It was back in 1970. It wasn’t the first time my father had invited us to spend a weekend in Acapulco. My father was a private pilot and flew a Cessna 185. For this type of trip the question wasn’t “Who are you inviting?” but “Are you inviting Lalo?”

            “Of course, chief,” I said.

            So off we go.

            After an agreeable chat that had the failed intention of waking us up on the way to the Mexico City airport which, if I recall correctly wasn’t called Benito Juárez yet, we finally arrived at the hangars. The custom was to take off before the dawn so that the fog which routinely appears in the Texcoco Valley wouldn’t delay us.

            The plane waited for us inside hangar 6-B. The procedure involved wheeling the aircraft manually out of the hangar. This was accomplished by pushing it, leaning on the part where the wing connected to the fuselage. Well, my friend Lalo decided it would be easier to pull than to push. There we were, the three of us, pushing and pushing, and pulling and pulling, when we hear an “¡Ohhh!” from Lalo. When we got to where he was, he was lying on the floor without his right shoe and his foot miraculously intact. Lalo had been run over by the plane. Neither my father nor I could believe it. Truthfully, we laughed till we peed. We wound up in Acapulco, and my father gave us some dough for shoes for Lalo.

Carlos Pardo