From an Old Folks Home DSQ on August 18, 2000:
When on a road trip: At what restaurant do you stop? Do you opt for fast food, and if so, which restaurant? Do you decide to try a national chain? Or do you take your chances with a local greasy spoon?
You know, I hear all this talk about "making time" and I think to myself that never ever in my life am I ever going to go on a family trip and "make time". I’m going to stop at every third rest stop, odd overpasses every 40 miles, and any restaurant that will strip mine my wallet.
One month from now, I’m going to embark on our bi-annual Flagstaff, AZ to Elk City, OK death-trip. This year, I will have two children, and one very frustrated wife joining me. It’s her family, so that’s not what’s frustrating her. Yep. Exactly. The two children in a car part.
And if Grinwing was driving, none of the food issues would matter anyway, what with pulling the trip in under 15 minutes, and that’s including the 5 minute cooldown period before you can exit the car without burning yourself on the exterior.
As it is, we’re going to stop at more restaurants than I can count. I won’t remember tasting any of the food, I’m sure. And in my mind, I will try to imagine what it would be like to do 850 miles in under 11 hours…and I will laugh a bitter little laugh. And as I jab a french fry or some other processed potato food in my mouth, I will think about whether the Hotel we stop at in New Mexico will be infested with fleas.
We will stop anywhere that the collective hunger dictates. It could be a disgusting Luv’s Truck Stop where we will mirthlessly consume heat-lamp burgers on flattened buns while staring at feathery, turqouisey, real-live southwestern faux-Indian tourist nick-nacks. Or it could be a Burger King, where there is no way that doing the drive-thru is an option because if my brood isn’t released from bondage every 20 minutes, the caterwauling would build up to critical resonance levels and I’d risk having splintered glass fall in my lap. And yes, I bring target shooting earplugs, so I don’t worry about my hearing. The health of my exposed sinuses is another matter.
At some point along the trip, I’ll get the bright idea to take us to a nice, national chain restaurant as a reward to my children for making my life a river of tears for the past seven hours. And we will go in, and as any national chain will do, crayons will be distributed to kids with motor skills and I’ll relax for a few minutes as the coloring begins. And I’ll order some sort of linguini and shrimp entrée. I am also out of my mind. Five minutes before the meal arrives, the table will be covered in salt, Equal®, and crayon peelings all mashed into a lumpy paste with a generous portion of Pepsi and Milk. When the plates arrive, the screaming and seat dancing will begin. Out of sheer panic, I will ask for styrofoam boxes, toss my debit card at somebody and sprint for the door. The wife and kids will be hungry and mad, and the car will smell like shrimp and garlic for the next week.
Ten miles later, we will stop for car-friendly finger foods at Wendy’s and I will masochistically order one of Dave’s chronically undercooked Chicken & Salmonella Sandwiches. I will think this time will be different. And I will also spend the rest of the night fouling up the hotel bathroom. The next morning, I will buy my first set of Adult Undergarments and continue the journey.
Much later on the second day, we will probably stumble into a greasy spoon somewhere in Shamrock Texas. Choking down a crisco coated ingot of Chicken Fried Steak will be the best meal experience of the whole ordeal, seeing’s how nobody cares what sabatoge my kids do to the table & furniture because it all looks that way to begin with.
It all starts over on the way back. I will be on a ventilator by then, and driving with my knees. But it only happens every two years right?
From the Old Folks Home DSQ, April 24, 2003:
What was your favorite recess game in elementary school?
I think I have already spoken at length about our childhood game of Mátaratónes, so I won't bore you further with such things. As you know, we had very little time for hyjinks as children. The days were short and the work was long. We had to find games that fit into these small opportunities, and Papá was ever vigilant to be sure we didn't take things too far.
Some of the other children who lived near us would play games of tag with rocks and broken tools. To my siblings and I, these games looked very fun, but from the very start, Papá forbade it. He did not wish to lose the family's labor to concussions. In hindsight of course, I cannot blame him. I remember little Francisco spent the rest of his days in a wheelchair made of boards, torn cloth, and spare hubcaps. His family used him to scare away rabbits and crows, since he wasn't good for much else.
But some distance from our home, on the other side of the asbestos hills, there was a junkyard for tires. Oh there were many many tires there, in piles too many to count. When it seemed that we would have enough time to make the journey, we would run to this place, and play Llantas Del Fuego. This was incredibly fun. It was frightening too. I think Papá would have forbidden it also, had he known.
