Category: Life

Lessons I’ve learned through the school of hard knocks. This is my catch-all, miscellaneous category if you will, where I address topics that don’t quite fit into the other categories.

Garbage or junk?


My own private blogosphere.

Junk is something you wish you had soon after you throw it away. Garbage deserves to be thrown away.

In Chicago, people put their garbage out to be taken away. Sometimes, they put out old furniture to save parking spaces. Sometimes people have things they no longer want in their house because this junk is just taking up space. They want to get rid of it, but it’s good junk. However, they lack the desire or time to give to a charitable organization or sell it on the Internet. So, an alternate solution is putting things out with the garbage in a highly visible place. This way, passersby will see it and salvage it. They’ll bring it into their own home for an undetermined period of time–usually until it becomes their junk, which in turn they must also be put out with their garbage. This is one of the many ways that Chicago recycles. It’s the Chicago Way!

In the past, I have put out old furniture with my garbage because I was tired of it and so I bought new furniture. Once you decide you need new furniture, the old furniture becomes junk. However, there are many other people who would love to have your junk because for them it would be a step up and they will be insulted if you call their new living room furniture junk. Nothing is more difficult than restraining yourself from calling someone’s furniture junk. Especially if you’re visiting a neighbor who offers you a seat on your old sofa. How can you say something nice about something you threw away?

Junk Bought, Antiques Sold

Of course, I have also been the beneficiary of Chicago recycling. It takes a little bit of luck and timing to profit from something that I refuse to call garbage picking. This reminds me of a sign Mark Twain once saw at a store: Junk bought, antiques sold. So, these found objects are either junk or treasures, depending on your perspective. Well, I have found some treasures that I can’t imagine why they were thrown away. Granted, they were exposed for all garbage pickers to see. And see them, I did! Once, I found some treasures of my own. I wasn’t really looking for them, but I couldn’t miss them either. In Beverly, we must put out our garbage cans out in front of our house once a week for garbage pickup. This is my first Chicago home that requires me to put my garbage cans. At all the other homes where I have lived, our garbage cans stayed in the alley where all garbage cans belong. I still haven’t gotten used to putting my garbage out in front!

Anyway, one night I’m driving home from work. I see everyone’s garbage cans out in front, and I realize that I had forgotten to put my garbage cans out. At times like these, I realize that it’s good to keep up with the Joneses. So, while I’m making a mental note to myself, I see a garbage can that is oddly shaped. Or so it seems. Then, I notice that there is something leaning against a garbage can. I slowed down and I realized that they were oil paintings. But it is dark, so I’m not sure if I believe my eyes. I stop and inspect them more closely. They are, in fact, oil paintings! I found three oil paintings of flowers. Nothing valuable like a Picasso or a finger painting by one of my sons, but they are still incredibly good paintings. I’ve always thought about buying paintings to decorate my house and suddenly I have some. For free! The wooden frames were made in México.

I keep one by my computer to inspire me whenever I write. Doesn’t that painting look beautiful? I’m thankful to whomever threw those paintings away because they were tired of them. Let’s see how long they remain my treasures!

DDR

Dreams: A history


Matehuala, México

I have been dreaming for as long as I can remember. Unfortunately, I don’t always remember my dreams. Immediately upon waking up, I feel a little confused as to which is the real world, and which is the dream world. In moments like these, the dream world seems more real than the real world that I had pleasurably avoided while sleeping. As a boy, I used to dream about eating candy or Twinkies. In my dreams, I had every toy I ever wanted. My favorite toy in the first grade was G.I. Joe, but I didn’t have one. Some of my friends had G.I. Joes, so I would play with them at their house. So, at night, I would end up dreaming that I was playing with my very own G.I. Joe. I remember one dream where I realized that I was about to wake up, but I wanted to take G.I. Joe with me to my waking world so I could play him after school, or whenever I felt like. In my dream, I consciously placed G.I. Joe under my bed before I woke up. I kept reminding myself, while I was dreaming, that when I woke up, I would finally have my own G.I. Joe. I really believed I could do it. But, alas, I woke up and I soon as I remembered what I had done in my dream, I looked under my bed. But G.I. Joe was gone. AWOL! I tried it a few more times–unsuccessfully!

