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.