Lessons from mom and dad

I learned many lessons from mom and dad, two strikingly different personalities. Dad, Jose, was a “ner-do-well” content with a meager existence. He worked most of his life for the city in an automotive garage, first with city buses and later in police department’s maintenance garage. I clearly remember visiting him at work in his later years. Here was a grown man, literally, playing grab ass with his co workers, no class!

 He left us when I was about 8 years old and he went to live with his relatives, in a small home, in an ugly neighborhood that we had left a few years prior. Back-slider. He eventually met another woman who had two boys of her own and lived with her extended family. They lived in an uglier neighborhood, but dad was content with that arrangement. He had no ambition or drive.

 Nonetheless, it seemed that he was well liked everywhere he went. One day he went to see me at school, in the third grade and my teacher Mrs. Jemente asked him about his French last name. “Do you speak French?” “Oui, Oui” he replied and they had a nice laugh together. That was part of his charm. Whenever I walked around with him, others joked with him and he with them. Always there was a very friendly exchange that gave me the clear impression that he was well liked. To this day folks will ask me if we are related and he is usually remembered fondly as a volunteer security guard at Sacred Heart Church.

 This has led to the mistaken belief that I was from “El Segundo Barrio.” No, no, I was a “San Juanero,” from the barrio of San Juan. Our relationship was strained, almost non existent. I would go visit him at work to seek out that bond, and of course, I would go on paydays to get some icing on my cake. But neither came to be. He did not reciprocate my outreach and rarely gave me a dime.

 I went to see him before I joined the Army, before going overseas, and upon returning from Germany. He just didn’t seem to be impressed or even to care about what I was doing. I was a grown man in 1980 when I called to wish him a Merry Christmas, “who is this?” he asked. “Your son,” was my reply. “Which one?” I was my father’s only son. I’m sure he could have said something more stupid, but it’s hard to imagine a more stupid question. How could he not recognize my voice? He had two step sons, but their English was horrible and their voice could not possibly be mistaken for mine. I was infuriated so I went to my favorite watering hole to ventilate. I graduated from college that year, but again, he was unimpressed.

With his new wife he fathered a daughter and adopted a boy. He took his family from the Segundo barrio shit hole to the projects and then to better projects. His last residence was a public housing project we called “El Diablo.” I took my new born daughter to meet him at that address, but by then his health had begun to decline and he died later that year, just as broke as the day he was born.

A couple of years before his death he, his wife, and their adopted son came to my apartment. I was working the night shift back then and in anticipation of his visit I made it point to pick up “pan dulce” Mexican sweet bread and to put on a fresh pot of coffee for the early morning visit. When he arrived I learned that the purpose of the visit was for his wife to confront me about a comment I made 10 years earlier. When their baby girl was born, they brought her by the house to introduce her. She was a cute baby, fair skinned with green eyes. I made a joke saying that the baby was too pretty to be his, inferring that he was an ugly old man. He was. That comment festered and 10 years later that woman wanted to know why I insinuated that the child was fathered by another man. Angered at the purpose of the visit, and being able to recall the comment, I asked them to leave.

I learned from him what not to do as a father and as a man. It was my mission to be a good husband and a good father for my family. I learned to aspire to have more, to be better. I learned to stand up for my kids above all else even if that meant opposing my ex-wife. The only thing he gave me was my name and I was determined to make my name respectable. I learned that it is important to have friends and to be liked.

 I know nothing about my dad’s history. There are no family stories, only rumors, about his parents and their origins. I will give my kids some roots. He died December 7, 1984, a day that will live in infamy, Pearl Harbor Day, and my ex-wife’s birthday. I went to the memorial service and didn’t know the people in attendance. Old relatives that I didn’t recognize. His wife’s family that I did not know. I was a stranger at my own father’s funeral. I wept because I was a stranger, not because he died. I wept because it hurt to have lived a life without a father, knowing that the son of a bitch was always just down the street. I share these deepest sentiments here, but I save the skeletons for another day.

