The Koi and the Fox

Memories of life in Villa de Garcia - 1954-1960 

In the summer of 1954, my cousin; David, came to stay with us for a few weeks.  My uncle Moreno had brought him from Monterrey on a bus that he drove between Monterrey and Villa de Garcia.  I never gave much thought that he had a different last name and many years later I found out that Moreno was not his real name. His name was David Negrete Barrera and he was the son of our grandmother Maria Del Pilar from her first marriage. 

                                                                                                                             
David and I were about the same age, I think he was older than me by a couple of months.   His visit was great because he would help me with all my chores and we had more time in the day to go and explore and play with other friends.  Of course, the first few days that my uncle was there he gave us additional chores and one of them took all day - we had to help clean the reservoir pool in the back yard before the irrigation water arrived the following night.  It seemed that our property never got irrigated during the day; it was always at one or two in the morning – very inconvenient.   

Uncle Moreno needed to make repairs to the reservoir pool so he hired two of the neighbors' kids, that were a few years older than David and me, to clean the pool and get it ready for the repairs, but he told us that David and I had to help.  The plan was that David and I would catch the fish in the pool, four large Koi, and put them in a tub.  Once we took the fish out, the two neighbors, Pablo and Bruno, would take out all the water with buckets and clean up all the mud and sediments.  We also had to help with the clean-up. Once that was done, my uncle would mix the mortar and make repairs on the walls and floor of the pool.  There was about a foot of water left in the four-foot deep pool so catching the fish was not that hard.  The hard part was taking the water out and filling the three large galvanized tubs.  One tub was filled with water for our fish, one was used for washing dishes and the other for general use around the house for the next couple of days.  And the third tub of water, along with some additional buckets, we filled were to be used by my uncle when he made the repairs on the pool.

Catching the fish was not difficult. We used a shirt to corner them and bring them out to the tub.  They were large fish, over half the length of my arm and were colored bright white, red and orange colors.  I’m glad they didn’t bite although they had a lot of little teeth.  The nasty part was standing in the pool in slim and muck that covered our feet because the pool had not been cleaned for many months.  The Poor fish, they had to live in that all that time.  Having to get into that pool with bare feet was disgusting.  We had just seen the movie “The Monster from the Black Lagoon” a few weeks ago and my imagination was running double time.  I kept imagining the monster’s arm coming out of the muck, grabbing me and taking me to the pits of hell.  I’m sure David had his own fears because he did not want to get in the pool either and made the rationale that since he was older, he would get into the pool last.  The pool was not that big, a square pool maybe nine feet by nine feet with steps on one of the walls to get down and fetch water when the water level was lower.  

We did our job and Pablo and Bruno came in and did theirs.  They had to shovel the sediments out of the pool.  My uncle had them wash it and mop the bottom before he went in and started his repairs.  I watched him mix the sand and cement into mortar and patch the parts that needed repair on the walls and floor.  He also had us clean the trench that went to the reservoir pool from the main irrigation channel that irrigated the fruit trees and area where we planted the corn and vegetables.  He was going to let all the “muddy” water that came at the beginning of the irrigation go into the orchard and field and then fill the pool when the water flowed clear.  We were asleep when all this happened, so we did not see any of it, but when we got up in the morning, the pool was full of clean water and David and I went out and grabbed the four Koi carp and put them back in the pool – they seemed happy, I could almost hear them thanking us that we cleaned their pool.  

Uncle Moreno left that day because he had to go back to work, but three days later, Uncle Rufino showed up in the evening and told us that he was taking us out fox-hunting the following day.  We went to sleep very excited that evening thinking about chasing and getting several foxes.  I don't know what I imagined since I had never seen a fox in my life.  My mom was excited about the idea too because we had lost several chickens and they thought they were taken by foxes.  That is why she had repaired the coop and installed a higher fence.  But she did not like the idea of David and me going out with guns and in areas where there might be some rattlesnakes.  

