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I was at the retreat and it was awesome. It really came at
an appropriate time in our lives to get us thinking about the changes we need to
undertake. I think everyone ought to make a serious retreat before they
retire and Fr. Vessels is probably the best guide for these type of
retreats. You should be getting some pictures soon.
Jesus Martinez
Dear Father Vessels, SJ.
Thank you so much for giving the recent retreat at Loretto Academy's El Convento. It was a blessing, both physically and, much more importantly, spiritually. Reconnecting with my JHS brothers was a distinct pleasure.
In this hurried and harried world where one must live in the world, but not necessarily be of the world, taking the time for oneself to more closely commune and connect with our Father, as well as recharge our personal batteries by some quiet time where we are not constantly besieged by “urgent” phone calls, whether they be cell or landline, imperative e- and snail mail, demands by work, family and friends, is vital for our physical and spiritual health. We are on this planet for such a brief moment in time to be followed by eternity. To take the “long” view- preparing for the future with our Lord is something that all too few of us do well or often enough. Perhaps we are in a bit of denial to think about that, for the life we are living or have lived as we draw ever nearer that point may have left us damaged “goods”.
But as we should always remember, the Lord knows our hearts, no matter what our outward appearance is. We cannot hide but should run to Him.
I cannot urge my fellow JHS brothers sufficiently to avail themselves of the opportunity to attend spiritual retreats, wherever they may be. Go- for the good of both body and soul!
In the future, my recommendation would be for a lengthier retreat as 1.5-2 days is insufficient to fully appreciate and enjoy the spiritual benefits.
Sincerely,yours in Christ,
Paul Beenen- JHS'67
A letter from Charlie A. Huereque, Class of
63
Dear Fellow Classmates
I knew that once I arrived back home to Kaleefornia, that
I would quickly go back into my normal day responsibilities.
I also knew that there was something that I had
to do as a result of the two days I spent with my fellow
class mates that I had not see in 41 years. Needless
to say, it was a very emotional time for me. So
I share my thoughts with you that have been on my mind
since then.
I
am extremely disappointed! At me, for not taking
the opportunity to share my thoughts with my fellow
Jesuit graduates at the Saturday luncheon to celebrate
the beginning of the Jesuit Legacy. As I sat there
at our table, I kept remembering what a friend of mine
used to tell me. I have had the privilege to have
traveled the state of Kaeefornia with a gentlemen, who
is now in his 90's, and the one thing he would tell
me during our journeys; was "lets see where that
path will lead us cause you never know if you will be
down this path again".
During
my early high school days there were two men that I
feared the most, one was my dad and the other was Father
Vessels. I just have one question I would like
to ask Fr. Vessels, where was your sense of humor back
then? The members of the class of "63"
laid down a strong foundation for those that followed.
So in that same vein, enclosed is a check for
$1000.00 to help with the beginning of the Jesuit legacy.
And I challenge the rest of my fellow "63"
graduates and al of the Jesuit grads, to offer what
ever you can to the spirit of Jesuit High School and
what the school has meant to you and to it's legacy.
Remember
what my friend always said, you never know if you will
ever be down this path again.
Respectfully,
Charlie
A. Huereque Class of 63
A chapter from Professor Ricardo Aguilar's novel
UP RIVER dealing with his recollections
from his days at Jesuit High
Cloister
We were just kids, fresh out of elementary school,
when they took us to that unfamiliar, strange brick
building, four floors counting the basement, set
on a sandy mound overlooking most of the valley. The
floors, classrooms, corridors, stairs, doorframes, desks,
lockers, papers, pencils and pens were constantly coated
with a fine dust that crunched underfoot and stuck to
the heel of your hand when you tried to write. The place
was absolutely austere, not a single picture on any
of the walls, everything designed for some functional
and practical purpose. They even painted all the furniture
the same color, an odd tone, something like a Sunday
hangover, as if they’d mixed together whatever was left
over in a lot of different paint buckets, I’ll bet the
paint was a gift from some hardware store. Long ago,
they told us later, the building had been a refuge for
Jesuits escaping from Mexico during the anti-Church
movement. It was built in the shape of an M. The right
leg of the M and part of the upper angle held classrooms
and offices. The cloister was on the other side. A chapel
stood in the center, with the cafeteria in the basement.
