Notice: Function _load_textdomain_just_in_time was called incorrectly. Translation loading for the twentyfifteen domain was triggered too early. This is usually an indicator for some code in the plugin or theme running too early. Translations should be loaded at the init action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /chroot/home/a6f7779a/9d7429a5d9.nxcli.io/html/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6170 {"id":165,"date":"2014-02-25T19:48:50","date_gmt":"2014-02-26T01:48:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/frankdeleon.com\/?p=165"},"modified":"2014-02-27T09:43:47","modified_gmt":"2014-02-27T15:43:47","slug":"in-the-beginning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/frankdeleon.com\/?p=165","title":{"rendered":"In The Beginning…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Foreword<\/b><\/p>\n

When I decided to write this piece my intent was to center it around my early experience with religion and the mark that it\u2019s left on my personality and my general outlook on life. But as I began to write I found that by dredging up old memories about this subject, other memories\/issues, both pleasant and unpleasant, also began to surface. Try as I might I could not separate one from the other, and consequently the original subject theme began to go in a direction that I had not anticipated nor originally planned. Long forgotten episodes involving my parents and their slow hellish descent into religious fundamentalism came rushing to the surface and almost all but gushed onto the printed page. I kept trying to refocus my writing on the original theme, but the more I thought about how to go about it the more appropriate the wayward passages seemed. So I kept writing and writing.<\/p>\n

For me it has been and continues to be a very painful journey.\u00a0 But, it is my history and I need to tell it as I remember it happening.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In The Beginning\u2026<\/b><\/p>\n

I<\/strong><\/p>\n

For many, many, years I have struggled with the concept of religion. One of my early memories is that of my attending a Catholic church in Houston, Nuestra Senora De Dolores (Our Lady of Sorrows), with my mother, and being slightly frightened by the spookiness of the statues placed on and around the altar. The pleading eyes, cast skyward, and the upturned palms forever frozen in a pathetically submissive pose gave me the frozen willies. We weren’t Catholic by any means, actually we weren’t anything religious-wise, but with the cards that life had dealt my mother, any help imagined or real, was certainly welcome. And for her, the church seemed like a good way out of her personal marital misery.<\/p>\n

The main difficulty in my mom’s life was my father. He was most certainly what I would describe as an undiagnosed alcoholic; and like most alcoholics he never admitted to the fact that when he drank he didn’t stop until he passed out or he ran out of money. For all his faults he was an extremely talented man. Blessed with an eye for detail and possessing an uncompromising, but sharply analytical mind, he earned a good salary by repairing and painting cars. Because he was able to restore wrecks to an almost showroom like appearance he was in high demand in the auto repair world and was paid accordingly.<\/p>\n

His best job ever was at a Ford dealership in Houston where he ran the body shop for a couple of years. I was too young to remember him working there, but my mother would often tell me about the good times…before the drinking started.<\/p>\n

What I do remember is seeing my mom waiting inside by the front door on Fridays, waiting for my dad to bring home the paycheck. That usually never happened. More often than not she would wait and wait, telling me that as soon as dad comes home we’ll go to the grocery store and buy a lot of groceries. \u00a0Late afternoon would slide into dusk, then night. And in the dim light of our two worn out shade-less lamps, with my mother’s soft sobs softly lulling me, I would drift off to sleep on her lap.<\/p>\n

Usually showing up early Sunday morning, hung over, bruised from fighting, and completely broke, his never ending excuse was that, \u2018his feet went out from under him\u2019, or that \u2018he gave in to his weak side\u2019. Whatever. It all added up to yet another week of trying to figure out what we would eat, and my mother mending my pants and shirts for school.<\/p>\n

Although he very rarely missed work because of the drinking he most likely gained a reputation as a not so reliable family man. I’m sure he had all good intentions during the week, and worked very hard, but as soon as that pay envelope hit his pocket on Friday his feet would start their inevitable slide. Much later in life he found religion (or rather, it found him) and he became a dyed-in-the-wool Pentecostal fundamentalist with all the trimmings\u2014well, short of snake handling.<\/p>\n

Because of his appetite for alcohol (whiskey please, make it Four Roses, no beer) he never made much of his life work-wise. It wasn\u2019t that he didn’t have talent. He had plenty. Early on he discovered that he had a knack for fixing things. If it was broken, given enough time, he could fix it. Good eye for color and, despite the drinking, a steady hand. These abilities would serve him well as an auto and diesel engine mechanic, paint and body auto repairman, furniture refinisher and an amateur inventor.<\/p>\n

