It Took a Village
The village that raised me were largely my aunts and uncles.
My mom had many cousins, who we called my uncles and aunts. They were all raised together for a few years. Probably another volume of stories about them.
Enjoy some stories of my mother's siblings, their spouses, and an additional cousin/uncle
This cast of characters are all gone now.
A common regret that l share with probably most of the world is that I neglected them after I was no longer a child.
Noni
My tia Noni, Naomi, was the wife of my tio Lalo. She was not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Her husband and 4 sons bullied her with puns and jokes, which was easy because she did not have a sense of humor. Except for desserts, she could not cook.
Two short stories about her…
She once tried to lose weight by having her jaws wired together. Anything she ate had to go through a blender. She often had a gallon of ice cream soup, or an entire liquefied apple pie a la mode, enjoyed in one sitting. But she insisted this was alright because she wasn't actually eating.
She called me a couple of times a year, she wanted to catch up with kid news. The last time I talked to her, when she said goodbye, she said "I love you.” It's the only time she ever said anything affectionate to me.
Mary
The wife of my mom’s brother Carlos.
For all of my life, Mary was my mother. She is the one person I think of when I think of mother. It’s been close to 20 years since she died, and I don’t miss her any less. I feel her not in my life.
We talked often on the phone, but not often enough. I must admit that most of the time she called me. But I would go to Bakersfield to visit her when I could.
I have so many loving and wonderful memories of her, here are two important stories about her in other parts of this volume.
Mario’s birth, here Milking the cow, here
Tony
My mother‘s oldest brother. He died when I was two, I don’t have any clear memories of him. I do remember the lines on his face when he smiled. I remember that his hair was gold. And I remember the grief around me when he died.
A phrase I often heard growing up was, You’re a lot like Tony. That was often said when I was being very curious, or I had a fact to add to the conversation, or I demanded that the adults be reasonable.
A way I am not like him is that he was a true alpha male. Not a bully or a charmer, but where he went, people would follow.
My favorite Tony story.
He was dying of tuberculosis, but really he was dying of burning the candle at both ends. He was very near death, and my grandmother brought in a priest for the last rites.
He opened his eyes and looking around, he saw the priest.
“What the hell did you bring him here for? I don’t want any of that bullshit around me. Get the hell out!”
He sat up in his bed and ripped out the lines and tubes and walked out of the room. He was sent to the county State Hospital in Camarillo for psychological observation. My grandma said often that he met a judge and a businessman at the hospital, and spent the last couple of months of his life with them.
Do you know the song "Blues in the Night"? The lyrics start, "My mama done told me, when I was in knee pants.... ". My uncles and my dad told me that my grandmother was called, La Mama de Tony.
Lalo
My mother‘s second brother, Eulalio, who lived in Fontana. When I was a kid, he was a military man. He was a proud American, a proud wounded veteran, and raised his four sons in a strict military manner. I didn’t buy the premise, I didn’t buy the style, and it was one way he told me I was like my uncle Tony.
He was a tool and die man. He worked long hours and he worked hard. He spent his money on real estate.
He retired early. Lalo embraced the New Age. He became a much nicer person. He spent his money. He took his sons all over the world to scuba dive. He really loved his grandchildren.
All my life he was someone I could rely on.
He would often say, “Life is hell, and then you die. But remember the moments of happiness and joy.”
He died a terrible death of pancreatic cancer.
Having my own health problems at the time, my mom told me not to visit my uncle in case he could catch something from me.
I deeply regret listening to my mom. I would have liked to have been with him in his last days.
Carlos
My aunt Mary’s husband, my mom’s youngest brother. His children, my Bakersfield cousins, had problems with him. They accused him of cruelty, accused him of being unreasonable. I never saw that side. I saw the funny guy, the mischievous guy, the practical joker. He greatly influenced my sense of funny. I treasure the hours and hours of conversation with him.
Carlos was very involved with politics for quite a while. He was even invited to the inauguration of JFK. I don’t now why he didn’t go, but my tio Marcos kept the invitation framed on the wall of his restaurant.
When Bobby Kennedy was running for president during the 1968 primaries, he would often stay with families. He stayed with my uncle and aunt one night. My aunt told me how he had a cold and how his handkerchief was crunchy. The next day he took my uncle with him to Los Angeles and sent him to do some errands in Washington DC. Kennedy gave my uncle credentials to get onto the floors of the Senate and House. When Kennedy was assassinated that night, the first report was that the assassin was Mexican. My tio Carlos was at the Watergate Hotel, and FBI agents woke him up and sat on him, literally sat on him, for six hours until he was cleared. My uncle was forever very angry about this.
When my cousin Leo first got married, the governor, an ex governor, and a future governor and other politicians were all there at the reception.
Many years later, Lily went to hear Dolores Huerta give a talk at her college. She went up and dropped the name of my uncle. And Dolores kept Lily near to her the rest of the day.
There are more stories, of his kindness to me, of Caesar Chavez, governor Pat Brown, but I will end there.
Josie
My mom’s younger sister, by 9 months. Josefina greatly resembled my mom, she sounded very much like my mom. Except there was an enormous difference.
