November 12, 1913

By kiki

Today November 12, is my father, Aurelio Baltazar, birthday (1913-2000). So I’m going to reflect a bit on his life as I remember it on this the ninety-eighth year of his birth.

I remember my dad been a hefty drinker when he was a young man, but he was also a very hard worker; Pops worked very hard during WWII, holding two eight-hour jobs. But his heavy drinking never kept him from going to work. Every time Pops was drinking heavily, he would take off, my mom would asking him where he was going, and he would answer: “to join the army” he, of course, was turned down every time.

During the war, Pops worked at the Simons Brickyard during the day, and then he would go to work at the American Foundry at night. The Simons Brickyard workers would start early in the morning, around 4:30 or so, they would start working without breakfast. During the summer, around 7 in the morning, I would go around the barrio, pull a wagon, and pick up breakfasts that I would deliver to some of the workers at the brickyard. My mom would pack a breakfast for both my dad and me.

While we were living in the Simons Brickyard, Pops used to grow his own vegetables. Pops also had animals, chickens, rabbits, and a goat; fed to eat them when we were short of store-bought food.

One of my chores as the second man of the house was to feed the animals. Unfortunately, our rabbits were stolen one time, and another time our goat, but those are stories for another day.

Pops was so happy at the birth of my brother Mando in 1950 because he only had one boy out of five kids at the time, so happy that he got stinking drunk; when he sobered up, I remember him saying to mom that he had had his last drink. He was true to his word. He was sober for the next 50 years.

After the war, he got a job working at a pipeline company, Pacific Pipeline. He worked at Pacific Pipeline for several years.

In 1952, we left the brickyard and moved to Pico, now Pico Rivera. Around that time, he got a job with a landscaping company. He worked landscaping the new freeways around Southern California.

He worked at the landscaping company until his retirement in 1968 at the age of 55 years. After his retirement, he worked on his own as a landscaper/gardener; he did that till he was in his late seventy’s.

Pops, a humble and gentle man who loved baseball, passed away in May of 2000.

Happy Birthday, dad….Love you…