But what he possessed in raw talent would ultimately be grossly overshadowed by his lack of self-discipline in his personal life. He seemed to react negatively to anyone in authority, all of our relatives (his and my mom’s), all minorities, and most Christians, and to this end he had a name for everyone. I never had to leave my house to hear words like kikes, niggers, burr-heads and wops. There weren\u2019t many Asians around but those who happened to cross his path merited being called chinks and slopes.\u00a0 Mexicans were wet-backs and greasers; and because I heard these insults on a daily basis for as long as I could remember, they had little effect on me\u2014except for the insults to Mexicans. My mom was born of Mexican parents.<\/p>\n

He was born in Saltillo, Mexico, in 1914, of Spanish\/French descendants.\u00a0 His parents had tried to emigrate to the U.S. from France in late 1913, arriving by ship in Brownsville, TX.\u00a0 After determining that the family\u2019s paperwork was not acceptable the U.S. Immigration Service refused to allow them into the country and unceremoniously ordered them back aboard the ship.<\/p>\n

Since the ship\u2019s next port of call was Tampico the captain graciously allowed them to remain aboard until they docked there a few days later.\u00a0 He had suggested they try to enter Mexico there since the country\u2019s immigration service was less picky with paperwork\u2014especially when sweetened with a little bribe. As luck, and a little spare change, would have it they were immediately admitted and quickly found themselves on the right continent, just the wrong country.<\/p>\n

The young couple was already burdened with four small boys and an infant girl, but stubbornly decided to use their remaining cash reserves to travel north to attempt re-entry into the U.S.\u00a0 They got as far as Saltillo, where they found out that they would soon be welcoming a new child into their already large family.\u00a0 With money running perilously low they found a cheap rental and temporarily settled in to look for work.<\/p>\n

On August 22, 1914, my father was born in a dirt floored adobe shanty and was named Roberto Francisco Alberto DeLe\u00f3n.\u00a0 Throughout the pregnancy the couple\u2019s dreams of living in America never dimmed and with dogged determination the entire family, except for little Dolores, had worked any and all odd jobs that had come along.\u00a0 Three weeks after his birth, my father, carried on his mother\u2019s back crossed the border at Nuevo Laredo, Texas.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Two weeks later, freshly designated as Resident Aliens and sporting brand new green ID cards, the family finally arrived at their original destination: Houston, Texas.<\/p>\n

Since my father never talked about his family I really never knew much about them.\u00a0 One day when I was about fourteen I did run across some old pictures of them while rummaging through some old boxes in a closet.\u00a0 Among them was a most evocative photo of a stately looking couple that was probably taken to commemorate some milestone such as an anniversary, or possibly a birthday.\u00a0 The photo is undated but their clothing and demeanor suggest it may have been taken sometime between 1910 and 1920.<\/p>\n

I took the photo to my mom and asked her who these people were.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, they\u2019re your dad\u2019s parents.\u201d\u00a0 She said smugly.<\/p>\n

\u201cReally?\u201d\u00a0 I looked closer at the slightly curled photograph.<\/p>\n

My grandfather, sporting a healthy handlebar moustache and a healthier waistline, was dressed in a vested suit, military style boots, and was wearing a natty pocket watch and gold chain.\u00a0 His wife, modestly plump with a lace type hat, was dressed in a long gown-like floor-length silk dress trimmed with dainty lace on the hem, and tightly buttoned all the way to her neck.\u00a0 They both appeared to be in their late forties or early fifties, and while angled towards each other and scowling unpleasantly at the camera, still managed to project a sense of highborn sophistication and well-being.\u00a0 They certainly don\u2019t look like peasants.<\/p>\n

It seems that my father, once having reached the seventh grade in school, probably decided that his time would be better spent if he were working full time.\u00a0 Having already shown the ability to fix broken down car engines he dropped out of school and began to do odd jobs around the neighborhood.\u00a0 Word of mouth quickly spread and soon he was in great demand as a reliable shade tree mechanic and was knocking down some pretty good money.\u00a0 Since he was already addicted to Camel cigarettes, liked to party, and was starting to really like whiskey, the money he earned seemed to quickly disappear–thus necessitating the need to work harder and earn more.<\/p>\n

