LEST WE FORGET: NOT-SO-GOOD MEMORIES OF TIMES GONE BY

By Al Garcia
Palm Valley, Texas

Editor:

As I sit beneath the shade of my backyard patio enjoying the breeze of a beautiful March morning, my mind begins to wonder, as the sounds of the awakening day begin the timeworn ritual of the force of life in every form and manner. I hear the chirping of a bird or two and the rustling of tree branches in the breeze.

I see the color of life in the grass that covers the ground and in the blooming flowers that immerse my yard with the fragrance of existence. And then I hear the joyful resonance of my wind chimes, completing the symphony of sight and smell and sound. It is the blossoming of the new day, and I am a part of the majesty and the magic that surrounds me.

At times like these, quiet and serene, my mind begins to wander to yesterdays and times gone by, when as a boy along the Rio Grande I ran barefoot on a country road or went on a childhood safari hunting for frogs, grasshoppers, lizards and other small creatures that thrived in the cornfields, cotton fields, orchards and waterways in the Valley along the Rio Grande.

Those were my days of carefree innocence and simplicity. Those were the days before I grew up and realized that everything revolved and evolved around color — the color of your skin. And I was only 6 when I stumbled upon this great epiphany, and suddenly I was no longer the skinny, black-haired, big-eared, brown-skinned, innocent kid anymore. I was a part of a minority. I was labeled.

I felt different. I felt diminished and minimized. I was a part of a community of second-class citizens. And I couldn’t understand why.

Childhood memories linger and endure through each stage of life, and help shape the man or woman you eventually become. As a child and young adult, I concealed my memories beneath tears and smiles and cavalier politeness and graciousness, as that was the way I was brought up back then. It was the unspoken adage of my time — endure and persevere. And so, I did.

My life’s lessons with regard to color began with my first year in school. I noticed immediately that Sally and Johnnie and Jimmy where being treated differently than Juan, Octavio and Maria. They dressed in store-bought clothes, lived in nicer homes and their parents drove nice cars and trucks, while we brown kids dressed in handmade clothes or hand-me-downs, and we lived in farmhouses and ranches owned by white owners, and our fathers drove old dilapidated trucks while our mothers stayed home, sewing, cleaning and baking.

This was the real world back then. A time when color ruled.
(The photo at right was sent to us by one of our readers. Notice the two kids in the front row at left who played for the 1955 Brownsville basketball champions barefoot.) 

One of my most lasting memories of childhood was one Easter, when a classmate’s parent announced that they would be having an Easter party at their home for the entire first grade. There was excitement and anticipation in the air.

The day came.
The entire class was driven to my classmate’s home in a school bus. We arrived to see a beautiful home and lawn, with tables full of cakes and fruit and sandwiches. But the one thing that caught my eye was the 6-foot-tall Easter basket wrapped in clear plastic.

Inside I could see a life-size Easter Bunny and candies wrapped in shiny paper — blues, pinks and greens. And here we were, the little brown kids with our handmade paper-bag Easter baskets, walking around in awe at the sight before us. All white mothers and dads, and not a single brown-skinned adult, other than the maids.

This memory remains with me to this day, and I can still feel the coldness and isolation that I felt.

And here I am today, enjoying a morning drink beneath my patio in my country club home. How the years have passed and how the times have changed.

My nephews and my nieces might never know or experience the indignity of being brown as I did as a child and young adult, and I am glad for that. But each time I hear the political rhetoric from the right or the left that fills our airways and the beltways of every city and every town across our land, my heart beings to ache at the thought that America is returning to a place and a time that belongs in our history, not in our future.

Just when I thought the only color I had to be concerned about was the color of my drapes or the color of the tile for my sunroom, I am confronted with memories that I would never wish upon my nephews or my nieces. For when they reach the time in their lives when they get to sit beneath their own outdoor patio, enjoying a beautiful March morning and recalling their days of innocence, I wish their memories to be of laughter and of joy, of times with family and with friends, and with the only reference and memories of color being the brilliance of the colors of our flag, flying high and flying free.

(This opinion piece first appeared in the April 1 edition of the Brownsville Herald.)