Pops: A Reflection in Time

 
                                              Memories of Pops   

                                                                1913-2000
                                                  
By KiKi

November 12, 2013, is my father, Aurelio Baltazar, Centennial Birthday (1913-2013). I will go back and write some of the memories he left me.

My dad started his life journey in Mexico. Pops was born in the then small town of Penjamo, in the great state of Guanajuato, on November 12, 1913, to parents Francisco and Guadalupe Baltazar (née Melendez)

I don't know much about my grandparents, Mama Lupe and Papa Francisco, my dad's life in Mexico, or their journey to the United States when my dad was about a year old. What I have heard throughout the years, though, was that my grandparents were fleeing the Mexican Revolution. And that their first stop in this great country was in Chicago, where they spent about a year before moving north to Wisconsin, where; they spent 3 or 4 years before moving west. Legend has it that my grandma, Mama Lupe, couldn't take the cold mid-western winters and that she talked Papa Francisco into moving west, true? I don't know. Where was their first stop as they moved west? California? Was it at the Simons Brickyard? Again, I don't know. But at some point, they landed in the Brickyard where Pops grew up, went to school, and met my Mom, Eulalia Adame. After fighting off some of my Mom's other suitors, Pops married Mom in 1934.

                             Mom and Pops on their wedding day...1934 
                                                    
I don't know much about Pop's days as a youth in Simons as he didn't talk much about his time growing up in the Brickyard. I would have loved to have sat down with him growing up and had him tell me stories of his youth and teen years. Was he as mischievous as me? Did he and his buddies do the things my buddies and I did? Did they ever steal a rooster and burn people's fences? I would've loved to have heard tales of his days before he and Mom married. But unfortunately, my formative years; were his heaviest drinking years. Hence, we didn't talk much; I saw him only a few minutes daily and rarely on weekends. There were no holidays shared together, no father-son ball games. He was always too busy working two jobs, and he was busy drinking when not working. Although, looking back now, I believe he deeply loved his family. Still, with his personal demons hacking on him, he had a tough time showing it. Later, after he had been on the AA sober wagon, he told me that he had played baseball with the Simons Brick Company Baseball Team; baseball was his favorite sport. Also that he did some amateur boxing. But either way, drinking or sober, Pops did little talking, especially about himself. He was a very humble and unpretentious man.

I write my heartfelt memories with much love, respect, and admiration. They are memories of a man who was just an ordinary man in many people's eyes, but in my eyes, and I am sure in my sibling's eyes, he was a great man. So, Pops, you're my hero!!
                                              
                                      Memories of Pops

My first memories of Pops date back to the start of WWII. I remember Pops as a hefty drinker when he was a very hard-working young man. I remember Pops working very hard during WWII, holding two eight-hour jobs. In between his two jobs, Pops would hit the bottle. Every time Pops was drinking heavily, he would take off; my Mom would ask him where he was going, and Pops would answer, "to join the army" he, of course, was turned down every time. I remember, too, during the war, that my Pops had a Japanese friend who had a farm on Greenwood Blvd., just north of Telegraph Road in South Montebello. Was it within the Montebello City limits? Soon after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, my dad's friend was roundup with his wife and young family and sent to a "War Relocation" camp. Somehow Pops moved us out of Simons and into that farm. That only lasted about six months, and then we moved back to the Brickyard.

Much to Mom's dismay, Pops frequently frequent the local cantinas in his drinking heydays. So Mom would send me out to look for him and bring him home, which I did more than once. We must have been quite a sight: a young boy leading his father by the hand. Pops, who was always four sheets to the wind as I led him home, never gave me any trouble as we made our way down the dusty dirt streets of the Brickyard.

Pops worked at the Simons Brickyard during the war during the day, and then he worked at the American Foundry at night. The Simons Brickyard workers would start early at 4:00 and work without breakfast. During the summers, around 7 in the morning, I would go around the barrio, pull a homemade wagon, and pick up breakfasts that I would then deliver to some of the workers at the Brickyard. My Mom would pack breakfast for both my dad and me.

One fond memory I have of Pops was when during the summer months, I used to help him load up a mule-drawn cart with bricks to be taken to the kilns for burning. After unloading the bricks, I would run the Mule back to the rakas to reload the cart; Pops would always scold me for running the Mule instead of walking her. So after that, I would just walk her, that is, until the following day.

While living in Simons, Pops used to grow his own vegetables. Pops also had chickens, rabbits, and a goat, fed to eat them when we were short of store-bought food. Unfortunately, our rabbits were stolen for a wedding dinner party, and another time our goat was stolen and was cooked into birria by Pop's drinking buddies. But since he was invited to eat birria, he didn't mind that it was his goat that he and his buddies were eating.

One funny memory of Pops was when one summer day at the Simons Brickyard in the late 1940s, my Pops and our next-door neighbor Joe Leyva, who was known far and wide as Stakas, were sitting on a dirt hill about 50 yards or less from our house drinking wine and probably some beer too. After drinking most of the afternoon, they got into an argument. Mom heard them arguing. She told me, "go and see what your dad and Stakas are arguing about" I ran towards the little hill, and I could hear Stakas yelling at Pops, "no, Connie does." Pops yelled back at him, "No, Eulalia does" I told Pops that Mom needed him at home, and he reluctantly agreed to go home. Walking away, turned around and yelled at Stakas, "Eulalia's legs are more beautiful than Connie's" They were arguing about whose wife had better-looking legs. The two drinking buddies almost fought over a pair of legs...I admit my Mom had gorgeous legs, but I don't want to argue about it!
 
