As a boy I spent most of my time with rabbits: some black, some brown, some white and brown. We sold some of the bunnies during Easter, but my grandmother primarily raised them as food. As I recall, they tasted very good, at least better than the pigeons we killed with our sling shots. Yes, sling shots.
I spent my childhood in El Paso, Tex., during the 1950’s. I was born into a dysfunctional family, which resulted in my grandmother raising me. At first, it was fun watching the rabbits sniff around and stomp their feet. The fun ended when I was put in charge of watering and feeding them. For a boy who thought of nothing but playing marbles or war, the responsibility proved too great. Often, in the hot summer months, I’d sneak away to visit the other neighborhood boys. I’d be gone for hours, all day sometimes. When I returned, up to a dozen bunnies would be dead for lack of water. The consequences went beyond words. My grandmother was a hard taskmaster; she often used a thick stick to discipline. She would ask me to go into a small shack for alfalfa and once I was inside the door would close behind me. Although I still flinch at the memory of her stick, she taught me two valuable lessons: work hard and never lose your faith in God.
During my dysfunctional adolescent years I lived in a small farming community in Arizona. Still poor, I spent my summers working in the cotton fields, chopping weeds or irrigating the cotton plants. Sometimes the field crews had to get up at 3 a.m. to ride a rusty bus 50 miles to find a farm that needed farm workers. After a couple of summers of walking cotton rows for eight hours a day at $1 an hour, I decided school might be of some value to me, a means to break the poverty cycle. School was tough since I repeated the third grade three times – or was it four – because I didn’t know English. Spanish was my first language. Once I learned English, though, it didn’t take me long to discover the magic of books.
After reading “The Good Earth” by Pearl S. Buck I was hooked on writing. I yearned to write a word, a phrase, a passage that could make someone cry or laugh. As I read the book, I marveled at the vivid characters and human drama that revolved around a man’s love of the earth. Eventually, that interest compelled me to go into journalism. As a journalist, I could write about people every day, not fictional characters with make believe dialogue, but real people caught up in the events of the day, the serendipities, the tragedies.
Along the way, several teachers took an interest in me and guided me through the maze of college applications, grants, and scholarships. In 1974 I graduated from the University of Arizona with a B.A. in Journalism.
I spent my childhood in El Paso, Tex., during the 1950’s. I was born into a dysfunctional family, which resulted in my grandmother raising me. At first, it was fun watching the rabbits sniff around and stomp their feet. The fun ended when I was put in charge of watering and feeding them. For a boy who thought of nothing but playing marbles or war, the responsibility proved too great. Often, in the hot summer months, I’d sneak away to visit the other neighborhood boys. I’d be gone for hours, all day sometimes. When I returned, up to a dozen bunnies would be dead for lack of water. The consequences went beyond words. My grandmother was a hard taskmaster; she often used a thick stick to discipline. She would ask me to go into a small shack for alfalfa and once I was inside the door would close behind me. Although I still flinch at the memory of her stick, she taught me two valuable lessons: work hard and never lose your faith in God.
During my dysfunctional adolescent years I lived in a small farming community in Arizona. Still poor, I spent my summers working in the cotton fields, chopping weeds or irrigating the cotton plants. Sometimes the field crews had to get up at 3 a.m. to ride a rusty bus 50 miles to find a farm that needed farm workers. After a couple of summers of walking cotton rows for eight hours a day at $1 an hour, I decided school might be of some value to me, a means to break the poverty cycle. School was tough since I repeated the third grade three times – or was it four – because I didn’t know English. Spanish was my first language. Once I learned English, though, it didn’t take me long to discover the magic of books.
After reading “The Good Earth” by Pearl S. Buck I was hooked on writing. I yearned to write a word, a phrase, a passage that could make someone cry or laugh. As I read the book, I marveled at the vivid characters and human drama that revolved around a man’s love of the earth. Eventually, that interest compelled me to go into journalism. As a journalist, I could write about people every day, not fictional characters with make believe dialogue, but real people caught up in the events of the day, the serendipities, the tragedies.
Along the way, several teachers took an interest in me and guided me through the maze of college applications, grants, and scholarships. In 1974 I graduated from the University of Arizona with a B.A. in Journalism.