Two Old Dudes and Their ’57 Chevy Wagons

By kiki

On a Saturday morning in the mid-'60s, my boys and I were on our way to the Teamsters Gym in DTLA, and as we approached a now-forgotten intersection, we saw that an auto accident had just happened. Two old dudes who looked close to being 80 years old, if not over 80, got into a fistfight over the accident.

When we got to the scene, the accident had just happened. First, I noticed a beat-up 1957 Chevy station wagon lying on its side and an old man crawling out the back window. Then I saw another beat-up '57 Chevy wagon with its front end smashed up and an old man getting out of it. As soon as both were out of their wagons and with no words spoken, they went at each other with flying fists: major chingasos, well, as significant as the old dudes could muster, were flying. I got out of my car, stepped in between them, and had them sit on the curb while we waited for the cops to arrive…LOL!!

Old Dude Gave Me The One-Finger Salute

By kiki

As I was driving down La Puente's Amar Road to my favorite greasy spoon joint for breakfast this morning, I came upon an old dude driving an old scraggly red Ford station wagon that looked like it had missed out on the Cash for Clunkers deal, down Amar Road. The dude had to have been  85 years old if he was a day old. Amar Road is a 40 mile per hour zone, and this old dude was doing about 20 miles per hour on the road's left lane with nobody in front of him. I followed him for about a quarter of a mile, and then I tooted my horn. He rolled down his window and put his arm straight up in the air, and with a shaky hand, he gave me the one-finger salute. I moved to the right lane as we were approaching a stoplight. 

He rolled his passenger side window down and started yelling and shaking his fist at me. I couldn't hear what he was saying because I was hard of hearing in my left ear. Connie says I only listen to what I want to hear. Maybe she is correct, but back to the old dude, I knew whatever he was yelling at me was nothing pleasant, so I told the old dude, "listen, I don't want to fight you, I just wanted you to move out of the way" When I told him that the feisty old dude dropped the "f" bomb on me, that I heard! As soon as the light turned green, I made my getaway, I didn't need to get my ass kicked, not that I didn't need an ass-kicking, but it was too early in the morning for that.

Sitting at the greasy spoon, I thought about what had just happened and started laughing because of an image that popped into my mind, an image of two old dudes, one in his mid-80's (him) and the other one (me) inching into the 80 range fighting on one of the main drags in La Puente. It would have been a funny sight, but not a pretty one…LOL!!!!

Camping, Fishing and Drinking: Late Spring 1972

By kiki

It was late spring of 1972, and a bunch of us guys were, going on a camping and fishing trip to the Eastern Sierra, a journey that my brother-in-law Willie and our families had taken countless times; this trip was a guy's thing only, Willie was going, and so was his young son, Jesse. My brother Mando and my other brother-in-law Danny were also going. We were going with some other guys in a two-pickups/campers caravan. Danny had never gone camping with us before, so when I called to invite him, he quickly said yes and asked, "What do I need to bring as far as food is concerned."

"Danny, we're going to camp and fish for 3-4 days, so bring whatever you think you're going eat and drink in those 3 or 4 days," I told him.

We met at my place; Willie arrived early to help load my pickup/camper, and Mando and Danny followed soon. And since Willie cooked for our group, he was in charge of loading the food into the camper. He would get it all together and load it up so that he knew where everything would be at.

"Danny, where is your food?" Willie asked Danny

"Right here, Willie."

Willie got a small box from Danny with half a dozen eggs, half a pound of bacon, four slices of cold cuts, half a loaf of bread, a six-pack of beer, and a choice piece of rib-eye steak; Willie looked at me and shook his head.

"Danny, never mind the food, but is this all the beer you brought?"

"Well, yes"

"Watch this"

Willie drank all of Danny's beer in no time!

"Willie, you drank all my beer!" Danny cried at Willie

"Well, now you need to buy some more," Willie told Danny with a big smile.

Danny bought a case of beer!

 We were heading northeast on Highway 395; we stopped at Little Lake Hotel/Bar to meet the other guys in the second pickup/camper, shoot some pool, and drink beer. In the middle of nowhere, Little Lake Hotel/Bar was a must-stop for us in those early years of going to the Eastern Sierra. Unfortunately, it has since burned down. Walking into an empty bar, Ernie, one of the guys riding in the other camper, notices an old piano in a corner and asks the barmaid if he could play it.

"Go ahead, it hasn't been played in years," the barmaid replied

Now, Ernie can play a mean Boogie Woogie, and after clearing off a few cobwebs, he played a few bars of "Buick 59" that soon had people coming out of the woodwork, all desert rats, of both genders. 

