Trip of a Lifetime

Soon after his mother’s death, Michael Bailey stuffed $2,000 saved over 15 years, three changes of clothes, and a picture of his mom in two tiny suitcases and set off on a solitary journey to Mexico.

It was the first time the 41-year-old, nearly blind man ever left home.

He says he was trying to escape the loneliness he felt after losing his mother, Bertha Bailey--his closest friend and caretaker.

But what was supposed to be a leisurely three-week tour turned into an extraordinary 45-day odyssey where Bailey would come to depend on the kindness of strangers for survival and later learn of the caring of his concerned neighbors.

“I didn’t think anybody cared that much about me. My life was around Mom and what she needed, and it had been that way for over 20 years,” said Bailey, clutching a red spiral notebook he kept as a journal during his trip.

“But after my trip to Mexico, I’m able to cope a lot better.”

The Mexicans he met on his trip, meanwhile, are still talking about the American they took under their wing.

“We don’t see many Americans around here,” said Luis Morones, head of the Chiapas immigration services, referring to the hidden corner of the lush state near the Guatemalan border where Bailey was found lost, sick and injured. “He was not looking very well at all. We were very worried about him.”

So were Bailey’s neighbors back home.

Bailey’s wiry frame was a familiar sight walking down the street, rain or shine, for more than 35 years.

So when he vanished, leaving the front door open, neighbors called police and everyone--including the mailman--kept a watchful eye out.

Nearly a month and a half after he disappeared, Bailey wandered back to his neighborhood--slimmer, but alive.

“I saw him in the house, and I said ‘Praise the Lord, he is back!’ ” recalled neighbor Pat Ishmael.

Bailey is still stunned that so many had missed him, since only his mother had shown such interest in him.

Bertha Bailey wanted to shield her son from the horrors of the world she saw as a nurse in the Philippines during World War II.

When Michael Bailey’s father, Jack, died in 1961, mother and son became inseparable.

He lived a sheltered life and was often seen playing alone in his backyard.

“The kids would be playing recess and he would stand in the corner and just watch them,” said Ishmael, whose children grew up with Bailey.

As he grew older, Bailey became his mother’s caretaker when she was incapacitated by arthritis.

When she died on March 28, Michael Bailey’s world came crashing down.

On the morning of May 28, he paid $18 for a one-way bus ticket to Ensenada.

“I had a lot of things to sort through,” recalled Bailey, who speaks slowly and deliberately, with a bit of a drawl.

When he arrived he was startled to find Ensenada was no longer the quiet fishing village he had visited with his parents in the early 1960s but had instead grown to be a busy coastal town.

Sipping a soda in an outdoor cafe, Bailey met the town’s mayor. Mexico’s President Ernesto Zedillo was also in town and Bailey excitedly joined the crowd of admirers.

After touring the length of the Baja peninsula, Bailey boarded a bus to Mexico City. That’s when his trip took a turn for the worse.

His suitcase was stolen, along with $1,000, and his treasured photo.

Back home in Orange, Bailey’s anxious neighbors called Orange Police Det. Mike Harper, who admitted the case was puzzling.

“He never went anywhere except for Ralphs down the street,” Harper said of Bailey. “This was unusual. . . . We thought he might be lost, but he went a little farther than I thought.”

Bailey ended up at Tapachula, Chiapas, where the tropical humidity, the sounds of the jungle and the beauty of the people overwhelmed him.

He slept on a soft patch of grass, lulled asleep by the soft whistling of Indians that echoed in the mountains. The splendor of the fireflies brought back youthful memories of Indiana, his mother’s home state.

The next day his return bus ticket to Mexico City was stolen. By this time, Bailey had begun feeling sick. He was dirty, hungry and suffering from an injury to his heel.

With no place else to go, Bailey returned to the bus terminal.

“He would sleep during the day, and frankly, he looked pretty bad,” recalled Horacio Bernal, a Mexican immigration official.

Authorities decided to put the ailing American on an air-conditioned bus to the nation’s capital, hoping that the U.S. Embassy would help him get home.

But Bailey said officials at the embassy said they could not help him because he did not have a passport.

Bailey was advised to see immigration officials across town. With no money for cab fare, Bailey wandered for hours through the city’s streets.

“I don’t know how long it was, but I was real tired by the time I got there,” he said.

Guards befriended him. Each afternoon, they bought him hot corn on the cob.

“It seems that I was on good terms with all the Mexican officials and the inmates too,” he said, recalling the nights he willingly spent with other immigration detainees.

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Back in Orange County, neighbors nearly lost hope.

“I really thought somebody might have mugged him and threw him in a ditch,” said Susan Harris, who lives several houses away.

Bernal said authorities decided to send an escort with Bailey aboard a bus bound for Texas. When Bailey arrived, he didn’t know where to turn for help. He slept near the railroad tracks with other homeless fellows. “They were just like me,” he said. “They ran into some financial hard times and didn’t have any place to go.”

A homeless man urged Bailey to visit Father Pat Doherty at Our Lady of Guadalupe church in Brownsville.

“Usually, we don’t pay too much attention to a story like that,” said Doherty. “There was something about him, though. He looked like a lost soul. I felt like, ‘What if his story is true and we are not helping him?’ So I took a chance.”

Doherty scraped some money together and bought Bailey’s $90 bus ticket back to Santa Ana.

On July 2, Bailey came home.

“He was really frail--almost emaciated,” said mail carrier Mike Butler. “It actually brought tears to my eyes. I couldn’t believe it. I said ‘Mike, what happened?’ ”

Bailey said he doesn’t feel quite as lonesome as before. He is hoping to land a job--his first--as a receptionist at a local barbershop.

Bailey said his place is now home among his neighbors.

“I have a lot of nice things to say about the Mexican people,” Bailey said. “I don’t really regret taking the trip, but I don’t think I’ll be going on many long trips for a while.”

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Road Warrior

The incredible journey of Michael Bailey, which took him from his home in Orange to deepest Mexico, covered more than 6,000 miles and lasted neary six weeks:

(See newspaper for map of Michael Bailey’s journey).