Colder Than A...G.I. Should Be. Punto.

How Cold Was It?

Michael Sedano

A Fall heat wave sweeps into Southern California. When that happens, an old man's fancy turns to thoughts of when he felt more cold than anyone deserves to feel. In 1969, the US Army stationed me at Bravo Battery, seventh of the fifth air defense artillery, B 7/5, where I lived a summer and a winter rotating between a comfortable base camp called the Admin Area, and the tac site atop mighty Mae Bong.  

Fire Control Operator and Wayne Concha behind the Commo hootch

Winter, 1969. 

Outside temperature readings on the digital display go black like the weather doesn’t want us to know. On the roof of our Quonset hut, the anemometer either has frozen and stuck, or it met its match in the elements. 25 knots, the device last reported. 

 

High above Korea on mighty mile-high Mae Bong, Site 7/5, we soldiers feel the thermometer dropping all day, we don’t need technology to spell it out. 

 

It is cold. Colder than inside the freezer at DeYoung’s poultry in warm Redlands, Califas, where gramma works. Too cold to be funny, witches and well-diggers go to hell.

 

-12º, the digital display’s last words. The Lieutenant works some math aloud, reporting to no one in particular a wind chill factor equivalent to some outrageous below zero temperature if you were outside in that storm. Only the commo guys go out into the storm. I work commo.

 

Inside the command hootch the sound of storm slamming against steel sides of the structure reminds us how lucky we are to be inside the hootch. A diesel-burning space heater glows without warming, the cold air sucks the hot right out of the heat. We wear our cold-weather gear inside and talk in gasps of perpetual shivering.

 

There’s a sign down in the Admin Area base camp bragging how this is the world’s highest, ruggedest, toughest missile site, admonishing our blithe spirits to be Proud to be here. Up here, on top, where it’s cold, those words would fall out of my mouth, shatter on the cement pad, leaving Red White and Blue puddles.

 

Normally, we’re on the mountain three days and two nights, but this latest storm has kept us five days already. Maybe tomorrow a deuce and a half will make it to the top bringing a ride down to hot chow, hot showers, a warm bunk, and restful sleep.

 

Snow plasters against the windward side of the whip antenna mounted to the roof above my radio. Each hourly commo check reads fainter and fainter. “How do you hear me? Over.” “I read you five by five.” “I read you four by three.” “I read you two by two.” Faint, scratchy, and weak, 2x2. It’s time to climb onto the roof sheltering the Quonset hut to de-ice the whip antenna.

Top of Mae Bong Commo Hootch Weather and Radio Equipment

It's one small leap for a soldier, one giant leap into the face of the storm when I jump onto the shed. I balance along the roofbeam buffeted by adrenalin-raising random gusts. I keep my feet under me and in a few moments I’ve attained the far end of the hootch, directly above my duty station. The antenna wears a hoary beard that’s crept around to envelop the entire rod.

 

I’ve brought the de-icing instrument—a length of wooden broom handle. Like a magician I straighten my left arm and the broom handle slides into my grasp. With practiced ease, I straddle some cables, set my boots on the eaves, and lift both arms with the broom stick tilted over my head in readiness to strike a mighty blow. We do this with ugly regularity. In this storm, I'm hoping for a few hours to pass before I have to do this again. 

 

The wind reaches a momentary peak, an enormous gust grabs my parka fills my frame like a sail. The storm lifts me off the roof of the commo hootch and I fly above the ground, the shattered boulders, the concertina wire, the precipice.

 

I am flying! In momentary exultation I look into the whiteness of the blowing storm imagining the view from up here. Down there, Chuncheon and Camp Page lie in the crook of the curving river. Lights will twinkle and pa’lla far away pa’lla the shining ribbon of river winds its way South to Seoul. I am Mary Poppins floating above the city. I am feathered-Icarus dressed in Army green, headed for a fall.

