Cuentos from the House on West Connecticut Avenue

There are many things that I could tell you, but I won’t.

My sister, Esperanza or Laly as I’ve called her since I could speak, once said that a woman should save a little bit of mystery for herself. “A woman should be mysterious. That way, men will be more interested in her.”

Quien sabe. Who really knows? I’m hoping that you’ll agree that it makes for more interesting reading, though.

Is everything in here true? Again, not an easy question to answer. The names of persons in my immediate family circle are true ….. The names of our favorite teachers are also true, and the geographic names are as you find them on a Thomas Brothers Map book. I will not vouch for the authenticity of anything else. I sincerely hope that this does not present a problem for you, the reader of this book of treasured and tattered memories. As Alurista, former San Diego State professor, once said, “It’s the spirit that counts.” There is still plenty of mystery in that one word: spirit.

All things are connected. No matter which dot you point to on a time line, there will always be one before it and one after it. They all have spirit. So it is that, before there could be a little house on West Connecticut Avenue in Vista, there was another house in a town that some have referred to as the Calcutta of the border: Tijuana, México.

*** Sunrise meant the sound of street vendors, hustling to sell fresh bread or baked yams to the residents of that crowded border barrio. Organized trash collection being unknown in those days, the residents would burn their garbage along crooked paths that crisscrossed the rocky hillsides like veins. After one of those rainy days, the charred and sooty remains of last week's garbage would be washed downhill to the cobblestone street and little tufts of green grass would festively sprout along the margins of the well-traveled paths. The smell of fresh tortillas was quite common in the daytime, and hot chocolate (La Abuelita or Chocolate Ybarra being the top two brands) was the beverage of choice on cold evenings. Somebody's dog was always growling from behind a patchwork fence, the boundaries of its universe.

There, between Calle Juan Escutia and Cañón Johnson, on that somewhat rocky hillside, in the area known as Colonia Miguel Hidalgo, my family moved into a cement block house right around the time my dad became one of those Braceros (foreign guest workers). Mom used to tell me stories about what it was like. There was one light bulb in the middle, hanging from the ceiling. You know the type; you have to yank some little chain to turn the thing on before you bump into something in the dark. There were probably quite a few things to bump into in that one room house. They were mostly human, and I’m referring to my older siblings.

I’m told that I used to run away before I was able to walk. I would crawl out of the crib, crawl out of the tiny house, and crawl over to the neighbor’s house, where the two teenage girls, Chayo and Maruca, would happily take care of me until my mom found out that I had escaped again. If Mom hadn’t been so careful about counting her children every morning, I might have lived in TJ forever, waking up to barking dogs and street vendors shouting, “Camotes! Come and get your camotes!”

There is nothing else in the world like a steaming hot sweet potato for breakfast. It is delicious, especially with hot Mexican chocolate.

Chapter 15: The Bottom Drawer

…Renters no more! We had moved out of Tijuana and were finally together in our own home, an affordable little house almost at the end of West Connecticut Avenue, in Vista, California. Tar paper was still on the walls of the boys’ bedroom, a room barely big enough for two twin beds (no closet). Next to their room was the only restroom in the house. In the front yard, a tall pine tree and a scrawny palm stood guard over us. My four brothers probably thought that they had died and gone to heaven. They had a room with a real door! Two windows! Who cared if the walls had cheap black tar paper on them? Not my brothers! They had trees to climb in the front yard, and a door that they could close whenever Mom and Dad let them. It was more privacy than they had ever had before!

My sister shared an even smaller room with me. It had one window looking into the “garage” (more of a car port), one twin bed for the both of us, one closet shared by the whole family, and an old 4-drawer dresser also considered communal property. Sometimes, I would stare at the dresser and imagine the tales it could tell if it could talk. I knew the top drawer would tell stories about picking avocados, lemons, and putting on long sleeved shirts for Sunday Mass. Mom and Dad kept most of their things in the top drawer. The second drawer would probably complain about the challenges of sorting underwear for four active boys. The third drawer would be the happiest of all. That’s where Laly and I kept our things.The bottom drawer was a quiet place, full of kitchen towels, doilies, and crocheted masterpieces.

One of these drawers was always opened with more patience than the others. In the bottom of this drawer, underneath the embroidered pillowcases and doilies, was…