PRESERVING THE HISTORY OF THE GUADALAJARA ERA

The letter below, along with a related story, will appear in the April 2012 issue of the Paralyzed Veterans of America's PN Magazine. Anyone interested in helping preserve the history of this unique moment and place in time is encouraged to contact me with any ideas or assistance that they wish to offer.

Thanks, Jack

TO THE EDITOR:

I first wrote to PN in August 2003 looking for info about and photos of the early Explorers and Pioneers of the Guadalajara Era (Mid-50's to Mid-80's), those paras and quads who first went to Mexico looking for freedom, independence and a second chance at life. I received valuable feedback, including info and photos which, combined with permission to peruse the Paraplegic News achieves, numerous interviews as well as my own experiences living in Guadalajara ('72 to '81, with many extended visits throughout the eighties and early nineties) allowed me to write and publish QUADALAJARA --- The Utopia That Once Was.

Since I believe this story is worth preserving--possibly in documentary form--I'm once again writing to PN in hopes that others, who may feel the same and have ideas (or the expertise) to keep the story from fading from history, might be interested in working with me on this project.

If interested, please view my website and/or contact me via http://www.quadmexico.com/ or email QuadMexico@aol.com.

Thanks, Jack Tumidajski

THE MEN - VIEW BRANDO'S 1950 CLASSIC MOVIE ABOUT WWII PARAPLEGICS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urpLp8SvQEA&feature=related

TEQUILA WORM - FACT OF FICTION???

Is the tequila worm fact of fiction?

Kinda, Tequila is made from fermented cactus from a specific part of Mexico called Tequila. As far as I know it was never common practice to bottle tequila with a worm in the bottle. Mescal on the other hand, is a liquor very similar to tequila also made from fermented cactus. Originally when mescal was being made the people would put a worm into the fermenting product to determine if it had a high enough alcohol content yet. If the worm died it meant the mescal was done, if it lived it meant that it needed to ferment further. The dead worm would be left in the bottle and it was tradition that the person who finished the bottle had to eat the worm. Some modern mescal producers still put a worm in the bottle. (Source: WikiAnswers)

http://www.quadmexico.com/

MY SON

The cute little guy with the cute puppy in the cute photo is referred to as my "Son" in his pics because..."Within 24 hours, Maria had gone into labor, had her child, and was discharged from the Hospital Civil, where many poor women gave birth, and returned home with her baby boy. I saw Armando for the first time on my 25th birthday. My girl had just come home from the hospital on my birthday with a new son--only Maria was not "My Girl." (From page 101, QUADALAJARA - The Utopia That Once Was)

I had been in Guadalajara since early March, and as the year drew to a close, I had a decision to make. I wanted to return to Rhode Island to visit my family. I knew that Mom liked the idea that Maria and I were a couple, and Armando completed our little family. Maybe Mom harbored the same wish as Maria --- that we would marry?

My other option did not include Maria or Armando. I could visit my family taking Alberto along as my attendant. I wasn't sure how long my relationship with Maria would last. And marriage was not in my plans. I thought constantly about what would be best, not for me, not for Maria, but for Armando. I was definitely more concerned with my eight and a half month old boy than either his mother or myself. I also thought that maybe what would be best for Armando and Maria would be to reunite them both with Maria's daughter Elizabeth. I had only met Elizabeth briefly when Maria's father brought her to Guadalajara looking for his own daughter. The inquisitive then two and a half year old me pregunto, "Tio Jass, donde compro su bicicleta?" I guess that to a toddler, there wasn't all that much difference between a wheelchair and a bicycle Maybe she understood that better than most grownups?

I again asked Reverend Hunter to stop by the house. I was certain that he would give me good counsel --- even though I was aware of his reputation for playing cupid, for encouraging many quads to opt for the ready-made family.

As things turned out, Reverend Hunter and I were on the same page. He pointed out that obtaining a visa for Maria and two children would be next to impossible. We agreed that reuniting her family, at some point, would be best for them all. He didn't push the ready-made family option, probably being able to read me better than I realized....

