By KiKi
I met Connie in April 1954. I was 17 then, and Connie told me she was 16. I believed her; hell, she looked it! We dated through the spring and summer. In the summer of 1954, I worked full-time at Miller's Car Wash in Whittier, Cal., which gave me enough money to put "oil" in my '38 Chevy and take Connie out to eat. Later that summer, I bought a 1940 Chevy—I was now a two-car owner. Sundays were paydays at the car wash, and we would get off work at 2:00 PM. After going home and cleaning up, I would sneak into Jimtown to pick Connie up at her house. Why sneak in, you ask? It was because the guys from Jimtown didn't take kindly to having an outsider picking up one of their homegirls. After sneaking out of Jimtown, we would go to "The Spot" in Montebello and order a pastrami dip for each of us. After eating, it was time to cruise the barrios: Simons, Cantaranas, Jimtown, El Ranchito, etc.
In late July, dad told us that we were going to Paicines, Ca. to do the piscas thing; it would be like a vacation, he said. So we left Pico in my '40 Chevy in mid-August, and by the first of September, we were hard at work picking plums off the ground.
The author, Raymond Cruz and Juvie Romo
Connie and I kept in touch by writing letters that I still have. One day my dad approached me and told me he would give me money for the Dog (Greyhound bus) to go back home and visit Connie. The mother of one of my plum-picking friends, who had some business to take care of back in Pico, would be traveling with me. A couple of days later, my dad drove us to Hollister to get the Dog on a Saturday morning. Before boarding the bus, my dad took me to the side and handed me some money and a couple of packs of cigarettes (Pall Mall); he told me to be careful and be sure to return. I have to, I told him, "can't leave my '40 Chevy here."
From Hollister, the Dog traveled to the Chittenden Junction to pick up some passengers. From there, we headed south on U.S. Route 101. Our first stop was at King City to pick up and disembark passengers. I got off the bus to use the bathroom. When I got back on the bus, a Chicano guy looked to be in his early twenties sitting on the seat I had been sitting on. No problem. I went and sat in the back of the bus. After we traveled a few miles, the Chicano guy, who looked like a remnant of the pachuco era, got up and walked to where I was sitting. He sat beside me and said, "orale carnal (hey brother), de donde eres?" (where are you from?)
"De Los, carnal" (Los Angeles, brother), I answered.
“Los! orale pues!; y donde esta la yesca?” (where is the weed?)
"Don't have any, don't use it."
"Orale pues! Si eres de Los (if you're from Los Angeles); you gotta have some yesca on you," he insisted.
The dude was pissing me off because he kept bugging me for yesca as we rolled down the highway. Finally, we got off the bus at our next stop in some hinterland town to stretch our legs. I waited for the yesca-loving Chicano to enter the restroom. When he did, I followed him in and grabbed him by the shirt, and while shaking in my boots, I told him that if he kept messing with me, I would kick his ass. "You don't mess with guys from Los!" I added. The bus left without him.
Later that afternoon, we arrived in Los Angeles and took a bus to Pico. Once home, I got the '38 Chevy running and hauled ass to Connie's house in Jimtown. She was shocked to see me. I didn't call her to say I was coming to visit because she didn't have a phone; not everybody had phones back then. We had the old party line phone in our house. Man! You can't imagine the chismes (gossip) I heard from the Viejas on that party line.
Connie and I went to the Spot for a pastrami dip, and after eating, we watched a movie at the Gamar Theater in Montebello. After the movie, we cruised briefly, and then I got her home. The following day we were getting the Dog back to Paicines at 8:00 AM in downtown Los Angeles, but first, I had to go to Connie's house to say goodbye.
As we boarded the Dog in Los Angeles, I noticed an exotic-looking small Filipino girl carrying a baby. Statuesque in miniature and extremely beautiful, she was a heartbreaker of the first magnitude. To just simply saying she was beautiful would not do her justice. The girl, who looked about nineteen or twenty years old, boarded the same bus as us.
Soon we were on the road heading north via Highway 99. As we went up the Ridge Route, the Filipino girl sitting two seats from my right asked me where I was going. Trying to talk from two seats over wasn't working well, so I moved to an empty seat beside her. We were old friends by the time we rolled down the Ridge Route toward Bakersfield. She told me she would visit family in some long-forgotten hinterland town. Was it Mendota? It could've been. When we stopped in Bakersfield, she asked me to hold her baby while she used the restroom. I said yes, but I was worried about her not coming back. She did. But not long after we returned to the road, she got off in some small town in the San Joaquin Valley. Years later, I often wondered what became of her and her baby.
We arrived at the Chittenden Junction at about 9:00 PM. and Pops was there waiting in my 1940 Chevy to drive us back to Paicines. After finishing the harvest in late September, we headed back home. I continued dating Connie, and in December, we married.