 

When I revive I’m relieved to be tangled in barbed wire, holding my broomstick. Blood has oozed through my long underwear and wool OG trousers making a reddish icicle. Nothing hurts despite I’m bent over backwards on a shattered boulder. I extricate from the concertina spiral, roll onto my feet, slap snow off my parka. Back to the jumping-off spot, leap onto the command hootch, negotiate my way to above my duty station. Ever-so-carefully, both arms lift the broomstick into the air and mission accomplished.

 

“How do you hear me? Over.” 

“I hear you five by five. Over.” 

“Roger. Out.”

 

The storm abates to a weak sleet and constant Siberian gusts of punishing wind. The Llieutenant comes into the commo room with bad news. His phone line to Maintenance is out. Fire control and commo section sit at the highest level of the hill. Below us, the LT keeps a chow hall and maintenance hootch in constant communication by a telephone line laid along the edge of the mountain.

Launchers at the ready, B 7/5. North Korea pa'lla 15 miles away.

We advise the Admin Area switchboard we’ll be out of commo for a while so they don't freak out not hearing from us on schedule. The cold and wind have snapped the line somewhere out there. Outside. Where it's pitch black night. Where it's windy and penetratingly freezing.

 

Finding and fixing a snapped twisted pair copper wire happens regularly. It’s no challenge when it's daylight and nice weather, even when we have no field wireman tools. We have X-acto knives from a hobby kit. We’d need a third hand to manipulate a flashlight so we go gently into the night working by feel.

 

The phone line runs strung through eyelet bolts hammered into the rock every twenty feet or so, as terrain allows on the edge of the cliff. It’s cautious going, toes feeling for rocks and craters, keeping the phone line in gloved hands. The wind plays havoc with gait and balance. Wind accelerates as it whips up cliffs before cutting over the edge like an air knife. 

 

We lean hard into invisible forces that make us wobble from whirling gusts. We've bent the soft zinc wire sewn into our fur-lined hoods so just our noses protrude into the air. Moisture freezes nostril hairs into hypodermic needles that make breathing a painful hazard when you reflexively wrinkle your nose against the cold and recoil from sleet, grit, and needlelike nose hairs.

 

Only the blowing animal hair of the fur-lined hood protects my glasses from the stinging flint bits the wind slams into exposed skin. My lenses clack with each impact and my cheeks recoil at each pinpoint of pain as grit infiltrates past the fur hood. I tell myself not to wrinkle my nose but I can't resist the urge to feel that unique kind of pain. 

 

We wear Army-green knee-length nylon hooded overcoats. A heavy quilted liner buttoned into the coat manages to fight off the worst of the cold and wind. We walk arms out like cartoon caricatures. Green wool glove liners inside supple leather gloves keep our fingers nimble enough that the snapping wire signals its location through our palms several feet from the whipping slack wire.

Dawn from atop Mighty Mae Bong

We back into the wind feeling ten to fifteen feet of whipping wire strapping against our shoulders and legs. Wrapping itself around the knees puts the thing in our grasp and the job ahead is simple. We pin down the free-flying telephone line, lodging the wires under rocks.

The line snapped just behind the Maintenance hootch. There's dim light from around the front of the Quonset hut. Here is good fortune.

 

I pull off my gloves to grip the free end of wire to strip off insulation exposing a couple inches of copper. I feel sensation leak out of my hands. Now my fingers can’t feel a thing. I observe my hand clasp around the loose wire. I witness the blade draw along the first of the paired wire. I give up making sense of this. I put on the gloves and run back to the hootch and the light. Concha, my homeboy this turn on the mountain, has mirrored my actions. In the lee of the Maintenance hootch we don't have to shout to make ourselves heard.

 

When I can flex hands again, a breath into the gloves returns sensation to my grasp. Concha and I run back to the splice. As before, we pull off the gloves and instant numbness. I strip the second wire, pull on the glove and run back trembling and shaking, to the light.

 

Four wires stripped, the task remains to twist the broken ends together, wrap the joint in rubber tape, go inside and test the line. "Are you ready?" Concha and I shout in agreement. 

