Lost Boyfriend (A Postcard from Mexico)

With a little tweaking, this piece could be rehabbed and aired anew. As that icon of public radio, Jay Allison, attests, it’s “evergreen.” First broadcast a decade ago in a now defunct travel show, it’s as tangy as a freshly shaken Margarita—with its very own delightful “high.” All it needs is to be edited—two references to “Rudy,” which make it a letter, need to be deleted—and repackaged as part of the eight-part series, “Stories from Carmen.”

Allison is nominally the salty producer, but it’s Carmen Delzell throughout who provides the Tequila, so to speak. She’s a blond-haired, blue-eyed gringa who has lived south of the border for lo these many years. In “Lost Boyfriend” she muses about her Mexican flame, Nicolas, who has left her in Saltillo with a broken-down Isuzu. Rather than herself breaking down in tears, she confers with local specialists in witchcraft, who advise her how to find and win back Nicolas.

The power of positive thinking makes for a feisty story, which—wouldn’t you know it?—ends up with a phone call to Carmen from her dearly departed boyfriend. We’re left with Carmen having repaired her Isuzu and possibly having determined to drive to Guanajuato, where he has fled.

We can’t be sure, though. Carmen may care about her boyfriend, but she’s a bit of a feminist, too. The wonder of her “Hasta luego” at the end of this piece is that it’s open-ended, leaving the listener with a smidgen of exhilaration: will she or won’t she return to her boyfriend?

Nicolas may have left town, but Carmen somehow recorded him strumming his guitar before he took a hike. His music plays in the background of her monologue, making it all the more soothing and romantic.