We got up early the following morning, I went out to get the milk like always and by the time I got back my mother had breakfast ready.  Instead of egg punch, we got to eat eggs with chorizo.  She had made some tacos for us to take for lunch and she made sure both David and I were wearing our old play shoes because she did not want us to ruin our school shoes.  The three of us, with our guns, set out to the north of town shortly after sunrise with uncle Rufino carrying a bag made out of hemp (moral) with the tacos, the bullets and a canteen of water.  He did not want us to have the bullets until we were way beyond the town.  David had not shot a rifle before and my uncle had to show him how to use the rifle.  I had become an expert during the woodpecker hunt and felt pretty confident and proud of myself because everyone told me I was a great shot.  We took some time to train David once we got out of town toward the foothills of the mountain that is the symbol of Villa de Garcia, el Serro del Fraile.  He kept repeating that we should never point the rifle at anyone and that it should always be pointed up when not in use.  David got the hang of it pretty quick and was almost as good as me when shooting at targets.

It was mid-July and the day was getting very hot.  We stop to rest several times on the shady part of arroyos and large rocks.  We had eaten the tacos my mother made for lunch just before noon.  We were high enough in the foothills that we could look back and see the village below.  About one in the afternoon my uncle caught a glimpse of something moving he thought was a fox.  We grabbed our rifles and moved toward the area where he saw the movement.  We caught a glimpse of the fox farther west from where he had seen it.  It was definitely a fox.  I had never seen a real fox before and it looked like a small skinny dog.  The only thing I could think of is that it must have been very hard to carry the chickens all the way out here, one of our chickens weigh as much as it.  My uncle took several shots at it, David and I never had time to even aim before we lost him again behind a rock.  My uncle kept saying that he was playing with us taking us farther and farther away.  Finally, we drank the last of the water and my uncle decided we should be starting back.  We could see the town way below at the distance and it seemed like a long way.  I wanted Santiago, our neighbor to come and get us in his ox cart.  We walked non-stop for a long way, my mouth was dry, I was sunburned, tired, sweaty and I was beginning to get a headache.  

At the northern edge of town, we came to a small water hole that was part of an irrigation ditch.  There was some water but it was slimy green and full-floating things.  My uncle said that we should go and splash some water on our faces and heads to cool off.  But don’t drink it, he kept telling us because we would get sick.  David and I dropped our guns and ran to the water.  We could see lots of frogs around the edge, many of them jumping in as we approached.  My uncle kept yelling at us not to drink it because it was dirty.  As we approached, we could see the cow poop at the edge of the water and I think the floating things were actually floating cow patties.  We were so hot and thirsty that we didn’t care about the frogs, the scum or the cow patties.  When we got to the edge of the water, we kneeled down in the muddy water and started splashing water on our heads and cooling down.  I saw David drinking some of the water and I figured if he could do it, I could do it also.  My uncle was very upset when he saw what we had done and told us that we were going to get sick. 

We got home before sunset, and before my mother could talk to us, we had to get a bucket of water from the pool in the back yard and wash down.  We changed clothes and neither David nor I felt sick at all.  We had dinner and we told our stories over and over again of how the fox managed to play with us all day.  My mother had us drink several glasses of water before dinner and after dinner to help wash your stomachs out.  We were very tired and just before going to bed, both David and I had diarrhea attacks almost at the same time.  We ran to the outhouse and luckily it had multiple holes and David and I sat there a very long time until my mom came with a lamp to help us.  I never wanted to go fox hunting again.

Being Scalded with Hot Coffee

Memories of life in Villa de Garcia  1954 - 1960 

As a child, life in Villa de Garcia was a paradise.  The whole city was our playground.  Well, at least a couple of square miles in the southeast corner of the village.  We could go play in the orchards, go play in the river (that carried very little water most of the year), swim in the pools of the irrigation ditches, “hunt” with our slingshots, push a metal hoop up and down the streets, compete in games of marbles and tops, enjoy any fruit and vegetable in season from figs, pomegranates, oranges, peaches, strawberries, avocados, tomatoes, grapes.  They were all easy picking and free for the taking.  The only limits to paradise were our home chores, our time in school and the time we had to spend in church.