Of course, I’ve also had some scary dreams. They seem to have different themes depending on my age. From Kindergarten through about the fourth grade, I used to have dreams about running, but not really getting anywhere. Usually, I was being chased by someone from the neighborhood who wanted to beat me up, the Werewolf, Dracula, or some other creature from a horror movie. I always woke up before I was ever caught. I would also dream that I was walking to school, and I would be about halfway there, when suddenly, I would realize that I was completely naked. How could this happen in the first place? I’m sure I would notice when I left the house that I had forgotten to put on my clothes. Especially if it was snowing as it did in some of these dreams.

My favorite dreams from that era when I was about ten or eleven involved some of my female classmates. I dreamed the most about a mexicana named Yolanda Gonzalez. I never even thought about Yolanda once while I was awake. I didn’t sit by her, and I never went out of my way to talk to her. Then, one night, she walked into my dreams. She was interested in me romantically. Why didn’t I ever see her in that light before? In my dream, I called her, “Querida” just like Gomez called Morticia in The Addams Family. When I woke up, I realized that Yolanda did resemble Morticia somewhat. They both had long black hair and large, beautiful eyes. The next time I saw Yolanda, I was absolutely sure that she loved me! She had told me so in my dreams. I sought her out. We would talk when we “accidentally” bump into each other in the playground during lunch. Well, maybe it wasn’t true love, but she did take at least a liking to me because I was paying so much attention to her. After Yolanda was no longer in my life and dreams, I dreamed about other girls whom I never even had considered in my conscious world. I even dated one of the girls of my dreams.

As I grow older and wiser, I now dream about sleeping in late and realizing that I should be at UIC teaching my Spanish class! Sometimes I dream that I teach two classes and then go home. Suddenly, I realize that I left UIC before I taught my third and last class. But by the time I realize this, it’s too late to go back to teach it. Who knows what I’ll dream of when I reach my next stage!

DDR

Reading


 

Reading on a camping trip in Wisconsin

Reading has been my lifelong passion. I have always loved reading! Even when I went camping with my friend Jim, I took books along. He took this picture of me reading while I was so engrossed in reading. 

I loved the first grade when we started reading. At that level, it didn’t matter that I didn’t know English. Our homework involved reading to our parents at home. My mother thought that was too much trouble for her after a long day’s work, so I would read to my abuelita. Unfortunately, not only did she not speak English, but she was also blind. But she loved it when I read to her. And I was grateful to have someone to listen to me read. 

When I was a little older, I used to go to the library to read. I mostly read joke and riddle books, but that still counts as reading in my book. In the seventh grade, Divine Heart Seminary let me check out books from their library via the USPS. I only remember two of the books that I read. One book was about Father Damien who was a missionary on a leper island in Hawaii. And the other one was Fighting Father Duffy who was a U.S. Army chaplain during World War II. Now why would the seminary only send me books about priests? I’ve always wondered about that. Not!

I like reading at the library because I had more privacy. If mother saw me reading comic books or even books, she would criticize me for being lazy. When I finally bought my first car, I would drive to Marquette Park just to read in my car. When I would come home, my mother would ask me what I did. When I told her I went to the park to read, her blood would boil. Then she would tell me about other constructive things I could have been doing around the house. 

In general, the uneducated masses don’t understand why anyone would want to read a book. When I worked in the peanut butter factory, I always carried a paperback in my back pocket. Whenever the production line stopped or I was on break or lunch, I would pull out my book and start reading, even if I had to stand. No matter who my boss was, he would come by and tell me to pick up a broom and start cleaning up my area. No one at the factory really understood why I liked reading so much. 

Ironically, the books I chose to read were the books that I refused to read in high school. In high school, I spent most of my time reading chess books. For two years my life revolved around chess.  But once the assigned books weren’t required reading, they piqued my curiosity. Why were they required reading in the first place? So, one by one, I read all the books I once rebelled against. Suddenly, I felt a certain sense of fulfillment. 

In the Marines, I bought the Great Books set and I would read them every free moment. My fellow Marines thought I was a bit crazy, but that’s why no one started any trouble with me. That and I told everyone I knew kung fu. No one wanted to risk starting trouble with me. 

DDR

From your Valentine


The rose also has thorns.

 Happy Valentine’s Day! See, I didn’t forget about Valentine’s Day. A man is never allowed to forget Valentine’s Day. We get so many reminders in oh so many little ways, beginning in childhood with our mothers. This morning, I saw this reminder in my inbox from Encyclopedia Britannica:

Today is Valentine’s Day, the feast day of St. Valentine, a priest and physician who was martyred about AD 270 in Rome, and the tradition of exchanging greetings of love on Valentine’s Day is based on the legend that Valentine had signed a letter to his jailer’s daughter, with whom he had fallen in love, “from your Valentine.”