...I took Maria and Armando to the bus station on January 2, 1974 for a one way trip back to Tijuana. Back to her family and daughter Elizabeth. Although I was still in denial and refused to believe the rumors and gossip, I said good-bye to my pretty senorita in a similar fashion as the condition she was in when I first laid eyes on her back in March.

Maria gave birth to her second son --- seven months later!"
(From pages 111,112 - QUADALAJARA - The Utopia That Once Was)

(Personal Note: I thought about my "Son" often over the next year or so. Did I do the right thing? What would become of him? Memories fade over time to the point that you barely think of important times in the past. In 2000, I received a phone call from one of my sisters. Maria had called my family home inquiring about me. A brief reunion took place about a week later. Then I learned that my "Son" was now a school teacher in a neighboring state. Sometimes we do make the right decisions! :)

http://www.quadmexico.com/

Twitter: @QuadalajaraJack

SIX TUMIDAJSKI BROTHERS SERVE IN WORLD WAR II

(Back row L to R - John (Army), Stanley (Army), Joe (Marines), Adam (Army), Matt (Army) and Charles (Navy)

Pawtucket Times, July 6, 1944 - The six Tumidajski brothers, sons of Mrs.Victoria Tumidajski of 100 Raymond Ave, are threatening Japan and Germany in three branches of the service.

One is already in the Southwest Pacific and another is serving on a ship on the high seas.

When Storekeeper First Class Charles Tumidajski, 23, enlisted in the Navy back in October,1940, Pearl Harbor was still more than a year away. Mrs. Tumidajski had an easy time keeping track of his whereabouts in the service.

She had watched Charles graduate from Pawtucket East High School and Bryant College before becoming a clerk at the R.I. Lumber Company in East Providence.

When Charles enlisted, his mother didn't know that some day five (of her other seven sons) would also be in the service. Then the Japs struck at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7,1941.

Corporal Joseph Tumidajski, Jr, 25, didn't wait for his induction call and enlisted in the branch which causes terror to the Japs--the Marines--in January,1942. He went into the service with a thorough knowledge of teamwork learned from his experiences playing amateur football, softball and baseball. He had been employed by the Newman Crosby Steel Corporation.

On Nov. 4, 1942, Mrs. Tumidajski bade two other sons Goodbye. Sgt. Adam Tumisdajski, 29, went on California desert maneuvers with an armored tank division. He was formerly employed by the General Ice Cream Corporation.

Leaving with him was Sgt. Stanley Tumidajski, 33, a former employee of General Cable Corporation, who became a member of the Armored Tank Division in California.

Two days before the first anniversary of Pearl Harbor, Private First Class John Tumidajski, 31, went off to the field artillery at Camp Jackson, SC, where he was asigned after his induction on Dec. 5, 1942. He graduated from East High in 1931, where he participated in football. He was formerly employed by the General Cable Corporation as a wire worker.

The last son to leave for service was Pvt. Matthew Tumidajski, 21, who was inducted in Sept, 1943, and is now attached to the Medic Corps at Camp Grant, III.

The mother of these six soldiers is just marking time until another son, Walter, 38, leaves. He was recently classified as I-A (meaning he's next to go in the draft).

EPILOGUE: the sons all came home from the war and are now deceased, according to family friend Tom Lutz. "They still have relatives living the Bishop's Bend section of Pawtucket" Lutz said.

DISABLED VET PAYS TRIBUTE TO 'QUADALAJARA'

Buddy Pinsonnault (from Plattsburg, NY) arrived in Quadalajara circa 1970, Jack Tumidajski (Pawtucket, RI) 1972, Tom Kirch (Kellog, MN) circa 1963, Bill Baily (Baker, OR) 1958 and JoAnn Raway Kirch (Hastings, MN) 1964. Five friends of a group of some twenty Quadalajara residents enjoying un dia de campo at the popular picnic grounds of Chimulco--some 15 miles outside the city.