My daily activity in “paradise” was to get up a little after 5:30 a.m. to go get the milk.  My Mom would wake me up, I would put on my shoes (I slept in my pants and shirt), I would grab the two pails from the kitchen and set out to where the cows were being milked.   They were not our cows, we didn’t have cows, and the owner lived the equivalent of about four blocks away.  But at that hour, it seemed like fifteen to twenty miles.  However, I’m sure the round trip was less than half a mile total distance.  I did not mind the early morning walk or carrying back about two quarts of milk in each pail, what I did mind was having to walk by the caved-in house where they would tell us that the ghost pig “La Marrana” would appear.   I remember I would walk the extra distance across the small intersection to be as far away from that house as possible.  I had no precise idea of what a ghost pig could do to me if I ever encountered it, but I could imagine excruciating pain while being dragged through the pits of hell.  So I tried to avoid facing “La Marrana” any way I could.

The walk at “o dark thirty” in the morning had other perils that I tried to ignore without much success.  One was that Dracula could be waiting for me in some irrigation ditch and would want to bite my neck and suck my blood and turn me into a vampire.  The other fear was being chased by a wild dog.  The street I had to walk to get to the milk was lined with nine-foot adobe walls and there was no place to run or escape if a wild rabid dog would come after me.  My imagination always did double duty on my way to get the milk.  The way back was much calmer.  Dawn would always break on the way back and there was enough light to see.  Most importantly, I knew that the ghost pig did not appear in daylight. 

I remember one day coming back with the milk, I noticed that the milk would stay at the bottom of the bucket when I swung the bucket back and forth.  At seeing this, I wondered if it would stay in the bucket if I swung it in a complete circle.  About halfway back to the house I put down one of the buckets and began to swing the bucket back and forth, keeping my eye on the milk, until I had almost had a complete circle and the milk was still at the bottom of the bucket at all times.  I kept swinging and soon had the bucket going in a complete circle.  Unfortunately, stopping the swing was not as easy and I managed to spill almost half the milk or about one of the two quarts.  When I got home I told my mother that I had tripped and had spilled some of the milk.  She thought nothing of it and just told me to “be more careful.”  Unknown to me, however, Juana Cortez, the wife of one of my mother’s uncles, was up early in the morning, and since I had stopped up the street from her house to do my “experiment” with, she witnessed the whole episode.  She recounted the story to my grandfather sometime later and as I got home from school one day, the first thing I felt was the switch striking my legs.  I started to cry and all I can remember was him telling me “that’s for playing and spilling the milk a few days ago, don’t do it again.”  I guess karma does catch up with you when you least expect it.

Getting the milk was not my only morning chore before school.  I had to go out and feed the chickens and collect the eggs.  There was a chicken coop to the side of the house, also made out of adobe.  The chicken coop had a door facing the house and an opening on the side with a fenced-in area where the chickens went during the day.  There were about forty chickens and a couple of roosters.  Poor roosters, the chickens always produced both chickens and roosters but we always ate the roosters first.   I collected anywhere between fifteen to twenty-five eggs every day.  Sometimes, when we had too many eggs, they were sold to the neighbors and sometimes to the store in town.   We had to clean the coop every once in a while, more often in the summertime because it would smell very bad after a couple of days.  I don’t know how the coop managed to have so much shit in it. The daily routine was to take in the eggs to the kitchen where my mother was preparing breakfast and then I would go out to wash up and get ready for school.  To get washed, I had to get a bucket and fetch water from the water storage pool in the back of the house.  The pool would be filled with irrigation water every couple of weeks when the field and fruit trees were irrigated.  It was not potable water, but it was used for washing clothes, dishes, watering potted plants, bathing and washing up before breakfast and going to school.