During this particular period of time I don\u2019t know what my uncles and aunt were doing.\u00a0 Anytime I would ask my father he would just dismiss the question with a wave of his hand and say, \u201cYou know, just knocking about.\u201d\u00a0 Uh, OK.\u00a0 The only episode he ever shared with me that involved one of his siblings was when he told me about the serious injury he had suffered at the hands of his sister, Dolores.<\/p>\n

As the story went, he and Dolores, in their mid-teens, had been home alone while the rest of the family was out earning a living.\u00a0 Entering their kitchen he saw Dolores playing with a large kitchen knife apparently sword-fighting with some invisible opponent.\u00a0 Being a good and concerned brother he told her to put the knife away before she hurt herself.\u00a0 Her response was less than civil, pretty much telling him to piss off.\u00a0 Insisting that she either put the knife away or give it to him for safe keeping she got annoyed and told him to try to take it from her.\u00a0 So he did.<\/p>\n

Quickly reaching for and grabbing the knife, he yanked it back toward himself.\u00a0 Before he had time to think he saw blood literally gush from his hand and he felt a deep cold sensation shoot up his hand and wrist.\u00a0 His anger at his sister\u2019s challenge to his machismo had caused him to ignore the fact that she was holding the knife by its handle and he, in his haste, had grabbed the blade.\u00a0 The result was that the knife\u2019s blade had all but severed his right index finger at the second joint.\u00a0 His other three fingers had also been cut but not to the same extent.\u00a0 Not having the money to go to a hospital or even see a doctor, he and his sister wrapped the wound with dishtowels and a hastily torn pillowcase and waited for the rest of the family to return.<\/p>\n

The cut was never stitched up and took weeks to finally heal.\u00a0 As a result of the severe laceration, tendons, and probably a few nerves, were severed causing complete loss of feeling in the finger and leaving him with the inability to bend the finger at will towards his palm.\u00a0 The finger was always at attention and when a fist was required he would have to use his thumb to grab it and hold it securely against the palm. \u00a0The injury ended up classifying him as 4F, and kept him out of World War II.<\/p>\n

Given the time in which he was born, and living in Houston in the years after World War I, and through the Great Depression, I assume the young Robert would have been exposed to quite a bit of ethnic and racial intolerance left over from years of slavery.\u00a0 But because he was tri-lingual (English, Spanish, and French), he would have had to associate with many multi-cultured people of diverse backgrounds and differing lifestyles.\u00a0 But if these relationships ended up affecting this tall, thin, wickedly handsome young man in some negative manner I\u2019ll never know.\u00a0 What I do know is that in 1939, at age twenty-five, year he met and married my mom: a beautiful dark skinned Mexican-American beauty named Avelina G\u00f3mez.\u00a0 She, and her twin brother Marcos, were born in 1918 in San Antonio, Texas, making them not only Texans but bonafide U.S. citizens.<\/p>\n

They had met because Avelina\u2019s older sister, Juanita, had been dating a close friend of my father\u2019s.\u00a0 How he had overcome his extreme bias towards Mexicans to begin dating my mother is still a mystery to me.\u00a0 I can only assume that her dark and sultry beauty, coupled with her goofy sense of humor, made my father look past her ethnicity.<\/p>\n

Because of her family\u2019s extreme poverty, she, her brother, and all of the sisters would often be taken out of school to travel to South Texas, and even Mexico, in search of transient jobs in order to bring in money for the family.\u00a0 As a result her education went as far as the third grade when the family finally decided that her reading and writing ability had reached a good enough level for her to manage the simple tasks that her menial labor jobs required.<\/p>\n

Her command of the English and Spanish vocabulary was passable, but she would forever suffer from the inability to speak, read, or write effectively in either language.\u00a0 As a result she developed a loopy habit of totally mispronouncing and\/or creatively substituting made up words or phrases for ones she wasn\u2019t familiar with.\u00a0 Consequently, I grew up thinking that a sandwich was \u201cun samwish\u201d, \u00a0\u00a0a chair became \u201cuna share\u201d, any pasta was referred to as \u201cla sopa\u201d (actually sopa means soup), and a ditch was verbalized as \u201cun deeche\u201d (dee-<\/b>che).\u00a0 Spanglish became the official language around the house and unless I was at school spoke it constantly.<\/p>\n

My father, even after being married to her for over thirty years, would still\u2014upon hearing mom massacre some English or Spanish word\u2014turn and stare wide-eyed shaking his head simply mumbling under his breath, \u201cVieja loca.\u201d<\/p>\n