A coat of arms was set in the floor just outside the
chapel, beneath the letters AMDG (Ad Majore Dei Gloriam)
BVMH (Beata Virgine María Honorem) were a two-headed
eagle, byzantine-style with no crowns, and a brown and
white striped shield, the symbol of the San Ildefonso
School. The schoolyard was unattractive too, with only
a couple of listless bay trees and some scraggly grass.
Everything was so ashen that it produced an overwhelming
thirst we tried to slake at the water fountains.
Eventually we got used to the horrible taste of the
water because we were too parched to be finicky. On
the first day, they gave us an exam, supposedly to test
our intelligence. It was ridiculous because those
of us who didn’t know enough English flunked, not because
we didn’t know the answers, but because we couldn’t
understand the questions. To this day I remember how
one of the priests led me to his office and, doing his
best to console me, told me that I shouldn’t be too
upset over my test score, that although my low intelligence
showed I wasn’t cut out for a profession, I could get
along very nicely as a policeman, a fireman or working
with my hands, besides, I’d probably make a good artisan
because everyone knew that Mexicans are especially good
at any kind of manual work. (All the groundkeepers
and most of the cooks and janitors at the school were
Mexicans.) The first regulation to be learned
by those of us from Juárez and the chicanos who by some
miracle had survived the U. S. school system without
forgetting their Spanish was that it was forbidden to
speak that language in school, just think about that,
lots of us had never had a single English lesson. Of
course there was discipline, you had to stay after school
and walk around a bare field. Each demerit, three for
speaking Spanish, cost you three laps around the field
and each lap took about 10 minutes. So when you piled
up a lot of demerits, not only did you give your leg
muscles a good workout, but it would get dark while
you were still shuffling around in the sand. You
weren’t allowed to speak during your stroll. How often
I meditated there about the reasons why crabs should
be immortal and other profound principles. But that
wasn’t all. Since the school was so far, about 15 miles
from home, our parents formed a carpool, a dumb scheme,
with the idea of saving on gasoline and sharing the
ordeal of driving 30 miles, waiting in line at the bridge
and putting up with a carload of insecure adolescents.
So what happened was that even if only one of us was
kept in, we were all punished, waiting for an eternity
with the daddy on duty that day. The culprit was finally
received with icy silence and more punishment awaited
him at home ;why are you late, you’re incorrigible,
you don’t study, you‘re lazy, you’ll never make anything
of yourself, we’re spending our hard-earned money
to send you to a good school and all you do there is
eat your lunch, we’re really not surprised because you’ve
always been irresponsible, don’t think for a minute
you’re going to borrow the car because if that’s how
you act in school, how can we expect you to behave yourself
when nobody’s watching you. Some of the carpool
"friends" came from Juárez high society. Their
parents spoiled them, bought them the latest model cars
and forked over plenty of cash. Others, like me, barely
got enough for a movie on Sundays and wore the same
clothes until the shirts didn’t fit and the pants reached
mid-calf. And I was the smallest, the butt of
the others jokes. Unfortunately I hadn’t yet learned
enough curses to answer the chain of obscenities heaped
on me, and could only count on a small repertory of
shits and hells. So the only goddamn thing I could
do was sit and take it, although two or three times,
when I got good and fed up, I reacted with my fists.