Now at the ripe age of 61, I find myself searching the web for my roots. I learned that my grandfather was born in San Francisco in 1879. He died in El Paso in 1927. His listed occupation is a junk dealer. His name is a question mark, but I believe he was Chas Amaury Barceleau. There are references to Chas, to C. A. and to Carlos. It is possible that his first name was Charles. Grandmother was Luz Blanco Barceleau, born in Mexico in 1889 and died in El Paso in 1949, she was a house wife. Children included Elena, Victoria, Jesus, Carlos, Lorenza, Amaury, and Jose, these being my aunts and uncles.

In stark contrast is my mother, Josefina, born in El Paso, TX. Her family moved to Mexico, to an austere household with little promise of a future or a happy family life. Dissatisfied with perpetual struggle, at 15 years of age she ran away from home to return to El Paso. Her baggage was her two younger brothers, Chilo and Angel; she became a responsible adult rather early in life. A few nights on the streets, then they went to live with their uncle. I remember him, he lived across the street from us on Colfax St.  We knew him is our "tio Blas."

Apparently all my maternal uncles were rather enterprising youth. The boys started shining shoes and mom began a career in the food service industry where she earned shit for wages the rest of her life. My earliest memories were of mom working in a cafeteria in a garment manufacturing plant. Stories of mom working at a fast food diner six days a week from open to close are still vivid, but it’s only the stories I remember. Personal images of mom coming home from work, as I recall, she was wearing the required white dress and shoes and the hair net that was common for that era. She carried two things, her purse and a # 10 tin can with some sweet goodies in it.

I was about 5 years old when we left that neighborhood, trading up to a home with indoor toilets. We were in a brick house in a nice neighborhood when I began first grade, then another brick house just up the street. I only learned the reason for the move during long conversations with mom in her waning days. Dad had made some 'dope' deals and he got into trouble. No, he didn’t sell dope; he was a dope to make the deals. He had a bakery back then, but he wasn’t a smart business man and was unable to keep up payments on the home or business.

We lost that life of luxury and had to move back to the ghettos of south central El Paso. For reasons I won’t disclose here, mom and dad split up. I suppose in some way it was due to the fact that mom was a worker and dad was a wonderer. I never knew him to be a drunk or a wife beater or a philanderer, but he was a wonderer who didn’t manage to make it home with the bacon. Certainly, that did not further their relationship, especially with 5 children to feed and clothe.

Mom worked hard and tended to the family, keeping us in stitches, even making clothes by hand. We began a series of moves, from one rental unit to another and that was the situation for the next ten years or so until mom bought us a proper house in a proper neighborhood, in the summer of ’69. Always, mom worked. Off to work daily at O’dark-thirty, back at 5 PM and half day Saturdays, never missed a day unless she was laid up. I used to shine her white shoes with white Shine’ola shoe polish. The polish smelled bad by itself, worsened by the bad smell of the sweaty shoes, but I did it often because mom had to have clean shoes.

The oldest child was at the top of the pecking order, she ruled with impunity, and I didn’t mind it, not one little bit. Mom was the bread winner, and Stela was the supervisor. Mom's  greatest accomplishment was that house. Before that, in all our rentals, she would buy something really nice and store it for new house. There was a portable bar thing in a wooden barrel, I saw it in the box, but somehow, it never showed up at the new house. It became a running joke, “para la casa nueva.”

Often, mom would take me outside, shovel in hand and tell me dig a hole here and a trench there. Then she would plant this and that. Roses were her favorite. One day she turned holy on me. Soon there were a bunch of Jews having a party in my house, men in their funny caps. It was a “hava nagila” good time for all, except that I was confused by the strangeness of it all, and mom was tickled pink. She would later admonish me for not being “in the Lord.”

Twenty five years later, mom traded up, or so she thought. She and my sister, Stela, moved to another home with more amenities, but it wasn’t the same and she regretted that move; always blaming Stela for the bad decision. But that was to be her final home. Stela died in that home in ’96 and mom nearly died there in 2008, but we had to place her in a nursing home for her final days.

