Give Me Strength Father

One of the nice things about being a self-employed bootmaker or cobbler is that if someone drops by to say hi and visit, you don't have to stop what you're doing; it's actually a more pleasent work experience that way. Not that i get many people stopping by to chew the fat, but my father did; mostly retired, elderly men. I mostly listen to the voices of NPR on the radio and i try not to listen to the voices in my head that tell me to turn on the Today show to get that day's sensationalism; it's not easy, i kinda got a little crush on Ann, but who doesn't, right?

I suppose that as long as people age, old men will seek each other out to speak of their past, for what is there to tell about their future?

So, if i tell people that my father was an alcoholic, it's nothing that he didn't tell all his friends and acqaintances. He used to tell them that you were either a wet alcoholic or a dry alcoholic, but once an [alcky], always an [alcky]. He told me once that he became an alcoholic because he owned a guitar; this was in Zacatecas, and he hung out with a bunch of guys who loved to party but did not have a guitar, and what's a party without a guitar? So, after the booze was procured they picked up young Elias and his guitar and he could drink all he wanted.

Sometimes, late at night, i would be laying in bed wondering what it would be like to live with the Flintstone's and i would hear my father playing his acustic guitar out on the porch or in the living room; he was quite good, sometimes he sang. I guess i was in my mid twenties the last time i heard him play; the neck had broken on his guitar and he had repaired it and it lasted a few more years before it came apart, and he never replaced that guitar.

I think it is important to know that my father was an alcoholic, but it is also important to know that he was Mexican through and through and that there doesn't seem to be a place where he came from like San Juan was for my mother.

Elias Dominguez Aguilar was born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1920, the third child of my migrant grandparents; but, less than two years later, the couple split and jump three years later and grandma Concepcion is with another man, dad's stepfather, Manuel, who is the only father he would know and they are living in Manhattan, illinois; grandma has a child with that man in 1926. It is here in the story that grandma's younger brother, Magdaleno, appears and who's had some trouble with the law and winds up in juvinal hall. By 1928 uncle Magdaleno is out of juvi, but jobs are scarece and they head south to Texas, around Thorton and Marlin where another of grandma's brothers lived, growing cotton; his name was Prospero, we don't hear from him again. By this time, grandma's been wanting to bring her mother from Guanajuato to the U.S., so they go down to Laredo to wait for her arrival, but,for some reason she never shows up. While there, grandma and stepgrandpa split up and my ten year old dad starts to roam the streets, getting into mayhem and uncle Magdaleno takes it upon himself to beat the devil out of him. One night, Magdaleno had gone out on the town and had come back all excited; it turned out that he had run into Guadalupe, my dad's biological father, and asked to see his two children, Elias and Eva. Of course, he didn't ask to see Tiburcia, who was not his, she was Manuel's daughter; but, now i'm asking myself: why didn't he ask to see Rafael, his oldest? It may have been that he was no longer traveling with the family because dad told me once that Rafael had all the sudden decided to become a hobo, and started jumping trains. Anyway, the next day, grandma took Elias and Eva to see their father.

It is unclear to me if this meeting took place before or after Concepcion and Manuel split up and wheather Guadalupe was with anyone at this time; or even the reason for the split from either men.
But, apparently, grandma Concepcion lived the rest of her life single, and, i believe, father would see grandpa one more time, as a grown man.

For a few years, dad and i had two shop, the other one was in Wichita Falls, but for one reason or another, we closed it. That was 1992, and for the next 10 years he and i worked together. During that time i learned to make boots, and heard all these stories in snippets, and in no chronological order. Now i find myself putting them in some kind of order to get to where he meets my mom. I wasn't the kind of son that would say: dad! stop, if you're going to tell me the story of your life, tell it in sequence; and for god's sake give me state of mind and some background story. I'm not like my kids, the other day one of them walked by me and said: you smell funny. My father smelled like garlic most days, did i complain? i showed respect for my father.