All I got to show for that was a couple of black
eyes and long-term trouble. I learned then that
the middle class in Mexico is shit, that chicanos are
more noble, that the Mexican bourgeoisie raises their
kids to be bullies. Somehow I realized that I
didn#61501;t fit in with that group of boys who were
supposed to be my peers, that I found their company
disgusting. There were two terrific exceptions: Luis
and Charlie Boy. I still love those guys even
though I hardly see them any more. Maybe what made them
different was that they were poorer and were part of
the group only by chance, not choice. One of the
crowd was a queer, but I didn’t even suspect that until
much later, I must have been naive with a capital N.
He was the worst bully of all, I know now that
he probably picked on me because the others wouldn’t
have stood for it. Anyway, most of the insults had to
do with homosexuality. The group spoke of nothing but
sex during the four years of my adolescence and theirs.
They invented girlfriends, gabbed endlessly about
the tea-dances, about the parties in their homes, about
the clothes they’d wear to the dances, about what a
hot number that blond X was, about how she’d let you
paw her, "in the movies, in the dark, you’ve never
done it?, well I have, thousands of times, and to different
girls, you’re an asshole, no girl would ever look at
you." I can’t recall a single instance when they
spoke well of anyone or when there was a conversation
about any other subject. But Luis and Charlie Boy,
well, that was different, those kids were decent. Once
Luis got the brilliant idea of starting a Science Club,
Charlie and I got all excited about it (though I hated
science), and we set up a laboratory in my grandmother’s
attic. Charlie brought a few things from his old
man’s furniture store, Luis some instruments, and my
Dad gave us some old tables we set up in the kitchen
for our lab. We really got into it, and we’d even do
our homework there, repeating the experiments we’d done
in class. One day Charlie decided that we ought
to manufacture some nitroglycerine; get this by mixing
glycerine with nitric acid. No, not that way, more of
this and less of that, or less of this and more of that.
Then that skunk Charlie leaves me alone and suddenly
I hear a son-of-a-bitch of a blast. Charlie Boy
had set me up, the bastard. I had to go change my underwear.
Another day we had another marvelous inspiration, we’d
make an ice bomb. Charlie and little Luis (he
always got the biggest kick out of everything) went
to the ice cream stand and got some dry ice and a container
with a good strong cap. Trembling with fear, we put
the ice in water and screwed on the cap. It began
to build up pressure, Charlie tossed it into my grandmother’s
yard, and nothing happened, it didn’t break, it didn’t
explode, it didn’t do anything. It just lay there on
the grass. We ran down, dumb kids, it could have exploded
in our faces, and Charlie picked it up and threw it
over the fence. The neighbor’s dog started to bark,
he knew what was going on, he must have been sniffing
it. The thingamajig blew up and killed the stupid dog.
We had to keep out of sight for two or three weeks.
Then Charlie’s parents lent him a Vespa, one of those
fat ones with the gears on the left handlebar, the brakes
on the right. Once in a while they’d lend him
the family Chevy, brand new, red as hell and a beauty.
You wouldn’t believe the dumb stunts we pulled in that
car. I swear I don’t know how we stayed out of prison
or reform school. Jackass Charlie would race at full
speed up Niños Héroes, a wide avenue with little traffic,
then he’d suddenly jerk the wheel and we’d turn like
crazy in what we called the eagle spin and lots of other
pirouettes. At night Charlie would take his 22 and say
we were going to hunt hares. He’d improvised a
silencer with an old pipe, a bunch of hooks and a sponge.
Actually, this contraption was well designed, it let
out no more sound than a whisper. We’d go up to the
Chaveña Gulch and look for dogs and cats. There were
a bunch of them there and some were casualties in our
make-believe battles. The bad part was that a
lot of people walked around there too, now that I think
of it, what if by some rotten luck we’d shot somebody?
