A Typical Day Picking Cotton

This is the ninth story from my father about the adventures of two brothers (Rafael and Gabriel) from a very poor family of 10 trying to make a living during the Great Depression in the 1930s.   This story takes place in the summer of 1932.  The other stories can be found in previous blogs: “A Trip to the Rancho to Work,” “The Fig Raid,”  ”the Saturday Hunt,”  “Our Bridge is Gone,” "Dracula Got us Fired," “Having a Meal at the Smorgasbord,” “The Whipping” and “Coffee, Sugar, Firewood and Meat.”

A Typical Day Picking Cotton

This had been the hottest day Rafael could remember.  Their dad had bought them some leather sandals (huaraches) in the public market a few weeks ago but neither Rafael nor Gabriel liked to wear them, they always went barefooted.  In fact the two kids did not have a pair of shoes until they were 12.  They were wearing the sandals today!  They had both gone back to the campsite under the mesquite and dug the sandals out of their hemp bags (red or morral).  Catarino just smiled to himself when he saw them coming back with their sandals on.  It was so hot it they could not withstand on the hot dirt even though their soles were so callused they could walk on sharp gravel and it felt no different to them than walking on a smooth surface.

They were both about half way through a 600-ft row of cotton picking from rows on each side.  Their bags were about a third full with about 30 pounds and it took quite an effort to drag.  It had a strap that went around their shoulder and chest and both of them were standing in a “lean” forward that just balanced the weight of the bag.  Their small straw hats were soaked around the rim with sweat, they did not have a shirt, but the strap of their “Pay-Day” pants was stained with salt and mineral deposits from sweating on it for several days, they looked like streaks and blotches of white on their very dirty tanned colored pants.  They had been too tired the last few days and did not want to make the trip to the river to “bathe.”  But today, their dad said they could stop early and go down to bathe and wash their clothes.  They had filled the glass bottles they had brought with water and had buried them at the end of the row.  Burying them kept them a little cool and they each had a goal to finish a row before taking a drink. 

It was late morning and Rafael had had enough, he “unhitched” himself from the bag of cotton and started walking toward the water.  “Wait until you finish the row son,” Catarino said.  “I can’t dad; I have to have a drink now!”  Rafael said.  Gabriel did the same thing.  They went and took a long drink and got back to their routine.  Before noon, the temperature must have been at least 42ᵒ C (over 107ᵒ F) and they were slowing down.  They broke for lunch and walked to the Mesquite tree where they were camping.  In the dry climate the shade made a big difference and they felt a little cool.  Catarino had made some tacos from the food left over the night before and the two kids they dug into them.  He poured them some cold coffee that was made that morning in the clay pot into their drinking cans.  The water had boiled and was “purified.”   They laid down for a bit and Catarino lapsed into a fast nap (a siesta).  The boys got their energy back in a few minutes and got up and went “hunting.”  

Not much to hunt in the middle of the day except for a few lizards and a couple of scorpions.  They had gone about the length of the row of cotton when they startled a rabbit and it shot out from some brush near the trunk of a small tree.  They chased after it and soon decided to hold back and let the rabbit stop before they could shoot at it.  It was a “cat and mouse” game for about 15 minutes.  Every time they got close to where it was the rabbit would spring and dart to another location.  Gabriel told Rafael to continue toward him in one direction and he would sneak on him from the back.  They both got their sling shots ready and walked slowly to where they saw him last.  Gabriel saw it first and signaled to Rafael where it was.  They both made their slingshot ready.  Gabriel shot first and the Rabbit did a flip in the air and landed on his feet at the same place, Rafael shot shortly after and also hit him as he came back down from the flip.  The rabbit didn’t have a chance!  They picked up the rabbit and ran back to their father who had awaken and was preparing a pot a beans to cook for the evening meal, if he put them in a fire now they would be done by the time they quit for the day.  “Look dad!  Look dad!  Look at what we got!” they both exclaimed with excitement at the same time.  Catarino looked at the two boys, smiled shaking his head and took it from them.  It should make a good meal for tonight.  “I guess you boys are good hunters,” he told them.  They were both very proud.  Any prouder and they would burst.  Catarino cut the rabbit open, cleaned it, skinned it, washed it and hung it on a shady part under a tree.   The boys were watching all this and were amazed at how fast he did it.  “It should still be good by this evening,” he said, “now let’s get back to work.”

