A Happy Life, Part 1: We're Moving to the United States: Los Angeles

Change of plans

 

My mother had a friend who was kind of a wild girl.  She had five kids and was constantly separating from her husband; they were both pretty wacked!  Sometime before December, my mother told my sisters and I that she had a major announcement:  what did we think about going to the United States.  Us [yes, intentional] said:  “YES!!!”  Again we had no clue what moving to the US meant but that didn’t matter; we wanted to move because… no idea. 

        Mom told us that she and her friend, whom we called Aunt Gina [we called all of Mom’s friends Aunt] had decided to come to the United States to seek a new life.  Aunt Gina was not going to take her kids.  Not surprisingly, Aunt Gina abandoned Mom and us [she was sharing expenses with Mom] not more than two months after we arrived in Los Angeles.  She shacked up with some guy: goodbye to Mom and her litter [us].

            

        So, no more new home in Alcantara; we were going to Los Angeles, California, EEUU [the Spanish abbreviation for United States]. The trip was scheduled for January as I would be out of school by then.  I was in the third grade.

        

        Mom auctioned all of her family heirlooms, furniture, expensive stuff and managed to raise enough money for our new journey and support; though she cried over giving up all of her treasured possessions, like my grandmother’s ruby cross, Mom’s blue opal ring, and her treasured Ming vases.

       

        I was 8-years old when it was time to leave Chile.  I got a little sad when I thought about leaving my friends, but the excitement of the move and that I was going to get to fly had an energy all of its own.  

 

The trip   

 

On a late afternoon in January, we took off from Santiago, Chile on an Aereolinas Peruanas (Peruvian Airlines) DC-6, a four-engine propeller aircraft. Our destination was Mexico City.  After about an hour,  it became dark, and as I couldn’t see anything out of the window—we were flying over the ocean along the coast of Chile—I asked my mother if we were there already.  No, not yet, only about 18 hours more to go.

After landing and taking off from just about every capital city in the west coast of South and Central America, we finally arrived in Mexico City.  We were to spend the night in Mexico City as we were scheduled to fly via Western Airlines to Los Angeles the following evening.

        

        We had been warned not to drink the local water, and us kids just drank bottled mineral water.  I don’t know how or why, but Mom drank some local tap water (probably trying to save the bottles of mineral water for us) and almost died of dysentery. She had a horrible attack of colitis when we got Mexico City International Airport; and it was flowing from both ends.  The doctor at the Airport clinic kept giving her shots of some medicine or other trying to control her diarrhea and nausea. She was at the airport clinic most of the day while us little kids waited in the … waiting room.  My sisters and I were pretty oblivious to her condition, and just prayed she would get better—in between jumping up and down while watching the airplanes land and takeoff.

            

        Finally, that afternoon the doctor, bless him wherever he is, got Mom stabilized enough and cleared her to fly.  We barely managed to make it to the Western Airlines flight from Mexico City to Los Angeles.  The airplane was completely booked and, as we had arrived late to check in, we were scattered a bit.  Mom and my sisters were on one side and I was on the other side, though not too far from them.  

LOS ANGELES

 

My mother’s eyes were shining and glowing as she looked at the night lights of Los Angeles from our plane which was in final descent to Los Angeles International Airport.  

“Do you eat turkey on St. John’s?” I asked the elderly couple sitting next to me. They looked at me without understanding. That was the only English phrase I knew. I learned it from a board game of English phrases, from England, that my Mother had bought me so I could start learning English; I practiced with it after my mother told us kids that we were going to move to the United States.

We lived in Los Angeles for two years.  Mom spoke English, French, Italian, and, of course, Spanish.  The day before I started school, Mom taught me my first real words in English:  “May I go to the bathroom?”; very useful words for a kid in the third grade.

My third-grade teacher, Ms. Blow introduced me to the class.  I didn’t speak or understand English (other than “May I go to the bathroom”) but I still remember her saying “…far, far away.” Guess she was referring to where I came from…  When you’re a kid, you learn language fast. Within six months of arriving in the United States, I could actually speak and understand basic English. I could talk to all the kids at the school, so it was really great.  I remember how proud I was when Ms. Blow called upon me to give an answer to a problem. Of course, it helped my pride that I got the answer right. 

