John grew up in Panama - Balboa and Corozal - had left Panama in the 1960s to study at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania and later at State University of New York. He enjoyed his years studying in the U.S. but made his way back to Panama and started what has been a “checkered” career, working for IBM; operating his own import/export and light contracting company; aviation; and ship-repair; he spent eleven years with the Panama Canal Commission and went back into private business, bringing “Outback Steakhouse” to Panama and Cenral America. That venture failed and he is now a consultant for safety, aviation, or marine interests, and is also back doing what he became an expert on – selling islands.

I became acquainted with John when he wrote me an e-mail through the web site and said he wanted to talk to me. Well, my initial feeling about John through the e-mail was that he would be antagonistic towards me, but the meeting was friendly and he told me that I needed to be more realistic in my writing. That there were other forces that I should pay attention to on the Panamanian firmament: Did people have a title for land?. Was it their land or was the possession of the land just a scam to make people think that they could have the best of both worlds: citizenship in Panama and economic wealth in the form of skyrocketing land prices This kind of tough real estate talk wasn’t new to me; this was always in the air in Panama. Real estate seemed to offer a certain danger and more danger than I could possibly understand - or so it seemed. This undercurrent of tension about the dangers of real estate in Panama often bordered on the absurd: talking in hushed tones, meetings in dark restaurants and potential investors accompanied by disinterested courtesans of either sex. This atmosphere is great fun and don't be turned off or fearful of it: Panama is not dangerous in that way. When it came to investing in Panama it was always important to see the strings that connected the formal reality - the appearance of the deal - to the substantive reality - what the deal was actually made out of. And this could be very difficult: you needed to see exactly what it was that you were investing in. John continued to talk about the past and different projects that had been laid out as possible "winners".

John told me that there had been plans over the years to build a number of resorts in the Pearl Islands - the most famous of which was “Isla Viveros” in the 1970s; it had international offices and was reportedly landing “Holiday Inn” as one of its major contributors; John was even a sales associate with the project, but it failed after a short time to raise the required capital to develop the project, much less pay for the land. Those who had started the process lost their payments, and some who had even paid in full for their lots, never received title. Other projects also never succeeded because of insufficient capital or local political problems, either caused by jealousy of competition, governmental incompetence, or outright bribery demands that drove the investors away. In some cases, land purchasers never obtained title.

Today, however, things have apparently finally turned around. Whereas there was previously a lot of talk and speculation, there has recently (just the last few years) been considerable increased attention in Panama for tourist development, both on the mainland, and in the Pearls. There are now several projects that seem destined to succeed. There is also an international Master Plan being completed by a German consulting group (GATO AG) that will be paid for by a combination of PNUD (United Nations), IPAT (Panama’s tourism bureau) and the private landholders in the Pearls. This should really kick things into gear and has already increased interest in – and, naturally, the potential value of - the Pearl Islands.

I asked John about how he had gotten into buying and selling islands in the 1970s and he explained that since he was often sailing or fishing in the area, and he saw the Contadora project moving forward, he just looked around for islands not already grabbed by “the big guys”. After obtaining one or two islands, John worked with Boehm & Vladi Private Islands of Hamburg, who were the first and foremost worldwide island specialists. If you wanted to buy an island from Newfoundland to the Seychelles to Panama, then Boehm & Vladi was the place to go. John sold his islands principally through them and he sort of “represented” them in Panama. He still assists them. Boehm and Vladi the specialists are long separated, but each is still predominant in the field; check their websites. On the walls of his office are old posters and a calendar from Boehm & Vladi - photos depict “Isla Taborcillo” (locally called “John Wayne’s Island”) and one of his previously sold beauties.

John has a number of very good books on the bookshelves of his office about Panama that anyone interested in the isthmus should read: The Golden Isthmus and The People of Panama were his best. The People of Panama shows the reader how the Canal Zone operated - I mean the psychological effects of the Zone. How superior some were over others and how that was most obviously expressed in the Silver and Gold Rolls. The silver and gold rolls were a kind of racial segregation (Africans and Panamanians were Silver Roll and North Americans were Gold Roll); these rolls were the Zone’s answer to the Jim Crow laws that existed in the American South: equal, but different, if you know what I mean. Some areas were only for those on the silver roll and those places didn’t have quite as good as golf courses and pay as the gold roll. John disagrees with me on this interpretation and some of the historical evidence, but that’s my take on it. The People of Panama works best when it shows, with clarity, I believe, the psyhological test of wills that went on between Panamanians and Americans: it was a colonial relationship, American style. And as you read the passages from the book you immediately realize that no one knows Americans better than Panamanians and this is O.K. and enjoyable. Certainly more than you would think.

While we were talking about investing in Panama and what the current real estate environment was like in the Pearls and Bocas Del Toro, a man who was in John's office when I arrived and was listening to our conversation, got up and asked John where he might get a cup of coffee. John’s friend returned later. As it turned out, he is the grandson of Panama’s patriot hero, Victoriano Lorenzo, martyred just prior to Panama’s independence. Then my good friend Jim came in to check out John’s air conditioning. As Jim pulled out the wall unit water spilled all over the floor and cabinets. Another of John’s friends who is writing a history of the defensive fortifications of the Canal also stopped by. During all of this John continued with information about the Pearl Islands and other real estate projects he worked on. He at one time also owned “Isla Buena Vista”; “Isla Caracoles”; “Isla Majagua”; “Isla Gallo”; Isla Platanales” and “Isla Cocos”; over the years he has also brokered or otherwise assisted in the sale of “Isla de Cañas” (Pearls); “Isla Jicarito” (Chiriquí); “Isla Porcada” (Veraguas); “Isla Buenaventura” and “Cayos Naranjos” (Atlantic coast) and chunks of other islands, the latest being “Punta Gorda” on “Isla del Rey”.

John has also worked on special properties such as coffee, cacao (chocolate), and cattle farms. We talked a little about leaving the U.S and what that separation had meant to him. He had left Massachusetts with no idea what that change would mean, but, growing up in Panama, he knew he would make his life here. This was where he would marry and raise a family. He is still married to the same girl and their two boys have finished college and are working, the older boy all over the place as a Merchant Mariner (wonder where that came from?) and the younger one in the Hotel/Restaurant business in Florida (not with “Outback”). John has also worked as hard for the community as he has for himself, and has been involved with youth activities, amateur theater, yacht club and boating/fishing, and the Historical Society. He doesn’t seem to regret making the decision to leave the U.S.

While John talked I thought about 1953, the year he had arrived in Panama. William Burroughs was in Panama in 1953 on his way to Colombia and I thought about some of the great dialogue that Burroughs had had with different taxi-drivers in 1953 Panama City; the conversations were about what a good time meant in Panama: roadhouses and talking about what other friends had experienced in the interior of Panama. The book is called Yage Letters.

I said good-bye to John and then left to take a swim at the Olympic pool on Albrook Air Force Base. The pool is tucked up against the jungle and the city and canal are close by. I arrived to take my swim and I had forgotten my bathing suit. I drove the 15 minutes to my house and on the way back to the pool, a bus passed by in the opposite direction and threw up some small stones, one of which nicked the windshield of my rented car. The snow flaked crack didn't look bad and I thought I would get away with it. By the end of the day when it came time to return the car to the rental agency, the snowflake had turned into a windshield crossing crack - the crack made a shape across the windshield, but I never got to exactly what that shape was. And I got pinched to the full for the price of the windshield.

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