A couple of times during the afternoon Catarino would send one of the kids to put some more wood in the fire so that the beans would cook.  It wasn’t a very productive day with all that heat and they quit early.  They went down to the river to wash and the boys ran in with their clothes on so they could be “washed.”  They took their clothes off after a while, wringed them and hung them on some bushes.  Their dad was washing upriver a bit and they went back in the water to play.  The water was relatively clean and they felt good when they were called to come out.  They put their clothes back on, a little damp but OK and walked back to camp with their dad.  You boys go fetch some water from Don Argϋello’s well while I prepare the dinner.  And the two boys ran off with a large can with a handle.

The beans were done and Catarino took the pot out of the fire and put it aside.  He cut a small branch with a fork and skewered the rabbit on it and placed it over the fire to cook, rabbit was OK but it was tough cooked this way, but they did not have the luxury of a making a stew.   He then got some corn meal, mixed it with some water and a little lard and made the mix for some corn bread.  Covered the iron skillet with some lard and poured the mix into it.  He covered it with the sheet metal cover and placed it in the hot coals.  The corn should be done by the time the rabbit is done and we will have a feast tonight, with dessert from a watermelon Don Argüello had brought over earlier.  He would also have enough leftovers for breakfast and lunch tomorrow.

The boys came back they finished their meal.  They were proud of their rabbit and the corn bread was great, they lover corn bread with beans.  The watermelon was perfect, the topping of the feast, very sweet.  They sat and talked for a bit and heard some stories from their dad about how they had moved here and life in Parras.  They had heard these before but they still like hearing them.  They put down their mats and sleeping blankets put the block rope around each of them to protect them from rattle snakes.  Catarino did not believe in this.  He had been sleeping in the open most of his life and never been bothered by snakes.  He had heard that the Rattle snakes are afraid of King snakes, because a King snake will eat a Rattlesnake, and when a Rattlesnake sees the rope, it doesn't take any chances, and avoids it.  But the boys believed it so he played along and put a rope around his sleeping area.  The sun had set and the sky was full of stars.  The kids were tired and fell asleep right away.  Catarino stayed awake a few more minutes and thought to himself, maybe tomorrow will not be so hot.

The Trip to the Rancho to Work

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The Fig Raid

This is the seventh story from my father about the adventures of two brothers (Rafael and Gabriel) from a very poor family of 10 trying to make a living during the Great Depression in the 1930s.   This story takes place in the summer of 1933.  The other stories can be found in previous blogs:”the Saturday Hunt,”  “Our Bridge is Gone,” "Dracula Got us Fired," “Having a Meal at the Smorgasbord,” “The Whipping” and “Coffee, Sugar, Firewood and Meat.”

The Fig Raid

To Rafael and Gabriel, Oscar Guajardo, was the richest man in the world.  Mr. Guajardo (the boys called him Don Placido), was the owner of the little store a few block from the house where they lived.   Chita was always sending the two boys to his store for something.  Several times a week the order included the “big ticket items;” coffee, sugar, firewood and meat (café, azúcar, leña y carne was one of her standard orders).  Other times she would send them to the store for milk, or bread, or when she didn’t make them at home, tortillas.  But that was rare since she made the tortillas from scratch for boiled corn that she ground down.  Alejandro and Catarino would buy the sacks of corn from the warehouse.

One day, Chita gave them two cents and told them to go and buy milk, “and make sure that is not goat’s milk,” his sister would yell at them as they left the house.  They knew what they had to do go and rinse the two liter pan with a handle and cover and run to the store and get the milk.  The pot was made of tin with a coating of backed enamel.  But the enamel was chipped in several places and the pot was showing its wear.   They got to the store and asked Mr. Guajardo for two cents of milk.  Mr. Guajardo was extremely myopic and could only tell the boys were there by their voice.  “Where is your pot?”  He asked.   The boys would place the pot in the counter with a bang so he could hear it, he would walk slowly to his container of fresh milk, dip it out with his measuring dipper, bringing the dipper within a couple of inches from his eyes so that he could see the level and poured the liter of milk into the boy’s pot.  The boys would pay them and walked away.

