The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1936-05-13
Vagabond
from
Indiana
ERNIE PYLE

EDITORS NoTE-This rowing reporter
for The Times goes where he pieases.
when he pleaSes, in search Of odd stories
shout this and that.
TACALA, Mexico. May 13.--When
- American tourists drive up to the
gasoline station just outside OF
Jacala, they usually make some re-
mark in stumbling Spanish and ths
man at the gas station answers IN
English.
Whereupon the tourist will say:
why, you speak pretty good Eng
lish. don't you?"
And the gas station man says:
We'll, I ought to. I've been prac-
ticing it for so years"
That would be Tom Simpson. Tom
lives here. He laughs and says he
is Jacalas foreign colony" He is
the ony foreigner here. There isn't
even a Spaniard in town.
There are quite few Americans
scattered along the new Pan-Amer-
lean Highway from Texas to Mexico
City. Probably dozen or more,
running tourist camps or gas sta
tions or stores. But think Tom
Simpson is the best one.
He has been in Mexico Is years.
He has been back to the States only
once, year after he came to Mexico.
He expects to live here the rest Of
his life.
"VOU stay in a place so long"
Il he says, land it becomes home
to you. This is my home now, and
any place else would seem strange"
Tom Simpson lives in two-story
white stucco house, smack on the
cobbleStone street. There is neither
yard, porch nor step between the
street and his front door.
He has no electric lights or run
ming water. But he has good beds
and good food, and quite a few
books, and an Aladdin lamp and
some rocking chairs, and he is COM
Portable enough when you get used
to it.
Az. 10 dOO0b w. dlAQ WdlAS do
though his feet hurt him. He wears
a strange sun hat in the daytime,
and heavy gray sweater in the
evening. He was all shot up in the
war, but I don't know much about
that.
l like Tom Simpson best of all
because he is the only American I
have met living permanently in
Mexico who has much regard for
the Mexicans.
IT FOUND after I'd been here
Il awhile that most Americans
come down here with the feeling
that they're better than Mexicans,"
he said. But I've never felt that
way. I suppose that's the reason
I've got along so we'll with them"
I like Tom Simpson also because
at first glance you think he's a
sort of hill-bllly rotting away here
in the tropics, and then after awhile
he turns out to be an ex-Army
officer, and a graduate mining en-
gineer, and he uses good English,
and reads lot, and has a very
gentle feeling toward human beings.
He is from Leadville, Colo. He has
been in mining all his life, except
for the Army interval. While he
was away in the war his entire
family died.
II was the last of the Mohicans,"
he said. "And then after the war
couldn't get job Oh, I could
get jobs, but nothing that amounted
to anything. And I was getting
sick of the snow and sleet. So I de-
cided to drift south. That was 1921.
Il landed in Mexico City with
just II pesos, and couldn't speak
a word of Spanish. I ran on to an
American, and he says why don't
you go up to Pachuca? It's only
so miles and it's one of the biggest
mining places in the world. So I
went up there. and got a job, and
stayed there II years"
tom SIMPSON moved to Jacala
l. four years ago. He owns six
silver and gold mines just outside
of town But they aren't running
now. Ali the MexicanS around here
are working on the highway, and
there's no labor for the mines.
AS soon as the highway is finished,
Simpson expects to make some
money. In the meantime he runs
his gas station, and is building a
little adobe hotel near it.
He has been married zine years.
His wife is a fine-looking Mexican
woman. but she seldom shows her.
self.
She has sister who does beauti-
full art needle work-makes pictures
that you couldn't tell from an oil
painting three feet away. Simpson
is very proud of them.
If the gas station does well, and
his mines get going again, Tom
Simpson hopes that in a couple of
years or so he might get a car and
take two-month tour all over the
United States. But he would come
back here.