Mom had been a Red Cross volunteer nurse in Chile.  She assisted with handling the injured in the various earthquakes and tidal waves that Chile experiences.  She promptly got a job at Los Angeles General Hospital as an orderly. Then she got a job as an insurance claims processor with Prudential Insurance.  She never quite fully understood the process but worked well enough there for almost two years.  Everybody loved her.   Much later in life, the reality of what the job entailed dawned on her and she told me how easy it really was.  She hated higher mathematics especially common logarithms, to say nothing of natural logarithms.  

In the military, I moved at least 14 times in my almost 28 years of service; 10 of them with My Girl and our family.  In looking back, it took a lot of courage (more courage than most people I know including me) for Mom to uproot us from the life she had always known to the uncertainty of a new life, in a new country, with a different language. That she did so all by herself with three small children in tow, is a tribute to her courage and adventurous spirit. 

Mom, I salute you!

        Mom met an American man in the summer of the same year we arrived; they married shortly after. 

By:  Homeless With a Laptop, That is My Name 

       Бездомные с ноутбуком, это мое имя

A Happy Life, Part 1: Chile, Cat Tongues

 

[F]or my purpose holds 

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths 

Of all the western stars, until I die.

                                                Alfred, Lord Tennyson

As I’ve grown older, one of the things I’ve learned is that out of even great calamities something good always comes out of them. The most obvious example is that of Christians who believe that if Jesus had not been crucified and died as he did, He would not have resurrected and we would not believe that He is the son of God. My first experience with this happened when I got hit by a car as I was going to school.

            It was a Wednesday afternoon and I was returning to school after eating lunch at home.  I sometimes ate at the school dining hall, but other times went home. On Wednesday afternoons we used to go to confession. I was ready to confess all of the sins that a 7-year old has committed.  It had been raining for the past few days but finally the sun was shining, and it was a really beautiful afternoon.

            I got out of the bus, went in front of it, I looked around: all clear; and began to cross the street.  BANG! I felt that something had hit me on the side, lifted me up and thrown me high in the sky.  I landed in a puddle and, of course, began to howl.  I could see that I was laying on the street, saw the bus driver jump out of the bus through his window, ran over, picked me up and was trying to console me.  I got my bearings, stopped crying and he put me down.  I guess I was alright because I was standing up and it didn’t hurt much. I saw that the car that had hit me had stopped.  There were three people in it: two men and a woman.  The woman was crying hysterically, and the men were also trying to console me.  They asked me for my home telephone number, where I lived, etc.  I told them that I wanted to go to school and that I was okay. I got in the car with them.  The woman was still crying but not as bad as before; I told her I was okay.  I still remember the man who was driving: his hands and his arms were shaking really bad. I tried to give them directions to the school, but we drove in circles a few times as the driver was really shaken up. We finally made it, I said thank you and went in.

            I got to class just in time and was happy that the side of my pants where I had fallen in the puddle were now pretty dry—get ready for confession.  

            Suddenly the classroom door opened, and the school director who was a priest, and my Mother came in; Mom was crying.  She hugged me and told me that we were going home.  When we got home, Mom put me to bed. Our next-door neighbor was a doctor and he came to examine me—nothing other than a small bruise on the side of my hip.   Mom said I was going to stay home for a couple of days to make sure I was okay. She was a Red Cross volunteer nurse, so she knew about this kind of stuff.

            Later that afternoon, the people whose car had hit me came by to visit me.  They were really nice; and no more crying.  The bought me a box of “Lenguas de Gato” (Cat tongues)—milk chocolates shaped in cat tongues.  Chocolate cat tongues were expensive and a super treat for a 7-year old chocolate lover. Our other close friends also stopped by to see how I was doing, all bearing treats.   A lot of good came out of the accident. For me it was like an early Christmas and I was a king; though I don’t recommend being hit by a car as a means for getting attention. 

By: Homeless with a Laptop, That is my Name Бездомные с ноутбуком, это мое имя

A Happy Life: Immigrant Tales, War Stories, and Some Musings

Introduction

Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large; I contain multitudes). Walt Whitman

“Immigrants” … the words echo all over the place in newspapers, magazines, television, social media, etc. I don’t offer any comments on any of them; they speak for themselves. I’m generally not into other people’s labels, but since I came to the United States from a foreign country, this one time and only for our purposes, let’s say “I’m an immigrant…” However, I don’t speak for any other immigrants or groups. “I, immigrant” only speak for myself just to offer a few tales and war stories; the latter compiled from my almost 28 years of military service in the United States Air Force. 