Or accidentally hit a gas tank? Who knows. At the time
we were just unbridled and determined to run wild. We
were great buddies, we’d go out beyond the airport,
cross-country among the brambles. He had his 22, and
I had the target pistol I’d steal from my aunt Estela,
poor thing, she always seemed to understand the fury
burning inside me. We had energy to spare, we were convinced
nothing was impossible, there was nothing we couldn’t
do. We hunted hares, rabbits, birds, and anything else
that crossed our path. We climbed all the hills, crossed
the deserts. I ran into Luis the other day. He invited
me to his wedding, he was as fat as I am, and wore a
big western hat and boots. I see Charlie now and
then. He smokes like a chinmney and he’s as crazy as
ever. Now he’s building an airplane, he claims, but
won’t use any kind of instructions, whatever he makes
has to be completely original, one of these days if
I don’t watch out I’ll come crashing through my roof.
There were some other interesting kids at school
too. Agapito Mendoza, heaven help humankind, was
the class comedian. He could make the sphynx laugh.
Tall, fat, dark-skinned, he always wore Levis, suede
shoes and the most fantastic collection of T-shirts
I’ve ever seen, from one with a picture of Einstein
to one with Mickey Mouse and another with Donald Duck.
He had trouble-making down to a science. Nacho
told me that one day at about four o’clock in the afternoon
they’re standing on a corner downtown where a bunch
of people are waiting for the bus, and Agapito suddenly
pipes up, "Jesus, it just got hard!", everybody
glares at him. Nacho feels like crawling into
the path of the approaching bus. Agapito, cool
as a cucumber, goes on, "My bubble gum! It
just got hard as a rock! What dirty minds!"
Then there was another time, in biology class with Topres,
better known as Torture, a Puerto Rican teacher who
wasn’t ordained yet though he was a Jesuit, very funny-looking
because he parted his hair on the side and had the sides
trimmed very short, so he looked like they’d used a
bowl to cut his hair, he had a crazy walk with his feet
pointing out at a 454 angle. He was chunky, very pale,
and spoke English with such a heavy accent you could
tell right away his native tongue was Spanish. That
day Torture asked Agapito a question about what he’d
been explaining. That was a mistake. We all knew what
was coming. Torture had been explaining that "areola"
is the scientific name for a woman’s nipple. At the
time there was a popular jingle in an Oreo cookie commercial,
"Little boys like other toys but I like Oreos.
Sure enough, Agapito started to sing, "Little boys
like other toys but I like areolas." Torture turned
all the colors of the rainbow, red, white, purple, and
finally the black of fury. He started hopping
around, the way he always did when he was angry, his
hands clutched in fists. He let fly a torrent of insults,
half in English, half in Spanish. He really let Agapito
have it, he was a Neanderthal, he had no idea of the
meaning of the word decency, that the level of his crudeness
was only slightly lower than the level of his intelligence,
that he didn’t understand why his parents wasted good
money sending him to school, seeing he was a lazy, ignorant
bum. Agapito couldn’t keep his mouth shut. He told Torture
that one day when he was elected to the Congress of
the United States, the first thing he’d do would be
to write a law to deport all the Puerto Rican scum that
lived off everyone else and he’d also present a bill
to cut off all U.S. aid to Puerto Rico. Torture was
furious, speechless with rage. He made awful faces,
then adjusted the belt of his habit and said, “Agapito!
You and I will settle this. Right now!” He grabbed
Agapito by the neck of his Mickey Mouse T-shirt and
practically lifted him out of his seat. The kid seemed
to be wound up, he laughed like a lunatic, and the laughter
made tears roll down his face. They ended up in the
office of Bacussy, Mr. Demerit; the disciplinary prefect
who got his jollies by meting out punishments.
