We lived here for two years I believe. It is funny how there are some things I remember. May they are trigerred by stories I have heard, but they are there. I remember playing in the leaves daddy would rake up. Mom says that one time she was cooking in the kitchen and I was walking around in the walker. I was a little to close to the stove and some oil from the frying pan landed on my arm. Fortunately for me and thanks to her and lanonin, there is no scar. Another incident that happened in that house was that I was on my parents bed and as I was stretching I accidentally knocked something over from my parents head board and it made a little cut on my head. Of course mom made it all better.

It�s weird how you can sometimes remember certain moments in your life. They live on in your memory like an old film. I guess I was about two years old, but I distinctly remember when my parents came to visit the house we live at now. I remember going in through the garage for some reason. I remember living on Ellor and times when I would play in the pile of leaves my dad would rake. I also remember a party at Buelita�s house and my cousins were playing with me outside. My cousins of course were oohing and aahing and then they decided that they thought it would look cute if they placed me in a tub to take my picture. So they did. I still have that picture. Growing up on Ellor I would play in the leaves and that carried over to the house on Globe. That held through for several years. The good thing was that here I had many friends to play with. Growing up the summers were always fun. Michael, my cousin from California would come and visit. We would play for hours on end. And the summer months with no school signified trips to visit my dad�s side of the family in Saltillo the capital of the state of Coahuila in Northern Mexico. It was always an adventure going in the back of T�o Oscar�s (Michael�s dad) camper covered pickup. Michael and I would sleep on a makeshift bed made in the back.

In 1981 Mark and Mitzi moved into the house across the street from us. So Veronica, my best friend growing up, and I had new playmates. Veronica lived 2 houses up the road from Mark and Mitzi, so we were a pretty good group. We would ride Veronica�s brother�s go-cart in the middle of the street. WE would also ride our bikes and skateboards up and down the street. It was cool because our street was on an incline so this made riding the skateboard on our belly a rush. We would play hide-and-seek in my front yard or on my swings set in my back yard.

In 1981 Mark and Mitzi moved into the house across the street from us. So Veronica, my best friend growing up, and I had new playmates. Veronica lived 2 houses up the road from Mark and Mitzi, so we were a pretty good group. We would ride Veronica�s brother�s go-cart in the middle of the street. WE would also ride our bikes and skateboards up and down the street. It was cool because our street was on an incline so this made riding the skateboard on our belly a rush. We would play hide-and-seek in my front yard or on my swings sets in my back yard. I even did the lemonade stand thing once. That did not last long. There was little to no traffic on our street so that venture was not a success. And that was only for about five minutes. For some reason we had to leave and I could not leave the stand unattended, so I drank up all the lemonade.

I think it was that same year that I for the first and only time I had to stay after school. It all started as my class was leaving the music class. We were all lined up single file and walking down the hall. When all of a sudden I freaked out. Vanessa, a not so shy classmate, accidentally scratched the back of my neck and drew blood. Apparently she had a crush on me and I never realized it. She supposedly was trying to get my attention. What a way to get a man�s attention. So after that incident, second through fifth grade went by smoothly, at school that is.

At home, grandma moved in with us in third grade I believe. Buelita had been sick and had been in and out of the hospital due to complications. She had heart problems and growing up I would go with my parents to the hospital. She would always save the Jell-O or whatever dessert of the day for me. I was still to young to be let in to see her so often times I would wave at her room from the outside. Daddy assured me that she saw me from some window. �Just wave,� he would say, �she�s waving at you.� Then on a Friday morning, the morning of my first day of summer vacation after finishing fourth grade, I remember waking up in my parent�s room and seeing my dad there. I asked him what he was doing home from work. I thought that he had taken the day off to take me swimming. I learned that buelita had died over night. Mom would later tell me that the ambulance and police came, but even though the room was next to where I was, I don�t remember hearing a thing. All I knew is that I did not know how to deal with it, how to accept it or understand it. What I do remember is confiding to Michael what I thought. �It doesn�t look like buelita. I don�t think that�s her. I think she is somewhere else.� Soon after Buelita passed there was a falling out in the family and I didn�t get to spend as much to with Michael as I had used to. Returning to fifth grade was hard.

Middle school was torture: new school, new teachers. I was supposed to go to Longfellow, but only went there for two days. Mom and dad took me out and put me in Holy Rosary, a local parochial school. Mom had to get a job to pay for the tuition. She worked cleaning my uncle�s offices on Friday afternoon�s after I got out of school. Sixth, seventh and eighth grades were bearable. Not many nun�s. During eighth grade, we had field trips to other catholic high schools. I was not pleased with any of them.

Thomas Jefferson High School. It marked my return to the public school system. I made friends with anyone that would talk to me. It was my freshman year that I took tennis to get out of taking gym. It was there that I met one of the most remarkable and most important persons in my life. It was during tennis that I met Cynthia. While I made several acquaintances, she and I would hang out together. The next year I found out that she had move and would no longer be going to school there. Then one day as I was going to class, Cynthia and her sister were coming down the stairs. She told me that they had listed the address of their brother, who remained in the district to continue to attend Jeff. We hung out a lot and then started hanging out after school our senior year. I went to the senior picnic with Erika, Cynthia�s younger sister. We are a month apart. After that we went to a party. We had something and I thought Cynthia was drunk. It turns out she is always that crazy.

...more to come