I wrote this as an assignment from the Writing Memoir Group

              No packaged food in my childhood memories.

I don’t remember to have seen packaged foods when I was a little girl, when mom took us to the market, there were very few packaged items, they were mainly in big sacks, like flour, sugar, salt, oatmeal, but the rest of the staples were in big barrels and you could buy different type of beans, lentils, etc. by the kilo, even the cheese was in humongous blocks.  

What is fresh in my memory is that when we children came home from playing or from school, before we opened the door we heard the rhythmic sound of my mother making home made tortillas; the “clap, clap, clap”, sounded like music to our ears, when the tortillas were made, mom made tacos, she filled the tortillas with some meat left over from the day before, topped them with cheese, lettuce and salsa picante; and rolled them tight,  for dessert we had delicious baked sweet jams with honey and cinnamon. I never heard anyone of us saying we didn’t want that, in fact we ate them so fast that we were told to slow down, if there were some tortillas left, they were spread in a cooking sheet to dry, later on, mom put them in the oven to make tostadas, when they were ready she spread in each some refried beans, lettuce, cheese and guacamole, what could be easier and tastier than that?  Mom had to make sure to use the leftovers because we didn’t have a refrigerator, just an ice box, I still remember a man coming once a week to deliver a huge block of ice so we could save some of the perishable food. Of course, lots of the Mexican cuisine can be very elaborate, but it those years, and with so many kids, simple tacos and tostadas were just right. Well, you will have to excuse me, but I am getting hungry, let me run to the freezer to see what I can find. Maybe some Old El Paso TV dinner?

    I still miss you.

The time has not cured my pain

How long has it been? It seems like forever,

You didn’t mean to hurt me; life took care of that,

            You were with me one day,

 And the next day, you unexpectedly ceased to exist.

I still miss you, darling; I miss your laugh,

I miss your footsteps in the stillness of the night

I miss our walks holding hands,

I even miss that sweet tobacco aroma

That followed you wherever you went.

Do I miss you all the time?  No,

Am I unhappy?  No, I still have a part of you,

Our lovely daughters make me happy and

They remind me of you.

Do I idolize your memory? No,

I just miss you!

Life is beautiful darling

And I take it as a gift,

I enjoy the little things

That come my way, I am a happy

Care free, and sometimes, lonely woman

Who will always miss you, until...

We see each other again!

Saravdw      November 7, 2009

I remember the “Day of the Dead” on October 31st,with mixed feelings, as a child coming from a country where superstition and strong belief of the supernatural was a way of living, the Day of the Dead was scary. This day is celebrated in many different ways depending on where are you from, but in general they maintain the main idea, remembering and honoring our loved ones who have died.

In our home was a custom to set a little shrine with the deceased pictures, several candles and some of the favorite foods of the death since there were too many departed relatives, my mother put the night before the Day of the Dead some flowers, a big bowl with seasonal fruit, and candies.  We were told not to touch that, we as children were amazed (and scared) to see that some of the fruit and candies disappeared overnight, we wondered which spirit took it and how could they do that? As we grew up we learned that we could also snick up in the middle of the night to enjoy some of the offerings.

It was also customary to go to the cemetery on that particular day, we brought flowers, mainly yellow mums and potted marigolds, which are beautiful but have that strong aroma which was overwhelming.  The serenity and beauty of the cemetery was interrupted by so many people dressed in mourning outfits, black or gray, carrying the same yellow flowers, lots of the favorite food of their dead relatives and candles or lanterns, the tombstones were decorated very colorful, this was not scary, on the contrary it was a happy way of celebrating the life of the dead, it was more like going to a  picnic, although it was strange to see some people really crying remembering their loved ones and others laughing and hugging each other because for them it was like a family reunion.

 I left my country a long time ago and I must tell you that I don’t know if this way of celebrating the Day of the Dead is still the same now days.

It was amazing on that day to see the street vendors set a table with nothing else but skulls made out of sugar, they were red, white, blue, any color you could think of, small, medium, or gigantic skulls with names written on the  forehead, small coffins, skeletons or little tombstones, you could find them also in the bakeries, the regular grocery store, anywhere, and if you wanted you could eat them because they were like hard candy.