Breakfast consisted of an egg punch that was made by blending boiled milk, cinnamon, sugar and one raw egg in a glass.  After drinking that we had a cup of instant coffee made in hot milk and a pastry.  After that, we started our walk to school, a walk that always seemed ten miles long, but I’m sure the school was less than half a mile from the house. 

One morning, I was collecting the glasses from the egg punch we drank to take them back to the kitchen.  I got to drink a whole glass but Cristina and Altagracia shared a glass between the two.  I had taken the three glasses and had begun to walk into the kitchen through the small door that separated the kitchen from the dining room.  The floor of the kitchen was slightly below the level of the dining room and there was a slope, that I’m sure used to be an earthen step at one time.  I was hurrying to the kitchen and I tripped.  At the same time, my mother was coming up from the kitchen with a pot of hot coffee made from the recently boiled milk.  I bumped into her and the pot of hot coffee spilled all over my chest.  I got a severe burn, and when they took my shirt off I could see, through my tears, the boils forming on my chest.  I thought I was going to die and I remember asking my mother if I was going to die.  I could not wear a shirt for several days and as a consolation price, I did not have to go to school for a couple of days.

For a kid between six and nine years old growing up in the village, our whole world was limited to just about two square miles.  Once in awhile, we would take a trip to Monterrey or I would go to help plant corn in fields some miles away or on some holidays, or when we had company, we went to the Garcia Caverns a few miles away.  But outside some special occasions, our whole world was bounded by the road to Monterrey on the East, Morelos Street on the North, Zaragoza street on the West and the river on the south.  We did not need to know about anything else and never cared about any other place.  I know my father worked in the United States, but I could not imagine what the United States was, all I knew was that it was north of us.  I knew where Monterrey was, and hour and a half bus ride and I had gone there many times, sometimes by myself.  But for all practical purposes, my life was in the center of Villa de Garcia.

We lived in the southeast corner of the village and the Church, School and plaza was the center of town about a kilometer away.  That is how far we had to walk to school, although it seemed like the the distance was over ten miles when we were kids.

I remember that my life and the life of all other grade school kids my age was very structured and dominated by four things:  School, church, chores and play.  I really thought that my parents and my grandfather thought that my only purpose in life was to go to school and do chores.  The priest and the nuns thought that my only purpose in life was to go to Mass, go to Rosaries, clean the church and pray.  The teachers thought that my only purpose in life was to study, learn multiplication tables and make sure that our hands and fingernails were clean.  Also, the male teachers also thought that my butt was to practice their paddling and I am certain the nuns thought that my hands were to practice their swing with the ruler.  In retrospect, the nuns and the male teachers were very sadistic in trying to bend me to their will.  Of course, I was not an angel or model student, but I did not think I deserved all that abuse.  Of course, I thought that my whole purpose in life was to play and I always try to maximize my playtime.  I did that to a point where it got me in trouble.  Life was rough for any kid in the 1950s, especially in Villa de Garcia.  Although I do remember some wonderful times, some fun times, excellent adventures, great friends and a good family life.  But even with all that good living, I don't ever want to go back to that time.

 

Christmas Season in Villa de Garcia

Memories of life in Villa de Garcia - 1954-1960 

"took the skin of my big piggy and had them turn it into rinds

It produced a whole truck load and three bundles pulled behind.

Piggy Piggy, flat nose piggy, oink oink oink."

Try to picture six second graders, two in each of three large pig disguises one inside moving the hind legs and one moving the front legs and the head singing this long song about a large fat pig that managed to produce an incredibly large amount of food from all parts of his body.  I was inside the middle pig working the hind legs.  It was one of the most memorable and fun times of the 1954 Christmas season.

