1936 - 2016

By kiki

December 13, 2016, marks another milestone in my life journey; my 80^th birthday. I keep doing the math, hoping to see a lesser number, but that big 8.0. keeps coming up, so considering the alternative, I will fully embrace it. Below is a brief essay about those 80 years.

I was born at a very young age on a Sunday in 1936 at the Los Angeles County General Hospital, - My parents, Aurelio and Eulalia Baltazar, with my older sister Rachel, lived at the Simons Brickyard at the time (South Montebello). I was so young I don't remember much of those babyhood years. But it must have been fun just hangin' and chillin' around the house for the first 5 years of my journey. Around 1941, or was it 1942? Either way, at the beginning of WWII, I started kindergarten at a segregated school (Vail Elementary). Even though Vail was segregated, it was fun to attend, making the years seem months. 

Soon WWII was over, and so were the '40's. And as we entered the '50s, I too entered Montebello Junior High School (1950), And in 1952 I entered Montebello High School. My teen years at Montebello junior and high school were some of my more memorable years - In April of 1954, I met Connie, and on December 13 (my 18th birthday), we were married. Two years after we married, the kids started arriving, and with that, I started transitioning from a teenager to young adulthood. Soon, we were into the 1960s, and I began to see my young adulthood move to older adulthood. But somewhere in between, I got stalled in the process, and I was just kinda drifting, marking time without any great passion for moving forward. It could be that I liked where I was and wanted to stay longer. But time has a way of pushing you on, and in the '70s, with more kids than I could count, I found myself entering middle age. By the '80s and '90s, my youth was just a distant memory.

The '90s were over in a jiffy, and now with grandkids and two or three great-grandkids to go along with my graying hair, I entered, as a retired man, some would say a kept man, and I wouldn't argue with them, the new millennium. So, with the enjoyment of the grand and great-grandkids, the first decade of the new millennium went by fast, but the second decade is like a slow blur because some days I am here, and other days I am with my imaginary friends. In a geriatric stupor...And now, as I travel the last few miles of my life journey, I would like to thank my family and friends who have made my life memorable. Without their love and support, I wouldn't have made it to this ripe old age...Along the way to this ripe old age, I've loved, and I am sure, I was loved by some. I've won a few and lost a few, but in between, I lived life to the fullest. - It has been a long journey and a wonderful experience, and my friends, I've seen a lot, and I've done a lot as I traveled life's roads, yet, I can't say that I've seen and done it all. Life is too complicated to see, and do it all in one lifetime, no matter how long your life is.

Has life been good to me? I have to say yes. I have a loving family and have had 80 years of happiness, and who could ask for more? - Regrets? I have a few, but like the Frank Sinatra song says, "A few, but then again too few to mention" Okay, maybe I do have a minor regret, and it might be a selfish regret on my part: I don't recall ever having a birthday party. I would have loved to have had one, maybe at a very young age, with cake and ice cream, a pinata hanging from our apricot tree, a clown to make me laugh, and perhaps a magician to pull rabbits out of a hat, now that would have been nice. But please don't interpret this as feeling sorry for myself because, like I said, it's just a minor regret, and I am okay with that.

And so now that the sun is setting on me, I wish I am not judged too harshly when judgment day comes around.

On a side note: today is also our 62nd wedding anniversary and the 4th anniversary of my older sister Rachel's death...Happy Anniversary, Babe. And Rachel, R.I.P

Baseball Bats in Simons

By kiki

I don't know why, but I woke up in the middle of the night thinking about the baseball bats we used in our late 1940s summer baseball games...Baseballs and bats were sacred in Simons because nobody could afford them. 

So whenever our one and only bat would be used as firewood in somebody's wood-burning stove, we would improvise and replace it with a long two-by-four. Then, when that two-by-four would become ashes in somebody's stove, we would fall back on "desperate times calls for desperate measures" How you ask? First, we would walk to Vail Elementary School, where the playground was open for summer programs. If the equipment room was empty, one of the guys would walk in and grab a bat, and then we would all run like hell down the hill from the playground and disappear into our safety zone of El Hoyo Simons to start a game with our new bat. We never had a problem in El Hoyo:  we kids needed help finding a solution...And there was never a dull moment either. 

2016 Presidential Election

By kiki

The 2016 presidential circus is over, for now, anyway. Now let me say that I am extremely disappointed with the results. Not because my choice for president didn't win, but because of the man that won, and I don't say that because he says he is a conservative Republican (he is not a conservative) In  the past we have had conservative Republican presidents and we've done okay - My disappointment comes from seeing a pathological liar and racist who used inflammatory language to degrade his opponents to win the highest and most powerful office in the world - And we, as a country are better than that. And we have always, rightly or wrongly, expected our presidents that represent us on the world stage to be a few notches above us in the moral compass, someone we and our children can look up too as a good role model - and, to conduct themselves with class and dignity, not that they always have (see Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon) but none have risen from the gutter, to become our president as our next president has. Of course, he doesn't live in the gutter, but he acts and talks like he does - Trump has taken America to a dark place, a place that we had thought to have left behind us years ago - I asked, do you trust Trump, who by his own words, is a sexual predator, to be alone with your daughter? Do women feel safe around him? And is that the kind of a man we want representing America? Hard questions, I know, but they need to be asked.