I have a studio picture taken of them when they were about 20 years old. My mom is on the left, the black and white photo tinted in red, with a severe face. My aunt was on the right, in blue, with a bright friendly smile, the smile even larger in her eyes.
I loved her so much. I always felt close to her, I felt loved by her, I always felt protected and cared for.
Find a few stories from my 9th year, here
Marcos
My tia Josie’s husband. This man is one of the big influences in my life. I have so many stories to tell of him. He was a big man, in his presence, his voice (which sounded like Placido Domingo), his sense of humor, and he weighed 300 pounds. He was light on his feet, and was a great dancer. At weddings, women would line up to dance with him.
We went to many restaurants. He would order wine and then an extra glass for me. When he was told that I could not be served wine he would tell the server that they would not be serving me, but he would be serving me. His son. And all was well.
They often came from El Paso to Los Angeles for their birthdays. We would go to movies and out to dinner. And to Disneyland.
Sometimes, my dad and Marcos and me, maybe my brother and the cousins, would just drive around. And if a fire truck went by, we would follow it and watch the fire. Once, we saw a big funeral procession. We followed, parked and crashed the funeral of Peter Lorre. We saw a number of celebrities, and later, my brother was on the evening news deeply picking his nose behind Cornell Wilde.
@ More about him at my ninth year on page 9, and on page restaurant
There are so many stories, big and small, but in short, he looked after me, and he loved me, and I felt it.
Maria
There was another sibling who died young. She was gone long before I was born. They didn’t talk about her. But she was around. When my grandmother had a heart attack, and had a near death experience, it was Maria who came to greet her.
Chava
One of my uncles, actually a first cousin of my mom, was my uncle Salvador. Everybody called him Chava.
I loved him so much.
Rumor has it that my uncle Chava’s mother, my grandmother‘s sister Dolores, (a red head, very beautiful. I spent a little time with her when she was in her 60s and I could still see her remarkable beauty as a young woman), well, she had an affair with a Spanish royal, and my tio Salvador was the result. She farmed him off to my great grandmother Rebecca for a while. The story was his mother ignored him those years. Then, when he was five or so she “sold” him to a couple of white women in sensible shoes in El Paso who wanted a child.
He ran away from them when he was 10. At 15 he turned up at my grandmother‘s door with a dead eye and signs of a hard life. His eye was the threat that matched the warning, "You'll put your eye out!"
From what I can put together, after the death of her husband, my grandmother also left her kids with her mother in Mexico, and was not around for a few years.
Just before World War II, my grandmother had been living in the United States, and she went back home to live with her mother. They lived on a rancho, in a very large house with a patio in the middle, outside of Sombrerete Mexico. I know that my grandmother‘s kids and many of her sister' kids all lived there in the one big house with my great grandmother being the matriarch. When the war began, my grandmother moved to East L A, and they took Chava with them. He considered my grandmother Leonor, his mother, and her children his siblings, especially my mom. He really considered her his sister.
When my uncle Lalo got drafted into the Korean war, Salvador enlisted with him. And because he was blind in one eye, they assigned him to a MASH unit. He collected bodies on the battlefield. He liked to tell stories how he mixed up body parts in the bags, and because no one ever checked them, he made lots of interesting ethnic and anatomical mixes. Later my uncle was an orderly in a hospital in East L A.
He would show up and torment my mom. Teasing her, calling her funny names, showing up banging on the door at 5 am, and asking, Where is breakfast? He had a wonderful talent of knowing how to stay way beyond his welcome. He made an art of the false goodbye. My dad thought it was very funny. I thought it was very funny. My mom and my brother didn’t think it was funny.
It was so funny.
My dear tio Chava showed me and my cousin Stella how to smoke. In fact, he was the only person that my grandmother or my mom would allow to smoke in the house. They had ashtrays put away just for him. When he showed up in the early morning I’d run to bring him his ashtrays
He was funny, he was naughty, he was an inspiration, he kept me sane, and he greatly influenced my sense of humor. Despite a very tough childhood, being rejected by his mother, having a rough life, he was always smiling and always laughing. He was a beloved uncle.
He found the definition of my name, David, and would pronounce it Be-Love-ld. He would call me Beloved, especially loudly in public. Hey Beloved! Come here!
One of many, many stories……
Chava liked to go to the big flea markets, thrift stores, and swap meets. When I was about 13, he picked us up and took us to a swap meet. On the way, my mom and his wife were bickering in the backseat. I was sitting in the front seat with my uncle. We were on the San Bernardino Freeway. He tapped me on my knee and said, Can you drive? And I said, I think so, and he said, Let me see, so I reached over and took the wheel. He said, okay no matter what happens, just keep driving straight. Okay.
So, there was all this bickering going on in the backseat. I’m driving. My uncle says to me, Watch this. He turns his body around, keeping his foot on the accelerator, and starts lecturing the bickerers in the backseat, gesturing with both hands over the seat talking at each of them by name, yelling at them how distracting it is to have this endless bickering going on while he’s trying to drive. Don’t they realize how dangerous this is?
They both start screaming. They both start yelling, What are you doing? We’re all going die! He said, Will you both calm down? And stop arguing?! They both said they would. He turned around, looked at me and gave me a wink and took back the wheel.
I loved him so much
May their memories be a blessing.