Disabled Vet Pays Tribute to 'Quadalajara'

Dennis Wagner

The Arizona Republic

Nov. 11, 2007

Jack Tumidajski rolls his wheelchair up to the desk at his Glendale house and gazes at faded photographs of men in wheelchairs laughing and partying in Mexico.

He lets the images draw him back in time to a place nicknamed "Quadalajara."

"The city was just waiting for us," he recalls dreamily. "A utopia waiting to be discovered. . . . It gave us a second chance at life.

"The year was 1972. Tumidajski, a Vietnam vet whose spine was severed in a traffic accident while he was on leave, had languished in his room at his parents' home for months with no hope for the future.

There were thousands like him across the nation. Before World War II, patients with broken necks seldom lived through the initial trauma and nearly always died within a couple of years because of complications. With medical advancements, however, quadriplegics like Tumidajski became survivors, often wasting away in institutions or as shut-ins with family. Decades later, the Iraq war also would produce thousands of casualties with spinal or brain injuries, but soldiers would receive more medical, social and vocational support.

During the years following World War II, recalls the 59-year-old Tumidajski, "You had a new segment of society with no place to go. Live in a room, watch TV, have family members take care of you. . . For so many guys, and a few gals, there were no options."

And then word spread about this place south of the border, Guadalajara, a haven for non-walking wounded veterans. Guys could live cheap, soak up sun and drink tequila. The flat terrain was ideal for wheelchairs. And, as a bonus, Mexican women weren't put off by crippled soldiers.

Tumidajski, then 24, caught a plane and found himself at what the vets referred to as "gimp camps." For most of the next decade, the Rhode Island native lived in Guadalajara along with countless hundreds of other refugees. They played cards together, partied together, relied on one another.

Their lifestyle was sensationalized in the Oliver Stone film Born on the Fourth of July, drawn from just a few pages of Ron Kovic's autobiography by the same name. The movie focused on debauchery in a community of wheelchair jockeys portrayed as philanderers and drunks. Mexican women were depicted as whores.

Tumidajski shakes his head. That is not what he remembers, not what he describes in his own book, Quadalajara: The Utopia That Once Was, released last year. The 394-page volume was written to honor disabled vets who created a haven of hope, Tumidajski says.

It is a personal reflection but also the lone historical record to debunk Hollywood's tawdry myth. "I wanted to preserve that moment in time. The only living record is encapsulated in that movie, and it's a distortion."

Tumidajski, who has limited use of his arms and hands, typed the book using a stick, pecking letters one by one on his computer keyboard.

The story opens with a 19-year-old U.S. Army enlistee contemplating life while on a military flight to South Vietnam in April of 1968. It is not a war story: Tumidajski came under enemy fire only once.

A year later, he was on leave at his home in Pawtucket, R.I., riding in a friend's Volkswagen on a night out. The car fishtailed out of control and struck a utility pole. Tumidajski's vertebrae were crushed, his body numbed from the neck down.

He spent 23 months in hospitals, enduring bed sores, surgeries, complications, therapy, and training on how to use a wheelchair. Then he faced the grim life of a quad, at his parents' home, watching endless soap operas, trying to be upbeat in a world of gloom.

"I just sat there in my bedroom," Tumidajski recalls. "What am I going to do with the rest of my life, try to invent the next board game?"

In the summer of 1971, a hospital buddy named Vinnie talked incessantly about a colony in Guadalajara, established years earlier by a handful of disabled vets from World War II and Korea. Most subsisted on Veterans Administration compensation, Social Security checks or other types of fixed income. Living on $500 a month, Vinnie said, a quad could rent a room, hire an attendant and live la vida dulce south of the border.

"You can go just about anywhere, and if you come across some steps, just say: 'Hey, kid, you want to make a peso?' There's always someone around willing to help you out."

Tumidajski gave it a try in 1972 and found an enclave of brothers wounded in body and soul yet full of vigor. To this day, he seems unclear whether they left the United States in search of adventure, to escape sympathetic stares or to reinvent themselves.