We make a break for the break where there's just enough light to match the two stripped wires to each other, twist once, twice, three times. Not enough but Concha can’t work beyond. I take the line and twist once, twist twice, and I assume twist a third time before I have to get those gloves back on my frozen hands. We don’t use the tape. The ten-minute repair takes a miserable hour out of our lives.

 

The maintenance hootch offers cozy respite. With twenty bodies and three space heaters to warm two grateful commo guys, we're still too cold to relax. But we feel warmth and gratitude. Here, in the light, we get a look at our defrosting fingers.  The copper wire ripped into the flesh of our insensate frozen fingers leaving ragged gouges filled with frozen blood. Our blood icicles begin melting, covering the fingers with slushy blood that drips onto our knees. We laugh as pain wells up from our ragged torn flesh.

 

I crank the field telephone and the Lieutenant hears me Lima Charlie. Loud and Clear, five by five.

Specialist 4 Michael Sedano on tac site duty

 

 

Memorial Day 2022: Three Memories

SP4 Michael Sedano

 

 

Now is the darkest period in United States history, until another elementary school massacre shakes our cultural foundations. Memorial Day, dedicated to the nation’s war dead, already sets me melancholy with remembrance. Now we must remember these children along with those names on that wall.

 

I do remember men I trained with who went to Vietnam as Green Berets. Good souls, to a man.

Special Forces recruits on their final day at Ft. Ord.

 

But I don’t want to drag myself into a worse darkness than I find myself, battling Alzheimer’s Dementia. It shouldn’t have been like this, but this is what we have. 

 

Like when I got that Draft notice. Barbara wanted me to become a deserter. If not me, who, then? It was my turn. And that made all the difference. I wonder what would have happened, otherwise?

 

Memorial Day, 1963. Redlands, California.

 

Senior year and high school graduation nears. Mrs. Baccus tells me to prepare a reading of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address for a Memorial Day ceremony at the cemetery. I don’t mind it’s not Post 650, the Chicano post from the Northside. 

 

Choosing me to do the recitation is a natural. I’ve won a big regional speech contest for Post 106, and that summer, the post sponsored me for Boys State—a pretty big deal. 

 

Legionnaires were cordial to me, though I felt uneasy when among these guys. I wasn’t one of their fair-haired boys because I’d eliminated those in the preliminary contests, and that rankled. 

 

“Where are you from?” “What language do you speak at home?” “Where is your father from?” 

Here. English. Here. 

“You speak really good English.”

 

I show up in good time at the cemetery. I’ve worn my debater's outfit, a three-piece black pinstripe suit and polished toes. Muy formal feo y fuerte. I stride toward the site, United States flags strain against the hilltop breeze, a lot of flags. 

 

I spot a suit with a clipboard giving instructions to a Boy Scouts Color Guard. 

 

“Hi. I’m here to read “The Gettysburg Address.”

 

The man looks at his clipboard for a long moment, looks up but gazes beyond me. He says, “We’re not doing that.” 

 

I cross the lawn to my car. Those rampant flags sure make a patriotic noise, que no?

 

A July Day in 1969: Hwaak-ni, Republic of Korea

Mae Bong at Left, Admin Area Center

 

Hwaak-ni nestled with stunning isolation in the valley formed in the juncture of two mountains just South of the Demilitarized zone and North Korea. The Admin Area houses off-duty soldiers.

 

Duty is up on the Hill, Site 75, The Mountain, Mae Bong. Known throughout the Air Defense Artillery as “the highest and ruggedest HAWK site in world.” Already I know this, and it’s just my third night since I slept in Pasadena.

 

Generating electricity burns lots of diesel so the compound doesn’t have a lot of light. The Koreans don’t have electricity. The surrounding dark and thick humid air sounds of crickets, the running stream, and raucous laughter. 

 

Right now, I point myself toward the only light in front of me. Behind me, the light above the door to my hootch casts a long shadow that points to the lighted mess hall. It’s my first night of a year in Korea. The Sergeant’s orientation rings in my ears. 