Mom and Stela taught me lessons that made me a better man, husband, and father. At 12 years old, Stela told me about sex and sperm and literally drew it out for me. I speak of Stela, but she was not alone in my upbringing, there were to older sisters, equally influential in my development.  Collectively they taught what real men do and what real men don't do.  They taught me how to be a man, father, and husband; they taught me values and morals.

As with mom, I have never been without work, out everyday to earn my bread, even when sick or injured. My kids never wanted for food, clothing, shelter, medicine or time. My ex-wife has a faithful husband who tended to his home and family, does chores, and I didn't stray. True to my word, it is important that others know I am reliable and forthright.

I learned that adversity can be an opportunity. Being the youngest of five, I learned that it is better to be the boss than to be bossed. Mom had a stroke in ’98 and recovered nicely, but was subsequently diagnosed with cirrhosis. I always feel compelled to qualify that statement by saying that she was not a drinker, she rarely drank alcoholic beverages. In the last few years we spoke often and she would recount childhood stories, seldom did she have fond memories. She shared family secrets, some that I have kept to myself to this very day.

Her final months were difficult for all of us. Mom died October 4, 2008 at the ripe old age of 83. Her parents Carmen and Sostenes lived mostly in Mexico, but died in El Paso. Carmen Perez Pina, April 18, 1904 to April 30, 1946; Sostenes Pina, November 10, 1881 to November 30, 1953. My aunts and uncles were Lupe, Angel, Chilo, Cata, Cruz, Carmen, and Sostenes. I knew the older ones, the eldest passing in January 2014.

So, generally speaking, from mom I learned the do’s and from dad I learned the don’t’s. I don’t know what to make of this, but I think dad was happy in his ignorance and was generally content with his life. Ignorance is bliss, as they say. Mom, while comfortable in her skin, was not so happy. She didn’t like being in the nursing home and had lots of regrets about her childhood and her parenting. During the last few years we had lots of conversations often with a recurring theme, “was I a good parent?” Well, mom, I learned from you how to be a good parent, just ask my kids. I miss mom, not dad. I keep in touch with my siblings, except for the one dad sired with the other woman, Elizabeth just isn’t part of my sibling group.