I’m sure that the author/poster of this almanac entry was a woman sending every man a not so subliminal reminder. Any man in a relationship who forgets Valentine’s Day is in big trouble. Especially after all the constant reminders. But how does a holiday like Valentine’s Day begin in the first place? This holiday is based on an old legend that has somehow miraculously survived to this day to cause a lot of angst among men in relationships. How? Well, you can thank Hallmark for that! They needed another holiday for people to buy cards. ¡Voila! Hallmark resurrects St. Valentine! That’s capitalism at work rearing its ugly head. And then the florists, jewelers, and the confectionaries got in on the action, too.

But it’s not just about making money. It’s also about expressing love. And what better way to do it than with jewelry, flowers, chocolate, and Hallmark Valentine’s Day cards? Most men dread Valentine’s Day, so I wonder what happens in a relationship between two men. Do they both forget about Valentine’s Day and each one hopes that his partner doesn’t bring it up? And what about two women in a relationship? Do they both go overboard buying each other gifts?

Happy Valentine’s Day!

DDR

Milestones


Seated: Danny, Rick, Delia, Jerry. Standing: David, Diego, Joey.

Our lives are marked by many milestones. The most easily recognized milestones are birthdays. I don’t really remember any of my birthdays until I reached the age of five. Five was such a magical number for me. Just ask William Carlos Williams about the number five and you’ll see what I mean. Five was special because a nickel was worth five cents (obviously) and that would buy me a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup when I was five. Then there was a long dry spell before I reached the next milestone of ten. It sure felt much longer than five years! Probably because I would tell people my age by half years: “You can’t talk to me like that. I’m seven and a half!” But when I turned ten, I had hit double digits. I felt grown up. So grown up that I talked my mother into buying an electric guitar and amplifier that I promised to learn to play but never did.

Thirteen was another important milestone because, suddenly, practically overnight it seems, I became a teenager. Being a teenager was cool! My sixteenth birthday meant I could take driver’s ed. I felt like I was really moving up in the world. I was sixteen and I had my driver’s license! Of course, I couldn’t drive because I didn’t have a car, and no one was foolish enough to let me drive their car. I wouldn’t drive a car until I turned eighteen and I bought my own car. Eighteen was a very memorable milestone for me, too. I also had to register for the draft, and I was sure I would get drafted and have to go to Viet Nam! So, I enjoyed life as much as possible before I was drafted, even though President Nixon had stopped the draft and no one was getting drafted anymore, but I was convinced that I would somehow get drafted anyway. Nonetheless, I was an adult with voting privileges.

Nineteen was also memorable because that’s when the state of Illinois, in its infinite wisdom, lowered the drinking age to nineteen for beer and wine. Let’s just say that I communed with the spirits on weekends to unwind from the long week of work at the peanut butter factory. When state legislators realized they had made a mistake in lowering the drinking age, they raised it back up to twenty-one again. But not before I turned –Tada! –twenty-one! I take pride in having planned my date of birth so precisely. Twenty-one meant I was an adult for real. Even if I would never get drafted. You would think that there would be no more milestones after twenty-one, but then you would think wrong! As all male drivers under twenty-five know, surviving your own reckless driving habits to live to your twenty-fifth birthday grants you the privilege of seeing your auto insurance drop dramatically.

Then the milestones were no longer significant. Thirty? The big three-oh? Thirty was so anti-climactic after seeing my auto insurance rates drop. Forty? What a yawn! I celebrated by taking a nap. And don’t even ask me about turning fifty. So, stop asking me already. I forgot all about my fiftieth birthday until my sons reminded me that we usually go out for dinner and the movie of my choice for my birthday. Do I know how to celebrate or what?

Now, I hate it when people ask me my age. And not because I’m embarrassed about my age. I enjoy being my age and I never try to appear younger than I really am, but please don’t ask me my age. That involves math. How old am I? Let’s see. This is 2010 minus 1956, the year of my birth. That makes me … Oh, I hate doing math. That’s why I majored in literature! After twenty-one, I stopped keeping track of my age. Age became just a number to me–an unknown variable that I didn’t want to calculate! Why do I need to know my own age anyway? If I go to the liquor store for a bottle of wine and the clerk asks me if I’m old enough to drink, I just hand him or her my driver’s license and say, “You figure it out.” Now that I think of it, why am I still being carded?

My next milestone–and one that I look forward to seeing–is my 100th birthday. Triple digits! I hope you will read my blog entry on that incredibly special occasion!

DDDR