The Big Fight at Loya's Lounge.

I have been a part of the Mexican/Mexican American culture my entire life. I have loved the Mexican people of good heart all of my life. I am many ways more Mexican than I am white and my Mexican friends call me "Gringo con cola prieta", translation, "white boy with a black butt." I have never been prejudiced in a racial sense and I am glad God wired me that way, my only prejudice as it applies to most folks is stupidity, i.e. acting stupidly when other responses are more applicable.

I started grade school in 1954 in Tierra Amarilla, New Mexico at a parochial school where I was one of five white faces in the school. I fought onto the school bus, off of the school bus, into the class room, before and after each recess, lunch and time to go home, the entire time I was there and oh yeah, the nuns slapped me on the knuckles because I wrote with my left hand. I learned at a young age what it meant to be hated because of my race, and it has made me very sensitive to racial issues since then. In 1986 after I lost the election for Sheriff of La Paz County, Arizona, I returned to my home town of Hatch, New Mexico to become re-certified in law enforcement and I worked in that small town for about one and one half years and became re-certified as a police officer. It was not an enjoyable time in my life because we experienced debilitating financial problems, disease that almost took the life of one of my sons, and my precious wife miscarried a child.

The police department was run by a retired Navy Chief who knew little about enforcing the law and was intimidated by the fact that I was more experienced in law enforcement than he. We butted heads continuously until I left because I refused to leave his drunk friends alone when I caught them drunk driving. There was constant contention between he and I.

The particular story I would like to tell involves a Bar called Loya's Lounge. On Saturday and Sunday nights the migrant workers who frequented the bar did so because there would always be a large dance. Invariably there was always a fight, sometimes a big fight that took place in which some of the participants needed medical help. One Saturday night I was working by my self when I received a call to check out a problem at the bar, during a big dance, referencing the fact that a married couple were fighting over a pool game they were playing. I traveled to the bar and luckily the pool table was located near the door and I was able to stop the fight between the married couple and warn them that if I had to return because of them, they would both be jailed. Just as I finished with this couple a fight broke out on the dance floor.

For some unknown reason I forced my way through the crowd to stop the fight between two men. I seperated the two fighters, but suddenly I realized where I was, I was the only white face on the dance floor and all around me stood an untold number of drunk, irritated and malevolent Mexican faces. The fighting commenced with me the guest of honor. Remeniscent of the fight I wrote about in the A-D Saloon, punches began to rain down on my head and body from 360 degrees surrounding me. I began to get pummeled in a serious way, but this time I was not forced off of my feet and I was able to remove my T-stick from my gun belt and began to flail it wildly in an ark, at any person that became to close for my comfort. My stick made contact with many heads in my bid to not be taken down by this dangerous mob. Using the stick I fought my way to the bare front wall of the bar nearest the exit with men punching wildly at me and then I became aware that the knives were coming out.

This particular group of workers were lettuce harvesters and they all carried lettuce cutting knives with long sharp blades, used to cut the head of lettuce from its root when harvesting. When I realized that this fight was indeed becoming serious, I grew more viscious with my stick strikes and trying to disable my multiple assailants with head shots of great strength and intensity. My greatest fear was being taken to the floor and not being able to regain my feet. I continued to try especially hard to punish the knife wielders and so bestowed my most intense effort on them. No matter how I tried I was not able to move all of the way to the door, I was stuck and it appeared that I was not going to prevail in this fight. My stick arm was becoming tired and I was seriously thinking about drawing my side arm and bring this assault to a conclusion.

There is always the danger when in situations such as this that if you draw your sidearm someone might take it away from you and use it on you. Suddenly I felt someone grab the collar of my heavy patrol jacket and literally jerk me off of my feet and then I felt myself being pulled the last few feet through the crowd and out of the front door of Loya's Lounge. I thought it was an attack from behind until I heard a voice say. "You crazy gringo, what the hell were you trying to do in there?" I realized then that my assailant was my savior in the form of my crazy friend New Mexico State Police Officer D. Martinez. Martinez pulled me out into the middle of the street in front of Loya's Lounge and there we both drew our sidearms and pointed them towards the crowd that was boiling out of the bar like a hive of angry knife wielding bees towards us.

Martinez's spanish being better than mine proceeded to tell the combatants that the fight was now over and the first person who took a step towards he and I was dead. The crowd came to a screeching halt and he convinced them to disperse. Most went back into the safety of the bar and others vanished away from us. He and I retreated further towards our parked cars, I caught my breath and Martinez began to laugh at me for getting myself into such a fix. In the mean time we watched as many people were carried out of the bar by others, the victims of the wrath of my stick. I considered the fight to be a draw and I never attempted prosecution of anyone involved. There were just too many of them, and besides I was still in one piece and there were many men leaving for a hospital with broken heads.

This was in a day and in a place where altercations were handled this way, it would not happen this way today. After this fight I never had any trouble again in this bar, sometimes a reputation is a good thing. D. Martinez will have my thanks and loyalty the rest of my life.