Guns and Holidays

You all know what estropajo looks like, right? Well, what my mom sold in her store was like a cat swallowed a loofah and coughed it up in the form of a hair ball. Even the very word: estropajo scratches my throat, so i avoid saying it. When the mothers in our neighborhood finished scouring us with it, they weren't finished; when we were out of the bath, we were slathered with pomada, a goop that looks like lard, so it left us looking like porcelin figurines, all shiny.


Once the flooding disappated after hurricane Beulah, i went to first grade, fell in love with my teacher-- the Dolores del Rio look-a-like --and got punched in the nose by Juan-Ramon. That was also Christmas 1967; so, besides mom, 2 sister, and my aunt Carmen, that Christmas, my aunt Socorro from Durango and her two daughters were staying with us. And, since i remember the event, that was the year of my confirmation; but, really i only remember being slapped in the face by the priest and getting my picture taken with my godparents outside the church. Many years later,
dad and i were in the shop talking about something, and i mentioned my godparents in Mexico; he was obviously confused, turns out he didn't know i was baptized and confirmed in the Catholic church. I mentioned it my mom and she shrugged and said she probably never told him. But the whole point of bringing up that Christmas is that it was the last Christmas i ever celebrated as a child. Then, in the summer of of 1968, when i turned 7, it was the last time my birthday was acknowledged with cake and gift as a child.


So, after that day that my dad came to visit and i got the whipping of my life because of Lalo, the guayava thief, i have a vague memory of mom telling me something about my fathers beliefs. I don't have a clear memory of the details, but she did tell me that my father did not believe in having guns and that we had to get rid of the toy pop gun that he saw me playing with--that i remember-- so, i deduced it. I didn't know anything about my father's religion at the time, and i doubt my mother knew much more, but later i found out that anti-guns went along with anti-war which was bundled in with the not celebrating of wordly holidays; ok, let's stop for a sec, this is a christian religion that does not believe in celebrating Christmas, i know, it's conflicting. Now, the not celebrating Holloween because it's like sending Satan an engraved invitation to reside in your home and levitate your bed, i get that; it's the same reason we weren't allowed to see the exorcist; which was a huge disappointment when i finally did see it, too much build up. The not celebtating birthdays is still nonsense to me, to this day.

Really, i'm not writing this to get sympathy, i don't need it now; and if it makes my dad look bad or silly, well, as a father, if i do or have done bad or silly things and you kids blog and boo-hoo about it, then i deserve it, have at it. I'm just reporting the events as i recall them.

You know, we didn't have much money for big birthdays and huge
elaborate Christmases, and i don't remember much about them, so as they say: you don't miss what you never had. But i had a rifle pop gun, the kind
The Rifleman had on his show, the one i used to shoot invaders with, like
gringos who were not content with just taking Texas and wanted Tamaulipas, too. So, like any good mom, she worked something out with me: i would hide the rifle (it was under the bed), dad was only there a day, anyway, but it would have to stay behind when we moved to the U.S. Again, i don't remember knowing that we would be moving across the border, all i knew about Texas was Brownsville, which is like people thinking Mexico is the border towns that they have visited. I really don't know what i knew, but the day came in September 1968 that we said good-bye to las casas de don Santos and i said good-bye to my rifle which i left with my aunt Carmen who had gotten married to the dude she didn't want to leave behind during Beulah. She kept it for me until we came back to visit the next summer, we were together then, but i never saw it again after that.

I've told my kids: i will not have estropajo in my home; sometimes, i think they hide it from me.