When I grew up and I was working we used to have a small celebration at the office, each one of the workers picked up a name and we had to write a small verse that could be used in our tombstone, we used to call these poems “Calaveras” Skull poems, most of the time they were hilarious, each one would read their verse and give it to the person whose name we picked up before with a little gift of a sugar skull. We had lots of fun.

Halloween was introduced gradually to the Mexican culture and as far as I know it is celebrated the same way as here, with trick or treat and scary costumes

Saravdw 10-27-2009

For some reason, I have not been able to write in detail about my late husband, I have written about everybody else in my life, except for him, perhaps this is because after so many years without him still hurts me to think he is not around me anymore, although I hesitated to do it, this assignment has given me the opportunity to put in paper some of the great memories I have from John.

                                    ONE SMALL TRAIT.

My husband John was a very tall man, 6.3”, naturally, he had very big hands.

He was an aeronautical engineer and his job was very demanding, he was in charge of troubleshooting the failure of some airplane engine parts, his job required working awful long hours and traveling a lot, but in spite of coming home late and tired he found time for his hobbies; he loved to paint, draw with pencil, and putting models together, some of his pencil sketches were beautiful, but one of the things he liked the most was to put models together, he preferred metal models which were very advanced, some of the models had hundreds of pieces and were so complicated that just the instructions gave me a headache, they looked like a bed sheet with small print in it, some of the pieces of the model were so tiny that it was amazing to see  how he could handle the small screws and bolts with those big hands, the end result was a beautiful Alpha Romeo with movable part or an airplane engine where you could see all the parts moving up and down.

Since we lived far away from the shopping centers he would order by mail lots of stuff that he could use for his projects.

It was not unusual that John would create a piece or art out of nothing, sometimes I noticed him walking around the house looking for something, and I would ask “what do you need darling”? I am looking for some thin metal that I can bend and cut, do you have something like that? I looked all over the house until I found the lids of my canning jars, to my surprise he said he could used that.  He used them and with some other improvised items a beautiful clock came to life; it was very pretty and had something that looked like birds flying, the wings were made out of the lids of my canning jars, I still display that in my kitchen.

One day I saw him digging in the cabinet where I kept my pots and pans, he pull out one of my brand new Pyrex rectangular cake pan and he asked if he could have it, because he had an idea.  He built in that pan, with a mixture of cement, gravel branches and water color paint the most realistic miniature scene of a river with a bridge made with little branches, with lots of small trees which were made out of sponge in different colors, it looked like a scene during the fall when the leaves change colors. After that I had to watch out for my cake pans.

I learned that all his creations could disappear from my house at one time of another, except for the ones that he made for me or the girls, when we had visitor, it was sufficient that somebody would say that they liked something he made and he would give it to them, and when I looked at him wondering why, he would say, now I can make other thing and have the room for it.

John loved riding his BMW motorcycle, he always liked to have the newest model, so he replaced it every two years or so, and of course he would put together the model of the latest version of BMW motorcycle exactly the same color of the one he was riding,

His creative hands did not stop there; he could fix anything, and did lots of improvements in the house, like adding a garage.

I remember that his hands were never still, either with his crafts or with work assignments. But what I remember the most is that my tiny hands got lost in his big hands.

I will tell you more about John some other time.

                                                            MY PUPIL

When I was working in a large company, there was a young girl that would come every day to clean the offices, she usually came early in the morning, did her chores and left; since all the workers were busy with their duties, hardly anybody talk to her, but she had a very pleasant personality, always smiling and very polite.  Our friendship started by greeting each other everyday.  One day at lunch break, she was sitting in the opposite side of the table in the lunch room, she said she liked my Spanish accent and that she always wanted to learn Spanish; since years before I worked as a bilingual secretary I told her that I could teach her, but how, she said, I have two jobs and I don’t have the time, well I said,  I can give you one or two little phrases every morning and at lunch time I will tell you the pronunciation, good she said, I really would like that. The next day I gave her the first of many lessons, simple phrases, and she showed so much interest that I gave her a little dictionary and a small note book so she could keep it all together. We barely talk in the mornings because we were working, but it was fun at lunch time. One day she told me very happy that she was teaching her little son some of the words and that he liked that, so I started to add in the lessons words like truck, car, dog, cat or something that a little boy would like to say.  During our lunch break we would laugh thinking that at this pace it would take her hundred years to learn a foreign language.

