The Milkman and the Little Boy
Early Years
I was born at my grandmother's house on the West side of Saltillo in Northern Mexico. My father and mother moved to the East side to join more relatives and friends living in the area. The same milkman served both by grandmother's home and our new home, stopping first at my grandmother's and several hours later at my mother's house. I'm not sure who had the great idea of asking the milkman to take me from one place to another, but he accepted and there began my travels that have not stopped now in my mid 80s. The hose-pulled vehicle had a flat back where he kept the milk containers, then was the seat that could easily accommodate two people. The one horse would slowly move through the streets and made many stops. I began to learn the street names, and if they were East/West or North/South streets. Since many of the streets had cobble stoned surfaces, the two very large wheels made a special sound. These appear to very long trips, but in reality the two houses were only 10 blocks apart.
A Touch of Class
The most pleasant feeling of touch as a child was my mother's hair. She had very long and thick black hair and would wear braids. Sometimes in the late afternoon she would be sitting in a low chair at our patio waiting for the evening and would ask me to comb her hair. I did it with pleasure, even when I was very small, no more than five years old. She had a brush made with fiber from the lechuguilla plant that was abundant in our high deserts. I would start on her right side and slowly move back until I reached the left side when I finished. The touch of her hair produced in me a feeling of calmness, softness and very much pleasure. Her hair was lovely and once a week she would wash it well with amole, a root of a desert plant which had great soap properties. She would smash the root, place it in water and proceed to was her hair with it.
Light & Darkness
As a child in Mexico, I remember well when night came. As soon as the light on the outside patio was gone, we were permitted to turn on the house lights and we had them on only as long as we needed. I remember the bulbs were very low wattage, maybe 10-20 watts, there was light but not very much and it was expensive and provided by an English company. To save on electricity, we went to bed early and all the lights were turned off. Sometimes the electricity was cut off, often an accident at the plant or a truck hitting a post and downing the wires. There were times when the electric service was cut off for non payment and we had to light our rented home with candles that also give very little light. My grandmother had a very large painting of the Virgen de Guadalupe, it was given to her grandmother for her great work teaching catechism to children. I now own that painting, it was given to me by my uncle Luis. In this home we would blow out the candles, but there was always a light coming from an altar at the base of the Virgen, always with candles burning day and night. We may not have had money for food but we sure did have money to buy candles for the Virgen de Guadalupe.
Don Reynaldo & His Grandson
One fall in the 1980’s while attending the FIL, Feria Internacional del Libro in Guadalajara, Mexico, we visited Don Zenon Martinez Garcia, a famous Mexican folk art artist who lived in Tlaquepaque. He makes beautiful miniature figures out of clay. We were thinking of producing a calendar of Mexican folk artists, so we needed to interview him. We knocked at the door and a lady welcomed us and took us to his shop. After introductions, we began to ask questions and take notes. We exchanged stories about our lives. He told us how he gets his clay from a nearby location, how he prepares it, how he mold the pieces by hand,
fire them and then paint them with natural colors he makes himself. I told Don Zenon that when I was a child, maybe five years old, my grandfather Don Reynaldo Ayala asked my mother for permission to take me with him selling live chickens from door to door. I described him just like he was, a simple man who had spent his life in rural Mexico caring for his animals. The conversation was great and long and we noticed that he was working on something, while he was talking, but did not ask what he was doing. At the end of the interview, which lasted more than three hours, his sister showed us what they had for sale and we bought two nacimientos or Nativity scenes, one plain, not painted and a second beautifully decorated but with two baby Jesus, one in the cradle and the other in Mary’s arms. Sometime later, maybe a month or so, we got in the mail a small package, carefully wrapped with, a small clay figurine of an old man with a hat and chickens in his hands but also a child looking like they were crossing the street, also with chickens in his hands. It was beautifully finished and painted and it was a great and wonderful surprise to us. We have his work in a special case to show the pictures of Don Zenon and his sister in our private museum in La Mesa, California.