My Turkey Trotter

Busting my buttons, proud as punch and tickled pink! I could probably come up with a few other clichés, but I'll just say that Daughter never ceases to please me with her accomplishments. She is back to getting fit and what she enjoys is running. Yesterday she finished in the San Antonio Turkey Trot. Not bad for an asthmatic kid.

Here she is around two years old. Although I remember mostly a healthy child, she did have the scary moments. One that I recall now is when she was around two or three years old, and had trouble breathing. I called the doctor's office and besides ordering medication, the nurse gave me the suggestion to get in the bathroom, run the hot water in the shower so that the whole room would fill with steam. The steam should help clear the bronchial tubes.

I followed the instructions, and Daughter and I sat in there. I knew she was scared because I could feel her little body shaking. I thought it was because she was having a difficult time breathing. I just held her in my lap, trying to comfort her. Maybe it was the medications and/or the steam treatment, but she did recuperate from that asthmatic attack. It was not until many years later, when she and I were recalling that episode that she told me the reason she was so scared was not because she had trouble breathing. She thought I was going to make her take a steaming hot shower! A good lesson to always communicate with your children.

The Beach Scene

Although summer is almost over, we are still experiencing warm days and sometimes even scorching days.

Last July when our grandson came to visit, he was treated with a day at the beach by my niece who lives walking distance from the Pacific Ocean. By report, I learned that he enjoyed the water, but not the sand. 

Then a few weeks ago, hubby and I attended a talk by a doctor on the subject of skin cancer. The doc gave us the message we all know. Protect yourself from the sun. Lather yourself in sunscreen, etc. He said that even if we protect ourselves now, the non-protection we experienced in our childhood could come back to haunt us.

That statement brought memories of marvelous days at North Beach in Corpus Christi. More than a handful of times we went there as children, and played in the sun and water. In the days before surfboards, one could rent those floating devices. I don’t recall that we did much play in the sand, although we did like to collect shells. As a matter of fact I never liked the feel of sand between your toes. The main thing we looked out for were the Portuguese man-o-war jellyfish. We were really scared of them. We heard stories that the sting from the jellyfish brought great pain and/or death.

Still, many happy hours were spent in sun. The picture below was taken in 1947.

In the photo we find Rosita from Tampico on the left. She was probably in her late teens or early twenties. She came to visit us one summer and delighted in telling my sister and me fantastic stories. One that I remember to this day was that there was a girl she knew who had a bug crawl inside her body and there the bug grew and grew in the poor girl’s belly. Sis and I (she was 8 and I was 6 ½) never questioned any of her tales.

Next to Rosita is Daddy. The beauty next to him in that two-piece swimsuit is yours truly (didn't fill out that bra then, and still don't). The baby is Sammy who passed away in 1987. He was around a year old. Sis is the one holding on to him. She adored that baby (foretelling what a great mom and grandma she grew up to be). Sis has her eyes closed—don’t know if she got saltwater or the sun was too bright, but she did not let go of the baby. Last one on the right is my pretty mom.  I don’t remember that her hair was that long or that she wore it down.I don't remember who took that picture.

Those were sweet, carefree days of summer and of my childhood.

Lady of Spain Comes to Visit

What a delightful surprise! Our Lady of Spain hits this area with a day’s announcement, and is here for only three days. We were lucky to get together for lunch.



Back in the 1990s, Assumpta came for a one-year program to teach mathematics at the same school where hubby was teaching. He and other members of the math department provided Assumpta assistance, and she has many times expressed her gratitude. She is a lovely lady.

Outside the restaurant we paused for a photo before saying, “Hasta la vista.”


The memories part for me goes back to January 1998 and a marvelous trip that my daughter and I took to parts of Europe. One of our favorite cities was Barcelona. That is the place we still want to keep going back to. Although we were very cold, we enjoyed the sights, particularly with Assumpta as our personal guide.

That is me and Assumpta on the roof level of the Gaudi Museum, and on the right, are daughter and Assumpta in the same place.

Assumpta showed us her apartment in Olot.

We were warmly greeted by her own family.

But daughter and I could not leave Barcelona without visiting the monumental church of the Holy Family, begun by Antoni Gaudi so many years ago. Hubby and I had visited Barcelona some 30 something years earlier. At that time the church was a mere shell and the laborers were skilled but their tools were "low tech" in comparison to what we observed in 1998. I would like to return to see the progress during this century.





This is one of the many, many pictures we took of the spires. Believe it or not, I actually climbed one of those spires, but did not attempt to go to the highest point allowed for tourist--but daughter did. The view from up there is breathtaking, literally.











This last picture is one that I took because I saw the box with numbers. I was thinking of hubby and daughter and how they are mathematicians. At the time I was in too much of a hurry to figure out what the numbers meant, but have since figured them out. Can you?

Special Olympians Say Thank you, Eunice Shriver, RIP.

Eunice Kennedy Shriver started the Special Olympics in 1968. Our son was born the year before, but we did not know then what a big part Special Olympics would play in his life. In those turbulent years of the 1960 decade there is at least this one lady who made a big difference in our young family.

