Summer Before Fourth Grade

It was H-O-T hot in Laredo all during the summer, but especially during the dog days of mid August, which my mom called la canicula. 

Time during the summer stretched stiff and slow as a piece of taffy. The last school year seemed so long ago. Now there were endless days of watching TV, riding bikes, and during the cool of the night, sitting on the porch listening to the grown-ups telling stories. 

The new school year‘s arrival was still too distant to warrant any serious consideration. What did occupy my mind and time was the Confederate troop I was a part of (my neighbor’s toy long rifle fueled that historical wandering) and also my travels in outer space, which I explored straddling a rolled-up quilt/saddle atop my dresser, which served excellently as the cockpit of my spaceship. 

I was about to start fourth grade the summer I was allowed by Mama to travel solo on the bus to our town’s library, a place I secretly felt was as wonderful and sacred as any church I knew. The magic was in finally getting to do something on my own. It was thrilling.

I pulled open the doors of the air-conditioned library on the second story of Laredo’s City Hall. I was lucky to feel confident that the public library’s  gatekeepers, two gray-haired Anglo-looking ladies seated behind the checkout counter would approve my entry into such a venerable place.  They looked much like the nuns at school, except for their exposed gray curls and ears. 

For hours I walked slowly scanning titles from both the children’s and adult sections. I loved titles and wanted to grow up to make up my own titles. Was that a job? I took home as many books as I could carry. While waiting for the bus I bought with a spare 25 cents a copy of a tabloid newspaper with photos and a story about an Italian family barbecued and eaten by their madman father. When I got to our stop I left the newspaper on the bus seat on purpose. Mama would not approve of either my buying or reading it.

Trips to the library were my first steps in exercising my imagination into reality. It was my idea to get a library card and also my decision when to go there and when come home. Yes, there were still morning forays into neighboring Yankee territory, and space adventures avoiding asteroids during the hottest part of the day. They didn’t compare with wandering the aisles of fiction and nonfiction at the library. I breathed in the aromas of old colonial furniture polish mixed with paper from new and vintage books, magazines and newspapers. It was more than intoxicating adventure, it was liberating.  I had discovered my agency, true, but equally important was that in simply browsing the titles of hundreds upon hundreds of books I birthed the idea that life, however it unfolded, would be plentiful with stories. I wanted desperately to know how other people lived, what they did and what they thought. 

My stacks of horse biographies and joke books fed my imagination during the summer as much as the nuns did with spelling bees, religion class and long division during the school year. 

At the end of la canicula , a rain shower would fall and remind me that just around the corner was the start of a new school year. Soon Mama would drive us downtown, past the bus stop, newsstand and library for the yearly purchase of a pair of white oxfords. I had little time to miss my dangerous incursions into foreign territories whether Yankee or astral. Summer was like that, there endless and forever, then suddenly over. 

Excerpt from radio documentary for Texas Public Radio"They are making decisions for us, we don’t have the freedom we want to.”

:05 Two way radio chatter
Linda: That’s audio from a YouTube post of a Mexican TV network report that includes narco gangs’ two-way radio transmissions. Cartel members posted a video on the Internet of the execution of a cartel traitor or “traicionero”. Laredo Morning Times editor, Diana Fuentes:

(Fuentes: Two 10:50 – 10 :55) “They slice his neck. They kill him, and the blood, it’s all sound, it’s there.

(Fuentes: Two 11:00 –11:17) “They’re sawing his head off, and it’s one of the big, big things on You Tube right now. And obviously they’re doing it to terrorize people. You know, who’s going to want to go against these people, they do this kind of stuff.”

(Fuentes: Two 11:22 – 11:45) “They post it themselves, they had to shoot it themselves, they’re the drug dealers, this is not the police, these are the killers, showing what they do to people that they consider traicioneros, and then they post it. It’s interesting how social media is being used by both sides.

Linda:
On the other hand, social media in the hands of citizens are used to fill the gaps left by the silenced traditional news media.
(Arturo and M Engl. 3 0:53 – 0:58) “It was right after we were eating dinner that I came to my Storm, my phone, and I opened the blog and I saw what was going on.” (:05)

Linda:
Although it’s not fact-checked, social media offer real-time information that make up in timeliness what it may lack in traditional journalism standards. A local business woman reached for her smart phone when traffickers set up a blockade within sight on a major street in Nuevo Laredo:

(A. and M. Engl. 3 1:05 – 1:21)
Someone had told that person about it, and immediately they put it on the blog. They were asking on the blog if any one has heard anything else about it.” (:15)

Linda:
Border residents know that by whatever means, and regardless of the source, keeping track of where and when there is violence is vital to preventing becoming a victim of crime.

(High School Girls: 2 16:08 – 16:25)
“If you hear there’s a shooting, you can’t go out. They are making decisions for us, we don’t have the freedom we want to.”

