My mother always loved to help everyone in any way possible. If she met a family that was down on their luck, she would help them, even though we were just slightly better off than them.
Once when I came home after school, I went to my room to read my comic books and–they were all gone! I asked my mother where they were, and she said she had given them away. She said, “I didn’t think you wanted them.” Of course, I wanted them, but my mother had helped a family and their boys needed something to read! But why my comic books?
When we went to Mexico one winter, we had our fun there for two months. But then, as we were leaving, my mother, with great ceremony, made us give all our clothes that we had brought with us to our cousins.
We went back to Chicago with little more than the clothes we were wearing. I had to give my favorite boots to my cousin. You know the kind: yellow leather high-top construction boots. I argued with my mother the day before we left about this, and I refused to give away my favorite boots. As we were putting our luggage in the car to go to the train station, my mother told me to give my boots to my cousin. Since all the family was standing there giving us a warm sendoff, I didn’t argue. I gave my boots to her, and I hugged her warmly and we kissed each other before we left.
When I went to Mexico last December, she reminded me about the boots that I had all but forgotten. She told me how much she enjoyed wearing them and how she always thought of us because she wore my boots. Only then, did I feel happy about giving my boots to her.
My father is a very unique person who has his own way of doing things. He was a factory mechanic who could work wonders with duct tape. No matter where we were, he always had some tools in his pocket. He was proud of being mechanic. If someone had some sort of mechanical problem, my father would volunteer to fix whatever needed fixing. No problem was too small for him. A squeaky door? He carried a little oil can with him. Door knob keeps falling off? My father would attach it with his tools and extra screws that he always carried with him just in case.
I should write a novel about him: My Father, the Super Fix-It Handyman. Or maybe make him into a comic book superhero who can fix any problem no matter how small. My father was always fixing bicycles, skates, skateboards, and automobiles for everyone on the block. He had just enough mechanical aptitude, talent, and expertise to keep him trapped in the middle class the rest of his life. And, it turns out that I’m not much different than him, although I’ll never be able to make repairs just like my father.
When I was a boy, my father often embarrassed me. He always liked to attract attention to himself by telling jokes in his broken English. I was afraid to bring home friends when my father was home because then he would want to get in on the conversation with them and he didn’t speak English very well. So most of the conversation would involve a lot of repetition because he didn’t understand everything that was said, but he wanted to show that he was eager to learn English. It’s now forty years later and he still does this. He has never stopped trying to learn English. If I talk to him in Spanish, he still insists that I speak to him in English so he can learn English. In fact, if I talk to him in Spanish, he doesn’t understand a word I say.
Another thing about my father was that he was always so Mexican. He could just stand there silently and everyone would know that he was Mexican because he always stood there looking so Mexican. He was about 5’6″, thin, with black hair slicked back with vaselina, brown eyes, and a Cantinflas mustache. Plus, you could see the tools bulging from his pants pockets, along with a small jar of salsa or peppers, just in case.
Whenever we did something together, he would always preface it by saying that he used to do that activity in Mexico when he was a boy. When we played basketball in our backyard at 4405 S. Wood Street in Back of the yards, he told us that he always played basketball with his brothers in Celaya, Guanajuato, Mexico. When I was eight, I actually thought that basketball was a Mexican sport. While playing, my father told me that once I stopped dribbling the ball, I couldn’t dribble it again. I had never heard of such a rule. I told him, “I don’t want to play the Mexican way.” Of course, I didn’t know any better at the time even though there is a rule against double dribbling.
For breakfast, my father would prepare this concoction that he learned to make from his father in, you guessed it, Mexico. He would pour some Mogen David grape wine into a glass, put in a raw egg, and mix it up together. He would drink the first glass to show me how it was done. Then, he would hand me a glass and I would force myself to drink it. At first I didn’t like it and I told him that I didn’t want a Mexican breakfast, but I eventually learned to like it. I also learned to eat raw eggs right out of the eggshell by poking to holes at either end of the egg. I learned this from my father because this is how he ate breakfast in Mexico. This was long before I had ever heard of salmonella. I guess God does protect children and idiotas. 🙂
I have always believed that I am very adaptable and that I could survive anywhere in the world.