One day when I was ready to go home, I saw her waiting for me at the door, she handed me something wrapped in tissue paper, and told me she was going to move to another town, I unwrapped the gift which was a little ceramic jewelry box and inside a little note saying “Gracias, Thanks” and she apologized for the simple present, she said she just wanted to thank me for the lessons but above all for our friendship.  We hug each other and cried. Before we parted, she told me she didn’t know her new address.  That was the last time I saw her, but I treasure the little jewelry box and I will always admire her determination to learn.

                                                MY SISTER AND THE DOVES

When my parents died, my sister Carmela and her husband assumed the responsibility of taking care of all the younger siblings. (One little boy and three girls, me included) We all loved her very much.

Carmela had a wonderful personality, besides being beautiful, she was always cheerful and her optimism was contagious.  Always looking at the good side of every situation, I admired her and wanted to be like her.

One day she woke up in a very happy mood, singing, dancing and making jokes. After doing some house cleaning inside she went outside to clean the porch which was full of leaves, when the broom didn’t work very well she decided to hose the leaves down.

In the porch,  at the corner of the roof lived a family of doves, my sister saw them and started to say how lucky we were to have so many pretty doves in our porch, that they sounded so nice cooing their babies, and she went on and on about the pretty doves.

After a while, her job was done and the porch was sparkling clean.  Carmela went inside and got busy with some other things.  A little bit later we were all sitting at the breakfast table when we heard Carmela yelling outside, “Darned doves” Get out of here!, and we            saw her branding the broom as a weapon chasing the doves, when we looked down, the nice clean porch was full of dove’s droppings, we laughed and laughed and for a moment we thought that she had split personality. 

She forgave us for laughing, the doves came back to the roof and I think I am a little bit like her; I try to see the good side of every situation.

                                                SHREDDING MEMORIES.

There are certain chores I don’t like to do, and I still have to do them, there is one thing I just put off all the time and that is shredding.  Shredding is supposed to be fast, but it seems that it takes me forever to do it, depending in what I am shredding, if I would have to shred only old bank statements and bills, it wouldn’t be a problem, but when I come across something especial which brings back many memories it slows me down, for example, when I was ready to shred the title of my old sports car, a Fiat Sprite, the smallest convertible car in the world came to my mind, I just loved that car, it was very small, only two seats, dark green and black leather upholstery, with standard transmission, which I wonder now how did I drive it because I am not very coordinated, but I managed to change gears smoothly, I remember going up hill and down hill with my hair flying , it was so small that when my girlfriend and I went to the Farmers Market, we came back with watermelons, bananas, potatoes, you name it,  stuffed in every crevice of the car, while driving with the sun roof down I was afraid something could fly away and hit the car behind me, or when all of a sudden it started to rain hard, and  I had to find a safe place to park, my girlfriend and I would come out of the car and try to put the sun roof up because it was not electrically powered, being two women not mechanically inclined we ended soaked but had lots of fun.  All and all I had very nice memories of my cool little green car. I remember how sad I was when we sold it. Well… I don’t need the title of the car to remember it so there goes the title, in the shredder.

 By now I am starting to shred faster and faster until I see a little bundle of letters tied up with a red bow, I undo the bow and start reading these letters that I have read so many times, I do not even need to read them again, but I still do, some are so old that the handwriting is fading, and I keep in reading one by one, although I know them by heart, after some tears, when I reach the last one, one hour passed already; by then I don’t feel like shredding any more, so I wrap the letters with the red ribbon, make a big bow and I put them back in the box, until the next time I get the urge to shred.

 SOMETHING ABOUT CHOCOLATE.

