, and then try all over again.

I remember thinking how rough the trip was for me, and I was sure to cross legally at Tijuana. What a ride that would be when you didn?t even know if you were going to make it! When I had left Belize at 18 to fly to New York City in 1965, I really didn?t know that much about Mexico north of Chetumal. I suppose I had been to Bacalar. But that?s as far.

In British Honduras/Belize in the early 1960?s, we had heard quite a bit about Merida, because many older Belizeans had travelled there for specialist medical treatment. In those days in Belize, we had marvelous nurses, but our doctors were really terrible. So Merida was the key health option.

As a child growing up in the 1950?s, I had a maternal uncle who had a motorcycle, Norton brand, which he would use to ride to Chetumal. Now when ?Payo Bispo? became ?Chetumal,? I can?t say, but Chetumal in the 1960?s was still just a little town. Wasn?t much happening in Chetumal, not like nowadays. You wouldn?t go to Chetumal for medical attention in the 1960?s. That?s my point. By the way, as late as 1971 when Galento X Neal and I rode a motorcycle to Corozal to check out the early stats on Misheck Mawema (he?d recently landed there from Rhodesia), that trip was five hours and a whole ton of white marl. Rocky road north.

As a child and teenager, I was sheltered. The world of the streets was unknown to me, except for what I could see and hear at Rick?s Club and Rick?s Bar across Bolton Bridge from where I lived. My street education began in 1969 after UBAD was formed. The man who schooled me was the late Charles X ?Justice? Eagan, later Ibrahim Abdullah.

Running around with Justice between 1969 and 1971, and with Ray Lightburn between 1975 and 1977, I picked up bits and pieces (yeah) of how four men from Belize roamed Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico during the rugged colonial days of the post-World War II forties and fifties. All four men are dead now, so I can entertain you with some of their story. (The last time I told a little of this story was more than twenty years ago. All four were still alive, and one of the four ? Rupert ?Babush? Cain, went to my parents and made a big fuss.)

I meant no harm, but there are reasons some men feel that their stories should not be told, no matter how entertaining. One of those four men, C.L.B. Rogers, rose as high as Deputy Prime Minister of Belize.

During the 1969 general election campaign, the Opposition NIPDM (a coalition of the National Independence Party and the People?s Development Movement) circulated a leaflet with Rogers? FBI record. Rogers was running as the PUP candidate for Mesopotamia, a seat he had won in 1961 and 1965. (In 1958 or 1959, Rogers had won election to the Belize City Council as a candidate for the NIP, but then he moved over to the PUP in time to win the Mesopotamia seat in the 1961 general elections, the first run, I think, under the Ministerial constitution.)

Rogers had an FBI record because he had entered the United States illegally as a stowaway along with Rupert Cain, Justice Eagan and Reynaldo ?Tata Tiddle? Smith. How many times this happened, I can?t say. (They would stowaway on ships in port in Honduras and Guatemala.) While detained in Alabama jail one time, Rogers attacked a prison guard who was abusing an inmate. So there were more federal charges.

The FBI leaflet backfired badly on the NIPDM. Rogers went on the rostrum at Courthouse Wharf and explained to the people of the old capital how the FBI record came about, and the roots people rallied to his support.

It was following that election of December 1969 that Rogers became the highest ranking black leader in the ruling People?s United Party, replacing Albert Cattouse, Sr., who then retired. The biggest problem he had to meet was the UBAD (formed in February 1969), and so the battle began. There is more to this story. Same place, some other time.