"It was a second chance at life," he says simply. "I found I could be independent. I was in an environment that was full of opportunity."

Tumidajski does not dispute that women were part of the attraction. Although some men found prostitutes, he says, more fell in love with young ladies who were hired to assist them with daily life.

Tumidajski tells of his own girlfriends, hinting at the difficult and important sexual rediscovery for men traumatized by paralysis.

He says these were genuine relationships with Mexican women who seemed to have an uncommon empathy.

"People who have known suffering - from poverty, for example - they're more accepting of others who have had misfortune," he says. "Down there, you were a gringo first, and you were a guy in wheelchair second."

The vets organized themselves under the Mexico chapter of Paralyzed Veterans of America, which served as a social and philanthropic club. Tumidajski says he became heavily involved in part because he felt awkward as a non-combatant quad among so many who had been wounded in warfare. Public service, he says, was a way to honor their sacrifice.

Life south of the border was not perfect. American food and other products were hard to come by. Phones didn't work. One of the Paralyzed Veterans events was hit by robbers. But the gringos, emancipated in wheelchairs, proved resourceful.

They might still be there, Tumidajski says, if times hadn't changed.

In Guadalajara, the cost of living escalated. In the United States, laws and social acceptance created new opportunities for the disabled. They could get degrees, find careers, fit in.

One by one, they headed north. Tumidajski followed others in 1981, migrating to Arizona for warmth and accessibility.

Still a bachelor, he lives with retired caregiver Miguel Lopez, who has assisted him for more than two decades. Tumidajski has contact with one old vet from the era who still lives in Mexico.

"Memories were all that remained: memories of getting a second chance in life," Tumidajski wrote in his book. "Memories of a unique place in a unique time - Quadalajara."

http://www.quadmexico.com/

BRANDO'S 'THE MEN' --- HOLLYWOOD'S FIRST LOOK AT PARAPLEGIA

Sixty years ago a relatively unknown actor named Marlon Brando helped Hollywood introduce to the general public a relatively unknown segment of society--paraplegics. The unveiling of Hollywood newcomer, Brando, and these newest members of society took place on the Big Screen in the 1950 hit movie, The Men.

The Men served to launch Brando's film career but, more importantly, introduced movie-goers to the men--the earliest survivors of a catastrophic injury that most people had never heard of--spinal cord injury (SCI). Indeed, fellow actor and co-star, Richard Erdman (Leo in The Men) admits to asking a leading doctor of SCI at the time, Dr. Ernest Bors, why Erdman had never heard of a paraplegic--the very role he was about to play. The answer: there were none. At least until the war when doctors like Bors, with the discovery of antibiotics, helped keep spinal cord injured World War II veterans as well as civilian paraplegics alive longer than their pre-war life expectancy of eighteen months.

There are countless movie reviews of The Men on the Internet and elsewhere; copies of the movie are also available there.

The movie itself takes place at the Birmingham VA Hospital in Van Nuys, CA. Interestingly, approximately forty-five actual paraplegic patients take part in the movie--mostly as extras but a number with speaking/acting parts. Speaking of 'firsts', the movie-going public is also introduced to a newly-formed veterans' organization--The Paralyzed Veterans Association (PVA). In 1946, paralyzed veterans were organizing what would eventually evolved into one national organization--known today as the Paralyzed Veterans of America, with chapters in SCI centers in the Birminham VA, the Bronx VA, East Halloran General Hospital (Staten Island, NY), Saint Albans Naval Hospital (Long Island, NY), Hines VA Hospital (Chicago area), McGuire VA Hospital (Richmond, Virginia), Kennedy (Memphis, TN) and Cushing (Framington, MA).

