World Beginnings

Finally, enjoying the fruits of the  long hard years of toil, sunup to sundown, my father’s sisters, Aunt Janis on the left and Annie Mae on the right, sitting in the shade and enjoying homemade ice cream. Every time I see this picture, I wonder just what they are talking about or, better yet, who? To be a fly on their shoulders and listen quietly. Aunt Janis had three children, and Annie Mae had six, and I never forget this was before Pampers and baby food. Never a complaint, raised voice, or negative words about anyone that I know. They grew up during the Depression, and whenever that subject came up, my Aunt Janis would casually remark, “Is it over yet?” Because my father, their brother had died and my mother suffered very poor health, they often made room for us not only in their homes but hearts as well. Today children in our circumstances will end up in foster care, suffering bitterly for the experience. But they always were there for us.   Whenever there was a family ga...

 BooBoo Kitty showed up outside of my chainlink fence as I was moving into a house on the lake in San Juan Cosala, and he was meowing pitifully. Of course, I immediately brought food and started calling him BooBoo Kitty. The previous renter had died, and her worthless daughter,  in so many ways, moved out and left BooBoo to fend for himself. Fortunately, the lake provided plenty of dead fish and rats, so he learned to hunt. He lived like that for about six months until I rented the house. Moving day arrived, all of the doors were open, and when I put down Paco’s bed, BooBoo walked in like he owned the place and promptly got into Paco’s bed, with him in it. The previous renter had a dog but as far as I know, Paco had never been around a cat. When BooBoo settled himself, Paco just looked at him like, “what the hell?” BooBoo was home again. About a week later, I picked up Chili from a shelter here called The Ranch and because Paco took no notice of the cat, neither did Chili, for...

Happy 72! I don’t know about you, but I never imagined being this old. I don’t know what I thought because my father died at 41 and my mother at 53. Fortunately, my paternal aunts and uncles all lived well into their eighties and nineties. And my PawPaw, my mother's father, died at 94, and her siblings lived into their eighties and nineties as well. Each of them led full and amazingly productive lives until the final bell. They were also not wealthy by any standard, but they were happy and content. Despite growing up very poor and feeling like an outcast, when I look back at my life, I am incredulous. Much has been written about the strength of the eldest, and I think there is something in that. When I was ten years old, my PawPaw gave us a set of World Books, and the world opened up to my imagination. We never had a TV, so we would take one of the encyclopedias and sit down, going through it for hours on end. I still remember one of my siblings asking, “Who has the “S” book?” or w...

Looking back on a fantastic 2021! Despite the pandemic, I was able to get the Pfizer vaccine here, so I feel protected, and no one close to me was sick. It was a year of milestones in so many ways, and I am so grateful to have lived to see the realization of many personal dreams and hopes for others come to fruition. June was a Red Letter Day for my son, Brett, who received his Masters's in IT from the University of Denver. Because I taught overseas and our end of the school year was mid-June, I could never attend any of his graduations, so this was more than special; it was a first! But I am also very proud of his research paper which focussed on improving the minority ratio in IT. It was a stellar paper noted by his professor and everyone who read it. After the ceremony, we drove to a luxurious condo in Aspen, and we were agog at the airport as we were driving into the town. I have never seen so many private luxury airplanes in my life and can only imagine what it must look like ...

  We showed up at the ruin of a house in   Chapala in June 2019, armed with cleaning supplies, mops, brooms, and buckets, called to help via a local Facebook group. Beyond the wall was filth and chaos defying description, and in the middle of this inferno was Jose, scooting around in the dirt, dragging his useless legs behind him. Clad in a shirt and in a diaper, clutching a corn tortilla. He was almost eight years old and grossly underweight. How he was even alive was a miracle, milagro. Locals had long been aware of Joe's plight and his tragic family circumstances. His great grandmother, Anita had taken him in after his mother was found in an unmarked grave, a victim of all too common drug wars, and his father, though unlisted on his birth certificate, was in prison on drug charges. At this point, Jose was very young but it soon became clear he could not walk so he joined the dogs and cats on the ground eating what he could find or was tossed his way. No one worked in the fa...

  A few days ago, my dog, Paco, chewed through yet another expensive new leash. I sighed and looked at all of the unusable leashes draped over the railing. Then I realized that I could take it to the little shoe repairman whose shop was nearby. Of course, here in my little village of 11,000, everything is close at hand. When I got to Humberto’s dark, dusty shop, I found him watching something on his phone, with shoes,   belts, and all sorts of leather things stacked up, filling the tiny shop. But the back walls were covered in posters advertising the events where he had performed. Some showed a very youthful and handsome man, while others were of a proud older gentleman. Using my broken Spanish, I explained my dog had chewed through yet another leash and could he sew it up? Smiling at me, he answered in English that he could, and I could just wait. His first step was to apply industrial strength glue, and while we waited for the glue to dry, I asked him if he sang? Putting the...

Adopted children seem to have unending questions about their identity; I speak from personal experience.  Now imagine learning that you were adopted from China by American parents. As time passes, your adoptive parents reveal painful bits about your history: that you were abandoned by a busy roadside in a cardboard box wrapped in an adult raincoat or left on the steps of a busy government building? Next, stop at an overcrowded orphanage with room after room of twenty baby beds per room and one “nanny?” Netflix has a documentary called “Found,” focusing on three Chinese American teenaged girls who discover through the DNA kit “23 and Me” that they were cousins! The documentary follows the girls through a series of zoom meetings, discussions with their adoptive mothers/fathers, and finally meeting a young Chinese woman with a degree in genealogy and a passion for helping parents and adoptees find each other through the use of DNA research. Through this emotionally tumultuous journey,...