One of the most enjoyable times of the year was the Christmas season.  And no, it wasn't because of the expectation of presents, we didn't get presents on Christmas like the kids rest of the world seemed to get.  What made the Christmas season so much interesting and fun were the Posadas and the annual school Christmas pageant.  I am sure the season of advent was a religious time when the faithful wait for the birth of Christ.  To me, and all kids my age - except a few who took church too seriously, It was the time to PARTY!  Although the season is all of December, To us kids, the fun eating and partying of the season started with the celebration of the day of the Virgin of Guadalupe on December 12th.  It continued with the Posadas from December 16th to the 24th, the School Christmas Pageant a week before Christmas and ending up in the "Grand Finale" on Epiphany on January 6.  Why January 6 you may ask?  It was when the three Wise men came to visit and the day we got our presents!  Of course, by that time we were so exhausted of partying that presents were almost an anticlimax.

Like I said, to me the Christmas season began on the day of the Virgin of Guadalupe,  Food stands all over the Plaza with all kinds of treats that we only found on Christmastime.  The colorfully dressed Matachines- groups of Indians dancing in Honor of the Virgin of Guadalupe and dancing in procession in the church, the endless fireworks and rotating gunpowder displays and the mariachis singing in during Mass.  To me, it was the greatest show on earth and I could see everything since I was at the altar watching it all.

The Posadas were a lot of fun, except for the praying of a rosary every night for nine nights, but the party afterward was compensation enough for all the praying we had to do.  The Posada started with a procession of fifty to one hundred people.  We started the procession about a block away from the house that hosted the posada that particular night.  Since I was one of ten altar boys, carrying one of the several candles, I got to walk in front of the two kids representing Joseph and Mary followed by the priest and the rest of the people were behind him.  The procession started with the priest chanting the Litany and the people in the procession responding "pray for us,"  Of course, everything was done in Latin so the response was "ora pro nobis."     The priest recited a list of what seemed to include every single saint in heaven and asking them to pray for us.  To me,  it got tiring and monotonous after the fourth one so you can imagine how I felt after more than fifty. 

We always got to the door of the host's house at the end of the Litany.  When we got to the house, we began the song asking for posada - asking for lodging at the inn.   We knew the whole posada song by heart, but my favorite part was when the innkeeper responded:

Then if it is a queen
Who requests it (lodging)
How is it that at nighttime
She's traveling so alone?

I always thought that was so funny - and I still do to this day.

Once we got through all the preliminaries and Joseph and Mary managed to get lodging, the the priest started what seemed to be the never-ending repetitive prayers that made up the rosary.  When the rosary was done, the altar boys put out the candles, took off our alb, and we began to dig in to the tamales, the buñuelos and we all lined up to take our chance at breaking the piñata that was full of candy and other little toys.  After some more eating and some hot chocolate, the party broke up and we all went home to get ready for the posada the next day.

Unknown to us kids at that time, the Annual Christmas Pageant came together through the efforts of a group of parents, teachers, nuns, and volunteers.  In retrospect, the activities of the school and church were very well organized.  My mother had some cousins who loved to volunteer in church and school activities  They were part of a larger group of parents and teachers who organized church and school activities, they made and painted the scenery for shows, designed and help make the costumes for the kids, organized each show and help us rehearse.  Each grade had their own show and our second-grade class had two shows that year and I was in both of them.  One was with the whole second-grade class singing two songs Pretty Michoacan and Silent Night.  The second show was being part of the pig song.  The costumes had the pigs in a sitting position with one kid sitting on a stool operating the back legs and the other kid kneeled on a chair over the other kid and operated the front legs and the head.
 

The customs were made from a cotton sheet with the features of the pig painted and the whole thing was stuffed with straw.  We got in it by going underneath and put our arms through the straw to operate the front and hind legs.  While we were performing the song I got a very bad itch on my nose and I pulled my hand out of the right hind leg for a moment to scratch myself.  When I tried to put it back in, I could not see and could not find the hole for the leg.  Unfortunately, I stuck my hand through the seam of the costume that happened to be in the crotch section of the pig.  I heard a bunch of laughing and screaming but thought nothing of it.  I realized that was not the leg and I pulled my arm back and finally managed to find the leg to continue the dancing of the song.  I was later told that all the laughing and screaming was because my arm looked like the pig's penis moving around to the song.  Without a doubt, our act was the hit of the evening.