RIVERA: NEWS OF MY DEMISE GREATLY EXAGGERATED

By Juan Montoya
Two years ago, the Texas State Senate passed a resolution honoring Cameron County Clerk Joe Rivera for his 30 years of service.

Now, two years later, Rivera has said he will run again for the position in the 2014 Democratic primary, and laid rumors to rest that he was bound to succumb to some fatal illness as some of his local would-be opponents have whispered as he waddles through the county's administrative hallways.
"I'm fit as a fiddle," Rivera boasted last Friday. "Tell them that I am still doing somersaults."
One would think that after 32 years in the saddle, Rivera would be taking down the photos lining his walls (there's a few of him an Selena at SombreroFest just a few months before her death that are priceless), pack up his personal belongings and go home to a well-deserved sabbatical.
Virtually anyone ever elected to a public position in the county has been sworn in by Joe. Or at least that would seem to be the case from the literally hundreds of photos of folks taking the oath of office. There are the good, the bad and the ugly stretching back decades as they swore to uphold the laws of the United States and serve the people. Some did, others did not.
But Rivera is not buying any of the retirement talk.
The Robstown native said he is off and running again and challenged his opponents to the customary bruising campaign trail in Cameron County.
"What have they got to offer that I don't?," he asked. "Let them show me what they got."
Incidentally, we ran into Joe while he was having coffee with the boys over at Amadeo Rodriguez Sr.'s courthouse coffee shop. Just by coincidence, local attorney Ernesto Gamez was also there, regaling some other attorney with keen observations on courtroom strategies and the promise of the life hereafter.
Gamez had a "cardiac" event at the Texas Southmost College gym five years ago where he and Rivera usually played brisk games of Pington, a game invented at TSC in the 1960s.
The game is very similar to badminton  but makes use of wooden paddles instead of cord rackets. As with badminton, the aim is to hit a birdie over the net so that it lands inside the marked boundaries of the court, and to prevent opponents from doing the same. It's a physically demanding game that has the players run all over the court and this apparently proved a bit much for Gamez.
Gamez was revived by CPR performed by at least four TSC staff members and the use of an automated emergency defibrillator at the gym and that led to his spiritual conversion. Nowadays when you go to his office, he might just reach into his desk and give you a packet containing his message of salvation. Neither Joe nor Gamez play the game anymore.
For the uninitiated, the duties of the county clerk include responsibility for filings of official records such as real estate deeds, business names, vital statistics, military discharge papers, and hundreds of other types of documentation. The office also supports the three county courts at law and serves as the administrator of staff, records, and fees collections for civil, probate, and criminal cases. The county clerk is also clerk of the commissioners court and Rivera also served as chairman of the Cameron County Bail Bond Board.
Like Gamez, Rivera remains feisty and says he's got enough left in the gas tank to hold the office for another four years.
"Tell them to bring it on," he said as we bid our goodbyes. "No traen nada."