Paco, being the eldest, always took it upon himself to start the fire. We did not do this on the largest piles, since it would be too much for us to bear, and we did not want to ruin the fun for future days. Once the tires were burning very hot and the smoke rose like the devil into the sky, we would take our turns running across, one by one. One had to be very careful not to get caught in the holes of the tires, or Paco would complain to no end about having to pull us out. It was an amazing sight to behold of course. I recall looking on with wonder as Raúl emerged slowly and deliberately from the great pillar of smoke and flame with his walking stick at his side, looking like the very specter of death. He would then stalk Llolla, the smoke rising from his head, and she would scream for as long as we chose not to intervene.
This was very dangerous, as I'm sure you can imagine, but as children, our fear was only for our parents. The smoke from the tires was very tenacious and did not come off the skin without much persistence. So we would take detours through the fields to find one which was irrigated and we would take turns dragging each other through the furrows until we were covered head to foot with mud and leaves. This was nothing unusual to our parents and never once did they discover our game. Although some days, the winds would change and the smoke would blow over our fields and Mamá and Papá would complain loudly, to which us children would share a small bit of hidden laughter.
I could go on, but time is still short, and much work continues to await me.
Íz
From the following Old Folks Home DSQ, May 8, 2002:
Did you have a job as a kid/teenager? What were the main responsibilities of that job? Anecdotes are appreciated.
I think you all know about some of my experiences in the Avondale cabbage fields as a young man with my brothers and sisters. Many were the days that I wondered what it was like to go to school. But we worked for our days. And we worked very hard. Mamá gave us very tiny burritos with only a few little beans (burrititos para los perezosos) if we didn't fill all of our boxes by the end of the day.
During the cotton season, things were very tedious. It was our job to pick the beetles and dirt out of the bolls. We kept our fingernails very long because of this. Me and my brothers liked to leave the dirt under our nails for as long as possible because it looked so dangerous. But I remember that Llolla was very proud of how long her nails got and she would often pretend like she was the perfume lady at the Mall. (Which is not to say that we often went to the Mall. In fact it was only once that my parents took us there, and we broke many things.)
By the time I was ten, my father told me that I was in charge of my brothers and sisters while he was away. This was a very great day for me. Especially since I am not the eldest. There was a lot of anger when Paco found out what father had said. He threw dirt all over into my hair and into my box of cleaned cotton. I worked until very late to make up for what he ruined, but I was still very proud.
I do not know how much we made, since Papá collected the money every day, but I could still tell the times we were paid well for our work. Like the time that Mamá came home with a large piece of cloth to hang between their bed and ours. This was a great relief to us all and we worked all the more in hopes of getting other such gifts.
Such was our loyalty, that I found it very difficult when it was time to finally leave and provide for my own family. But today, I still keep my fingernails long in memory.
Íz
When we were kids, my sisters and I shared tales of our alter-egos and the hard lives they lived. Jennifer spun stories about her doppleganger, a street child from the inner city, named Wilona. Jessica's stories came from the third person (I think she was afraid to connect too closely ;) and revolved around a twilight-land where carnivorous burros terrorized the grubby urchins of small pueblos in the heart of Mexico.
Following are a few tales of my alter-self, inspired by my sisters, and Daily Survey Questions at the Old Folks Home.
From July 14, 2000, and the following DSQ:
What games from your youth hold fond memories? What was your favorite game to play as a kid?
As a young migrant child, working in the Avondale cabbage fields, games were a cherished pasttime during the ten minutes of daylight we had after work and before bed.
One of our favorites was MÁTARATONES. We would hunt those filthy junkyard rats as long as light permitted, and sometimes by moonlight if Papá was feeling generous. The rats didn’t much care for our corrugated tin home, because it was muy caluroso and there was never anything worth eating inside, so our parents usually considered it a huge waste of time. We used very sharp sticks, pointy rocks, and Raúl even had a slingshot he found. Whichever one of us got to wear the shoes that day would climb the trash heaps and try to flush the rats out while the rest of us stalked below. Many was the rat that we brought down in those days. I was particularly handy with my Palo del Muerte, with which I could kill AND store my trophies, like a very large shiskebob. Mamá used to beat me harshly when I brought my catch home. She was very superstitious and would not cook the rats for our tacos. Raúl, Martín and Llolla used to laugh at me for trying to convince her :)
Sometimes I feel like I miss those days, and even the lunchtime hijinx when we would play flinching contest by swinging long weed stalks at the blisters on each other’s necks. It hurt a lot and I got to be very good at it.
Sometimes I am also sorry for my children, since both of them have shoes, and there are no rubbish heaps for them to hunt in. But we do have many prairie dogs in the nearby fields, and I vow to teach them the way of the hunt.
Yours Truly,
Íz