 

“Sedano, you play your cards right and Korea is the best duty in the world. You report straight here do not go to morning formation. You go up on the mountain three days, down for two, like clockwork.” 

He’s saved the best for last.

 

“Get yourself a nice Yobo. Korean women know how to treat a man. My Petunia sure does. You keep your Yobo in soap and cigarettes, and she’ll take care of you like you are her lord and master.”

 

I wondered, was it a translation? “How did you find a girl way out here named ‘Petunia’?”

 

“Sedano, you can name them anything you want.”

 

My first night, and from now on, I elect to avoid “The Ville” and the Petunias of Korea. Tonight, I’ll get to know Bravo 7/5.

 

The chow hall door is propped open and the laughter easily pours out of the screen door. I step inside. Six guys stand around a table. This big rangy white boy is arm wrestling all comers. Two guys sit down while I watch. Radowski dispatches them easily. Radowski exults, challenging anyone to have a seat.

 

Not knowing anyone and no one knowing me, I step up to the table. “I can take you left-handed.”

 

Radowski swells to the challenge, flexes his biceps. 

 

“Oh yeah?” 

 

“Yeah.” 

 

Radowski rolls his t-shirt sleeve over his left shoulder and gives me a look. He’s confident but curious. I’m not a big guy and I’m still in my green fatigues. I roll my left sleeve four times to get the shirt good and  tight. I flex my puny biceps dramatically and sit to the table. The other guys at the end of the mess hall get up and come watch. We have an audience. Everyone not in the Ville is watching Radowski and the new guy.

 

The ref cups our fists, announces, “the New Guy against Radowski! Ready…” he pulls his hand up, “go!”

 

The big white boy is strong. He’s a high school football player from the Valley who joined the Army to escape a drug bust. Radowski’s a downer freak. We become good friends. 

 

Tonight, Radowski strains against the new guy to no avail. I hold my left arm rigid, lean into Radowski’s formidable power. But slowly Radowski’s arm weakens and mine exerts the slightest leverage.

 

The battery champion pinches his lips together against the force. In Korea's thick humid air, he's sweating profusely, desperate.

Radowski, Cole, Robledo, Lopez, Hughes, Perales

 

Radowski loses. 

 

The crowd isn’t happy. Their boy losing to the new guy, and no one knows who he is. I catch narrow suspicious eyes. A stranger among ‘em and he takes Radowski left-handed. 

 

Radowski’s injured ego demands a right-handed rematch. He’s loud about it.

 

A moment later, the mess hall erupts in screaming and hollering, laughing and giving Radowski a hard time. 

 

“You’ll win, man,” I announce. “I’m left-handed.”

 

 

Yellow Submarine Comes to Bravo 7/5

 

It’s September in sultry South Korea. The USO has brought Yellow Submarine to Hwaak-Ni and the vatos have come down off the hill ready for a good time. 

 

Puro mexicano looking, Gonzales speaks Spanish like a Mexican, but when he opens his mouth in English he sounds like Charley Pride. 

Robledo is off the streets of SanAnto, a homeboy cruiser with memories. A good man. 

Lopez is guero with a nopal en la frente. Lopez, who speaks only Spanish, one night vows to make a pilgrimage to la virgen -- on his knees the whole way bleeding in agony, we tease him -- when he gets out of this pinche outfit. 

Cole, the Dallas Dartmouth dropout, joined up. He's a lost child of the 60s, a good man regretting a bad decision. He should have studied.

Hughes, the son of a New York policeman, will have a conversation with his dad about smoking pot. The plant grows wild here at Hwaak-ni.

Perales from Morgan Hill, where I picked chavacan as a kid, stands perpetually befuddled. "Sedano, you're crazy" is the teenager’s standard refrain. 

Concha. The school janitor from Santa Ana. My best partner who hated everything about the Army. I bet you stayed in, didn't you Concha!

