When he was born,
Television had yet to be invented,
And penicillin had not yet been discovered
There were only silent films,
He never had chance to see
And the Great Depression loomed in the next decade,
Threatening,
In the time horizon
The son of dirt-poor Mexican-American share croppers
In the Coastal Bend near Victoria
He learned nothing but stoop labor
In the cotton fields of Austwell
For a childhood
A population shunned by the schools,
The townspeople
And society
Things only grew harder after that
So bad, in fact,
That they raised stakes,
These Americans
And headed south to La Laguna
In Coahuila, to escape
Starvation, discrimination
To be
Among their own
And where the Mexican government promised
Land, work and
To treat them like citizens
Of the land
He was just 12 then,
And the jet engine had just been invented, as had
The iron lung, and Scotch tape
The ball point pen was coming
As was the helicopter, and photocopying
And so he lived
And grew up
Married and had children
As a young couple,
They'd trade letter with grandma
Using Sultan, the dog, as a messenger
For lack of postal service in the ranches
To move, later, to Tamaulipas
And harvest cotton there,
And as a "wetback" for U.S. money, in Texas
One of the times he was stopped
Swimming the Rio
La migra asked him why
He didn't use the bridge
And it was then he heard
From la abuela,
That yes, indeed
Tu eres Americano
And so he brought his family over
And worked - with them - in northern fields
And bought a home, put them in school
The ones born there, and the ones here
By then, another World War had passed
The nuclear bomb had been dropped
And the transistor changed the world
Like Rock and Roll
Microwaves, bikinis, Tupperware
Moon landing, Mars probes,
Cell phones are here
To replace the fiel Sultan
And keep track of the Martian Rover
And keep track of the Martian Rover
His house is lined with photos
Of progeny in uniforms
Who served
And photos of those now gone
One daughter a Ph.D., others
Sons, grandsons and daughters
On their way there
Today, at 95, he reminisces on a life
On countless wonders, surprising turns
Along the way
Sons and daughters, nieces and nephews
Coming though the old homestead gate
with great-grandsons and girls
In tow
A lifetime of hardship,
Joys, triumphs and defeats
Swirl around the old anvil
Surrounded, as Sandburg said,
By many broken hammers
My dad, at 95
Happy Birthday, Apa