When I was a child, for some reason I did not like sweets, in particular chocolate.  Being one of the youngest of a large family I was a little bit spoiled.  My parents, brothers, sisters and some other persons were always giving me big chocolate bars, of course my mother was always telling me not to eat too much of it or eat it too fast because I would get sick. What my mother didn’t know was that whenever somebody gave me candies or chocolate,  I would thank them profusely and say; I will eat it later, and when nobody was looking I would  put the chocolate  in a big shoe box which my mother had given to me to keep some of my trinkets. I did this because I didn’t want to hurt their feelings saying I didn’t like chocolate, this went on for a long time until one day my mother who was looking for a particular pair of socks opened the drawer of my dresser and saw the bulging shoe box. What is this? and opened it founding all the chocolate bars, Oh My God! She said, somebody has to eat this chocolate, sweetheart, don’t do this anymore! It is needles to say but the rest of children had a feast enjoying the chocolate.

(I thought of giving it to them, but I knew one of them would tell on me)

Years later, I started to work in a very large company, where there was a young man that showed some interest in me, I must admit, the interest was mutual, he was very shy and I was shy also; sometimes when I came to work I would find a chocolate bar on the desk, although  I didn’t know where it came from I had a very good idea of the origin of the gift, since my taste for chocolate had not changed, I would look around and if nobody was near by I would put the chocolate in the middle drawer of my desk, more than one time I was nearly caught by the young man, until one day when he came to ask for some documents that were inside that middle drawer, I opened it without thinking and to his surprise  he got a glance of piles of chocolate bars, I saw the look in his face, it was more surprise than anything, Oh he said, you don’t like chocolates! I do, he said, I have a sweet tooth. I was embarrassed, but I couldn’t tell him I didn’t like chocolate for the same reason, I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, besides, I was not sure he was the source of the chocolate.

There is a twist in the story, many years later I was diagnosed with diabetes, I knew I had to stay away from sugar, candy, chocolate, etc. which didn’t bother me at all, but after many years of abstaining of the sweet stuff I started to crave it, I could dream of a delicious chocolate Sunday, chocolate cheese cake, or just a simple piece of dark chocolate, since I had been always determined to keep that disease under control I had a very strict diet, years ago, sugar was a no-no for diabetics, luckily, lately due to extensive  diabetes research it has been proven that it is possible to eat some sweets in limited quantities, so now days you will find in my kitchen drawer a big chocolate bar cut in many small pieces, and when I have the urge for sweets THAT drawer is my favorite.

I nearly forgot to tell you that the young man with a sweet tooth and I got married. We had a happy and wonderful life together until suddenly I became a widow.

MY SEARCH FOR A JOB

I never worked during the 23 years of my marriage, mainly because my husband was European and he didn’t believe that a wife should work unless there was financial need. However I volunteered regularly in my daughter’s school, at church and in other places, I also went to school; so in general I kept myself busy enjoying a busy and happy life.

Unfortunately my wonderful husband died all of a sudden and I found myself totally lost, I was awfully depressed in spite of my lovely daughter efforts to console me, we help each other very much but I realized I had to do something to make me snap out of my misery, besides that, I did not want to deplete my savings, so I decided to look for a job.

We were living in a small town in the south, where the “Wanted” ads in the only newspaper did not show many job openings where I could use my experience; before I got married I used to be bilingual secretary, with computer experience, etc.

While waiting for the right job I thought it would be alright if I would just walk in any small business in the square and asked if they had a job opening.

I used to go regularly to the library and the librarian knew me very well so one day, whispering and in a nervous and shaky voice I asked her if they had any job opening there.  Oh no dear! She said, the only way somebody can work here is if one of us dies, but you can volunteer if you want to.

My next stop was at the dry cleaners, where I asked to the lady at the counter, she was friendly enough and she said yes, there is going to be one opening next week, but, my niece is going to get it.

The following day I stopped at the personnel department of the hospital, the receptionist asked for my resume, which I handed hoping that she would keep it and call me later on for an interview, but she said I will look at your resume right now, she looked at it for a second and she said, Ms., I can see you are overqualified and we do not have a position for your experience, besides, we like to hire younger people so we can train them in our ways.  Overqualified? I thought that was a poor excuse for not hiring older people.

