First Day in El Paso
January 10th, 2009
FIRST DAY IN EL PASO
This is where it all began. This is where my life changed and twisted in a totally different direction. My Dad had recently announced that we were moving to El Paso, Tx. Here we were living outside of Frankfort, Ky., living the “Country” life. But it was time to move on. My Dad said that God had spoken to him, and told him that he needed to be reaching those “Heathen-Catholic Mexicans”. I always suspected that my Dad’s life-long friend, who was stationed in El Paso and was trying to start a Baptist Church, was really the “Voice of God” he was hearing. But I guess that was neither here nor there. I mean God does work in mysterious ways, right?
So we loaded up a moving truck, piled the five of us in the car, and took off on our 2,000 mile journey to our new home. I don’t remember much of the actual trip, but there was one moment that kinda sticks out in my mind. We were about 60 mles away from our destination. My sister and I had just figured out how many licks it really took to get to the tootsie-roll center of a tootsie-roll-pop. I was honing my Rubik’s cube skills, my sister was mixing it up and timing me with a stop-watch as I solved it, that was actually the first time that I solved it in under a minute (:58 to be exact). My mom was drawing the beautiful mountain scenery with her colored pencils on a sketch pad. She was a gifted artist, always very creative. My very insightful (almost psychic) sister got my attention, pointed at Mom, and with a sad look in her eyes told me, “We’ll never see Mom draw again.” I thought that was a weird statement from a 7-year-old, but turns out she was right. El Paso seems to suck the creativity right out of you. Must be the water.
About an hour later we pulled up in front of our new house. It wasn’t much. It was the first time any of us had seen it. You see, the members of the church had picked it out in our absence, and seeing as that the church had only 9 members, they couldn’t afford the rent for much better. LUCKY US! To tell the truth, I was actually pretty excited, the newness of anything pretty much excited me. We all went inside, decided where everything was to be placed, and left it to the movers to set up our “casa”.
Here is where the “Culture Shock” actually set in. Looking around, we could see the curious neighbors checking us out. It seemed like they all knew who we were already, there was pointing and talking, but we couldn’t understand a word being said. Then finally, my prized possesion (my bike) came off the truck. I jumped right on it and started riding in circles in front of the house. I soon got bored with that and I really wanted to go exploring, (must of been the country-boy in me). I asked my Dad if I could ride around the block real quick to check things out. Dad was excited and in a good mood so he of course said,”yes”. I think I was probably being annoying, trying to help. So anything to get me out of the way seemed like a good idea.
I took off on my bike, wide-eyed and full of excitement. I got to the end of the block and noticed there was a park right at the corner. I pulled into the park, excited that there was a place to play all my sports, whenever I wanted. There was a basketball court, a big field for football, and a playground. JACKPOT! Then I heard someone say, “Hey!” I looked around the corner and saw a group of Hispanic kids on bicycles, they were dressed so weird to me, all wearing T-shirts and khakis with their hair all slicked back. I later found out that they were referred to as “Cholos” or in this case since they were between the ages of 10-13 I guess theywere really “Cholitos”. Then one said to the others,”That’s the keed who stoole mi bicicleta.” I had no idea what that meant, but the way they looked at me and started running/riding toward me, I knew it wasn’t good. I took off like a shot, with about six of them right on my trail. I guess my reflexes or my legs were too slow, because they caught me pretty much immediately. After about 20 blows to the head and body, they finally wrestled my bike away from me and were gone. As theywere leaving I heard one of them laughingly yell, “Welcome to the hood, white boy!” That was when it really hit me that “I wasn’t in Kentucky anymore.”
That day really was the beginning. I got beat up alot more in the next few years. I also went through about 5 more bikes in the next 4 years. It got to where I knew I was getting a new bike for Christmas every year, and so was some kid in the next neighborhood. MINE!
Alright, before I start, I have to explain a couple of things. First of all I grew up in the south, actually in Southeast Arkansas, during the 70’s. My Dad was a Baptist preacher. I had never even met an African- American in person, although I had seen some in my trips to town. Yes, I was really in the boonies. And my whole life up to this point I had only heard them referred to as the “N” word. With all that being said, please don’t judge me on this story. I was, as you will be able to tell, always a little different than my ignorant surroundings. So, with all that being said, I present my first day in kindergarten…….