After Ernie had played some tunes and we had downed some cold ones, we decided to get back on the road, but the desert rats had other ideas; they wanted Ernie to continue hitting the ivories. And Ernie was happy to oblige as long as they kept piling up the beers on top of the piano, beers that we guys would grab. Soon, the 2:00 a.m. closing time was quickly upon us, and with locked doors, we'd continued to party into the wee hours of the morning. We finally returned to the campers just as the sun was rising over the horizon. We slept till early afternoon before we got back on the highway.

We arrived at McGee Creek Campgrounds some hours later, where we made camp. Willie went inside the camper to get dinner ready for our group; Willie took longer than usual to cook dinner that evening. Finally, he opened the camper door and yelled, "Come and get it" We all got in line as Willie started passing out the plates with the grub; when Danny got his plate, he looked at it and saw a pork chop; he looked up at Willie and asked him "Willie, where's my rib-eye steak?"

Rubbing his belly Willie goes: "Yum, Yum!"

He ate Danny's rib-eye steak! That's why it took him so long to prepare dinner for the rest of us.

After dinner, while we were around the campfire drinking beer and tequila, I noticed Willie trying to chop up a good-sized log with what looked like a small Boys Scout's ax; Danny saw him too.

"Willie, what are you doing to my ax?"

"Danny here's what I think of your ax."

 Willie threw Danny's ax into the fire; I thought Danny was going to have a heart attack watching the ax that he had had since he was a Boy Scout go into the fire and burn. However, Willie told me late that he had already broken the handle.

After a while, Mando and I ran out of tequila; let me say here that this was the first time drinking with my one and only brother; Mando had just returned from Vietnam, so yes, we were hanging one on. Running out of the agave, we went to the McGee Creek Lodge & Bar to get more tequila. After first refusing, the owner of the lodge/bar agreed to sell us a bottle of the agave that was a few shots short; we gave him 20 bucks for it. We then found a table to sit and drink at. Unfortunately, the owner's 15-year-old daughter would come and wipe our table clean and sneak in a shot; she got drunk, and so did we; I passed out and was dragged back to the camper, ruining my brand new cowboy boots.

When I woke up the following morning in the top bunk of the camper next to little Jesse, he was wet, and I was also wet; who pissed on who? I always wondered about that!... That camping trip was unforgettable in the annals of our travels up that famed highway, "395."

"The Rope"

                                         Tales from the Simons Brickyard

By kiki

Around 1950, some people down the block from my house in the Simons Brickyard were having an adult party, and we young teenagers, 13-14 years old at the time, wanted to go to the party. We thought we were chingones, in other words, "bad to the bone," and thought; that we should be allowed to attend the party so that we could dance cheek to cheek with some of the older rucas (ladies), not to mention eating their birria (goat meat), and of course, sneak in a beer or two. But, we were turned away at the door by the host. He said we were too young to attend his party. 

We left, went to one of my friend's houses, and got a long rope. We then went back to the party and tied one end of the rope to the white picket fence and the other to the rear bumper of a 1930's era car park in front of the house. We then waited in the dark until the party was over; around midnight, the people that owned the car came out to go home; they said their goodbyes to the host and his wife, then got in the car and drove away, taking the fence with them. "compa! Compa!! Mi cerca"!! Yelled the party host; as his compa droved off with his white picket fence.

“Looking for a Good Barber”

By kiki

Moving to La Puente in 1968 from East Los Angeles, I needed to decide where I was going to get a haircut: find a new barber in La Puente or keep going to Manuel's Barber Shop on Brooklyn Ave, just west of the Maravilla Projects, in ELA, where I had gotten my haircuts for the last few years, I've decided to keep going to Manuel's and did so for the next three or four years. Then Manuel died. He was only about 32 years old.

Soon after Manuel died, I talked to my cousin Henry and told him how I needed an excellent barber. Henry told me to go see Jimmy at 'Jimmy's Scissor-cut' on Valley Blvd and Puente Ave and to be sure to tell Jimmy that "Big Henry" sent me. I think Henry was looking to get ten percent of whatever business he sent Jimmy's way or at least a free haircut. Jimmy and his son, One Eye Dino, were two great barbers. From the early '70s till around 1998, when Jimmy died and the shop was closed, they were my barbers. One Eye Dino died a year after his dad. Back in the days of T.V. network boxing. Jimmy's Scissor-Cut was the place for boxing fans to go see the fights and drink beer…Man! How I miss those by-gone days at Jimmy's

I now go to an old barber on Main Street in Old Town La Puente. But sometimes he doesn't show up; he is, after all, in his early 80's, I think. So I have to look around for a barber when the old guy doesn't show up. To be sure, there are a few barbershops in town, but the ones cutting hair in those shops are not barbers. I've been to a few of them, and the first thing I do is ask the barber to let me see their's barber's license. If they don't have one, I walk!! And I've done lots of walking. Maybe I should call the migra! Naw, I wouldn't do that.