Agapito was always his best customer. Bacussy must have
loved him because he provided his raison dêtre. Agapito
was in hot water most of the year he spent in Phillipot’s
class. He was a pain in the ass, a black from Louisiana
with two doctorates, one in Philosophy and one in foreign
languages, and at the time he was working on another
in Theology, his classes were really brilliant. I got
my first taste of French from him, and literature too,
because he made us read, read and read, and expected
us to know all the answers. We wrote our first poems,
we did our first play. Phillipot spoke with incredible
clarity, it was hard not to get wrapped up in what you
were hearing. But Agapito acted up as usual. At first
Phillipot ignored his wisecracks, then answered him
with withering sarcasm. He threatened him, but
the threats went over Agapito’s head, then he sat him
in the back corner, facing the wall. There he remained
the whole semester, but he never improved, putting his
feet against the wall. “Agapito!”, said Phillipot, "When
will you grow up?" Probably never. We all
knew it. Agapito was good at football, good at basketball,
and almost a pro at baseball. A few days ago this
guy turned up at my office with long, graying hair and
a beard, wearing a jacket, Levis and suede shoes. It
was Dr. Agapito Mendoza, cum laude graduate of the University
of Oklahoma, a Chicano activist, a specialist in labor
relations.
The kids from around here were bastards too,
with a couple of exceptions, the same spoiled kids,
the ones from Los Nogales, from the Country Club, they
lived like kings, dressed in the latest style, went
to all the dances, played golf, their fathers gave them
plenty of money so they could get drunk and not bother
them, and so they could get themselves girlfriends of
their own high class, hell, there was never any high
class in Juárez unless you were a descendant of Fray
García de San Francisco. Juárez was a lively place,
all along Mariscal street down to the river and on all
the side streets. Floor shows, good, cheap booze, lots
of dames and industrial quantities of dumb gringos.
In those days, the place to go was Curley’s Club,
and that’s where Pedro and I used to sneak off to at
night. He’d bought an old gray and black Mercury,
fixed it up like new, it looked great, little lights
in each door, plush upholstery and carpeting. From
Curley’s We’d go to the Noa Noa, then to Don Felix Club,
the Reno, from there to the strip tease at the Follies
or Waikiki, and then to the untitled movies at the Taxco
Bar. That was supposed to be a kid’s initiation, he’d
pick up a hooker, and when it was all over, he’d come
out a man. You were expected to dance with the whores
to prove your manhood, even if they stank like hell
you had to put up with it just the way they put up with
the whiff of brandy on your breath, the stench of your
sweat and cheap after-shave. That must have been the
best the world had to offer because people came from
miles around, even Parral, to have fun. The low-class
places were always packed with gringo soldiers and others
of their kind who invariably admired the strippers and
their suggestive poses, cheering when the women assumed
positions never before seen, they were with their wives
who clapped and hooted as loud as they did. Even today,
in the rest of Mexico, from Chihuahua south to the capital,
they have the idea that we’re the new Sodom and Gomorrah,
that any woman who lives here must be part of that desperate
eroticism, created by white-slavers for the entertainment
of every man around who, like it or not, bishop, priest,
Mason or Knight of Columbus, becomes a willing or unwilling
victim of pornographic perversity. The fact is that
now, with this business of the sexual revolution, it’s
all obsolete. But the legend persists, I know people
who refuse to cross the border or come here because
they’re scared. They say they’ve heard about a lady
who one night, when she was doing some fancy writhing
at the Carrousel to the tropical rhythms of Fili Munoz
and his Caballeros, danced with a flashy guy dressed
in a silk suit, Italian shoes, stinking of Aramis, smeared
with vaseline from his pompadour to his D.A., covered
with gold and diamond rings, like Nero, that thug who
always showed up at the dances half drunk but with a
gift for gab.
Well, there they were wiggling to a cumbia, the guy
took her back to her seat after giving her a good feel,
and she, completely fulfilled, notices that the gentleman’s
feet are a hoof and a rooster’s claw, Satan, Lucifer,
Old Nick, Beelzebub or any of the other names for the
devil I can’t remember, all myths and lies parents tell
their kids to scare them, probably as penance because
you can’t tell me they didn’t live it up themselves
when they were younger, and it/’ only their guilty conscience
that makes them holier-than-thou. But all that’s gone
now, the city has grown, a million and a half to the
south and half a million on the other side. Mariscal
Street is done for, business shot to hell, no customers,
they’re all in the fashionable discotheques, they don’t
go to the bars any more. When the center of the city
moved, Sodom was left on the outskirts. With all those
maquiladoras, single women have jobs nowadays. No more
professional hookers, just affairs, they don’t sweep
the streets the way they used to but nowadays that’s
where people make love.
