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With the violence in Mexico as bad as Afghanistan and Iraq, nights across the river are a distant memory. It is a tragedy beyond the ruthless killing. There was a time when eating and drinking at Garcia's was considered beneath the dignity of a true Matamoros connoisseur.

But to sit next to one of Garcia's big windows in a deep chair over a bowl of peanuts and a cold beer with a trio strumming the classics in the background!

Brownsville is benefiting in the short run as businesses and residents on the south side relocate to the north side, but without the siren song of the Mexico, the border has lost its flavor.

The forays to the boxing venues are over. El Bravo half-heartedly promotes cards to stir the enthusiasm of a frightened populace. Confronting a bloody reality, the propaganda falls on deaf ears.

Among his many other duties, Max Maxwell, the dean of the RGV sportswriters, once penned a popular boxing column back in the 1980s. He reminisced about an adventure on the other side.

"I went to see Lupe Pintor at his room in the Hotel Ritz the night before his fight at the Arena Mexico," recalled Maxwell. "Pintor was an ascendant name who would capture championships in both the bantamweight and featherweight divisions.

"'What round are you going to knock out this sacrificial lamb?' I asked him. 'The second,' he answered. I accepted bets at ringside taking only the second round. Everyone was happy to pocket the crazy gringo's money, but when Lupe decapitated his inferior foe with a Frazier left hook in the predicted round, my credentials were permanently established among the regulars."