One time I let one of them "barbers" cut my hair, man! Did he mess me up? I left the barber shop-I'm going to get a bit salty here, looking like a "fresh-f*^ked Tom Cat" When I got home, and Connie saw my haircut, she started laughing hard, I think she wet her pants. How could that lady be so cold and mean?! I stayed indoors for over two weeks waiting for my hair to grow back before I would go out in public again!!

Some people have told me, "Hey, it's just hair, it'll grow back" I tell them, "yes, but it's my hair"! Besides some good and bad memories, my hair is all I have left from my youth. So hell yes!! I'm picky about my hair!!!

"Tacho and His Fence"

By kiki

This was our age of innocence!

 When we lived in the Simons brickyard (Montebello, California) in the late 1940's-early-'50s, my friends and I used to light up a lumbrita (small fire) in the evenings. When we ran out of wood to burn, we would go to plan B: to go to the rackas (racks) and dump the bricks drying on wooden paletas (pallets). We would take the paletas and use them for firewood. We needed to hide them because the night watchman would sometimes sneak up on us to see if he could catch us burning paletas. That was a big no-no in Simons; you didn't burn Simons Brickyard paletas without getting your ass in trouble with the local Chota (sheriff/watchman) Genaro Prado, not to mention the ass-whipping at home.

When the Chota kept a close eye on us, we would go to Plan C: to rip the wooden fences from the nearby houses; hey! We needed firewood, didn't we? Tacho's house was the one nearest to us. Tacho, at least once a week, was fixing his fence. One day, my dad walked by and saw Tacho working on his white fence; my dad asked him, "fixing that fence again?" "Eso's cabrones (meaning us) keep burning my fence," replied Tacho,

                                                 La Chota: Genaro Prado



UPDATED: 3-21-2013

I mention above about the Chota, Genaro Prado, keeping an eye on us to keep us from burning the paletas. So we kids came up with an idea to get back at him for chasing us when he would bust us burning paletas. So we came up with the bright idea of digging a hole for the Chota to fall in as he chased us. So about four or five of us kids dug a hole about four feet deep and four feet wide; I say "about" four by four because I am not really sure how deep or how wide it was, but I do know that it was deep enough that at its deepest end, if one of us jumped in the hole, we couldn't get out on our own, we had to be helped out.

We dug the hole about twenty feet away from la lumbrita. We would dig some, and when it was time to go home, we would cover it up with a couple of thin plywood sheets; put some dirt/grass on top of the plywood to keep it from being seen. 

One night with the hole covered up, we were hanging around la lumbrita when Genaro came running towards the fire, yelling at the top of his lungs, "cabrones, quemedo paletas!!" (burning pallets). As soon as we heard him, we all ran towards the hole, and as we ran around the hole, he ran over the hole and hit the thin plywood at top speed, and as he disappeared into the bottomless pit of darkness, we could hear him yell "Cabrones!!"

I don't know how he got out, but he needed help. The chisme (the gossip) around the brickyard was the next day, "did you hear what happened to the Chota last night? No? He said the earth opened up and tried to swallow him!"

"Cabrones!"

“Hell! He Isn’t Dead, He’s Just Asleep!”

By kiki

Circa 1980, there was a rumor going around the boxing gyms in Southern California that I had died. John Bayrooty, the boxing writer for the now-defunct Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, even ran a piece on the paper “Frank Baltazar, father of boxers Frankie and Tony Baltazar has died” etc., etc.

It all started as far as I know, with the late Johnny Cabrera (matchmaker for Don Fraser); Johnny told somebody that I had died from kidney failure. And from there, the rumor spread like wildfire. 

People started calling the house asking about funeral services. Connie or whoever answered the phone would tell the callers that I was not dead.

My friend Dub Huntley called, and this he told me later. He didn’t want to ask about services, so when Connie answered the phone, he asked her if I was home; Connie told him that yes I was home but that I was asleep; Dub told her not to wake me up, that he would call later.

Dub got on the phone and called as many people as he could and told them, “Hell! He isn’t dead, he’s just asleep”!!

When Dub called me, I asked him how the rumor had gotten started; he said that it had started with Johnny Cabrera as far as he knew. I then called Johnny, and when he answered, I said, “Johnny, this is Frank Baltazar” he then, in a low voice, asked me, “Frank, where are you calling me from?” “From hell”!! I replied. I hope he was sitting down!!...LOL!!