Lou and the Flight to Bolivia Story

                                                               Lou and the Flight to Bolivia Story

                                                                           1963

                                                                    Written 2019

                                                                  Howard Yasgar

I know that I have written this true story before.

But the other day as we drove down  36 Street in Miami, we came to Curtis Parkway, and that’s where the Airport  Hotel and restaurant used to be, its where I met with the people who are in this story.

The building is still there, but I don’t think the Restaurant is, and the name has been changed.

In mid 1963, I had just resigned  from a corporation that was involved in several enterprises, the job had become too stressful as well as time consuming.

I was engaged and planning on getting married and I needed to do something different.

One of the enterprises I was involved in was a used car lot on West Main Street in Stamford Connecticut.

Once I had quit the corporation, I still needed to earn a living, so I started buying and selling distressed merchandise.

I would find items available from Companies in the New Haven area and I would sell it to dealers on Canal Street in New York.

Because I was selling to dealers on Canal Street, it required me to drive the Connecticut Turnpike from New Haven to New York, I did it every week

On This particular day, as I was driving to New York, I saw the exit sign for the West Street exit to get off in Stamford.

The West Street exit was the one I used to take when I was going  to our used car lot.

I wondered what had happened to the business, after I had left.

The exit seemed to be like a magnet drawing me off the Turnpike, so I said to myself, OK, I would just drive by the used car lot and look,  I had no intention of stopping there.

As I drove buy the car lot,  I saw someone standing in the doorway of the office, and I could see there were a lot of nicer used cars there, better cars than our company ever had, so I turned in and parked.

I walked right into the office, and that’s how I met Lou.

I had heard about him for years, but I had never met him, rumor was that he was one of the best and well known used car dealers in Connecticut.  

I introduced myself, and Lou said he already knew all about me.

I liked meeting Lou, and he must have liked me because we sat there and talked all day.

That’s when  learned that Lou not only dealt in used cars and trucks but he was a regular entrepreneur, he was sort of a wheeler dealer, that  got involved in many different things.

As I sat there, I could see Lou had a pay phone hanging on the office wall, it had a string hanging out of it.

Lou said if you made a call and pulled the string all your money came back, so I tried it and it worked.

As it got later, Lou invited me to have supper with him at a restaurant he was part owner of.

Lou said he had once bought a lot of  used restaurant equipment and was going to throw it all away.

Instead he was approached by a local cook with no money, and now Lou was a partner in a restaurant.

I had a steak sandwich there, and it was the best I ever had, Lou  told the cook to put it on his tab, so I ate supper for free.

Lou said that if I stayed in Stamford and worked with him, I could eat for free at the restaurant  all the time, how could I refuse.

Lou said, if I decided to stay and work with him he would teach me all the tricks of the used car business, he would be like my mentor.

I did stay with Lou and it was an interesting experience.

I think Lou knew every unsavory character in Stamford.

Some of them were really scary, I watched as Lou would buy used pistols from them, I assumed he was a gun collector.

Eventually, Lou took me to Jerome Avenue in the Bronx, Jerome Avenue was the heart of the used car business in America.

Lou knew everyone and they knew him, he introduced me to all his friends there.

Lou said he had a standing order with them for any older cheap Ford Taurus’s, and he would buy them and ship them to Florida.

One day Lou said “Pack a bag were going to Miami for a few days”.

I was pretty happy about going  as at the time my mother was leasing the small 24 room Norman hotel on Miami Beach and the trip  would give me an opportunity to see her.

Lou and I drove to Miami and checked into the Airport Hotel on Curtis Parkway, the hotel was right across the street from the corner of Miami International Airport, airport where lots of  old airplanes sat.

In the morning we had breakfast with two pilots, who were Lou’s friends. They were the people he was selling the cars to, they told me that they flew into La Paz Bolivia every week.  

After breakfast, we drove across the street to their  office, it was at MIAD, an older warehouse area inside the airport.

Their warehouse musty smelling place with a office. The only decoration was a map of Bolivia on the wall.

Once we were in their office, the pilots gave Lou a wad of money, it was for three cars Lou had sold them.

Then Lou went out to the car and brought in a cardboard box with eight old revolvers that I knew  he had bought in Stamford for $10.00 each. The pilots gave Lou $400.00 for them all.

Then we all went out the rear door of the warehouse where they were loading a plane.

I wouldn’t know one aircraft from another, but I saw a worker was closing the cargo door, and I could see there was some kind of small car inside.

One of the pilots said they were leaving that night for La Paz Bolivia and did we want to go with them?

They said we would have a real good time meeting all their friends in Bolivia, and Lou could meet their wealthy business partner there.

I told them that I didn’t have a passport, they said no one needed one as everything on the plane was being smuggled into Bolivia illegally, no customs inspection was required.  

I looked at their old beat up dented airplane, I thought I saw oil dripping from one engine.

Lou wanted to go with them, but I said I was going to Miami Beach to see my mother.

We went back inside the office and Lou peeled off five $100.00 bills and gave it to me, he said it was my share of the money for the cars he had sold them.

I left Lou there with his suitcase, he said he would call me in three or four days at my mothers hotel.

He would call as soon as they returned and I could come and pick him up.

I drove to Miami Beach and stayed with my mother at the Norman Hotel.

By the fourth day I became a little concerned as I hadn’t heard from Lou.

On the fifth day, I was nervous that something had happened to them, no one answered the phone at their office, so I drove over there.

The office door was locked and a neighbor said it was unusual they hadn’t returned.

I drove across the street to the Airport Hotel and I called my mother.

She said Lou had called her and he said that he had just arrived at the Airport Hotel.

I went to his room and Lou told me what had happened.

That night they were flying over the mountains in Bolivia when one engine quit. The airplane became unstable and started heading down

They all knew the plane was going to crash, and they would be killed, Lou said he was just holding onto the pilot’s seat and praying.

The pilot yelled for them to push the car out of the plane, the copilot opened the cargo door as he took of the cargo straps, and Lou released the cars emergency brake.

Then, with superhuman strength they both lifted and pushed the car as it rolled out of the plane, Lou said he thought they both would fall out with the car, but they hung onto the cargo straps as the pilot leveled the plane and they made their approach to the La Paz airport.

Lou said he was so nervous that he couldn’t breathe when they landed in the thin air of Bolivia, so they rushed him to a hospital and gave him oxygen.            

His pilot friends got him a flight back to Miami on another plane that was smuggling goods into Bolivia, but they both stayed there.

Lou said, “Never again”.

He also said, “Some day some one would find that car up on a mountain in Bolivia”.