MEXICO: Free Loader

In the bleak, cotton-growing Ejido Florencia, back in the hills from the northern city of Torreón, the name of Cliserio Reyes was a standing joke. While other boys of his age in the small farming community interested themselves in girls or beisbol, 18-year-old Cliserio spent all his spare time and meager pocket money building model airplanes. To repeated gibes, and pleas from his friends to abandon such foolishness, he replied flatly: "Some day I'm going to fly."

After the hard work of bringing in the cotton crop was finished last week, slim,...

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