 

We entice "Hillbilly" to join us, our infectious brand of high enthusiasm not really convincing him. “Bred an' raised in Hilltop, TN,” Atkins would tell us, explaining where he's actually from, Ridgetop, Tennessee, isn't on any maps.

 

Hillbilly’s one of us. We look out for each other, and we want Hillbilly to dig the Beatles and the movie and the sixties and rock and roll music. Hillbilly drinks his 25 cent beers and listens. His world is the Orange Blossom Special, footsteps in the snow, not our world. All of that is lost to our friend. Top asked me incredulously one day, “Would you let Hillbilly into your home?”

 

Local hemp gets us buzzed and we file into the mess hall. We are happy with anticipation, already singing along with our favorite songs. No one has gone to the Ville tonight. Everyone wants a taste of what the Yellow Submarine carries.

 

The first song lifts us. “We all live in a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine...” We sway in tempo to the beat, our spirits restored because in this music, for these moments, we once again feel in touch with the world back home. We bask in sweet homesickness when a  metal chair scrapes agonizingly against the cement floor. Hillbilly stomps out of the movie muttering disgustedly, “What is this shit?”

Concha, Right, about to salute my helicopter lifting off from the Admin Area. I never saw Concha again.

Gluten-free Chicano Bread in the USA. Yo soy el Army. On-line Floricanto.

Stop the Presses!
The Gluten-free Chicano Eats Bread

Michael Sedano

It was my inattention and poor stocking by Whole Foods Market in east Pasadena that got me. I bought a bag of sugar cookies and failed to notice the gluten-free products shelf had stopped, and I’d taken a bag of wheat-based cookies whose packaging appeared identical to the good stuff.

Once home, I tore open the package and devoured two cookies. 59 minutes later, I was sick as a dog with fleas. I stumbled to bed and passed out. Three days later, I’d fully recovered.

Sabes que? The Gluten-free Chicano has no fear of stuff that scares others: critters, big angry people, the cucui--some of my best friends are cucui, sabes? But wheat, wheat makes my knees shake, wheat scares me to death, as do barley and rye.

Gluten-free analogs of bread are really awful. Some beers are great, but bread, no. Typically made with heavy proportions of rice and bean flours, GF breads' texture is dry, grainy and unpleasant, like sawdust. The xanthan gum manufacturers add also lends a disagreeable taste that shouts out loud, “Analog! Will Robinson, Analog!” Sometimes it sucks to be me, especially in restaurants where people slather sweet butter on warm sourdough loaves or  artisan crackers, bring the morsels to their lips, and chew in exquisite delectation.

Then last week, my friend Mario Trillo returned from a COSTCO in Sparks NV where he found Essential Baking Super Seeded Multi-Grain Gluten-free bread. This is fabulous, but, regrettably unavailable in Southern California. Nonetheless, the Gluten-free Chicano unqualifiedly endorses Essential Baking Super Seeded Multi-Grain Gluten-free bread.

In the past, I’ve spent money on always-expensive bread analogs, only to eat one slice then give the remainder to La Chickenada, who aren’t particular, though even they curl their lips at the stuff.

How does Essential Baking do it? Filtered water, mixed seeds (sunflower & flax seeds), rice flour (white, brown & sweet rice), egg white, hi oleic safflower oil, tapioca flour, sugar cane fiber, granulated sugar, yeast, pear juice concentrate, plum puree (prune juice concentrate, dried plums), modified cellulose, salt, potato flour, baking powder (glucono delta lactone & calcium carboate), cellulose gum, orange citrus fiber.

Gluten-free eggs on toast

This week, thanks to Mario’s thoughtfulness, I’ve eaten toast for breakfast, toast for lunch, and old-fashioned grilled cheese sandwiches. Each meal was a great big thanksgiving day dinner that couldn’t be beat, if you know what I mean.