This went on for a while until I saw that one of the local factories had openings for sewing machine operators to make pillows for garden chairs,  I will try that, how hard could that be? I have made several wedding dresses, prom dresses and other stuff that looked very professional.   So I put an application there.  I was hired and started to work on a Monday morning, I was so happy.

The first day, when I went to the sewing room area, I saw hundreds of sewing machines, they were rusty and very noisy; the supervisor gave me some instructions and I started to sew. When I pressed the foot pedal I heard the thread in the needle snap, I tried to thread it again, over and over, in the meantime the person next to me had sewn already stacks and stacks of pillow cases, The supervisor saw me struggling and she said, Oh, I forgot that machine doesn’t work, and she gave me another one, which was as bad as the first one.   After one hour or so I managed to finish 4 (four) pillowcases.  Wow! Four pillowcases.  It was lunch time by then.    When I came back from lunch I found a note asking me to come to the personnel office. My supervisor was already in the office and she told in a very stern voice that I was not good at sewing and asked me to take my things and leave because they could not train people that could not sew.

I forgot to mention that when they hired me I had to buy a pair of scissors, which I was supposed to pay from my first pay check.  The supervisor said, since you have sewn just four pillowcases that will pay for the scissors, so you don’t owe us anything, and we don’t owe you anything.

That was a new record, hired and fired in the same day. Well… at least I got a nice pair of scissor.

I am happy to tell you that after all of these problems, I moved to another town, and on the first day I went to the unemployment office I got a job as

bilingual secretary, I continued going to school pursuing a career in early childhood education and kept advancing in my job, after many years I became the director of a child care center with 80 children.   Now that I am retired I still keep in learning, I love to take internet courses.     

                              THE MOST HATED STREET VENDOR

One of the memories of my childhood in Mexico is about the street vendors in my neighborhood; it was a way of life that I grew up with.

It was not unusual to be awaken by the loud voice of the “used clothes” vendor or buyer, he would yell; “Used clothes”, “I buy used clothes”. Usually he would stop at a corner and people would come out with their old clothes, he would pay next to nothing for the clothes, sometimes he would exchange them for candy or brand new pots and pans.

One of the most colorful vendors, was the “Bird’s man”  he was carrying on his back, tied up with rope, many cages and two more large cages, one on each hand, sometimes we wondered why he didn’t fall backwards, anyway, he had some of the most beautiful birds, canaries,  parrots, doves, ducks, even chickens and hens and of course a big rooster; occasionally we would hear a voices coming out of the cages, “ Hello”, “Hello” or some curse words, those parrots could talk!

Next on line was the Abonero, (street credit vendor),  like in  “buy now, pay later on easy installments”. He pushed a large metal frame with lots of brand new clothes, most of the clothes were plain, nothing elegant but the fabrics were pretty, one of his best sellers were the aprons, all the women were excited about the aprons.  If you bought something, he would give you a card with the price of the item and the amount you would have to pay weekly, there was not such a thing as credit check, he trusted everybody, of course he knew that the next time he came to collect he would show you other pretty thing and you became his customer for life.

I could go on and on… but just let me tell about the most hated street vendor, this man would show up four times a day, early in the morning when he was selling sweet tamales, porridge and breakfast bread, later on he showed up with a shinny glass box containing

gelatins, chocolate or vanilla pudding, at midday there he was, with tacos, hot tamales and warm tortillas; in the evening he had a grill with large wheels and he was selling baked sweet potatoes and baked plantain bananas with honey, butter and cinnamon, yummy!  The whole street smelled like that.

One day when he was selling something, my next door neighbor Jose, a little boy younger than I, said, I hate that man! Why? I asked. Why do you hate him?  Well,  he said,  he makes my little sister cry the whole day!  He comes early in the morning and yells “Tamales, porridge,” and my little sister wants some, but we do not have the money and don’t buy, so my sister cries, later on he comes yelling “Gelatins, Pudding”, the same thing happens; we don’t buy, my sister cries. When he is selling the tacos my sister is still crying and in the evening he wakes her up with “Baked sweet potatoes”  I just hate him!   He is bad! I agreed with Jose.