One of the best obits is this one from the LATimes.

Holy Redeemer Church, Laredo, Texas

Surfing around some of my old bookmarks I ran into this photo. It brought memories of my sweet Tía and Tío who opened their home to me so that I might attend Laredo Junior College. After I graduated from high school in Robstown, Dad told me very simply and very true—we just did not have the money for me to continue my education. I had not had much counseling in high school regarding opportunities to go to college. So, I went to work as a secretary for almost a year. My Tía encouraged my parents to allow me to go to live with them in Laredo so that I might attend the very affordable Laredo Junior College. So I became part of their family.

This is the church that we attended when I lived in Laredo for a couple of years. We referred to it as Redentor, however. My Tío worked with the church credit union. Having him attending to the CU’s business was part of the Sunday ritual. I think that he was there from its onset. However, I do not know when that was. I don’t recall that I ever saw any of the students from LJC at the mass that my prima and I attended. My cousin sometimes opted to attend Sunday Mass at San Agustín because that was where she had attended high school.

I guess most of the students from LJC were from another neighborhood. I can’t imagine anyone in Laredo at that time skipping Sunday mass. It may still be a more cultural/social thing to do than religious. Although some of the Laredo friends I have stayed in touch still have deep religious convictions and very conservative politics. Not so like me!

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.

Amarillo Had a Snowstorm

Hubby brought to my attention today that Amarillo had a blizzard this week-end. The snowstorm brought more than 10 inches of snow to parts of the Texas panhandle.
You can see a slide show of the snow storm at the newspaper website.

This brought some memories of how I got to Amarillo to begin my teaching career in the first place. I was fresh out of the University of Texas with a life-time teaching credential and a bachelor’s degree in Education with a major in English and minor in Spanish.

The education recruiters who came to Austin that summer of 1962 were looking for native speakers to teach foreign languages. I don’t remember going to too many interviews, but I had narrowed my choices to either Deer Park of Dallas or Amarillo, way up north in the Texas panhandle.

Somehow the Amarillo job sounded more exotic since it was so far from home. In the months before going to Amarillo I had to buy a car and find my way to that far off city. The farthest north I had driven was San Antonio. I had driven to Laredo and even to Monterrey, Mexico, but I was going to drive into unknown territory. That sounded both scary and exciting to this sheltered, naïve girl.

I knew that Tío Miguel had been to northern Texas, so I asked his advice on how to get to Amarillo. He gave me some instructions, although I do not remember just what he said. Mom was to be my navigator and little brother was along to give moral support.

I guess we had a map of Texas with us, but I mainly remembered the sequence of towns we were to cross on the way to Amarillo. I don’t remember the number designations of the highways where we traveled. I remember that most of the towns had directional signs to either the next town or toward a larger city. I mainly guided myself by watching for those signs. My mom was not the best navigator (I can say that now that she is no longer here to deny it).

At that time the highways were mainly two lanes. The lanes were divided by a single white line, but sometimes there was also the yellow line. The yellow line was sometimes solid, sometimes broken and sometimes on one side of the white line and other times on the other side of the white line. I quickly figured out that the yellow line was to guide the driver when it was safe to pass, especially in the hill country.

It took us pretty much the whole day to get to Amarillo. We had packed food, and stopped only to get gas and the potty stops were only at gas stations in those days. There were no fast food places yet, and no rest areas--how did we do it, then?

When we got to Amarillo we went to the school district office, and the school secretary helped us find a place to stay. It was a small rental apartment in the back of a house in the north side of town. All three of us slept there for a couple of nights. While Mom and brother were still with me we found the local Woolworth and bought a couple of plates, forks, spoons, and I don’t remember what else. I might have even bought a skillet or pan.

Then it was time for them to leave. I drove Mom and brother to the Greyhound (or was it Trailways?) bus station. I stayed there until it was time for their bus to depart for Robstown. That’s when it really hit me! I was alone in a strange city, starting a position I was not experienced with, and I had to rely on no one but me!

I watched the bus pulling out of the depot and waved at my kid brother who was sitting by the window. I was trying to control my emotion of the moment, but when I saw my eight-year old brother crying as he waved good-bye, I began to cry, too. I walked to my car, sat there, and, knowing there was no reason for inhibition, just bawled out loud.

I did not stay in that apartment that was behind a house. When we had our teacher orientation the next day, the French teacher and I decided we should share rent on an apartment. When I went to pick up my things at the first apartment, I paid the lady for the couple of nights and settled for my teaching assignment at Tascosa High School. I think she might have asked for $10 for both nights.

And that brings me back to the snowstorm in Amarillo. Four or five months after the school year began I experienced my first snow. I recall the morning after we'd had a snowfall in the evening. I went from window to window to window in our small apartment. I was in awe of the beauty of that white blanket. It was a joyful new experience for me. Yes, this year was when I experienced a lot of firsts. Snow was just one.