Dear Maria,
You asked for a memory of your
Dad, but he was only a sound in the background because the cousins are what I
remember. Margie stayed with the young aunts, Nora, Vangie and Theresa. I hung
out with the boys, with Stevie as our leader.
I remember Sunday mornings driving
down a dirt road to the white washed adobe house,
dust clouds and cars converging under the cottonwood.
The women, Ninfa, Sally,
Theresa, and Rachel, maybe Emily and Soila, prepared the meal. While the men, Ben,
Jesus, Tony and Prospero, Solomon and Joe gathered on chairs in the front yard with
Grandpa. The kids assembled in groups according to age and interests then
disappeared from the adults leaving them to talk in Spanish, laughing and
teasing each other.
The younger ones stayed with
the teenage aunts
some, mostly girls, gathered inside
to play dolls
and the rest ran off into the
hills to play in the junkyard.
We discovered refrigerators
with the doors torn off, an old
stove,
pots and pans and cooking
utensils,
an ancient tractor with a metal
seat
and a large cold steering wheel.
A favorite item was the Model T
with rusty springs under the
front seat
that squeaked and squeaked when
we bounced on them
Wooden crates arranged in the
back
helped us climb through the
windows
like garden snakes slipping in
and out
and onto the roof.
We played with the discarded
treasures
pretending we were grown-ups
but when dinner was ready it was time to return.
There was lots of laughter, and plenty of food
always a cousin to play with and something to do.
