I was cracking myself up as I drove to the doctors office today just thinking about some of the fun and funny things we did growing up. Luckily no one was watching me in the car next to me and hopefully no one in front of me noticed.
I never knew I was poor as a little kid. I think I finally realized it when I was about 8 or 9 years old because my so-called friend, Annette, was playing Barbie's with the neighborhood girls and she wouldn't let me borrow one of her Barbies since I didn't have any of my own. That was the first time I realized that I didn't have the same cool toys my other friends had or the same cool clothes. And by the way yes she's still my friend. I, of course, remind her of that every time we start talking about old times. And no she's not as selfish as she was at 5 years old, well not as much. Love you Nettie! I met Annette in the park when we were 5 years old and she was wearing her heavy winter coat in the spring. We made so much fun of her for that. She was a mama's girl for sure! I ate my first pickle with Annette (I never had tasted one before believe it or not, and yes I love pickles). Annette taught me what a nightgown was (I only knew them by pajamas), and she was the only friend I was allowed to have sleep-overs with. She is half Mexican and half Polish. She claimed to not speak a lick of Spanish but she totally understood everything we said about her. I remember that I was mainly Spanish speaking until the 3rd grade when I went bilingual in school. So I'm not exactly sure how we communicated. Interesting. She was a pill but I grew to love her like a sister. What started out as playing dolls, sucking on the limes and salt when mom wasn't looking, staying up late under the covers, and playing dress up with my older sisters' clothes and high-heels eventually turned into flirting with the cute boys, going to dance clubs, staying out late, and drinking and smoking cause we thought it was soooo cool. My mom always called her my "alcahueta" or my instigator. We definitely had fun times together. Our paths finally separated when I started going to church for the right reasons and started hanging out with "los jovenes solteros", the Young Single Adult group in my church. We kind of lost touch for a while there. But life has a way of always bringing us back together.
So I live in a very affluent area. Nothing like what it was, growing up in the south side of Chicago in the Mexican neighborhoods with the gangs, the graffiti, and the Mexican tiendas everywhere. Here in our neighborhood I see lots of nice cars, beautiful houses with big yards and fences made of beautiful wood and not the ugly chain-linked fences. Yards with trampolines, basketball courts, propane BBQers, and backyard patios with the pretty umbrellas and padded chairs. There's trees with green leaves that blossom in the spring, clean streets that for the most part don't have garbage debris flying everywhere. And I say "for the most part" cause it's very windy here and garbage flies everywhere on garbage pickup days but seems to promptly get cleaned up by the street sweepers. I see lots of people walking in my neighborhood that actually are walking for recreational purposes instead of walking to the laundromat, the store, or to get to work which is the only reason that people in my neighborhood growing up were walking to. And I have to say I ABSOLUTELY LOVE where I live! It's such a wonderful area. My kids love it too and we feel pretty safe here. The bonus is the beautiful views and the abundantly gorgeous flora and fauna everywhere you turn.
So back to my driving to the doctor's office and why I was cracking myself up. First of all I had all these things as a kid! I just realized that today! I had a trampoline! It was a Mexican trampoline but a trampoline nonetheless. Let me explain. I was about 3 years old and we had just immigrated to the U.S. from Mexico. We were living with my Uncle Piri's family. So it was my parents, my Aunt and Uncle, their 3 kids and me and my 5 siblings. Not sure how big their house was but it couldn't of been too big. So I remember we had mattresses that we had propped up against the walls and at night we would move the sofas and lay the mattresses on the floors. I loved nighttime and had hours and hours of fun jumping on my trampoline mattresses. I'd jump from one mattress to another and I'd fall backwards a hundred times. So much fun!
Growing up I loved where I lived, especially my neighborhood water park. Not the water park like at our local gym with the pool and the slide and the cool water fountain coming out of the pool, no that is lame compared to what we had growing up. Chicago summers, as I remember were hot, humid and just absolutely miserable! When the weather hit the 90's it was a sure deal that one of the locals would, with their stolen or purchased (on the black market) firefighter key open the water hydrant. All that was needed was a tire or a 2x4. They would either put the tire over the hydrant before turning it on and then turn the water on and have an instant fountain that reached the other side of the street. Or they would use a 2x4 and force it up against the hydrant and make manual fountains, or sometimes when they were desperate and didn't have either of these items they would have one of the guys use his arms and hands to make manual fountains. The tire, by far, was the preferred method since it provided a continuous and perfectly huge fountain! The cars would have to slow down and make sure their windows were closed. Our water park was always short lived though because the fire department would always come and turn off the hydrants until someone learned that if we plugged the storm drains we had these massive puddles, and by massive I mean pond-like puddles! So we had hours and hours of fun.
Most of the houses we lived in had small kitchens with minimal cupboard space. So my wise mother improvised by using our oven as extra space to store the pots, pans, and dishes. The only time we had to take the dishes out to use the oven was to toast our tortillas to make them crunchy when we couldn't go to the store for tostadas. It wasn't until I was like 9 or 10 that some sister missionaries showed my sisters how to make pineapple upside down cake. They made that cake until we all grew tired of it and then started using our oven for storage again. Later my mom started making turkeys on thanksgiving day and we started using the oven once a year. So while I was at my brothers house this past month I don't know what made me look in his oven and I saw a bunch of dishes in there. I had to chuckle cause some things never change.
As a kid, we moved around A LOT sometimes up to 2 times a year!. I'm sure it was hard moving but seriously I think I loved that nothing ever got boring. I was always seeing different parts of the city. And we always knew where all the good Mexican stores were. If you wanted good tamales you go to 18th street, if you wanted the best Mexican pastries or the best polish pickles the size of your hand you'd go to Pilsen, the best Caldo de Cameron or the best fried shrimp you'd go to 26th street. I didn't realize this until just recently that I really had a lot of fun growing up. I loved getting to see the different parts of Chicago as a kid.
You know what I've learned? That life and family is never perfect, that life brings struggles and challenges. And that's OK...it's actually more than OK, it's awesome! As human beings we always want more, we always want something that we don't have, and when we get what we want we often times lose interest or appreciation. Life sucks sometimes but you always have to make the best of things. As a kid I remember being pretty grateful and then as a teenager I lost that ability very quickly. I was selfish and always looking at what other people had that I didn't. At 43 I feel like I finally am back to where I started...Grateful and happy with what I HAD and HAVE. The experiences that I had growing up have made me the person that I am today and HARD WORK has brought me back to my love and appreciation for the simple things in life.
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| Some of the neat murals in my old neighborhoods. |
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