Deliver Me From Arizona

Our Father, Who Art in Heaven: What were You thinking when you created Arizona elected officials?

This question comes from an Arizona-born, but reared and educated as a “Got-Here-As-Soon-As-I-Could” Texas transplant. This dual citizenship of a sort has made me wonder how two states that make up the major part of the U.S. –Mexico border could be so different in their approaches to immigration.
The answers I’ve come up with are as follows:

(I have had some help with this vexing question from historians at the college where I teach).

1. Arizona legislators put in more hours than ours do in Texas. Ours only meet every two years and for special sessions called by the governor, while theirs meet every year. I’m normally not a less-government-is-better kind of person, but in this case I’m apparently sipping tea.

2. In Arizona, the border with Mexico is a fence dividing the vast, sparsely populated Sonoran desert. You could see it from our back yard in Douglas, where my family lived for 19 years, and where my Dad was killed in a copper smelter accident when I was a toddler. In Texas, the border with Mexico’s Tamaulipas and Chihuahua states is a river, where villages and towns have thrived for more than 300 years.

3. Every year for the better part of this new century, 300 undocumented workers, also known as people, died crossing the Sonora. Last month, unknown thugs murdered an Arizona rancher. The death enraged residents and sparked the state’s lawmakers to pass a controversial law allowing local police to stop those they suspect of being here illegally to show legal work permits or citizenship. One person dead is too many, but you have to wonder if the Arizona lawmakers were wearing cultural blinders not to react in similar shock to the deaths of thousands in the state’s desert.

4. Culturally, Texas’ history is intertwined with those of Spain and Mexico. There have been serious conflicts, some still unresolved. But there has also been, especially at the border, many surprises and successes in the blending of two polar opposites. It takes real grit and tolerance to smooth over differences between such strikingly different cultures, but the Tex-Mex border has been working at it for fun and profit since Texas won its independence from Mexico. This “best of both worlds” brew of heritages is ultimately stronger than any divisions, despite and including dispiriting health and economic problems, and the recent return of the worst of the Wild West, lawless drug cartel thugs.

5. Follow the money. Both states’ largest trading partner is Mexico, yet according to the Department of Transportation, in August of 2008, Texas’ trade with Mexico was estimated at $8.3 billion, while Arizona logged in $787 million in that same month’s business with Mexico.

6. Money talks, but votes talk too, as the old Southwest Voter Registration and Education Project wisely counseled in their bumper sticker slogan, “su voto es su voz” your vote is your voice. According to the U.S. Census, Texan Latinos comprise 36.5% of the state’s population, while in Arizona, Latinos make up 30% of the state’s population. With both the money and demographics talking, it’s no wonder Texas politicians, starting with former Texas governor and U.S. president George W. Bush, have been listening. Their ears are tuned to business and political strategists more than to talk-radio hate-mongers bent on making scapegoats of undocumented workers.

So do we know if the next session of the Texas legislature will pass a law similar to that of Arizona’s? Or will the U.S. Congress finally see beyond election myopia to pass immigration reform that includes a legal accommodation for workers from Mexico? I don’t know, but I do have a sense that the drug cartel crisis will influence the outcome, as well as the new push for our nation’s climate policy. Likewise, Arizona may experience unexpected economic repercussions from the diplomatic fury in Mexico.

Exploring the different stances at the U.S. Mexican border has convinced me that Texas and my birth state, Arizona, diverge in their approach to immigration for reasons that differ as much as their shapes and sizes on the U.S. map. Amen.

music, radio, oldies (Jeannie C. Riley, "Harper Valley PTA"

After 25 years of listening to Oldies stations and the same 25 tunes, I have begun to ask what the little Nash Rambler am I doing listening to the same songs for so long? How many times of hearing Fleetwood Mac's "Rhiannon" does it take before I want to shout "Hey, you are ruining a good song by playing it every 15 minutes!" If I knew 25 years ago I'd be hearing "Rhiannon" every time I turned on the radio for the rest of my life, I would have ripped out my car radio long ago, and worse yet, played one-way frisbee into a bonfire with my entire record collection.Too much of a good thing is still too much. But let me tell you about what radio was like before it became too much: Ray Stevens, Led Zepellin, Credence Clearwater Revival, Herb Alpert, Tammy Wynette, Jeannie C. Riley, Mick Jagger, Ray Charles, Diana Ross and Roger Miller. And yours truly, who worked in news on the radio on and off at four stations until the early 1990's.