If you’re in Reno NV or points north, and afflicted with Celiac disease or some variant of gluten intolerance, do yourself a flavor favor and buy a package of Essential Baking Super Seeded Multi-Grain Gluten-free bread. Take a few slices to restaurants, make sure you’re the first to the butter before the wheat-eaters contaminate it, and munch away, just like them.

The Gluten-free Chicano promises to follow Essential Baking company’s website and Facebook page to be first with the news when distribution reaches western Aztlán.


Mira que ya amaneció 

The couple fell madly in love and then more deeply so. He found a shanty in a chicano neighborhood whose slanty roof was sound enough so long as there was no weather. The previous welfare tenants hadn’t left it too smelly, so he cleaned it up, painted the walls, laid some carpet, and they moved in together to start the summer. It was June 1968.

In the evenings she would read while he did push-ups, sets of 25, then 30, then 50. “Why are you doing push-ups?” she asked. “I want to be in shape when I get drafted,” he replied. “You’re not going to get drafted!” she insisted, anger restrained by fear. Every evening, television news showed the relentless arrivals of flag-draped coffins from Vietnam, in sets of 25, then 30, then 50, then hundreds, and thousands.

August 31, 1968 arrived. It was his 23d birthday, and the date they’d selected for the Nuptial Mass. “Marriage is like a barbeque,” the Monsignor pronounced on the hottest day of the year as they kneeled sweating through the ceremony. The Msgr. enjoyed his metaphor and elaborated. The coals grew hot, the coals cooled, the coals reignited, they glowed cherry-red. And they knelt in miserable synaesthesia.

View from the mailbox. "I'll drive," she said.
Bumper stickers are UCSB staff parking, "Bring them home alive," and "McCarthy for President."

One fine day in October they were headed to Santa Barbara Botanical Gardens. It was their kind of place—free--and they’d packed a picnic.

She said she’d drive. He said he’d get the mail.

"Get the mail when we get back."

“Don’t,” she said, “we’ll get it when we get back.”

He opened the mailbox, as he did every day, looking for it. It was there, the manila envelope.

I checked the mail and the envelope had arrived.

“Greeting: From the President of the United States...” and he thought of that song, “and then my Uncle Sam, he said ‘a knock-knock, here I am.” Ordered to report for induction Thanksgiving week, he, along with his mother and his employers petitioned the draft board to let him be. The draft board relented and gave him until January 15, 1969 to report.

Memories of that time hit me hard every year at this time. Forty-three years ago today, I’d been discharged after 19 months and three days in uniform. Barbara met me in Washington state, from where we took a bus toward Southern California on a second honeymoon. It was like a really good blind date.

We arrived in Temple City on August 28, 1970. I did not know where “East Los Angeles” was, but I sorely wanted to go to that “Chicano Moratorium” antiwar march the next day. I went into the Army because I thought being a Veteran would legitimize my protest.

Geographical ignorance saved my life. Had a cop attacked me at Laguna Park, I would have attacked right back. I had not yet shed my military bellicosity. Still haven’t.

Next week’s August 31 marks our 45th anniversary, give or take nineteen months and three days, and my 68th year. Happy anniversary to my first wife, felicidades and apio verde to me.

Levántate de mañana mira que ya amaneció.


The Four of Us Rode the Streets of Aztlán

It was the evening before I was to report for the bus taking me to the Induction Center. Our friends Bryan and Mike climbed in the back seat of the Valiant, Barbara shotgun. We cruised slowly through campus, the bustling streets of Isla Vista, then headed back for one last, slow cruise of Santa Barbara's darkened streets.

Near midnight, it was clear tomorrow would, indeed, arrive. The light turned green but we were laughing at something and had not noticed. The next right turn would put us on State Street, then a left on Haley St, and a left on Milpas, a right and we’d be back at the Ortega Street shanty. Then we’d have to say goodbye, perhaps forever. It was that ominous and dreary.

A raggedy beat-up pickup truck behind us honked its horn. In the rearview mirror I saw the turned-up brim of the driver’s cowboy-hatted silhouette. Cowboy backed up, honked again, and slammed his pickup truck into my rear bumper, hard.

