It's May!

It’s May, it’s May the merry month of May. And I have not blogged since March.

Last Friday I discovered an archival site that still has my first attempt at having my own webpage back in 1997. It was such a primitive site in comparison to what we see today. It was great to see some of the photos that I had included there because it had one that I have somehow misplaced.

The photo is of my mother, my sister and me. When my sister and I were at St. Anthony’s School there were two clubs for girls to join. One was Hijas de María and the other Las Teresitas. I may not have the correct recollection, but it seems that the first one was for the older girls, and the latter one was for the younger ones, like us. One Sunday a month, we would wear our Teresitas uniform, sit as a group in church, and go to Holy Communion during the Mass.

But the month of May was particularly a great month for us. Maybe this is one of the reasons I especially like flowers and gardening. The month of May was dedicated to Our Holy Mother, Mary (La Virgen María), and one way of celebrating was by offering flowers in the evening during the recital of the rosary.

On the Sunday before, Father Dunne would read out the names of the mothers who were responsible for providing flowers for each evening of the coming week. I think that Mom’s turn didn’t come until sometime during the third week. To hear Father read Mom’s name was like when your name appeared in the Robstown Record. It brought a smile of pride to my face.

The younger girls—maybe first and second grade Teresitas—dressed in white, including a head cover of either lace or net, carried a bunch of flowers and formed a double line down the center aisle of the church. At the break in the rosary after ten Hail Marys, we would joyfully sing alabanzas, raising our flower-holding arms. Then we marched toward the altar and give the flowers to one of the two older girls—usually a girl from Hijas de María.

What carefree days of our childhood! We might worry that our bouquet of flowers was not big enough or that someone else’s bouquet might have prettier flowers.

Sunday Music and Old Traditions

We prefer to call it tradition instead of saying our life is in a rut. The tradition for Sunday mornings is reading the Sunday edition of the LA Times while listening to five (5) CDs. Five is the format of our current CD player. Our collection of CDs is so large and disorganized that if I wanted to listen to a specific song, it might take me a while to find it. But that is not important since I like about 98% or more of the CDs we own. So anything Son chooses will be great. Today I got up later than usual, and Son’s selections were well into the third CD. After his five were heard, I was then privileged to pick the next five CDs.

The first CD I picked is one that some people might classify as elevator music, but I enjoy it because it has the traditional Mexican music done with symphonic twist.

I bought this CD in the early 1990s when a professor at Cal State Fullerton introduced me to Luis Cobos. Included with the folkloric songs is also the Moncayo themes of "Huapango" which I really love.


But, it was hearing some of the traditional folkloric dance music that brought some childhood memories. The nuns at St. Anthony’s School taught us some of the dances to perform for our parents at the end of the school year. As I was listening to “Las Chiapanecas” (literally, the women or girls from the state of Chiapas), it was easy to remember the right time to do the double clap, but harder to remember the steps that the nuns taught us for the dance. I was surprised that I could at least remember some of them—did not mean to imply that I could execute the dance, though. When “La Raspa” came on, I easily remembered the steps, but those steps required much more agility than “Las Chiapanecas.”




I wish that I had some photos of those programs at St. Anthony’s when my sister and I attended there, but I don’t. Last summer, however, I did take a few photos of articles that had appeared in the Robstown Record in 1949-1950. When I saw this group picture of children, I identified with them immediately. I recognized the stage where I had danced “Las Chiapanecas” two or three years before them.

 

Click on the photo to read the names of the children. The only boy in the photo went on to become a local/regional celebrity who had his own tv series of variety shows. He is now known as Johnny Canales instead of Juanito Canales.

School Days Start Earlier and Earlier

I was thinking about school because all the newspaper ads have “back to school” specials. And, it occurred to me that I do not remember my first day of school. One would think that that day would be one of those things never to forget.

I do remember being in the first grade, however, and one of my friends was Obdulia. Her cousin Rosa came later on in the year, and she had a larger box of crayons, and none of the crayons were broken. And she did not let me borrow one of her crayons, when the color I wanted was missing from my box.

St. Anthony’s Parochial School was mainly staffed by the nuns of the parish, and the grades taught were First through Sixth. We did not have Kindergarden, much less pre-K. My teacher in the first and second grade was Sister Manuela, and I don’t recall that we necessarily spoke English or Spanish. Language did not become an issue until I was in the fourth grade with Sister Rosario, who announced that we would speak only in English in the classroom.

But speaking of language, I wondered, but never questioned, why in English we called the nuns “Sisters” but in Spanish they were “Las Madres” or the affectionate diminutive “Las Madrecitas.”

By today’s standards, there were some things at the school that would not be allowed today. In the first year there were no drinking fountains, only a spigot in the central yard. There was a tin cup available for anyone to use. Some of us had a collapsible, telescopic drinking cup we were suppose to use, but that always got lost. It was no big deal to drink from the same cup everyone else did.

Those school days were carefree days. My great-grandmother, La Abuelita, would walk to our school with lunch for sis and me. We would sit in a sunny spot on some benches and ate our lunch. The other children I think brought sack lunches. We had not heard of Burritos, to us they were taquitos con tortillas de harina.

Not all the nuns were teachers. Sister Sofia, a short pudgy lady, was the one who took care of the cooking and domestic chores of the residence. She also taught some of us girls to crochet. For mother’s day, she crocheted a black purse for my mother. My sister and I might have completed a few stitches on the project, but it was actually Sister Sofia who did the most of the work, because it was beautifully done. Mom kept that purse for quite a few years, using it for her dressier occasions.



As we look at the picture above, my cousin is on the right, and I am on the left. We are standing next to one of the buildings at school. I find the picture interesting because we are holding hands, as if to reassure each other that it is OK to have our picture taken. I am older than my cousin, and I grew to be taller than she, but in this picture we are the same height.



The color photo is of my beautiful grandson who goes to daycare every weekday. My daughter refers to it as “school” instead of daycare. Today, my handsome nieto is seven months old, has three teeth, and is able to sit up by himself. Oh yes, another thing he picked up at his school is a cold. Happy 7-month birthday, baby, learn all you can at school, and stay well! Abuela loves you.