In February 1947, delegates from seven of the existing chapters (Cushing couldn't finance the trip) met at the Hines VA Hospital Vaughan Unit for the first convention of the Paralyzed Veterans Association of America. PVA pioneer Gilford S. Moss (Vaughan Chapter) who sent out a letter calling for the formation of a national organization became the group's first president. Also present among PVA's 'Founding Delegates' were Robert Moss (no relation to Gilford, who would follow as PVA's second president), Donald P. Coleman, Joseph Gusmeroli, George Holmann, Fred Smead, Walter Suchanof, Alex Mihalchyk, Harold Peterson, William Day Jr., Marcus Orr, Kenneth Seaquist, Eldred Beebe, Joseph Gillette, Alfred Gore, and Harold Sharper.

The birth of PVA, along with connecting paraplegics from across the country, also served to bring them together through the organization's national magazine, the Paraplegia News. Every PVA member from New England to Southern California received this monthly periodical with information on everything from new medical breakthroughs to legislation concerning benefits for these newest battlefield survivors to news from other chapters of PVA.

The four principal paraplegic parts in The Men were played by able-bodied actors Brando, Erdman, Jack Webb (of TV's Dragnet fame) and paraplegic Arthur Jurado. Interestingly, The Men, using paraplegics to play the part of paraplegics would be a novel idea--if it took place today. Sadly, some segments of society still have to wait in 'the back of the bus'.

Besides Jurado, hospital patients who had speaking/acting rolls in the firm included Pat Grissom (himself), Randall Updyke III (Baker), Tom Gillick (Fine), Carlo Lewis (Gunderson), Ray Mitchell (Thompson), Pete Simon (Mullin), Paul Peltz (Hopkins), Marshall Ball (Romano), William Lea Jr. (Walter), Obie Parker (The Lookout) and Sam Gilman (uncredited). Bud Woziak (who, according to Turner Movie Classics, was used as the model for Brando's character) joined Ted Anderson, Pat Grissom, Pete Simon and Herbert Wolf as the film's technical advisors.

For those who haven't seen The Men: boy (Lieutenant Ken 'Bud' Wilozek played by Marlon Brando) meets girl (Ellen played by Teresa Wright), boy goes off to war--but not before proposing to girl, boy takes a bullet in the back while on patrol, boy finds himself paralyzed, boy shows up in Birmingham VA SCI unit still unable to deal with his paralysis one year later, girl who is still waiting for boy to 'recover' asks to see him, boy and girl resume dating ritual, boy marries girl and they move into their own home, boy and girl have marital issues and boy returns to hospital to live, boy lashes out and fellow patients--PVA Board members --vote to kick his butt out, boy and girl reconcile and live happily ever after...maybe.

The film enlightened movie-goers in 1950 and still has unique educational value today. Many of the situations dealt with in the movie still apply: adjusting to a catastrophic injury, rehabilitation, relationships--or lack thereof, camaraderie and veteran helping fellow veteran, and the sometimes difficult reality of rejoining a society that only recently appears ready to accept its differently-abled citizens. Unless you are a paraplegic or quadriplegic, have a family member or friend with SCI, or work in the rehab field, chances are you'll gain a substantial amount of understanding from viewing The Men.

Aside from dealing with most issues that newly injured paraplegics (and quadriplegics--no distinction in the movie) are faced with today, what would become of the men? Although Brando's character makes his way out of the safe confines of the Birmingham VA Hospital and starts a new life in a world not yet ready to receive him, what would become of the others? We know that Angel (Arthur Jurado's character), the super para who was preparing for discharge to rejoin his family, tragically takes ill and dies. What of the others? In 1950, no one knew. Many assumed a cure would certainly be found.

Those who viewed The Men may have gotten the impression that all the paraplegics would finish rehab--except for those who died from their injuries or an isolated illness--and be discharged into the world that Brando's character showed was not prepared to accept them.
The film shows how difficult it was for the first paraplegics to rejoin society. Leaving the hospital and going out into the 'real' world was, with no blueprint or path to follow, an unimaginable challenge--even for the good shape paraplegic. What about the quadriplegics, paralyzed from the chest down, sometimes with limited or no use of their hands and arms? Wilozek, at least, was a low-level para able to function independently--almost--with a few physical hurdles (steps) to overcome and a loving wife to support him. What about those paraplegics and quadriplegics who lived in the Northeast or Midwest? How many barriers besides steps and cold weather did they have to overcome? These were the true pioneers--the men who would take charge in uncharted waters and lead the way.

