The Ford Maravilla Kid at Johnnie's

By kiki

One hot summer night in 1953, my Simons friend, Tomate, AKA Thomas, and I were out cruising with two girls who were cousins. Tomate and I had decided earlier that night that once we got hungry we would take the girls home and then go to Johnnie's on Whittier Blvd and Eastern Ave. in East Los Angeles, for a burger. 

Unfortunately, we couldn't take the girls with us to Johnnie because Tomate and I only had two dollars between us. So in 1953 at Johnnie's: a burger, fries, and coke would set you back six bits (75 cents). "It's time to take the girls home," Tomate whispered to me. So I turned my '38 Chevy around and headed to the Silver Lake district where the girls lived. The girls were not happy that we were taking them home at 11:00 PM. I think they thought that we were going to take them somewhere to eat. Sorry girls but we have no money.

We got to Johnnie's around midnight, order, and got our burgers. As we were chowing down our burgers in the car, a dude walked up to the passenger side window and asked Tomate, "Orale ese, where are you from?" Tomate looked at the dude and answered him, "nowhere, man, nowhere" the dude wanted to kick Tomate's ass! "I am from Ford Maravilla and I am going to kick your ass, get out of the car," the dude said to Tomate. Tomate told the dude, "man, I don't want to fight you" The dude kept insisting that Tomate got out of the car, and Tomate kept telling him no, that he didn't want to fight him. 

After going around with the dude for about five minutes, Tomate told him "okay, I'll fight you" and as he started to open the car door to get out, the dude told Tomate, "wait a minute, I'll be right back" The Ford Maravilla Kid run and jumped into a car with some buddies and they drove off. We thought he had just decided to forget about fighting so we hung around Johnnie's talking to some girls, soon two cars full of guys drove up to Johnnie's, parked, the guys piled out of the cars and with a tall guy leading the way they came straight at Tomate and me. The tall guy came straight at me and got me in a bear-hug and with a burst of laughter asked the Ford Maravilla Kid, "these are the guys you need help beating up?" "Yes, kick their asses," the Kid told my friend Goma, AKA Richard. Goma said to the Kid, "this my friend kiki, and I ain't going to kick his ass, not sure that I could even if I wanted to" (he could).

 Goma and I had become friends when I had moved from Simons to Old Pico and it turned out that he knew the Kid too. Goma told us that he and some other guys from Pico had been at a party with the Kid and asked Tomate and me if we wanted to go to the party with him, we did, and the Kid never gave us any more trouble.

Years later Connie and I became Godparents to Goma and his wife Della's daughter, Debbie. My friend Tomate, would later become Godfather to our oldest son, Frankie, AKA Fernie.

Rope-A-Doping at the B-Bag

                                                                    The B-Bag

By kiki

One hot Saturday night during the summer of 1959, my friend Coy and I stopped at the B-Bag, a burger and burrito stand on Whittier Blvd, after a night of nite-clubbing in Montebello, Ca. for a burrito and coffee. 

We parked my cherried-out '39 Chevy in front of the B-Bag. The man behind the counter asked for my order in Spanish, and I answered in kind. 

While I placed my order, an older man and a younger man came up behind me, I presume to order. However, as I placed my order, the older man tapped me on the shoulder and asked me if I spoke Spanish; I simply answered, "yes." He then replied in a sarcastic tone of voice, "I don't" I turned around and said to him, "okay, maybe you don't, but I do." 

Having ordered, I turned around to walk to the tables on the parking lot side of the stand  - I turned around as I was walking to a table to see the younger man flying toward me; the dude was jumping me! We both went down and got up, throwing major chingasos, let me say here that in the summer of 1959, I was young, not yet 23 years old, and I was in great shape. I was training and boxing every day, so I was ready for a good fight. I was starting to get the better of the dude when the older dude jumped into the fray. Soon I was pinned against a car blocking and slipping chingasos from the two dudes. 