For a public health insurance plan

All this hoopla about a government health plan as if it were something new, go figure. No, it’s not new. We have several public health plans already, and they cover millions of people, so why is there so much opposition to Obama’s proposed public health plan? We have public health plans that do not have annual deductible limits, office and prescription drug co payments, life time caps AND NO HEALTH INSURANCE PREMIUMS. So which Americans are covered by these plans? 1. Let’s start with the Concierge health plan, the one reserved for legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government. Yes, Congressmen pay for their health plan, but it is extremely affordable when compared to the general public and we don't know much about their co payments and deductible amounts, life time caps, or maximum out of pocket plans. Plus, they can go to Bethesda Naval Hospital and Walter Reed Army Medical Center and have appointments at their convenience. All this at the expense of the taxpayer. How can they gauge the status of health care and health insurance plans? 2. We also have the public health plan exclusive for our armed forces. When health care is not available through the military system, they can purchase services from civilian providers. We don’t begrudge them this health plan, they deserve the best, especially when injured in the line of duty. 3. Then we have the public health plan for military dependents and retirees. They can access military facilities when available, and when not available they get health care from civilian providers via TriCare, the health plan for retirees and military dependents. There are minimal costs for premiums or co pays, really minimal. Even military reserve forces personnel can buy into this plan and it is quite affordable for both medical and dental services. 4. Our veterans deserve the best so we set up a separate public health plan for them. I am a veteran, I am also retired from the Army Reserve and at age 60 I will be covered by TriCare. Ahhh, free drugs for life. Veterans can access the VA system, which is known for incompetence, or the VA can purchase services from civilian providers. The VA is for service connected health complications, but there are millions covered by this plan. The aforementioned plans are for government connected persons and their families. They cover millions upon millions of Americans at staggering costs. But they are deserving of the best care money can buy. 5. Most conservatives complain about Medicaid for low income Americans and those with disabilities, I guess because they are less deserving of good health and life saving treatment. Again, millions are covered by Medicaid, mostly low income children and people with disabilities. Medicaid's stepchild is SCHIP, children whose parents are sometimes referred to as the working poor. Medicaid's cousin is Medicare, for retired Americans. 6. Probably the costliest of the public health plans is Medicare, especially with the “graying of America” that means more Americans are reaching retirement age and living longer, often needing more health care than the average person. There are different parts to Medicare and there are some out of pocket expenses for most seniors. 6. Most recently we added SCHIP, the children’s health insurance plan that was to be funded mostly with money from the tobacco law suit settlements. There are variety of minimal out pocket expenses for SCHIP because it was designed to be affordable for the working poor. We also have millions of public employees of all stripes covered by a variety of health plans. States, cities, counties, school districts and a hodge podge of other public entities offer a broad spectrum of health plans to their employees. Costs are mostly paid with public monies, also known as taxes, just like all the other public health plans previously mentioned. But no one really considers these public health insurance plans. I have no clue how many Americans are covered by all of the health plans available to government workers and their families, but the number is staggering. Some of these plans are straight government plans, some are private companies hired by government entities. When I was a state worker, I had Blue Cross, paid for with state funds (taxes) and I most, but not all, of my family's insurance premium via payroll deduction. Either way, the tax payer is footing the bill. You see, I told you so, we already have several public health plans. Yes, of course, I have a proposal of my own. Combine Medicare and Medicaid into one plan and let Americans buy into it, this would be the public health plan proposed by Obama. Let’s call if G-Care for now (you know - government care). Allow small businesses and non profit employers, public entities included, to purchase coverage from G-Care. Competition for high valued workers will force employers to offer better coverage, but it is driven by competition, not by the government. Expand the public health system of providers, like public hospitals and clinics, and the non profit system of health centers. Public health plans must give priority to non profit and public health providers. This becomes the default health plan and network of providers for those covered in the aforementioned public plans. In most cases, it does not make sense to operate a government health system, like the VA, in direct competition with the civilian health care system. Veterans, military retirees and dependents can be issued an insurance card, just like the one I have from Blue Cross/Blue Shield. When non profit or public providers are available, they will be the provider of first choice. Public providers include public health clinics, federally qualified health centers, public hospitals, and public university medical centers, etc. These providers must conduct verifiable cost analysis and they will be reimbursed by the public health plan on a cost reimbursement basis, no profit margins allowed. Americans may elect private providers with the requirement that they will incur any added costs. A public health plan makes sense in that it can keep costs manageable. There is nothing wrong with reimbursing doctors fair pay for their talents, these are some of the hardest working Americans who have undergone grueling training to save lives. Hospitals and other providers should be reimbursed for all of the wonderful work they do for us; however, there is certainly something morally repugnant about including high profit margins to provide returns to shareholders just because someone had stroke. However, there must be built in regulations on billing standards. Recently, I had an outpatient procedure. I received bills a few weeks after the surgery and paid my bills promptly. But I was billed the same amounts a month later. Was it oversight or were they simply hoping that I wouldn't notice and pay the bills again? My daughter used an ambulance in 2001, when she was minor covered under my health plan; seven years later the ambulance company sent her a bill. My wife went for an office visit, they used an instrument to scrape a sample for testing, a simple thing covered in the cost of the office visit. They billed her for a surgical tray. These "little things" need some policing. Most Americans are covered by their private employers who purchase commercial insurance policies for their workforce. That can continue as it is, much to my chagrin. I don't know who made the employer responsible for America's health insurance, but I am not sure its the right thing to do. I am an employer, I would rather give my employees a raise equal to the cost of their insurance premium and let them buy their own insurance. I can't do that because the insurance companies would take them to the cleaners. Each year I go through a grueling process to select a one-size-fits-all plan to cover my work force and inevitably, some complain and all want more and better. This is doable, alas I fear that the profit interests will prevail and I will continue to pay high taxes, high insurance premiums, outrageous co payments and deductible expenses. Last year, I paid more than 13% of my total income to health care costs, plus 14% in federal tax payments that fund the public health plans described previously, another 3% in Medicare tax, plus state, city, county, hospital district, school district, and community college district taxes that fund health plans for public employees. That’s just too much. Barceleau 4 President