In fact, I’ve always fantasized that if you flew me anywhere in the world blindfolded and pushed me out of an airplane, I would somehow live and prosper because of my survival skills. Since I have never gone skydiving, you would have to blindfold me and you would have to push me very firmly to get me to jump out of a perfectly fully functioning, flying airplane. Not jumping out of airplanes is one of my innate survival skills that I highly value. I have never had the urge to go skydiving. When I was in the Marines, a few of my friends wanted me to go skydiving, but I am afraid of heights, so I went to the library instead. And, thus, I live to tell this tale!
Anyway, despite knowing that I’m very adaptable and can get along with just about anyone, just about anywhere, I always get this vague feeling that I’m always in the wrong place and the wrong time. I often feel that I do not belong right here where I am right now, if you know what I mean.
It’s an eerie feeling that’s difficult to describe. No matter where I am, I feel as if I should be somewhere else. As a boy, I truly thought that I was born into the wrong family. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to be born to a Mexican family because I certainly didn’t fit in. When I was in Mexico, I thought I should be in Chicago, until I returned to Chicago where I felt that I really belonged in Mexico.
I wasn’t born in the right era either. I should have been a medieval scribe of some sort. Or, I should have been born in New York City in the early 1900s. If I’m with my friends, I feel as if I should be with my sons and family. If I’m with my sons, I feel as if I should be with my girlfriend, but when I’m with her I wish I could be with her, and my sons, family, and friends.
As I write this, I feel guilty for not working on my tax return or correcting Spanish compositions. When I’m teaching, I think about how nice it would be to stay home. Now, that I’m on spring break, I miss my students. What should I do? Maybe I should jump out of a plane.
Okay, so how do I write my blog entries? Well, I’ll tell you. I don’t know. I have no rhyme or reason when I sit down at the computer to write a blog entry. In fact, when I’m at my computer, I’m usually supposed to be doing something else, “important academic work” such as grading online Spanish homework or compositions.
However, I never do what I’m supposed to do in a straight-forward fashion. For example, right now, I sat at the computer to grade online Spanish homework, send an email to my cousin in Mexico, enter student grades on my Excel spreadsheet, and then with time permitting, write a blog entry for the sake of posterity that will better the world in untold ways. Well, I hate correcting online homework online, I can’t think of anything to write my cousin, and I dread the thought of staring at a spreadsheet this early in the morning, so I think I’ll start with a blog entry!
So how do I choose my topics? I don’t know! I have many ideas percolating in my head, some for many years now, that somehow manage to ooze out through my fingertips and out into cyberspace. I can’t always contain them. And so they wind up in a blog entry.
As you’ve probably noticed, I’m rarely topical or current. I’ve reached that age where I’m very fascinated with the past, the nostalgic elements of life. I rarely invent anything that I write. I’m just not that creative. I write about just about everything that I remember because I have a good memory.
How good is my memory? Well, I remember things that most of my friends don’t remember even the slightest detail. But a good memory is like a double-edged sword: it cuts both ways. I also have some painful memories that I would like to forget but can’t. I have issues with my good memory: 1. I remember most things that ever happened to me, and 2. I remember many things that never happened to me. My imagination invents events from my past and I truly believe that they really happened to me. I try to block those out, but I don’t always manage to censor them.
Well, I will end this blog entry rather abruptly today, as I do with most blog entries. I have some things that I really have to do. But first, I’ll go out for my morning run.
I’ve already mentioned how when I went to Mexico everyone seemed to comment on my American accent when I spoke Spanish. Well, my written Spanish is much better than many of my Mexican relatives. I often get letters from Mexico and some relatives just don’t use accent marks that are necessary when writing in Spanish. When I e-mail my cousin in Mexico, she is always amazed that I write much better in Spanish than her, even though she’s a native speaker. Another cousin constantly IMs me. Every so often, she asks me how her Spanish is. I tell her it’s surprisingly good, even though she doesn’t spell very well, doesn’t capitalize at the beginning of sentences, and doesn’t use any punctuation. Some of my Spanish students have seen these types of writings in Spanish and then question why I insist that they use accent marks and ñ and all things Spanish. Well, the main reason is to show that you have been educated. It works for me because my cousins take more seriously when I write proper Spanish.
Chicago USA 