These tales and stories contain no hidden messages, no philosophies, no political motivations or anything else of the sort. My only hope is that they’ll mostly make you smile, laugh, some may even make you a little sad, or just make you think “this guy is wacked”; but that regardless of circumstances, to remind all that we are just… people. I do not use dates throughout the book, the reason simply being: “Youth has no age.” Pablo Picasso. 

When I told my wife that I wanted to write stories about our life, she did not want me to mention her by name or as wife. Yet, she is the center of gravity of our family, so I could not ignore her presence. Accordingly, I’ll refer to her by what I usually call her, “My Girl.” The more I thought about it, the better the idea seemed. I also don’t use our names because we’re just all families; we could be anyone—and we are.  Now it's been 3 1/2 years since Jesus called My Girl  ... here are some stories of our life together.

I was born in Chile a few years ago. My father was a lawyer though he was mostly sick due to muscular dystrophy and my mother worked as a newspaper agent for a large conservative Chilean daily, “El Diaro Ilustrado”, which is now defunct. I am the oldest of four: two sisters and one brother. My youngest sister and my brother were twins. He died a few hours after birth. The doctors didn’t think that he would make it, so they called for a priest to give him baptism before he died. My mother was heavily sedated at the time, so she could not tell them the name she wanted to give him. The priest then asked my grandfather “What name do you want to give the child?” My grandfather, Alfonso, had no clue so he just blurted out “Juan Luis.” My mother had wanted to name him after Grandfather Alfonso, so although my brother was baptized as Juan Luis, we always refer to him in the diminutive “Alfonsito.” Alfonsito has always been part of our family. My Girl and I named our youngest son, Son No. 2, after him. 

My Girl and I were married a few years ago too.  She is South Korean by birth, though now she’s an all-American girl… who also loves Korea. 

Do I miss Chile? Not really. I miss the wonder that was my youth, which included Chile. In fact, I now have a very slight accent when I speak Spanish, as I have when I speak English. The accent does not show much when I speak slowly, deliberately and authoritatively. But I guess in some respect this leaves me Homeless… so you can call me Homeless with a Laptop, That is my Name. 

I blinked my eyes and time flew away with my youth. Now, an older face stares back at me from the mirror. “Who is that???” I ask. “Surely it can’t be me because I feel the same as I always have.” The face looks back at me and never answers. I suppose it’s a small gesture of kindness on its part—why respond to a question with an answer that the speaker cannot bear to hear: we can’t handle the truth.  

By: Homeless with a Laptop, That is my Name Бездомные с ноутбуком, это мое имя

My Name

 I guess you are kind of curious as to who I am, but I am one of those who do not have a regular name. My name depends on you. Just call me whatever is in your mind.

If you are thinking about something that happened a long time ago: Somebody asked you a question and you did not know the answer.
That is my name.

 Perhaps it was raining very hard.
That is my name.

 Or somebody wanted you to do something. You did it. Then they told you what you did was wrong—“Sorry for the mistake,”—and you had to do something else.
That is my name.

 Perhaps it was a game that you played when you were a child or something that came idly into your mind when you were old and sitting in a chair near the window.
That is my name.

Or you walked someplace. There were flowers all around.
That is my name.

 Perhaps you stared into a river. There was somebody near you who loved you. They were about to touch you. You could feel this before it happened. Then it happened.
That is my name.
Or you heard someone calling from a great distance. Their voice was almost an echo. 
That is my name.

 Perhaps you were lying in bed, almost ready to go to sleep and you laughed at something, a joke unto yourself, a good way to end the day.
That is my name.

 Or you were eating something good and for a second forgot what you were eating, but still went on, knowing it was good.
That is my name.

Perhaps it was around midnight and the fire tolled like a bell inside the stove
That is my name.

 Or you felt bad when she said that thing to you. She could have told it to someone else: Somebody who was more familiar with her problems.
That is my name.

 Perhaps the trout swam in the pool but the river was only eight inches wide and the moon shone on IDEATH and the watermelon fields glowed out of proportion, dark and the moon seemed to rise from every plant.
That is my name.
And I wish Margaret would leave me alone.

 by: Richard Brautigan. That is my name

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