Growing up Poor

Growing up poor wasn’t bad. I didn’t know I was poor, why would I? All the other kids on the block were poor like me. Well, not like me because we tended to be the poorest of the poor. How poor were we? Go ahead, ask me. We were sooo poor, our cockroaches had to go next door to eat. Our mice wouldn’t eat the cockroaches cause our roaches were “empty calories,” they were "failure to thrive mice". Truly though, my first recollection of my boyhood home was a one room apartment in a one story tenement in south central El Paso.

I was born in El Paso, TX, a city situated on Texas/Mexico border, a mostly Mexican-American community that is representative of the broader Mexican-American population in America; and by that I mean that the local community was, and continues to be, mostly poor.  Such it was for me and my family.  I’m not sure exactly where in the city I was born, mom said I was born on Grama St and she has said I was born at 4,000 Bush St, in south central El Paso.  However, my earliest recollections from my pre-school days were on Dailey St and I tell folks that I grew up on that street.

It’s not exactly true that I grew up on Dailey St because we moved often in those days: I remember living on Dailey, in two houses on Mauer; on Colfax, two houses on Chelsea, and on El Paso Drive – all before I was in the sixth grade.  The common thread is that these homes were in south central, AKA poor, El Paso.  We were renters.  Nonetheless, I claim Dailey as the neighborhood where I grew up.

I’m not sure how old I was when we moved into that neighborhood on Dailey, but we moved out when I was about 5 years old.  The neighborhood had single family homes and a few single story apartments.  We lived in one of the apartment buildings.  Most of us were Mexican American, with one black family, the Waltons, in a yellow house in the middle of the block.  At one end of the block was San Juan Catholic Church with a small convenience store, Las Hormigitas, across the street.  At the other end of the block was a busy street and a grocery store called Leo’s.

I guess there was less than a dozen apartments in our building, immediately north of the apartment building was an alley and on the east side of the property was a large open space where residents parked their automobiles.  There were a couple of trees, no grass. 

The units did not have indoor toilets; there was a wooden outhouse by the alley that had a porcelain commode.  All residents used that toilet and everyone had to take their own paper.  This posed challenges in bad weather, during winter months, and at night.  For children, a dark, cold alley was not only uncomfortable, but it was chock full of imagined dangers such as “la India” our version of the boogey man.  My sister, the eldest, had polio and was easily frightened.  I remember her making me accompany her to the toilet to stand guard outside the privy.  This also caused another “condition” inside our home.  We had a bucket in the corner that doubled as a toilet for those times when going to the alley was ill-advised and the bucket was covered with a piece of wood to contain the emanating odor.

As long as I’m talking about plumbing, we had an indoor cold water faucet, no hot water at the sink.  There was no bathroom sink or tub in the apartment.  We had a gas pipe for the gas heater, but no gas for a water heater or a stove.  Cooking was on a kerosene stove and we had to walk to the corner store to buy the kerosene.  I remember carrying a glass jug to the store where they had a 55 gallon drum with a hand-cranked pump.  They would pump the kerosene into the glass jug for us. 
 

The kerosene stove was used for cooking and to heat the bath water.  Our baths were in a galvanized metal tub that also doubled as the washing machine.  When I first heard the expression “don’t throw the baby out with the bath water” I knew exactly what it meant.  I was the youngest of five children – the baby.  My bath always came last.  It was much too laborious to change the bath water for each individual bath so we shared.  I was always last and I remember the water being a white, gray, bluish tint when it was my turn to bathe; the water was NOT clear for my bath.
 