Mr. Guajardo’s store was on the corner at the far end of the block farthest from their house.  His house was around the corner with a big yard dividing his house and the store.  But Mr. Guajardo owned the whole block, and it was the longest block in their neighborhood.  He had a small building in the opposite corner of his property and the whole property was fenced in with a high fence made of various materials.  Part of the fence near his store and his house around the block was made out of concrete.  Mr. Guajardo had a big fruit orchard with oranges, lemons, avocados, and other assorted fruits scattered throughout the property.  But the objects of the boys, desire were the two large fig trees near his house.  Rafael and Gabriel loved figs and would do anything for them. 

After walking out with the milk they decided to take the long way home – walk around the block.  That would take them by his house and they could see how “their” figs were doing.  They could see through the fence that some of the figs were beginning to get ripe and some of the ripe ones on top of the tree were already being eaten by birds.  To them it was a shame to let the birds ruin those beautiful black-blue colored figs.  They decided that since they needed them more than the birds, they “help” Mr. Guajardo get rid of the figs growing on top of the trees where he could not reach them anyway.  Their strategy was to sneak out of their house just before sunrise when everyone in Mr. Guajardo’s house was still asleep, pick the figs and get back to their house before anybody knew they were gone.

The next morning they heard Chita get up and start a fire in the kitchen, their brother Alejandro also got up, had something to eat and left the house.  Chita went to the back yard and the two boys got up stealthily and walked out of the house.  The sun was just about to rise when they got to the far wall of Mr. Guajardo’s fence near his house.  They climbed up the fence pole next to the concrete fence and on top of the concrete fence.  They walked on the fence and climbed on the roof of the house.  They walked on the edge of the roof to where a branch of one of the fig trees just hung over the corner of the roof.  They had forgotten to bring something to carry the figs and Gabriel was the only one with a shirt.  He took off his shirt and began to pick and eat figs.  In the middle of this process they froze still.  “Who’s up there?” Mr. Guajardo was yelling from the ground looking straight at them.  The boys stayed perfectly still in the high branches.  They knew Mr. Guajardo couldn’t see and he certainly could not even make out their outline from that distance.  “Who’s up there?”  He kept on asking, but not a peep from the two boys.  He started to go back home calling his wife and the two boys took advantage of it by climbing to the branch closest to the house, up the branch, on to the roof, back the way they came on the concrete fence and down the first pole where the wire portion of the fence began.  As they started down the street running, they could hear Mr. Guajardo swearing at the distance. 

They got home with a shirt full of figs and Chita was very upset with them because the shirt was all stained.  “Where did you get these?  She asked as she took a bite of a big ripped one.  “From a fig tree branch hanging over the fence in Mr. Guajardo’s property,” they both answered with the lie they had rehearsed on the way home.   “The birds were going to get them anyway so we got up early and beat them to them!”  They both said at the same time.   “Don’t let me catch you stealing anything,” she said as she walked away.

The Saturday Hunt

This is the sixth story from my father about the adventures of two brothers (Rafael and Gabriel) from a very poor family of 10 trying to make a living during the Great Depression in the 1930s.   This story takes place in August of 1932 after the flood, but it was a typical day for the two boys.  The main plot of the story with the snakes was augmented with other short descriptions of building sling shots that he recounted at different times. The other stories can be found in previous blogs: “Our Bridge is Gone,” "Dracula Got us Fired," “Having a Meal at the Smorgasbord,” “The Whipping” and “Coffee, Sugar, Firewood and Meat.”

