Dos Amigos Viejos

A Recuerdo "Dos Amigos Viejos"

By Dick Mauer


Two characters I worked with over the years were Dick Sebring and Dick
DeFeo. Sebring was the Intelligence Agent in Buffalo Sector while I was
the Anti Smuggling Agent, so we travelled together in Canada quite
frequently. Dick Sebring was a post WWll Navy fighter pilot who was very
smooth and never got excited. Sebring arrived in Buffalo driving a 1969
General Lee, Orange Dodge Charger that looked like it came off the set
of the "Dukes of Hazard" He said he never went went anywhere in that car
without some kid trying to buy it from him. It couldn't have been any
more accurate even with the Stars and Bars on the roof. Parking it in
his yard had people ringing his doorbell with offers to buy.  Besides
flying, Dick had played some minor league baseball, and was a hell of a
golfer. His stories could go on for hours on any of those 3 things and
the Canadian cops just kept buying to hear them. Sebring was one of a kind!

Dick DeFeo was a Marine from Newark, a short Italian guy who was as
tough as nails. Of course, to us his name was "Muy Feo". Dick was a
single guy who spent most evenings in different bars around the city. He
would come into work scuffed up once in a while, and claimed while in
bars the talk would finally get around to what he did for a living.  If
he told them he was a Border Patrol Agent he said he invariably ended up
in a fight. That was even after he's tell them that they wouldn't like
the way he fought. Dick told me that he started telling people he was a
garbage man, and hadn't had any problem since.

These 2 guys had worked together in Temecula at some time and Sebring
told the story of them going fishing in the ocean with another Temecula
Agent who had a boat.  The beer was flowing this one particular time and
they were catching fish. Sebring said he hooked into a shark and got him
up to the boat. For some reason they wanted to get the shark into the
boat, mostly because DeFeo was yelling that he hated sharks. DeFeo had
grabbed a hammer and was leaning over the side of the boat, yelling in
his best Newark accent, "fooking shark, fooking shark" trying to hit the
shark in the head to stun him. Sebring said he admired DeFeo's attitude
but stopped him because he was hitting the side of a fiberglass boat
with every other swing. Two great old timers. Sebring is down (RIP) and
DeFeo is off the grid.