Our apartment was one long room.  In that one room was the sink, the stove, the heater, the front door and our meager furnishings.  Our parents’ bed was toward the rear of the room.  The room was partitioned with a large canvas curtain.  Mom and dad slept on a bed in “their room” and all the kids (5) slept on one bed in the front room.  I guess we looked like a plate of rolled tacos.

There were a couple of other apartment units on our block, but most were private residences and from what I can remember they all had indoor pipes for gas and water, and they had a private bathroom.

Yeah, we were the poorest of the poor, but make no mistake, the entire neighborhood was poor. We were a group of low income Mexican American families, mostly two parent households in which the men were unskilled laborers and the women were stay at home moms. Across the street were two families, the Lopez and the Torres clans. Ofelia Lopez had a crush on me and I remember the scandal when her older sister Pilar was found doing the deed with some unidentified male in a car in the alley.

At the corner was San Juan Catholic Church. True to our, Hispanic culture, it played a central role in the neighborhood. On Sundays afternoons we would go to the church grounds where parents were baptizing their babies. After baptisms the god parents would come out and throw candy or coins for the neighborhood children, pipiluya it was called.  The neighborhood children would rush to pick up some candy or coins and the baptism party would depart in a caravan of cars.  The church had a grotto thing where we had the Virgen de Guadalupe and there was a water fountain. We would scoop up holy water in our dirty hands to enjoy a cool drink, mindless of the how dirty our hands were.  That water tasted different, it was good, but it was different from our tap water.  On late afternoons, after school, there were catechism classes for those preparing for their First Holy Communion.

In the winter, during the Christmas season we had posadas which are an annual reenactment of Joseph and Mary’s search a place to stay where the baby Jesus could be born. We started at the church, a procession of parishioners carrying a life size statue of the baby Jesus, and we would go to certain houses for a chocolate type drink, champurrado, and some cookies, biscochos. We had the annual offering of flowers to the Virgen de Guadalupe every spring. I don’t know where the name comes from, but she’s really the Virgin Mary, the translation for Mary is Maria, but she is not the Virgen de Maria. In Mexico, the Virgin Mary appeared to a peasant, Juan Diego, just like she appeared in Portugal, the Lady of Fatima, and the Lady of Lourdes in Lourdes, France, in our culture she is known as the Virgen de Guadalupe.

This was my world from my first memories until I was about five years old. We had a black and white television and a phonograph. Mom and dad never married, but they lived together for about 13 years. Mom worked at a drive-in diner six days a week, Linda’s Jet Drive In, then she got a good job in the cafeteria of a pant manufacturing plant. Dad was an orderly in mental ward, then he got a job at the garage where they fixed the city buses. I remember waiting for them to come walking down the street after getting off work cause mom might have some sweet leftovers from the cafeteria or dad might have something leftover in his black lunch box.

We were five kids, I being the youngest, with three sisters and a brother. Since my brother was six years older, he was much too old for me to keep up with so I was condemned to life with three girls. They made a sissy out of me and I got picked on at school because of it. To make matters worse, boys started picking on me and then my sister Lucy would come to my defense. How humiliating, getting rescued by a GIRL! But what I remember - I remember fondly. I liked my brothers and sisters, still do. They are my favorite people in the world, next to my two daughters, of course.

We lived on beans, Spanish rice, fideo (vermicelli) and home made tortillas. My sister would form the assembly line and make tortillas. Being poor wasn’t all that bad. Mom and dad and siblings, lots of bigger people to look after me. After my siblings started going to school, I had to stay home with a maid. Back then it was not unusual to have a maid, they came from Juarez, wetbacks, and did domestic work. If it wasn’t for those maids, mom would not have been able to work and that would have made poverty a little more stinging. Life got worse after those days living on Dailey Street in El Paso, but the poverty got better. Go figure. Stay tuned for those details at a later time.