Coronado Company

I grew up in Coronado, California.  When asked where I am from, I usually respond, “San Diego.”  This is in part because of the gentrification of Coronado since I left in 1970, and the associated sense of not wanting to be judged for having grown up with a silver spoon….Coronado to people my mother’s age would react to, “Coronado,” with enthusiasm inevitably talking about that time the family stayed at the Hotel Del, Coronado’s most famous tourist attraction.  To a younger audience, Coronado was place where a famous drug enterprise was grown in the 1970’s: The Coronado Company.  I have a tenuous relationship with the Coronado Company through the person of Louis Villar.

I recently met a High School peer who had Louis for his swimming coach. He had great memories of this mentor and they reconnected when Louis was failing—in his 80’s - with a terminal illness. The fall of the Coronado Company was associated with Louis having cut a plea deal. With this, the friends of those who went to prison-and there were more than a few- held Louis in contempt and this was freely shared for decades. This peer was the first I had heard  speaking of Louis in positive terms, though with some humor. When asked if “he would do it all over again,” the answer was, “Yeah, probably.”

To flesh this story out journalistically, an abridged version can be found by Googling  GQ, “Coronado High”

My memories and opinions about Louis are based on his pre- “drug lord” days.  My older brother surfed and helped welcoming Louis to surfing when he arrived, a hip young Spanish Teacher from Brooklyn via Cuba. Louis had close-cropped hair, very cool wrap-around sunglasses, and sported a modern sport jacket with suede elbow patches while driving a 1962 candy-apple red Corvette convertible. He had an easy going communication style and stood out from the collection of teachers in the high school who were mostly staid, and older.

Louis was my Spanish teacher my freshman year in High school. This was Spanish II and I was the only freshman in the class. Knowing my brother, he conveyed a sense of being a sort of big brother when in class and following that script, patiently helped be work through the difference in Spanish (and English) between “to listen” and “to hear.” For me, this was nothing less than an epiphany! His focus kept the smirks and rolled eyes of the upper classmen at bay.

Both Louis and I changed in 1967, my sophemore year. I was loving rock music and going to rock concerts in San Diego ($2 at the door for the Mothers and Country Joe and the Fish). I was occasionally smoking marijuana. Lou was growing his hair out and also liking rock music. I recall spending a class listening to the first Country Joe album—this. after spending some hours writing my assignment about my three legged cat in Spanish. Adding to that patina and willingness to engage students at their level, he sponsored and took us  on a field trip to Tijuana (imagine doing that now….) where we saw a bull fight, and toured the streets and donkeys painted to look like zebras. While he herded us carefully, the possibility of drinking beer at the Long Bar was tantalizing and right there. Despite my sense of brotherhood, the only C’s I got in all of high school was his class: Spanish III. Between not understanding rules of grammar in my own language and possibly the effect on memory getting stoned could have, I did not get a break from Louis Villar. If letting us listen to Country Joe lost him credibility as a teacher, his fair grading got most of it back.

My last personal contact with Louis would come my Junior year. The classroom this time was a sedate chevy sedan, for drivers ed—two steering wheels and sets of brakes in the front. He was a patient and good teacher for this—no small thing. I shared this experience with two young women, both now deceased. Lynn was of short/small stature and we all howled when we realized that as she turned the wheel of the car, she would lean into the turn with her whole 84 pound body. He was kind in how he helped her discontinue that habit (but make sure when you get a car, to get power steering!).  Our sign-off drive was south, almost to Mexico, and then North to La Jolla where we watched the surf and he bought us lunch. And then home we came with freeway miles under our belts.

I have no recollection of him my senior year; he is in the school annual yet the GQ article suggests he had quit teaching by my senior year. My mother was scandalized when he married a not-yet 20 year old Admiral’s daughter who had been a cheerleader soon after leaving the school. In my mind this was a strike against Lou in that the conflict of interest as a High School teacher with an informal and formal leadership role was obvious even to this admirer..

Strike two came when we became competitors during the summer when I painted houses. Louis, no longer a teacher was painting. His Vette was no more and he drove a VW bus, sporting shoulder length hair, and hanging with kids ten years younger at the beach. I remember painting a house in the August sun looking at North Park where a group of ex students played softball, a bottle of beer being the reward for getting on base. The confident macho cool dude of 1964 had transformed into something pretty nebulous. I did not give him much more thought. I had plans and I had vision.

I went on to college tracking to master skills and become a professional. Louis, it seems, did the same from this apparent low point.  The story goes that former acquaintances (his peers in surfing may or may not have been high school students of his when he taught). An enterprising surfer developed a business model, buying Marijuana in modest bulk and bringing it across the border, first on a surf board by sea, then on motorized rafts, and eventually an amphibious truck. The deals being made were done with broken English and hand signals. Lou was asked to come translate.  Within a year, the business expanded and Louis was front and center managing a growing marijuana enterprise.

Superficially, it looked like simple-minded surfer dudes were working with Lou and making hundreds of thousands of dollars while growing the business — to expand and become a trans-coastal operation. The gossip I encountered was that the business got taken down but not before there were casualties: one graduate of High School (yet another Admiral’s kid) that I had known was left as “collateral” in rural Morocco and when he returned was quite damaged psychologically. The gossip put that on Louis. Louis being a higher up, was offered a plea deal which he took after serving some time in prison. Many of the people in business with him were now in jail. The reputation he garnered from many was that former students were sold out by Louis who “got off easy.”

My peer friend clarified that the business was quite large when the “collateral” deal for hashish was made—and that Lou had nothing to do with it and would not have OK’d it had he known..

My catching up with this story in the 1980’s was one night, watching 60 minutes with my toddler just put to bed. Once told, the story ended with a video of a correspondent trying to get Louis to comment for the report. He was very straight looking, dressed conservatively and drove away in a K car.  “How the mighty have fallen,” was my thought.  To this day, I have no inside knowledge of the operation other than anecdotes from peers of the jailed and the dead. The damaged man after that year in Morocco on recollection, had not been quite right before that misadventure so who knows to what degree his experience was simply a catalyst for what was going to happen anyway.

Reflecting on Louis, he was a charismatic man and this helped with his success as a teacher and as a boss in a multimillion dollar drug empire. Like him or not, he made an impression whatever he did and whenever he did it. Like successful generals, after the war is over, his end was a footnote for those who thought they knew the story. For me, like generals, he appears to have simply faded away. I hope he had satisfaction and a quality life once clear of the Coronado Company—he was a thoughtful, supportive, innovative, and kind teacher to me.

His story also reminds me to differentiate what you feel and what you know for a fact. I was always questioning how or why he would get the plea deal if he was the boss—it usually works the other way ie the worker bee gets off pointing out the head of the organization. It turns out, my peer friend let me know that the plea deal did not involve any of the surfers or Coronado kids—he turned evidence on his lawyer’s money laundering for the company. Now that makes sense. For me, this changes a lot about the judgement commonly held about his reputation. No sympathy for dirty lawyers, right? I find his recollection of what happened and the expressed sentiment, that yes, he would do it again does say a lot about who he really was, good and bad.

RIP

Again, for a summary, GQ magazine, “Coronado High”

From the 1970 Yearbook