The Saturday Hunt

The activities in the summer of 1932 were beginning to slow down by late August.  They had helped their father pick the cotton in the Rancho del Carrizo, a farm about 20 miles southwest of the city.  “Helped,” of course, consisted of picking two or three long rows of cotton each day for several weeks.   It was a week and a half since the big flood and things had settled down in the city.  Aside from the railroad bridge being washed away, the lower levels of town, the plaza and “downtown” area included, were totally flooded.  But the waters had receded and Rafael and Gabriel were ready to go out and conquer the world.  Hunting trips was what they did every day but this one, as it turned out, was a special one.

The second Saturday after the big flood they decided to build a new sling shot for Rafael.  The two boys were experts at the sling shot and they could hit a tarantula at 50 feet almost 100 percent of the time.  Birds, cans, snakes, rabbits and any other small creature was no contest to them and they were always in open season.   The flood, had cleaned out the riverbanks, but it also brought in a new supply of materials and they were ready to go end explore.  Hey got up Saturday morning and there wasn’t anything to eat in the kitchen.  There was a small machete in the corner of the cooking area, an adobe fireplace build up so that the cooking area was about waist high.  Chita kept a fire going most of the time and got ups to boil water for coffee every morning.  There was no fire that Saturday morning and Gabriel grabbed the machete and walked with it out of the house holding it next to his leg so it would not be noticed.  Rafael had gone to the water faucet in the back yard to pick up a razor blade.  His father kept his razor in a small wooden shelf on the adobe wall behind the faucet and put the old used razors stuck in a crack on the wood in the back of the shelf.  Rafael picked up the old razor, wrapped it in a piece of old newspaper, put it in his pocket and went out to meet Gabriel already on the way to the river.  

The first thing they had to do is find a mesquite with the branch with just the right type fork.  The perfect slingshot depends on a perfect fork and the hard wood of the mesquite made the perfect fork.  They had to backtrack back inland into the open field away from the river to find the mesquite trees.  A few trees later and there is was, the perfect fork for the perfect slingshot.  Gabriel started hacking at the branch and in short time they had it cut, trimmed and formed to the right size.  “Now we have to look for a sling shot for you” Gabriel said.  “I thought that was for me” Rafael responded.  In short time they found another tree with just the right type of branch and in short time they were on their way back to replace the machete before someone noticed that it was missing.  They put the machete back and made their way back to the river.  The second component of the slingshot was very crucial and they had to find just the right type; an inner tube from a car tire.  It could be a tube from a truck tire but the rubber was heavier and it was harder to pull. Also most of the truck tire tubes were made of synthetic rubber and it did not stretch the same way.  The older cars still used natural rubber.

They did not find any tubes on the river bank but they found the third component, a couple of old shoes.  They cut the leather tongues with the razor blades and they would trim them for the pockets of the sling shot.  They did find a large piece of a car inner tube one on the main road to Monterrey.  Someone must have had a flat and changed the tube leaving the old blown out tube on the road.  It was a treasure because it was real rubber and large enough to make many sling shots.  They took it to the house and sitting on the shady part of the house they proceeded to cut the straps for the sling shot and the thinner straps to tie the main straps.  Cutting the straps was tricky because they had to be smooth cuts with the same width for the whole length of the strip.  Rafael held the two ends of the cut sections and Gabriel held the other end of the piece of tube and slid the razor blade in a smooth stroke cutting each strip about 3/8 of an inch wide.  They did the same process to cut very thin strips to about “rubber-band” size and they would use these to tie the rubber straps to the fork and to the pocket.  They then finished cutting and shaping the pockets for the stones and making the small slits where the straps will be tied.  They put the straps through the slits and folded them over and with the thin straps began to tightly.  They did the same to tie the rubber straps to the fork and they had their new sling shots.

Chita had called them to eat something and they had some beans that had just finished cooking.  It was still early afternoon and they had to go out and try their new weapons.

