The Marrying Kind

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December 25th, 2016
Back The Marrying Kind

I rode into town in a white Impala convertible. It was February, the sun was shining, and I had my top down.

I was wearing a red satin shirt I had picked up in Gallup, N.M., a white Stetson, jeans and cowboy boots, an outfit I thought was perfect for Clovis, N.M.

As I pulled to a screeching stop in a cloud of dust outside my new place of employment, the Clovis News-Journal, I saw a head peering at me from the door. The man was Hispanic, in his 30s, and wore glasses with an Owlish look. He was scowling.

That was how I met Dave Molina.

Dave had just been promoted to editor of the News-Journal, replacing the man who had hired me sight unseen over the phone.

He would become one of my best friends.

I would introduce him to four of his ex-wives.

We would cover the assassination of John F. Kennedy, get involved in knock-down fights, travel to Las Vegas and Los Angeles, gamble, drink, and remain friends for the rest of his life.

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Dave died a couple of years ago in Nogales, AZ. where he was working for a newspaper. It was the same newspaper that had hired him, fired him, re-hired him and probably fired him again for the same cause. Drinking.

It was no secret that Dave loved his Coors Beer. Like Ernest Hemingway, whom we both idolized, Molina was a drinker. Once one of his wives told him in a fit of anger, 'Dave, it's either the Coors Beer or me. What's your choice?'

Dave didn't answer her.

"David?'

'I'm thinking, I'm thinking.'

I stayed with the News-Journal about a year before moving on to work for the Hobbs Daily News-Sun as assistant city editor. During that time, I helped Molina put out a good daily newspaper.

At noon and in the evenings, we spent our time at a bar-restaurant where a lovely German cocktail waitress named Giesela worked. She had an incredible accent and when she told us the beer would cost 'Zirty-five cents,' we would beg her to repeat it over and over. She would just smile and flounce sexily away.

While I was working in Hobbs, Dave and his wife got a divorce. He moved to Los Angeles where he got a job as copy editor of the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner. One day he called me in Hobbs.

'Hey, Amigo,' he said, 'are you happy where you're working? Because if you aren't, I have a good reporting job for you that'll pay more money than what you're currently making.'

The Herald-Examiner was caught up in a strike and needed a reporter. I called the newspaper and was hired over the phone.

The Herald-Examiner, or Her-Ex as we reporters called it, was the best newspaper I had ever worked for. Tom Caton, a legendary Hearst newsman, was the city editor. Caton was tough but fair, a fearless city editor who would back his reporters all the way when they were right. And if you wanted to work for Caton, you had to be right.

In Los Angeles I met a good looking redhead from St. Louis. I started dating her and took her to Las Vegas for a weekend of gambling, drinking and dancing. Dave asked me to get him a date and I asked Betty if she had any girl friends.

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'I do,' she said. 'Her name is Lee, she's attractive and she works as a dental assistant. But your friend will have his hands full. She's from Texas and she's a man-hater.'

Lee met Dave that evening. We had drinks at a bar called Smiling Jack's Hangar. Dave and Lee fought all evening.

At midnight he turned to me with a smile, sipped his Coors and said, 'I'm going to marry that girl.' He did several weeks later.

I stayed with the Herald-Examiner four years. I played a lot of poker in Gardena and in Las Vegas. Dave's marriage to Lee lasted two years.

He left the Herald-Examiner and went to San Diego where the San Diego Tribune hired him. I drove down to San Diego to spend the weekend with my old buddy and we ended up going to a lounge on Shelter Island.

An attractive girl was sitting with friends. She seemed not to have an escort and Dave whispered, 'I want to dance with her. Do you think she'll let me?'

I shrugged. 'Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Go ask her.'

He did. She accepted his invitation to dance. A month later they got married and I served as his best man.

There were two other women like that over the next few years. It seemed like Dave went through women as fast as he went through Coors Beer. I would introduce Molina to a female, he would fall in love, they would marry. Talk about a guilt complex.

The last time I saw Dave before he died of a massive heart attack was at a casino in Las Vegas. I was going in, he was coming out. We fell into each other's arms.

'Only my mother and you could ever find me, he said, smiling. 'Let's have a drink.'

A real friend is hard to find. Dave Molina and I were the real thing. I'm sorry I didn't attend his funeral. Rest in peace, Amigo.

“He would become one of my best friends.”

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