“Pancho Villa’s Air Force”

It is amazing who you meet at the beach. Learning I had written “Dos Gringos,” a book set in The Mexican Revolution, a nice woman introduced me to her friend saying the friend’s father was involved with building an air force for Pancho Villa.  The father was Frank Wallace, one of those adventurous aviation pioneers during the wild days before, during, and after WW I. Wallace’s story is full of thrills and survival. His first flight was at the age of eleven when his foot caught in the rope of a hot-air balloon which hauled him up, ankle first over Bellingham, Washington. They pulled him into the basket, but the crowd thought it was part of the show and so he continued to do it, for money.

No, Pancho Villa never had an “air force” as badly as he wanted airplanes to bomb the Federáles. But, there was no shortage of money for this after all the banks were robbed.  It was Frank Wallace who was involved to get these planes, but it all fell through as much seemed to do for all sides, and the money into various pockets. Villa had an American or two flying reconnaissance for him at times, but neither the airplanes or the pilots lasted for long. That’s a bigger story. The photo above is of the famous Curtiss JN-4 “Jenney” used by the fledging American forces to chase Villa after he invaded New Mexico.

In his flying life Wallace knew them all– Glenn Curtiss, Jimmy Doolittle, Charles Lindbergh, Howard Hughes, and Henry Ford and was a member of the esoteric Quiet Birdmen society. He soloed at Curtiss’ North Island School in March, 1911, then barnstormed and flew in Mexico, South America, Italy, Poland, and Costa Rica.  His story, and voluminous notes are compiled in a draft by his daughter JoAnne Rowan who shared the stories with me.

Buy a copy of “Dos Gringos”  here.

Pancho Villa in “Dos Gringos”

Readers of “Dos Gringos” know that the infamous Pancho Villa is not a major character in the story. But surely his side of The Mexican Revolution is very much there, and represented by “The Hawk” who personifies the spirit of the revolution and is the savior of the common man for young Tomás. Villa killed his first man at 16, a man who had raped his younger sister. He worked in the mines near Parral, Chihuahua, where much of the “Dos Gringos” story takes place. He soon tired of the laborer’s life and added bank robbery to cattle rustling and murder on the list of crimes for which he was wanted by the Díaz government.

He  joined Francisco Madero’s revolutionary forces, thereby making a historical transition from bandido to revolucionario. The charismatic figure was able to recruit an army of thousands. Villa also became something of a folk hero in the U.S, and Hollywood filmmakers as well as U.S. newspaper photographers flocked to Northern Mexico to record his battle exploits–many of which were staged for the benefit of the cameras. Villa ruled over northern Mexico like a medieval warlord. During fiestas the mustachioed legend would dance all night with female camp followers, although he didn’t drink. According to one of Villa’s last surviving widows, he officially married 26 times.

He attacked Juarez and my Norwegian grandmother, after she and my grandfather moved there to be near my newly wedded father, told me of Villa’s cannon ball landing in her front yard, which I remember was a quite small piece of ground.

In 1923 he was assassinated while returning from bank business in Parral. Today Villa is remembered with pride by most Mexicans for having led the most important military campaigns of the constitutionalist revolution. Don’t underestimate the respect his name still garners in Mexico. If Villa in not personally in “Dos Gringos,” his spirit surely is.

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German Texans in the “Dos Gringos” Story

Beautiful Pauline in El Paso, Texas, is the love interest of Arthur, the immigrant Norwegian mechanical expert who in “Dos Gringos” risks his life to raise a few dollars to buy a wedding ring. He volunteers, with his Irish partner, in the midst of The Mexican Revolution, to fix a gold mine in that warring country. Pauline comes from a German Texas family.

The history of the German immigration into Texas is a fascinating story. They came during the mid 19^th century for various reasons, mainly to escape the wars between Germany and France, and to find a new life. They settled mainly as farmers and small businessmen in their settlements, mainly around San Antonio and Austin, which have later produced some notable leaders, like Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, of Fredericksburg, who led the U.S. Navy in the Pacific in World War II.  New Braunfels, Schulenburg,  Boerne, are a few of the many other German Texas towns.

The immigrants were of all faiths, but mainly Catholics and Lutherans. But there were also Jews and these German Texas Jews and their major El Paso hardware store figure largely in the “Dos Gringos” story.  

The Pauline Müller character is based on my mother who came from a line of Germans, originally from Alsace and the Rhine Valley, ranging back to the 1600s. Family names included Keller, Fest, Curlin, Bihl, and others.  In reading “Dos Gringos” you learn a little European/American immigration history, too.

Enjoy.

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The El Paso Times reports on “Dos Gringos”

Ramón Rentería of  The  El Paso Times wrote: “Fred R. Andresen recounts the early life of his Norwegian immigrant father in “Dos Gringos,” an action-adventure novella set in El Paso and the ore-rich mountains of Chihuahua in 1916, as the Mexican Revolution still flared.”

Renteria summarized, “… a penniless Norwegian and an Irish drifter meet in an El Paso bar, where a Pittsburgh con man hires them to fix a gold mine in Mexico. Andresen’s easy, quick read also touches on other historical aspects of intrigue during the Revolution: spies, gunrunners, and Germans in Mexico determined to try to keep the United States out of World War I.”

