TO MY SON KIKE, TURNING 28 TODAY, A HAPPY BIRTHDAY

(Ed.'s Note: This now-yellowing photo was taken of baby Jose Enrique and yours truly by my colleague the late Brownsville Herald photographer Joe Hermosa when we used to live on Poinsettia Place and he lived on Hibiscus Court down the street in the Los Ebanos Subdivision off Palm Blvd.

Jose Enrique (Kike) was named Jose after one of my brothers [Jose Luis] who passed away in Houston and Enrique, after Enrique [Henry] Sanchez, a former member of the Texas House of Representatives from Brownsville. Henry and I started the weekly tabloid Crossroads and often used "Pretty Boy" Hermosa's photography in its pages. Henry's crusade was to do away with the UT System-TSC "partnership" with the community college district subsidizing the oil-and-gas wealthy university system. 

There's a saying that only a fool gets paid in full in his lifetime, and 20 years later he was vindicated when the partnership was dissolved and TSC returned to its community mission. He was no fool. He was proven right. Henry had passed away February 27, 1995, seven months before Kike was born. [Hermosa also took the photo at right of Crossroads turning three featuring Kike.]

We miss all three and think that the two for whom he was named would be proud to know that their namesake is a successful AP World History teacher and coaches Social Studies teachers of his district. And his mother, if she still lived, we're sure, would have been, too. 

He also wrote the exams and course work for several units of IDEA Charter schools across the state. He is scheduled to receive his Master's degree this December from UTRGV. My hair is no longer the dark brown it used to be and Kike is now standing on his own two feet, thank you. Happy birthday, son.)