II<\/b><\/p>\n

Younger Brothers, Desperados?<\/b><\/p>\n

In Texas folklore there exists a group of highwaymen known as the Younger Brothers.\u00a0 A gang of rustlers, train and bank robbers, and murderers in the 1800’s, they occasionally partnered in crime with the more famous James gang who were finally brought to justice by stubbornly persistent Pinkerton lawmen, and the citizens of Northfield, Minnesota.<\/p>\n

According to my father the Younger\u2019s descendants, had settled in southwest Texas, and sometime after the Depression founded a trucking company specializing in hauling oil and gasoline for wholesalers in Texas and Louisiana.\u00a0 Whether or not these were the actual descendants remains a mystery to me.\u00a0 But according to my father they had to be at least related because of the smooth way they were able to finagle outrageous profits while at the same time cheating their employees out of an honest wage.\u00a0 They must\u2019ve learned it somewhere!<\/p>\n

Formed in Houston in the early 1930’s, the modern day Youngers successfully built the business, and by the 1940\u2019s owned a city block of oily pothole filled land on Griggs Road.\u00a0 Every day big rigs pulling long tubular trailers would rumble onto the huge truck lot to be cleaned, repaired, repainted and refilled; while their drivers ambled over to the main office to check in, draw their pay, and receive their new loads and destinations.<\/p>\n

On the Younger\u2019s truck lot, and right off the street were some small buildings that served as administrative offices, and about two-thirds back, and to the right, were three large open door tin buildings.\u00a0 Two were designated as \u201cMechanics\u201d and \u201cTires\u201d, and the third, quite a bit larger was the \u201cPaint\u201d shop.\u00a0 My uncle Frank worked in that building until he retired and left the shop for my father to work, and went to California\u2014never to be heard from again.<\/p>\n

The \u201cMechanics\u201d shop was where all the repairs to the giant diesel engines that pulled the enormous loads of gas, oil, and pipes went when they needed to get well.\u00a0 Both it, and the \u201cTires\u201d buildings were run by a mean spirited, red haired, fifty something bigot everyone called \u201cRed\u201d. Among the subordinates working for him was an unfortunate crew of black laborers whose responsibility was to repair tires, change oil in the diesel engines, and perform probably the most dangerous job on the lots, steam clean out the large oil and gasoline tanks the diesel trucks towed from the oil refineries to the various distribution centers.<\/p>\n

Red made sure he fed those boys their daily ration of indignities with foul-mouthed calls of \u201ccome on nigger\u201d, \u201cshit burr-head\u201d, \u201cmove, you jive ass darky\u201d, \u201cover here you monkey ass shine\u201d.\u00a0 Their response was always the same: a quick ducking of the head, as if dodging an invisible flying fist, a flash of white eyeball with a fast white toothy grin, and a flick of the wrist to wipe away the dripping beads of sweat off the forehead.<\/p>\n

\u201cYowsa boss, you got dat right\u2026,\u201d was their usual response<\/p>\n

The rhythmic metallic pounding of a huge sledgehammer on a stubborn tire bead weather welded to a rusty rim would rise just a degree or two in cadence after that.<\/p>\n

Shooting a vile glance in the direction of the object of his scorn Red would flip his head sideways and shoot a brownish green jet of tobacco spittle onto the oily ground.\u00a0 Wiping his mouth with the back of his tattooed hand he\u2019d end the tirade with his signature rant: \u201cFukin\u2019 lazy-assed niggers, anyway!\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to the blacks, there was a pair of young white men who everyone believed were brothers, and who did the actual diesel engine repair.\u00a0 In the many trips that I made to that shop over the years I never heard either of them say one word\u2014to anyone, or to each other. They appeared to be in their early twenties, bald and heavily muscled, and would spend their workday quietly turning bolts, pulling engines, scooting under trucks wielding huge wrenches, all the while whistling some unrecognizable melody.\u00a0 I once asked my father what their names were and he said everyone called them, \u201cthe mutes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Occasionally Red would have to address them in reference to some newly arrived broken down diesel.<\/p>\n

\u201cYo!\u201d<\/p>\n

They would slowly stop what they were doing and turn their attention to Red.<\/p>\n

\u201cGot a fukin\u2019 Wentworth put a rod through the pan and need to get it done and out quick!\u00a0 Git\u2019r done now and finish that there later.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wordlessly they\u2019d stop ratcheting or gauging, and walk over to the kerosene filled tub in the center of the shop.\u00a0 After dropping the tools into the tub to soak off the grease they\u2019d stand quietly, huge bare arms crossed over their mammoth chests, staring at Red and waiting for the broken truck to be towed into the shop.<\/p>\n