You might ask, 'and where was Coy?' well, Coy was standing with a small crowd that had gathered, sipping his coffee. I thought to myself, 'enough of this bullshit,' so I yelled at Coy, "Coy get one of this dude off me!" so what did Coy do? He walked up to the old dude, threw his coffee in his face, and then hit him with a short right-hand punch, the old dude went down hard, and as he hit the ground, Coy stepped hard on his neck. 

With the old dude off my back, the young guy and I kept throwing chingasos, and we fought from the parking lot to the alley behind the B-Bag. At one point in the dark alleyway, I grabbed the dude by his shirt and threw him down. In doing so, I tore his shirt to the point where the only thing remaining on him was the collar and front of his shirt. When he was down, I kicked him in the rib cage. I then walked out of the alley to see some cops talking to the people in the crowd; seeing the cops, I started walking nonchalantly toward the stand, the cops looked at me, and I guess I didn't look any worse for wear because they didn't say a word to me. Within a few minutes, the dude walked out of the alley with his torn shirt, the cops gave him one look, and inside the black and white, he went. 

And where was the old man while his son-in-law (later Coy told me they were father and son-in-law) was being driven to the poky? He was getting a neck massage from one of the bystanders …I did suffer a scrape on my right knee that later got infected and necessitated a visit to Doctor Feel Good's office for a shot and meds.

Whenever Coy and I get together with friends, he likes to tell them, "you guys think Muhammad Ali invented the "rope-a-dope" think again, he says to them as he points at me and says, "kiki did."

The worm at Tom's Farm

By kiki

One beautiful Sunday in the summer of 1980, my brother Mando, his lady, my lady, and I, and some friends rode our Harleys to San Juan Capistrano. 

After drinking a couple of cold ones at a local watering hole, we decided that we would ride the Ortega Highway into Lake Elsinore on our return trip home, and from there, take the 15 freeway to Tom's Farm, where we would stop for some grub. Tom's Farm is a picturesque spot and a biker's haven in the Corona-Temescal Valley. 

I don't remember what Connie and I ordered or what anybody else did. But I sure as hell do remember what Mando ordered, a hamburger! and here's why I remember that Mando ordered a 'burger. After getting our grub in the inside counter, we made our way outside to the burger-stand patio where we all started digging into the good-looking fare, Mando took a bite of his 'burger, and as he was chewing, a worm reared its head from the 'burger's tomato. Needless to say, we all stopped eating. Mando talked to management, and we all got our money back. I told Mando to save the worm for fishing bait, he replied that he was taking it home so his bird could have it for dinner.

Haircut

By kiki

Why aren't there any good barbers in La Puente anymore? Just can't seem to be able to get a good cut nowadays. There's an outfit, "Friend’s Barber Shop's," that has bought out most of the old barbers in town, and their barbers are not licensed, barbers. I went to one of their shops one time a year or so ago, never went back...To be sure, there are other barbershops in town, but they cater to a younger clientele. You walk into one of those shops, and the first thing they went to do is spike your hair, at my age?… This morning I went to a shop that I used to go to years ago and found that the old barbers are gone. I let the barber there, a young guy, give me a haircut; I told him, “I just want a trim,” and what happened? Again I came out looking like a Fresh F*%#&ked Tomcat!! This barber nowadays doesn’t know the meaning of “a trim” And to think that I have to have my picture taken for my green card next week, damn!!.... I think I’ll shave my head and to hell with the hair, but then again, that's all I have left from my youth!.... If anybody knows of an old-style barber in town or close by, please let me know; I really would hate to shave my head..lol!!!.

Don King

                                    Frankie and Tony Baltazar                                                                  

                                                         

  By kiki

One cold February day in 1982, I received a phone call from Don King's New York office. The voice on the other end of the line was one of King's office secretaries. The voice told me that Don King would like Frankie, Tony, and I, to fly to New York for a meeting. She said King was interested in signing the boys to, as the voice put it, "a Don King contract." I told the voice that I would be interested in hearing his offer.

