by Randy Denmon
My elation with everything was dampened a few days after our safe return with the news of a pair of Americans that had come up missing in northern Mexico during the same week we passed through the area.
Harry Devert, a thirty-two-year-old investment trader who’d quit his job in New York to drive his motorcycle down to Brazil for the World Cup on a grand adventure, had come up missing in the Mexican State of Michoacán. Tragically, there was not a happy ending to this story, but unlike most south of the border, there was at least some closure. Largely due to the brave and unrelenting efforts of Harry’s mom, Ann, the story was widely covered in both the Mexican and American press. Six months after his disappearance, Harry’s body was found dumped on a rural plot in plastic bags. What little information has surfaced suggests he was likely a victim of the cartels. Traveling through a small, out-of-the-way town, he may have been falsely mistaken for someone else.
The second was James Robert Stacy who disappeared on a rural road about one hundred miles south of the Texas border as he drove home after visiting his girlfriend in San Louis Potosi. His last communication was with a friend by cell phone, “I’m being followed by two white trucks with armed men and I’m scared.” James’s bank account was subsequently drained using his ATM card, but his whereabouts are still unknown. Our thoughts and prayers are with James’s family. Hopefully, he’ll surface.
In fact, it wasn’t a good year for Americans in Mexico. In 2014, more than two hundred gringos were kidnapped, almost half in the border region south of Texas—an unfathomable number when you consider the tiny number of Americans dumb enough to brave the area.
But we were very lucky—the gods of fortune had shined on us. Harry and James’s heartbreaking stories remind me of the magnitude of our accomplishment. And my satisfaction with our trip still thrills me daily. In my bathroom, I have a list of quotes on the wall that my mother gave me. One is by H. Jackson Brown, an advertising agent who wrote Life’s Little Instruction Book:
Be bold and courageous. When you look back on your life, you’ll regret the things you didn’t do more than the things you did.
I also have a book on my desk by Sonny Barger, the legendary biker and Hell’s Angel, titled, Freedom. Sonny is likely at the other end of the social stratum from Mr. Brown. I’ve never read the book. Somebody gave it to me, but it has one of his quotes on the back cover that I love. Seems we all have a few things in common:
Customize yourself. Originals don’t come off an assembly line.