They started walking toward the empty field to the southeast of town picking up the “perfect” stones, and getting the feel for the sling shot at any and all targets real or imaginary; butter flies, stumps, pieces of paper stuck in the brush, and what seemed to be hundreds of lizards..  They and soon had their pockets full of perfect stones and they had gotten the feel of their new sling shots.  The heavy rains from a week ago had left many puddles, something not normally seen in the dessert area.  There was a large puddle in the distance and Rafael noticed that roots seemed to growing from the branches of a mesquite tree near the large puddle.  As they got closer to see, they noticed that the low branches of the mesquite was cover with rattle snakes, and the whole ground around the little pond was completely covered with snakes – perfect target for their sling shots!  With their pockets full of stones, this was the hunt of the century!  They made every stone count hitting the rattlers in the head.  Once hit, the snake would wiggle and twist and die.  By the time they finished they had killed every snake on their side of the puddle; 32 in all.  Some were very large, taller than they were and most of them had 8 to 12 rattles and some of them had 18.  They cut the rattles and strung them in a long thin branch.  

They were walking back home with their trophies when they realized that they could not tell their brother Alejandro or their sister Chita where they were, not if they did not want to get a whipping for being near the snake den.  They thought about it and decided to put their trophies in a tree and come back for them later.  Before Gabriel climbed the tree, they both checked the branches for scorpions.  There were several resting on a couple of branches but a few shots from their sling shots knocked them off and their trophy went on the tree. 

“Where have you boys been?” Their sister Chita asked.  “Oh, just testing our new sling shots” and they both showed her their new slings proudly.  “Well don’t shoot them in the street and don’t go near anything dangerous,” Chita warned them with an angry tone and went back to doing her chores.  “We won’t,” they both replied at the same time and walked back outside.  They had a couple of cents and they walked to the bakery to buy a funnel of pastry crumbs.

Our Bridge is Gone

This is the fifth story from my father about the adventures of two brothers (Rafael and Gabriel) from a very poor family of 10 trying to make a living during the Great Depression in the 1930s.   This story takes place in August of 1932 The other stories can be found in previous blogs: "Dracula Got us Fired," “Having a Meal at the Smorgasbord,” “The Whipping” and “Coffee, Sugar, Firewood and Meat.”

Our Bridge is Gone

Life for the two boys, Rafael and Gabriel, was sometimes amazement and awe.  Being two kids in a family of 10, with very little means and without a mother had become normal for them.  Their big sister Chita, although only 12 in 1932, she had taken over the household chores and took care of many of their basic needs.  Their mother Altagracia had died almost two years before from complications after giving birth to their little brother, Roberto.  Their Father Catarino had been working on a farm in Texas and had come back for the weekend.  There was a heavy rain and very windy all day Saturday and they were planning to go with him to Mass early Sunday morning on August 14, 1932.  Catarino liked to go to the early mass, and getting up so early on Sunday was something the two boys did not like, but it was not raining and life was good for the 7 and 8 year kids.  They played the rest of the day.  On Monday the Catarino had planned on going to work in Texas, but it was too wet and windy and the foreman at the farm told him to go back home, the ground was too wet and they probably could not get back to work until late in the week.  He would stay around the house fixing things that needed to be fixed with the two boys helping.  They enjoyed having him around the house.

A few days earlier, around August 9, 1932, a storm was forming off Haiti; it started north and crossed the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico dropping lots of rain in the city of Merida.  On August 11, off the coast of Yucatan, the storm intensified and formed into a category 1 hurricane.  It moved across the Gulf of Mexico, increasing in intensity to a category 4 landing on the Texas town of Freemont on evening of August 14, 1932.  The storm killed 40 near the town and continued to drop nearly 10 inches of rainfall as it moved northwest.  The eye crossed the coast about 10 p.m. on August 13, slashing a 30- to 40-mile wide path of destruction across Brazoria County, Texas. It finally dissipated in the Texas panhandle.  According to the official accounts, “the greatest single toll for any town was 7 in West Columbia, Texas, where sustained winds over 100 mph flattened homes. Two neighborhoods that had been constructed for oil industry workers there were wiped clean. Freeport, Angleton and Galveston suffered extensive wind damage, and the inland towns of Brazoria, West Columbia, Damon and Needville, all in the path of the eye, were also devastated.”  But, the forty people in the official count were not the only casualties.