Arrangements were made for us to fly out of LAX. I don't remember what time we flew out, but we arrived at New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport in the wee hours of the morning in the middle of one of the worst snowstorms the city had seen in decades. The storm was so severe that all transportation to Manhattan was suspended. As we were sitting in the airport terminal waiting for the taxis/buses to resume running, an old black guy that looked to be close to ninety years old walked in, said he had a bus and that for 5 dollars a head, he would bus us into Manhattan, said he would drop all of us at the exact location, none of this "take me here, take me there kind of stuff "he told us in a mumbling voice as he sipped on some coffee, or at least what we thought was coffee. We took him up on it. The bus looked like the ones in Tijuana, minus the goats and chickens on the roof. We got into Manhattan while it was still dark. The city was at a standstill because of the storm. I'm not sure where the old man dropped us off, but it wasn't close to where we needed to go. We had rooms waiting for us at a hotel on 8th Avenue off 42nd Street. We were some blocks or maybe a few miles from there, unsure which one it was.

Let me say that we were not the only ones that King invited to meet with him. Others from  LA also made the trip. Three flew with us on the same plane; I can't remember who they were; one might have been boxing manager/trainer, Jerry Moore. We found ourselves standing in a Manhattan street with the others from LA, or was it an avenue? Who knows? All I knew was that we were freezing our priceless appendages. As we were freezing there, we noticed a taxicab coming our way. We all ran out on the Street to flag him down; he stopped and told us that he was off duty and was on his way home. We told him that if he gave us a ride to 8th Avenue and 42nd Street, we would make it worth his while; he said okay, but that it was going to cost us, we asked how much, and he said seven dollars, we looked at him and then at each other, then he said "for all of you" Damn! We were all willing to give him at least twenty bucks each to escape the cold!

Don King held a big press conference in a big fancy hotel to introduce many fighters to the press. Some entertainment figures attended the press conference, like actress/singer Eartha Kitt, actor/dancer Gregory Hines, singer James Brown, and political activist Al Sharpton. It was a fantastic event. In another story, I wrote how Jimmy Montoya won eight hundred dollars with my money; he needed to buy a new suit for the press conference.

                                            THE CONTRACTS

After the press conference, some of us were driven to King's office off Park Avenue. When I was called into a small but elaborate office, King and his sidekick, Duke Durden, were seated there. King was in a big chair behind a very expensive-looking desk, and Duke was sitting off to the side of King. After exchanging pleasantries, I was shown a copy of the contract they could offer us. The contract I was offered was three fights per year for three years. Sounds good, but here's the kicker: All nine fights had the money set upfront, no matter who the boys would fight, title fights or not. Also, they would get to name the opponents. That meant that I couldn't negotiate anything, money or opponents. The boys wouldn't have needed a manager with that kind of deal. I told Duke Duden, who was doing all the talking while Don chewed on a cigar, that that deal; was not suitable for us. That bought Don into the talks. He offered me a second deal. He said that I could bring his son Carl in as a co-manager. I would have been out as co-manager in less than six months after taking that deal. I stood up, shook their hands, and told them, "thanks, but no thanks" I thanked Don for his hospitality and walked out.

That night, our last night in the Big Apple, Tony and Frankie partied into the wee hours with Tex Cobb. The boys later told me that Cobb was charging all food and drinks to Don King…We came home and never again heard from King.

                          Tony Baltazar, Eartha Kitt, and Frankie Baltazar

The Old Party Line Gossip

                                                By kiki

I was 15 (1952) when we got our first phone; soon after, we moved to Pico. It was one of the old party line phones of the time; our prefix was OX (Oxford). In the Simons Brickyard, we, the people, didn't have phones and had to walk about one mile to the Greenwood Market to use the pay phone if you wanted to gossip. The party line phone was the bomb. If you wanted the chisme (gossip) of the day, all you needed to do was pick up the phone and listen to the Viejas ("ladies") with their chismes. When they would find out I was listening, they would scream at me, "cabron, get off the f^*king line." The viejas not only had the chisme of the day, but they also had a mouth on them that would make a sailor blush