“Andresen, an international businessman was born and raised in El Paso. He grew up in…a brick house in the desert north of El Paso, where his father worked for many years as an expert machinist with El Paso Natural Gas Co.”

His first book, “Walking on Ice: An American Businessman in Russia,” a collection of essays based on six years he spent working in Russia, was widely praised.

 For the whole article please see http://www.elpasotimes.com/ci_15285818?IADID=Search-www.elpasotimes.com-www.elpasotimes.com

Buy a copy of “Dos Gringos”  here.

“The Zimmermann Telegram” and The Mexican Revolution

 One of my favorite books is Barbara Tuchman’s “The Zimmermann Telegram,” about Kaiser Germany’s wild attempt to keep America out of World War I. The Americans were quite happy with their isolation from all that death and destruction in Europe. But, we were shipping guns and supplies to England and the Kaiser didn’t want to pull America into the war by torpedoing one of our ships. So Zimmermann, the Foreign Secretary for the German Empire, sent a telegram to the German Ambassador in Mexico City, via Washington, to offer the President of Mexico that if they sided with Germany, when the war was over, Germany winning of course, they would help Mexico regain Texas, New Mexico and Arizona.

Those wily Brits in the famous Room 40 intercepted the cable, broke the code, and told the Americans. For the Germans, as is often the case in the affairs of men, it achieved just the opposite of its intended purpose. Even before this strategic event in January, 1917, Germany was financing the guns being supplied to both sides of the Revolution. Much of those guns and ammunition came from a big hardware wholesaler in El Paso, Krakauer, Zork, and Moye which figures into my book “Dos Gringos,” as does the black suited man who traveled about Mexico delivering the arms to both the Federáles and Pancho Villa. That man was my grandfather, for whom I am named. Read “Dos Gringos” for more of the story, and read Barbara Tuchman’s book, “The Zimmermann Telegram.” Trust me.

Buy a copy of “Dos Gringos”  here.

Would you like to have a personal reading? About “Dos Gringos?”

Last week I had my first “reading” of “Dos Gringos” for a living room full of intelligent people who had been told I had something to talk about. They apparently were not disappointed, but also I enjoyed the opportunity to share and to explain the thinking behind the story. For the reading from “Dos Gringos” I chose portions that underlined the vast differences between the main characters. I started by summarizing the chaotic world of 1916 beyond the Mexican Revolution.

 It would be hard to get two immigrants more unlike that of a Norwegian and an Irishman. So I underlined how those differences were overcome by the unfolding and threatening events. Then I mentioned Carlos, the Mexican boy who so identified with the ideals of the revolution and the developed bond between the boy and the Irishman. I also gave background on the under-story of the German attempts to keep America distracted and out of the war by selling guns to both sides in the Mexican war.

Everyone seemed to enjoy it and they bought many books, which I signed. The evening was enjoyable with yummy deserts and hot Mexican chocolate and good conversation. There were about thirty-five people there. I would be happy to do reading and book signings in other venues. The most convenient of course would be Southern California where I live.

Buy a copy of “Dos Gringos”  here.

Thrilling response~”Dos Gringos”

Not only is it a thrill to hold the book, my father’s tale, in my hand. But even more exciting, in a different way perhaps, is to see others laugh, smile, and read the first few pages of the book and come out with great comments. I took a few books to the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books today.  I met old and new friends; authors, publishers, editors, and just friends. They look at the cover and the smile starts. they read the back cover and laugh at “A Norwegian and an Irishman meet in a Texas bar…”  Their expression gets serious as they read the first page or two, and then hand it back and say. “Hey, this is good, really good. I can’t wait to get a copy and read the whole thing.” Speaking engagements, book signings, etc., are starting to get scheduled.

Buy the book here.

The Next Book– “A Norwegian and an Irishman meet in a Texas bar…”

Based on a true story from The Mexican Revolution

In the middle of The Mexican Revolution, a penniless Norwegian and a drifting Irishman meet in an El Paso bar and are hired by a Pittsburg con-man to fix a gold mine in Mexico with parts which, they discover too late, purposely don’t fit. 

Arthur, the Norwegian, is focused on fixing the mine and needs the money to propose to his love in El Paso. Michael, the Irishman, is focused on the local women, is fresh from Ireland’s bloody Easter Uprising, and needs to redeem a painful guilt and find a new life.  They both are at gunpoint to perform or not perform. Their mutual distrust fades in the face of guns from the warring sides and they must work together to survive and escape back to Texas. 

 Complicating their mission is a mysterious black-suited man selling guns to both sides in the Mexican war, part of Germany’s intrigue to keep America out of World War I—and a German and Brit are there to spy on each other.  

I am so happy to be finally seeing this book “Dos Gringos” into print and will be on the market in May—for Cinco de Mayo. It really is my first story, told me by my septuagenarian father in a Phoenix Mexican restaurant, about his escapades in The Mexican Revolution. It was developed through a number of Hollywood screen-writing courses before I went to Russia for business in 1991 and where I wrote three other books, two yet to published. . Research for this story took me back to El Paso, Texas where I was born and reared. That alone was and is a fascinating experience.

 Coming soon!