The earliest battlefield survivors of paraplegia were being treated and given therapy in the infancy of this new and challenging area of medicine by, in most cases, doctors, nurses, and therapists with relatively no prior experience in the field of SCI. Paraplegia was as new to the hospital staff as it was to their newest patients.

Despite the best efforts of the newly-formed veterans service organization, including securing automobile and housing grants for its members, slow progress was being made in crucial areas. A cure for SCI proved elusive. Although some paras and quads were fortunate to live in warmer regions of the country that were also more accessible than those where stairs and cold, oftentimes snowy weather, made getting out and about extremely difficult. Sitting in a wheelchair looking out the window at a foot of snow along with freezing temperature for months can be quite depressing. Not to mention the fact that, for so many young men who rehabbed successfully, once the snow cleared and the weather warmed, there where few places to go that didn't have steps. Architectural barriers remained in place for years. Attitudinal barriers even longer! The uncomfortable stares from strangers that Brando's character experienced in the restaurant scene were commonplace back then. Human nature? Societal change and 'acceptance' came slowly for most disabled citizens. But for wheelchair users, the most obviously disabled, it took longer.

It's no wonder that so many paralyzed veterans--especially the more dependent quadriplegics--rarely left the hospital and never went home. Who would care for them? What about those whose families lived on the second floor of a multi-family tenement?

Options for a life after SCI for many were limited. For every independent paraplegic Bud Wilocek type who lived in Southern California there was a caregiver dependent Christopher Reeve type quadriplegic stuck in a Hines VA hospital in the Windy City looking out the window wondering about the future.

Twenty years after the release of The Men, there were still "homesteaders", as some discharged paras and quads referred to them, living in VA hospital SCI centers--many patients who never went home or ever intended to!

As the PVA continued to evolve, chapters were being formed from Puerto Rico--as far from PVA's birthplace of Chicago's Hines VA Hospital as could be imagined, to serve the many veterans who sacrificed so much in Uncle Sam's Army--to Guadalajara, Mexico for the many spinal cord injured veterans who were wiling to 'roll the dice' and leave behind snow, cold weather and staring out the window, wondering...

While many injured veterans lived out their final years wasting away in VA hospitals afraid to face the outside world, a number of the men decided to explore the exotic notion of checking out this place in Mexico that a number of their hospital buddies spoke so highly of. By the mid-1950's, there were reports of and by paraplegic veterans exploring and visiting places in Mexico. Although most of these initial stories appeared in articles in PVA's Paraplegia News, word of mouth spread in VA hospitals and civilian care centers from New England to New York to Chicago and on to Southern California where a steady pipeline of wheelchair users--both veteran and non-veteran men and a few women--continued to swell the ranks of those desperate and/or adventurous enough to gamble their future happiness--or lack thereof--on this intriguing 'South of the Border' option.

By 1964, there were so many paraplegic and quadriplegic veterans now living in and around the city of Guadalajara that they petitioned national PVA for a chapter in Mexico. The Mexico Chapter would go on to serve veterans, non-vets and the local community for the next twenty years.

Thanks to the ground work laid, and selfless sacrifice of so many paralyzed veterans over the last sixty-five years, the Paralyzed Veterans of America is today a first class veterans service organization with thirty-four chapters operating throughout the United States and Puerto Rico.

For anyone interested in an entertaining and educational film about the earliest survivors of a catastrophic injury whose cure has eluded the world's top medical researchers for decades, you just might want to take another look at The Men.

________________________

Rarely seen and newly 'discovered' photos of Brando on the set at the Birmingham VA Hospital (1950)

http://www.life.com/gallery/46182#index/17