Now let me say that I will always respect the office of the presidency, and I will accept that Trump won and will be the next U.S. president, but I will not respect or accept him as my president because of the way he has conducted himself with women and people of color, not to mention war heroes.  And with all the reasons he has given us the man is unsuited to be Commander in Chief - Let me end by saying that it is sad to see our country lower its self to the gutter. And that scares me, not so much for me as I am in the tail end of my life, but for my children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren - Like most empires, our country will be brought down not by outside forces, but from within. Harsh words? Maybe, and, yes, I hope I am wrong.

I Am Far From What I Used To Be

By kiki

Yesterday, as I fast approach my 80th birthday I tried to reflect back on my life, and the best I could do was "I am far from what I used to be", but then. Beto, one of my imaginary friends whispered in my ear "dude, you still have your moments" I think I'll buy Beto menudo and a beer on Friday for been so kind to an old friend....Without friends like Beto, we would all be lost, lonely souls. 

Dime A Dance

By kiki

Earlier this morning, I watched an old movie (1951) shot in various parts of downtown Los Angeles. One scene takes part in front of Dream Land Taxi Dance Hall. Dream Land was a dime, a dance hall, where lonely men in need of companionship would pay a dime to dance one song with a young girl or some older woman...I remember one time around 1950 or '51 when some of my buddies and I rode our bikes from the Simons Brickyard to downtown and tried to sneak into Dream Land only to be thrown out on our asses for being too young, not that we had any money, but that didn't matter, we just wanted to dance...For me, those were the good old days!!

A Johnnie Flores story

By kiki

Johnnie Flores, late Los Angeles boxing manager, trainer, and WWII hero told me all kinds of stories back in the day. For example, he said to me as we were flying to Miami in 1977 was about a Mexican boxer who was sent to him in the early '60s to handle while the boxer was in Los Angeles to fight a local hero. When promoter Aileen Eaton called a press conference to promote the fight, Johnnie discovered that the fighter didn't have any decent clothing to appear in front of the press; Johnnie told me that the boxer needed to be dressed up, but how? First, he was not about to drop a couple of hundred bucks at a Robert Hall Clothier store for a suit, then he remembered his uncle Zeferino Ramirez. 

Mr. Ramirez was the owner of a Southern California chain of mortuaries. Johnnie said he called on his uncle and asked for a favor. After Johnnie explained the situation to Mr. Ramirez, the mortician said he would be happy to help him. Mr. Ramirez, whose dying male clients were mainly on the poor side, had closets at his mortuaries that were full of cheap, cheap, ill-fitted suits to sell to the families of the newly departed grandfathers, fathers, uncles, etc., etc. - Johnnie drove the fighter to the Zeferino Ramirez Mortuary which was located on Brooklyn Ave in East Los Angeles. He dressed the fighter in a white shirt, blue tie, and a black ill-fitted suit. Johnnie said that as they were leaving, Mr. Ramirez told them to be sure to bring the threads back as soon as the press conference was over as he had a client who was the same size as the fighter waiting on the slab to get dressed...I asked Johnnie how the Mexican fighter did in the fight, "he got KO'd in the first round," he answered.

El Rancho de Doñ Dañiel and Marrano Beach

By kiki

Okay, you oldies from Montebello, El Monte's Hicks Camp, Pico, Cantaranas, Los Nietos, Simons, Jimtown, Whittier, East L.A., etc, that were alive in the dark ages. How many of you remember El Rancho de Doñ Dañiel and Marrano Beach (Rio Hondo) on the northwest corner of San Gabriel and Rosemead Blvd, PRE-LEGG LAKE?

Before Legg Lake existed, the area around those two boulevards was like a jungle. On those long-ago summer weekend afternoons, Doñ Dañiel would come alive with tardeadas (sp). Doñ Dañiel would have live music, dancing, food, and beer, and who knows what else was happening in that deep jungle.

My maternal grandfather, Papa Tony, would ride his bicycle from Pico to Rancho Doñ Dañiel, and after an afternoon of dancing and drinking, he would ride his bike back feeling a bit tipsy. There were a few times when he would get stopped by the cops, and after seeing that grandpa was slightly inebriated, the cops would put his ride in the trunk and give him a ride home. Some of us might be old, but we have our memories to back us up!