AM radio in the late 60's and 70's was a tail-gate party to the game of life. Fans from all the human leagues' different teams would gather to dance and sing, get to know each other, tell stories and sometimes laugh, sometimes cry. AM radio welcomed everyone, British invaders, soul, odd little comedy singers to country and international balladeers. It was decidedly low-brow and you were welcome in your dashiki, your boots and jeans, sandals and shorts, or beat-up sneakers and raggedy blue jean cutoffs. Radio was on in the car, at home in the kitchen, in the den on the stereo and by the bed where you listened late at night to whining signals carrying stations from across the country as they skipped across the airwaves, caught by your radio's receiver. There were transistor radios the size of a shoe box that you could take with you on picnics or to the public swimming pool where music buzzed in and out of your ears like bees. You might hear Ray Coniff's singers, or Ray Charles or a novelty song from Ray Stevens, whose "Guitarzan" and other silly songs punctuated the more serious love songs that lived on your favorite station. Frank Sinatra sang next to the Beatles, who were followed by Elvis, Diana Ross or Barbra Streisand. Country songs were not known as country, they were just songs. Rock, soul, blues or French, Spanish, German or Japanese hits were just songs, too. The party was open and all were welcome, and one station would play them all.

There were songs that told stories. Lonely boys jumped off bridges into southern rivers. There were short ditties about polka dot bikinis and little Nash Ramblers. There were long, eight minute mini-concerts about women in yellow cotton dresses and melting cakes in the park. Extended solos from guitarists were common, and the world's longest on-air drum set from "Inagottadavita"(In the Garden of Eden?). There were songs that made you cry for teens that died in car crashes or for your nation's murdered leaders, Abraham, Martin and John. There were songs that lifted, with bells (Sonny and Cher), tore at your heart with yells (Janis Joplin) and made you blush about no-tell motels (most country performers).

FM arrived in the early 70's to South Texas. It featured music from full album sides played with no commercials or interruptions whatsoever. It almost sounded like you were listening to the music at home on the stereo, a stereo that was twice as large as the television. The markets began to break down into segments and fragments when FM arrived with its superior audio technology. Richer sounds were carried in the richer sound waves, but if you drove across the state, you'd lose the frequency and have to search for another station.

Radio was a good party, with a good 20 year run, and like all parties, it came to an end. Radio stations, which were owned by local owners, began to make serious profits, which were attractive to investors. Station chains began growing. With the new chains came cuts at the local level and centralized programming (that's what investors wanted, more profits). These new programs targeted the market's sub-groups. Now there were stations whose targets were teens and young 20's. These stations aimed at reaching sub-groups in the lucrative youth market, playing all hip-hop, all metal, all modern country. There were still the "oldies" and "classic country" stations, but the first-string players were gunning for the large youth market who were free-spenders buying new clothes, music, concert tickets and eating out frequently.

Radio's tail-gate parties of the 80's, 90's and beyond were smaller, tightly-managed affairs where songs were introduced to the nation only by big promoters and record companies. Gone for good were the local singers and bands who broke onto the airwaves with an original sound and talent in one city to catch that rare ride across the country to stardom. San Antonio had the Royal Jesters, Sunny and the Sunliners, and the most famous, the faux-British combo, The Sir Douglas Quintet, whose Mexican-origin members tried hard to pass as Welsh or Black Irish in the era of all-things-British-are-better.

The national sound was an experiment in management that made money quickly but soon bored most music buffs. It ultimately failed. National began to sound vanilla and worse than that, contrived, pre-packaged, unoriginal, like "Dancin' in the Street" killed by a Broadway choreographer.

Another reason segmented radio failed was that technology, again, would enter uninvited to transform the party forever. The four and eight track tape decks fitted into cars started the trend that made every driver his or her own music programmer. With the radio turned off, the decks morphed into factory-installed cassette players, CD players, MP-3 players. Then came the I-pod and satellite. No commercials or chattering from DJ's, and, mercifully, the end of the pre-set selection from someone in New Jersey.

Today, take a road trip with me and you'll hear Shakira, Eydie Gourmet and the Trio Los Panchos, Jeannie C. Riley and Grace Slick along with Conway Twitty, Jimmy Hendrix, Roy Orbison, the Beatles, Juan Gabriel and Cole Porter. I'm the programmer and the songs are from "mi epoca" (my era). However, I do wonder, sometimes if the radio race to market segmentation had never happened, and if the tailgate party had stayed open to everyone, what the party would sound like today. Would my tastes be more modern? Would they be more international in flavor?

I know for sure segmentation took some music away, and gave me more (much, much more) of the music that I liked. But is that necessarily good? Even if too much of a good thing is too much, I won't rip my radio out of my car or build a record album bonfire because that bonfire won't burn. I love radio too much to believe it's failed me forever.

I still hope to hear new tunes that I can appreciate and not flinch with embarrassment at hearing lyrics with over-the-top commercialization of sex and intimacy from genres as varied as pop and country to hip-hop and rap. Any recommendations, fellow music lovers?