After the war, he worked at a pipeline company, Pacific Pipeline. He worked at Pacific Pipeline for several years. We were still living in the Brickyard while he worked at the pipeline, and because he was working outside the Brickyard, our rent went from four dollars a month to seventeen dollars a month.

                                                            Pops

                                        Portrait by Martin Arriola

 In 1950 a second son was born to Mom and Pops, my one and only brother, Mando; Pops was so happy because he only had one boy out of five kids at the time, so glad that he got stinking drunk, which was nothing new, but when he sobered up; I remember him telling Mom that he had had his last drink. He was true to his word. He was sobered for the next 50 years. How he conquered his personal demons is beyond me. I married and moved out soon after Pops sobered up, so I didn't get to spend much time with him in his sober years. I now regret that I could have made more time to laugh with him during happy times and weep with him during sad times.

In 1952, the Brickyard was closed, and we moved to Pico, now Pico Rivera. Around that time, he got a job with a landscaping company. He also found his niche in finding that job, as he loved gardening. He loved working outdoors. He worked landscaping the new freeways around Southern California.

He worked at the landscaping company until his retirement in 1969 at the age of 56 years. After his retirement, he worked as a landscaper/gardener until his late seventies.

A beautiful memory of Pops that I hold dear is when he would tell us we were going to the piscas (fruit picking). He would tell us it was a vacation and that we would love it. Those "vacations" that we went on close to sixty years ago in Paicines, California, were the most memorable times of my youth. Those "vacations" also help instill work ethics in us siblings.
 
I remember how Pops thought the world as he knew it had ended one day because Mom had stopped making homemade tortillas. Mom had made tortillas for Pops and us kids for many years, then one day, she went to the local market and saw some machine-made tortillas. When Pops sat down for dinner that night, there was a basket with warm tortillas on the table; Pops was surprised they were not Mom's tortillas "hey, what is this? These are not your homemade tortillas," Pops told Mom. "I bought these tortillas at the market, and from now on, if you want tortillas, this what you're getting," Mom told Pops. Pops kept getting the store-bought tortillas for the rest of his life; he was not a happy camper, to say the least! Soon after Mom stopped making him tortillas, he asked Connie, "Connie, do you still make tortillas for kiki every day?" Connie told him she made tortillas every day after getting home from work. "Connie, you don't need to do that anymore; just buy him tortillas from the store" "good idea," said Connie. So now I am lucky to get homemade tortillas once every six months.
One day I told Pops, "pops, you ruined a good thing for me when you told Connie to buy the tortillas instead of making them" he put his arm around my shoulders, and with a mischievous look in his eyes, he told me, "well Mijo, if I can't have homemade tortillas, neither can you"!Aye, Pops, how I loved that man!! 

                 Mom and Pops with Mando doing the piscas in 1952

I remember Pops as being a closet softy; for example: in 1954, when he announced that we were going to Paicines to do the piscas thing, I told him that I wasn't going unless I could take my car; he told me, "no, you're not taking your car, we are driving my car" I was 17 at the time, and I thought I could go or not go, so I told him "okay, then I am not going" Pops trying his best to be assertive than told me, in a slightly raised voice, that I was not taking my car, but that I was going whether I wanted to or not. I did go, but I drove my car to Paicines. Pops was that kind of a man, always saying no to anything we kids wanted to do, but in the end, if our intentions were noble, he would always relent. 

When one of my sisters wanted a new dress or pair of shoes, the first thing out of his mouth was, "no!" he would then tell whatever sister it was that was doing the asking, "you have a closet full of dresses and shoes." A few days later, my sister would be wearing a new ensemble. 

I can remember only one time when I asked for something, and Pop didn't cave in; I was 15 and wanted him to buy me a car for my 16^th birthday, but he said, "no way!" I kept asking but to no avail! So I bought my own car!! But was he a closet softy? Of course, he was!!

One vivid memory of Pops is cooking tripas on his Webber Grill for the family at Legg Lake on Easter Sundays. How he loved his tripas!

Another great memory of Pops I hold dear is when Mando and I convinced him to go on one of our fishing trips to the Eastern Sierras. We could never get him to go with us. His excuse was always, "Who's going to take care of the animals? Who is going to feed them?" This time, he agreed to go with us. He rode with others in the back of the camper; soon, they had a poker game, and some guys were drinking beer while Pops drank coffee. 

We were going to the town of Bishop, a long six-hour drive, so we consumed lots of beer and coffee on our way there. It was 1:00 in the AM when we got to Bishop. So we made a quick stop in town and stocked up with more beer before driving a few miles north of town to Pleasant Valley Reservoir Campgrounds; we found the campgrounds full, so I went about one hundred yards off of the campgrounds and ended up in a cow pasture. Parked there and bought the beer cooler. We were drinking, telling jokes, laughing, and just plain carrying on when the back door of the camper swung open, and Pop yelled: "cabrones, get the hell away from here and be quiet; I want to get some sleep!" So we picked up the cooler, moved away from the camper, and kept drinking. After that, Pops never again went camping with us.

Pops and Mom had seven children: Rachel, me, Cecilia, Mary Ellen, Enedina, Armando, and Marina. Rachel and Mary Ellen are now in heaven having tripas with Pops and Mom.

Pop was a humble and gentle man who loved his family. Unfortunately, he passed away in May of 2000.

Happy one hundred, Pops….Love you…