Don't Start the Revolution Without Me! - Jesse Ventura [69]
Jesse and Barbara Walters. I render Barbara speechless!
Chris Matthews defending the “magic bullet” theory to Jesse at Harvard University.
Cokie Roberts, George Will, and Sam Donaldson do their show at the governor’s office. George Will and I are in a heated discussion.
These men are the Navy Leap Frogs, a Navy sky diving team. They came in for a golf tournament promotion, but the weather at the golf course was not favorable for a jump there. So the team came to our farm and parachuted into the pasture in front of our barn. These men have all completed thousands of jumps in their careers and are great ambassadors for the UDT/SEAL teams.
Muhammad Ali, Harvey Mackay, and Jesse Ventura.
Me and the boys. Old frogmen never die! (The Creature from the Black Lagoon was a Christmas gift to me from Terry a couple of years ago. There is a Creature from the Black Lagoon at the base in Coronado with a sign around its neck asking, “So you wanna be a frogman?!”)
I designed and built this bike to try to get back the feeling of freedom.
We stopped here just to take in the view and document our trip.
I wake up in the morning with nothing to do and I go to bed at night with half of it done.
His entire house, including all the fences, is lined in beer cans. Thousands of them, end to end. When you stop at Coco’s for refreshment after the hard road and the beating sun, what fills his large main refrigerator is very ice-cold beer. (In the U.S., Coco would be put in prison for giving people beer who then go back onto the road and drive. But in this portion of the Baja, probably being drunk would help!)
Another unique thing about Coco’s Corner: he has about seven volumes of ledger-type books. Everyone who passes through gets a page to write something on and add their signature to. If you stay long enough, Coco will do a drawing of the vehicle you arrived in. I sign in big letters, “Governor Jesse Ventura, Minnesota.” Who knows, maybe years down the road when even this sector of the Baja is well inhabited, people will find those books and know who was brave enough—or foolish enough—to tackle Mexico Highway 5.
When you walk into Coco’s, underneath his first palapa you also notice all these baseball caps hanging from the ceiling. It’s part of the tradition for guys to sign and leave one behind. Turn the corner, and on the other side of the palapa it’s all panties and bras! Also autographed, by all the women who’ve passed through. I can’t help but flash back to the interview I gave Playboy when I was governor. When asked what I’d like to return as should I ever be reincarnated, I said: “I would like to come back as a thirty-eight double-D bra.”
So at Coco’s, I have my picture taken in front of the biggest set of panties I’d ever seen in my life, thirty-nine by thirty-nine by thirty-nine or something like that. They have to hold a cubic meter of body! (I think Terry may be hiding in the camper at this point).
When you leave, Coco always comes over to wish you good luck. It’s a mixed message. You wonder, is he wishing you good luck because he knows what’s up ahead and that you’ll need plenty to get through it? Or is he just wishing you good luck like everyone else does? I guess it depends on which direction you’re heading.
In retrospect, I wish I’d had the language skills to tell Coco about what’s gone down in Minnesota legend as “the bingo saga.” I think, as an elder, he would have appreciated my efforts on behalf of senior citizens.
One day not long after I was inaugurated, I walked over to the secretary of state’s office. In there was a massive wall filled with volumes of books, twenty-five times the size of an Encyclopaedia Britannica. I mean, there had to be close to a thousand books. I inquired, “Excuse me, but what is all this?” And I was told, “Those are all the laws for the state of Minnesota.”
I sat there a moment and thought: They tell us that ignorance of the law is no excuse. In other words, we as citizens are supposed to know all this?