Another of our nutty buddies was Panayote. I was
stunned when I heard that crazy guy had gotten married,
and my eyes popped one day when I saw him giving his
baby a pacifier. The poor kid just sucked it. I
should have known that couldn’t turn out well. One day,
very calmly, Panayote shot himself while he was cleaning
a pistol. He couldn’t even stand himself, we met
him at the Reno Bar, he’d buy us all beers, and we were
a little afraid of him because he was one of those guys
who won’t listen to reason, who don’t give a damn
about anything. Dangerous at dances and parties.
Once we were cruising on 16th street, on Sundays
the kids would ride back and forth from one end of the
street to the other, up and down from noon until three,
everyone happy, honking horns, yelling to each other,
gossiping, a real blast. There was a gang we called
the Flintstones because they were a rough bunch, they
carried switchblades, chains, tire irons and were always
looking for trouble. Panayote hated them, especially
one of their leaders. There we were having a helluva
good time when suddenly a rickety black Cadillac full
of long-haired thugs drove up right next to our car.
Panayote gave them the finger, they wanted to get out
and fight. Panayote took out a Derringer he always carried
and started shooting right there in the street. He
didn’t give a damn that there were people on the sidewalks
and a bunch of kids in their cars. The Flintstones
just ducked down and put the pedal to the floorboard.
When it was all over we discovered two big bullet holes
in the trunk, that damn fool Panayote, after that we
didn’t want to go anywhere with him for fear of getting
ourselves killed because of some stunt he’d pull. He
didn’t go to school, and that surprised us because our
parents made us toe the line, like it or not. His old
man had him tending bar at the Reno, but he’d come along
when we went mountain-climbing. In those days we liked
to play at being explorers, supposedly to see if we
could find the treasures said to be hidden in the hills,
the gold Benito Juárez had brought during the Reforma
wars, all the money Maximilian had sent to keep his
enemies from getting it, Montezuma’s treasure, and all
the other treasures the legends said were buried around
there, near what had been a post house behind the mountain,
to the west, the stopping place for the stage coaches
that crossed toward the north along the Camino Real
through Mesilla, Socorro, Belén, Albuquerque and Santa
Fe, following the river, through Dead Man’s Pass and
the plains. What we found was a cave three-quarters
of the way up the hillside, it looked like hoboes or
hikers stayed there because there were lots of ashes
and bits of charcoal on the ground, the cave was beautiful
because it was like a miniature mine, the walls studded
with clusters of white and purple quartz crystals, we
also found a whole damn lot of pain, we came back all
bruised and scratched by cactuses on the way up, by
thorns and more cactuses on the way down, not counting
our slips and falls and the suffering of our tobacco-filled
lungs. When we got home we had to use brushes all over
to get the sticky filth off our bodies. There
we go, three of us on Charlie’s motorcycle, it looked
like it was going to collapse, but it didn’t. It’s a
miracle I’m still around to tell you about it, because
we came close to killing ourselves time and again thanks
to the hare-brained things we did with no thought of
danger. We raced through the sand chasing hares and
rabbits, pistols and rifles ready to shoot without stopping.