The Family lived on “Bravo” street in Nuevo Laredo, the first block running parallel to the river “The Rio Grande,” but in Mexico it is called the Rio Bravo.  Between the house and the river was cotton gin, a small factory with several cotton gins, machines that quickly and easily separated cotton fibers from their seeds.  Behind them and on the edge of the river was a hide-curing and tanning shop – not the best smelling place, especially when the wind came from the north.  On the morning of Tuesday August 16^th, the kids awaken to city-wide excitement.  They had awakened early because rainy days were special for the two kids.  To them it meant money!  Nuevo Laredo did not have a paved street and rainy days created giant puddles and seas of mud.  They had two long planks they had found in the river last year and with a couple of bricks, they could make crossing bridges over the streets’ mud. At 3 to 5 cents per crossing they were making enough money for movies for the rest of the year!

The excitement in town was because the water level in the river was rising.  It was just below the rails on the railroad bridge from Nuevo Laredo to Laredo Texas and still rising.  Around 2:00 in the afternoon, the kids took their planks back to the house and went to the railroad bridge to see the river.  When they got there they could see trees, cattle, horses, small houses and all types of debris, floating down the river.  Their older brother, Antonio, a great swimmer, was busy dragging large branches and small tree trunks from the floating debris and piling up on the shore for use as firewood for cooking in the house.  A great effort, but just a useless effort, for at the end, when it became too dangerous to go after the drifting wood and the river crested, all his pile went floating down the river.  A couple of hundred people, from both sides of the river had walked on the bridge to watch this amazing thing: Houses, wagons, countless trees and brush, cattle, everything floating down the river nobody had seen anything like it before. 

Sometime later, the people from the railroad began to warn people to get off the bridge because it was in danger of being washed away.  It was a wooden bride with pilings and the trees and debris were beginning to accumulate on the up-river part of the bridge.  Most people ignored the warning and about 6 in the evening, the bridge began to cark and lean.  People started to run to each end of the bridge, but the break-up was too quick.  The trees and debris had piled so high that they formed a dam and the pressure of the water was too much for the bridge to hold back.  Rafael and Gabriel could see the bridge going over, people falling into the water trying to come up for air, but the trees and debris and the turbulence in the water dragged them back down.  Others, that could still move, try to climb on branches and on anything that was floating but he current and the turbulence was too much and could not stay afloat.  The timbers of the bridge and the rails rolled over most of the people, completing the job the trees and debris were doing to drag the people under water.  Rafael and Gabriel saw three people who had managed to get on a floating tree branch and ran down the bank of the river to see if they could get out.  They seem to be afraid to make a swim for it to the shore, plus with all the debris they probably didn’t have a chance.  The boys kept on running on the river bank and saw that the tree with its three passengers was coming up to the second bridge; the one for cars, trucks and pedestrians.

The second bridge, made from concrete, seemed to be stronger but it was lower to the rising water.  Like the railroad bridge, the debris had piled up and was damming the water flow.  The three people on the tree were washed against the pile of debris against the bridge and began to climb on top of the debris to the bridge.  One of them fell and was sucked underwater by the current.  The other two made it to the bridge and Rafael and Gabriel could see them running toward the end of the bridge on the Mexican side.  The gates controlling access to the bridge were closed and officials on both ends of the river were trying to get them open, no so much to let the two survivors out, they were trying to get on the bridge to cut the railing in an attempt to more easily allow the debris to flow over the bride and maybe save the bridge.  They managed to get most of the railing cut before the water began to rest over the bridge.  Shortly after Rafael and Gabriel could see that most of the debris; houses, trees, cattle, hundreds of trees and large brush was flowing over the bridge.  The effort to remove the railing was a success and the bridge was saved.

It was fairly dark by this time and the two boys decided to go back home.  Both boys were awed by the sights and experience, but they too young to comprehend the tragedy of the loss of life.  The people that drowned, four days after the hurricane made landfall in Freeport, Texas, were never counted in the “official” deaths from the hurricane that year.

Path of second hurricane in 1932 (they had not started naming them yet):