HOWDY
Here we are again talking about the way things used to be in this city and around this area. Back in the early sixties my parents lived in the San Jose project in the barrio of Chihuahua. There was my mother and my stepfather and six brothers and sisters. My stepfather was a truck driver and worked a lot of hours for seventy-five dollars a week. No tv just a radio. My mom would play the guitar and we would all sit around and listen to her. Our apt was right on the end and the neighbors would sit outside and listen to my mom and then my brothers boogie and Kenneth and me would sing also. Our dad would come over maybe once a month. I had a lot of hard feelings towards my dad for leaving my mom and us for another woman. I am sorry to say that for many years I would not go around my dad. When he moved to junction my brothers boogie and Kenneth would spend the summer with him but I would not go. Thank the lord that as I got older him and I became very close and spent most weekend together my two sisters were not into music my youngest brother Robbie was my mom pet and we did the best we could. We were never hungry and the apt. was fairly warm in the winter and with no ac if you had a fan and kept the windows open the summers were not that bad. My mother and my grandmother would go all out preparing a meal on Thanksgiving or Christmas on thanksgiving my mom would invite any and every body to stop by eat sing, play dominos. It was nothing to have forty to fifty people come by during the holidays my mom was a very caring person and she believed that if someone needed help and you could help them do so. I still feel that way to this day. The bad part is that now the more you try to help someone the more they expect you to do and if you can’t then they talk bad about you. I recall that every Saturday my mom would go grocery shopping at Paniagua groc on Dignowity st. Arturo and Armando were the owners. Very good people good food and very courteous with everyone it was a time when you knew all your neighbors and every one would do what they could to help out. Now days when you ask someone for help they want to know what’s in it for me it is now 2019 and I miss the way things used to be. when things change they call it progress but I wonder. Watching Radney Foster came home to be the headliner for the fourth of July is a good reminder that you should never forget where you come from and try to treat people the way you want to be treated. I have found out recently that the people you really trust can’t be trusted at all. In closing let me say take the time to walk the streets of Del Rio walk in the barrio of Chihuahua the barrio of San Felipe. Walk the creek walk it is a beautiful place to be. Walk down Main St. and see some of the stores that have closed and only memories remain god bless and thank the good lord up above that you live in my home town Del Rio Texas. A special thanks to Victor Cirilo and the Val Verde County Library for their help and expertise. |
KWMC
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