Charlie would leave the dusty roads, and we’d chase
the poor animals cross-country. When we got a little
older and wiser, we stopped going to the desert, Prieto,
Zorro, Panayote, Charlie and I and some other guys whose
names I can’t remember, would go to the Juárez valley
on regular hunting trips. Once we were almost the hunted,
the valley’s sand hills are known to be a hide-out for
lovers. That time, as we crossed a dune we came upon
two naked people, they looked red but we never found
out if that was because of the sun or their passion,
we didn’t stop to figure it out, but started running
away, scared stiff, never looking back, until the dusty
cloud we raised filled the horizon. That same day, I
was driving my Aunt Estela’s square little Corvair,
she was the only one crazy enough to lend me a car,
we were going south along the dirt embankment of the
river, that was about ten feet below us, and on a sharp
curve we skidded, whipped around a couple of times,
went over the edge, our hearts in our throats, the car
wheels spinning in the air, all of us scared to death
except Panayote who started laughing so hard it was
eerie. That’s why I’m not surprised by what happened.
The last time I saw him he was showing off a brand new
green Volkswagen, he’d painted Hellas on the sides;
he always said he wanted to go and live in Athens.
El Prieto was crazy too, but much less wild,
one of those guys who like to dress in the latest style,
starched plaid shirts, drill pants and cowboy boots.
Quiet, and longing to find a decent girl, well, he made
a play for hairdressers too and there’s a helluva a
lot of those around, Saturday afternoons he’d stroll
past the windows of Ofelia’s or Sylvia’s or some other
salon. The girls there pretended not to see him, as
if they didn’t like him, as if they thought he was a
jerk, but they’d finally take notice. El Prieto
had a brand new car, metallic lightning blue, he thought
he was really something. Passing a beauty parlor one
day, he noticed that the girls were peeking out at him
but as soon as he turned around, pretended not to have
seen him, he parked quickly and ran back to the window
and there they all were, pressed against the window
like flies, when they saw him they scooted back to their
places, it looked like a tomato packing house with all
those red cheeks. We were always on the make, even at
the dances, and all real machos, "I like this one,"
or I like that one and you’d better not ask her to dance
because you’ll have to answer to me, and then we’ll
see who cries uncle. Huddled in a corner, drinking
and drinking to get up our nerve and whispering among
ourselves, we’d let three songs go by while the girls
sat and waited because these idiots didn’t ask them
to dance, just stared, finally when some other guy came
to ask them to dance, the jackasses got burned up, then
we’d insult the girls, "what a pill she is, ugly
too, not worth a second glance, besides I like that
one better," or, "I didn’t really feel like
dancing just now anyway," there were always a couple
of guys at those dances who loved to spoil things for
everyone else, "why did you dance with so-and-so,
as if you didn’t know she’s my girl, she’s mine and
I don’t share her with anybody", and pow,
a fist, right there, to the jaw or the stomach and a
free-for-all would start. You always went to the dances
neat and tidy, but you knew you might leave in tatters.
Once a bunch of idiots started fighting on the second
floor of the casino, it was like a balcony around the
dance floor, three stairways and a very nice railing,
so you could sit and watch the dancers from there. There
were tables, and it was the favorite spot for the fellows
who didn’t know how to dance and spent their time getting
drunk instead. One night, in the middle of the dance,
when the Aceves orchestra was playing Ramona, a brawl
broke out, fists flying all over the place, one of the
pugilists shoved another against the railing, he lost
his balance and went over, fell on top of one of the
couples on the dance floor, in spite of all the yelling,
the dancers pretended not to notice and just ignored
the childish antics and boorishness of the upstairs
crowd. That was the end of the party, everybody got
into it, they threw out the people from upstairs, how
embarrassing, my friend. Whenever the subject of dances
comes up in a conversation I always remember the joke
about the casino, that one night when there was to be
a dress ball a guy showed up at the door without an
invitation, with three women who were obviously
prostitutes. The doorman didn’t want to let him in because
the gentleman’s companions are ladies whose reputation
is questionable, to which the man shouted "There’s
no question about these ladies’ reputation, they’re
whores, the ones with the questionable reputations are
the ones in there, on the dance floor.”
NMSU's Ricardo Aguilar-Melantzon is New Mexico Professor of the Year
Ricardo Aguilar-Melantzon, a professor of Spanish at New Mexico State University , has been selected as the 2003 New Mexico Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Read more.
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