Having dispensed his orders, Red would quickly leave their immediate area mumbling under his breath about those \u201cfuckin\u2019 mutes\u201d.\u00a0 Glancing back and making sure he was a safe distance he\u2019d flash a nervous semi-toothless tobacco juice stained grin to whomever he thought was listening. The brothers would continue to stare, shooting a fierce blue-green eyed glare in Red\u2019s direction until their new broken down charge was towed into their bay.<\/p>\n

When not berating his minions Red spent his time sitting on an ancient folding chair chewing tobacco, spitting on the floor and sipping cheap whiskey from an old fruit jar carefully stowed in his grease stained tool box.\u00a0 Drivers waiting for their trucks to be serviced would stroll in to the shop to see how the work was progressing and linger long enough to get a little taste of that \u201chair of the dog\u201d from Red.<\/p>\n

Further back on the lot was the much larger tin building that housed the paint and body shop.\u00a0 A talented auto painter and body repairman, my uncle Frank had worked for Younger Brothers Trucking almost since its founding.\u00a0 He had no one working for him and did all the work himself.\u00a0 And no one, except for my father and the Youngers themselves, was ever allowed into the shop during working hours.\u00a0 Even when I went to visit he always met me at the entrance and would usher me to one of a pair of wooden folding chairs placed just inside the entrance to the shop.<\/p>\n

When he wasn\u2019t wearing his white painter\u2019s coveralls, hat, white military-like boots and a large facemask and goggles, he could always be found in neatly pressed khaki pants and a dark brown gabardine shirt.\u00a0 And while the diesel repair shop was filthy, engine parts and tools spread around the floor willy-nilly, and the whole place smelling of diesel fuel, oil and sweat, the paint and body shop was pristine.\u00a0 Shelves stacked with neat rows of gallon cans of acrylic and lacquer paint, tint and mineral oil were arranged in such a manner that one would think they were on display for purchase.\u00a0 Cans that had been opened were resealed and wiped clean with such care that they would easily pass for new.\u00a0 Those were kept on a different shelf and arranged by type and color.<\/p>\n

The rough concrete floor was swept out and hosed several times a day\u2014whether or not a body repair or a paint job had been completed.\u00a0 On another wall white coveralls on clothes hangers were hung on pegs.\u00a0 None of them ever seemed to have been used as they shone as white as the day they had left the uniform factory.\u00a0 There were at least twelve sets, each with a pair of shiny black rubber boots on the floor under them.<\/p>\n

Hammers, anvils and other body repair tools were neatly hung on large black pegboard sheets, with each respective shape outlined in white paint.\u00a0 In one corner a large fan sat quietly, its blades and motor casing gleaming in the sunlight streaming in from the windows in the roof and high up on each wall.\u00a0 Six exhaust fans were built in to the back wall and kept the shop reasonably cool when not pulling paint vapors out into the hot Houston air.\u00a0 Except for the sweetly faint aroma of lacquer one would be hard pressed to believe that truck bodies were actually disassembled, banged back into shape, reassembled, sprayed with primer and painted with countless coats of lacquer back to showroom-like condition.<\/p>\n

At the end of each day when Red and his crew would trudge out of their shop smelling of whiskey and the kerosene they had used to wash the grease off their hands and bodies, my uncle Frank would emerge from his small wash room smelling of cologne and Vitalis; a smartly cocked fedora perched on this slightly balding head.\u00a0 Whistling a jaunty tune he\u2019d close and lock the large shop door, pull the canvas cover off his never more than two year old Ford, and ease slowly out into the Houston traffic.<\/p>\n

+++++++++++<\/p>\n

It was a fact that Younger Brothers Truck Line, Inc., paid the very lowest wage to their employees, offered no benefits whatsoever, and docked pay whenever any time was taken off for any reason.\u00a0 My father worked for them for over twenty years, and when he finally left he was given absolutely nothing other than his last paycheck.\u00a0 For the remainder of his life he survived on Social Security, payments for small odd jobs he did for friends, and a pathetic pittance he received once he was ordained as a minister for the Pentecostal church.<\/p>\n

So how did he end up there? \u00a0And why would he continue to work for Younger Brothers anyhow? \u00a0We’ll talk about that in the next posting.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"