Nazi Motorcycles

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Who knows their motorcycles?   I noticed this on the street in Gythion.  My first thought knowing how proud the Greeks are of their resistance to the German invasion and occupation is that this is a war trophy.  I have seen this before in towns on Crete, BMW motorcycles proudly displayed in front of shops as a monument to their expulsion of the Nazi occupiers.  But that was decades ago and I don't remember the details of the models used by Germany during World War II.
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Murder and Museums: The Tale of the Arcelia Museo de la Frontera

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The Museum entrance with Aurelio Diaz Flores (left), me, and Adolfo (right). The logo of my doctoral study below the museum name, Proyecto Oztuma-Cutzamala, with the ancient glyph name Oztuma featured (the Cave of the Hand, Oztomon, the cave monster with a hand on his nose)

    

    Yesterday, a long-time and dear friend and teacher from the town of Arcelia, Tierra Caliente, Mexico, Raymundo Lopez posted on Facebook that he was teaching the history of his town in class and that my 1998 research was now part of that history.  I swelled with pride. It was a project years in development as I sought out the perfect place in Mexico to apply archaeological methods to the study of frontier formations. It culminated with some  9 months of fieldwork in one of the starkest, most grueling, most challenging, and most dangerous parts of the world I have ever worked. I lost 45 lbs by the end of my survey.  We covered an area of 2500 sq. miles of what had been the most contested frontier of the Aztec and Tarascan empires. Every day in the field was one of amazing discovery, revelation, and adventure. 

    At the end of the project, I ran the bureaucratic gauntlet with the State of Guerrero and INAH in DF to gain authorization to put the artifacts recovered during my study in a local museum.  A committee was formed with the president of the Committee of the Museum being Aldolfo Diaz Flores, my dear friend, my guide, my inspiration for the project, and the man most knowledgeable about the history and archaeological sites of the Tierra Caliente. 




   People of the town came together, one of the craftsmen made glass cabinets, and the local library across from the school dedicated a sala to it. As we had our first committee meeting I remember the committee proposing to name the museum El Museo de Jay Silverstein.  I blushed and laughed and said you cannot name it after me until I am dead. We named it El Museo de la Frontera. Celebrations were held around the museum, artists painted gorgeous murals, and I was anxious to get back for the next phase of my research.

    In August of 2000, I successfully defended my Ph.D. and became Dr. Jay. My family had retreated to Oregan as I was in the death throes of writing...I guess I was not a pleasant being to be around. That evening my graduate school buddy and now the surveyor of the Tell Timai Project in Egypt, Greg Bondar, and his radiant and brilliant wife (an accomplished professor) Elisa took me out for pizza to celebrate.  That evening I was home when I got the call from Raymundo in Arcelia, Adolfo Diaz and his son Boni had been murdered.  They were ambushed out in the countryside, stopped like a normal robbery, both shot in the head. Adolfo had one defense would, the first shot had gone through his hand.  Boni's 5-year-old son was left in the truck between their bodies.  I was shattered. My son Alex heard me on the phone to Oregon. I recall him saying, "I never heard Dad cry before".

    There were a few theories floated, but it seems the assassination was politically motivated, Boni worked as a cattle inspector and Adolfo was running for the office of president of the Cattleman's Association. Without Adolfo's leadership, the museum collapsed. In the US, I began a campaign through my congressman, the American embassy, and the Mexican government to bring those responsible to justice. It made the prospect of going back impossible...I had put a target on myself and otherwise accomplished little. The money gifted to me for my graduation I gave to the family, some of them worried about their own safety. In the end, as Adolfo would no doubt have counseled me, the assassins met their own poetic justice demise as is the way of the Tierra Caliente. Now, more than 20 years later, I am itching to come back and help re-establish El Museo de la Frontera

    Don't be surprised if a fundraiser pops up for the museum one of these days.

    

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