As he screeched around us, he bravely yelled out, “Fuck you, Four F!” The pendejo made the turn and disappeared down State Street. People unfit for military service were designated “4-F.” What an ugly irony, que no? Tomorrow I would be a soldier, and cowboy would still be driving the streets, hating long-hairs like me, assuming we were unpatriotic 4-Fs.

I didn’t want to cry, so I laughed instead.


I have three friends whose Vietnam experience put them in body casts for a year or more out of their lives. Other men I knew didn’t come home.

When I think of what it means to be drafted out of grad school as a newlywed, Franz’, Ray’s, and Mario’s experiences put mine into perspective. Shoulda woulda coulda, but it wasn’t. And so it goes.

Mailbag
UCSB Has A Job for You

The phone call came the same day I'd signed and mailed off the contract committing me to a one-year jale at Cal State LA. It was Rollin Quimby, my MA adviser. "We have a one-year appointment for you," Dr. Quimby delightedly informed me. So it goes.

Click here to go to the C/S Depto's website for details on the jale.



Cultural Tourismo: la Habana
Tom Miller Has A Tour For You

Will January 2014 see you strolling el Malecón, drinking mentiritas, meeting Cuban writers, and reciting Martí poems in colorful sodas? It will, if you have the lana and ganas to join La Bloga friend Tom Miller on one of the top travel bargains in las Américas and the Caribe.

For more information contact Tom Miller at 520-325-3344 or tmolinero@msn.com, or Cuba Tours and Travel at 888 225-6439 ext 802. You may wish to visit http://tourinfosys.com/signup/lit_hav where you can sign up for the viaje.


Late-breaking news
UCLA Hosts Writing Conference

La Bloga friend, Liz Gonzalez, will present a capstone workshop at this weekend's Writers' Faire. The all-day event ranges from screenwriting to one-on-one conferences with coaches and the connected. Liz' contribution wraps up the day for gente just getting their fingers wet in the writing industry. At 220 to 300 p.m. Liz and colleagues delve into beginning steps.

Getting Started as a Writer
How do you find inspiration, learn the writers’ discipline, and acquire techniques for transforming your ideas and fragments of stories into artistic, compelling pieces of writing? Start here. liz gonzález (chair), Aaron Shulman, Nancy Spiller

Here is the complete program in PDF. General info is here. Other than parking and lunch, the event is free.


August’s Penultimate On-line Floricanto
Ralph Haskins Elizondo, Juanita Lamb, Lois Chavez Valencia, Bulfrano Mendoza, Andrea Mauk

"El molcajete de mi abuela" by Ralph Haskins Elizondo
"Window shopping dreams" by Juanita Lamb
"Deported" by Lois Chavez Valencia
“Ya Basta" by Bulfrano Mendoza
"The world and its people" by Andrea Mauk

El Molcajete De Mi Abuela
Ralph Haskins Elizondo

After serving faithfully for five generations, I retired my grandmother's/mother's molcajete. I dedicate these words to it, and to all who came before me.

What once was a proud, sculptured Mexican mortar,
strong, and chiseled to last a thousand years,
is now a small humbled grey-pit shadow
holding a tiny pebble of a pestle on its concaved lap.
Eons of ornery stone, born to grind
into submission decades of unrepentant
peppers in my grandmother’s long kitchen,
she milled her seasons of salsas there,
since beyond the revolution; every chile-tomato taste,
an explosion of Villa’s armies taking the field.
My grandfather’s cavalry, charges again
to quell the uprising taking place
on the battlefield of my tongue.
The pits and pores hang on to all
the memories of flavors ever pressed.
I can still taste my childhood, and my mother’s childhood,
both intertwined in cilantro,
but like my grandmother, time grinding away
at her skin, her organs, even stone wears out.
You rest now, old friend. You rest.

Ralph Haskins Elizondo was born and raised in Monterrey, Mexico.

His family moved to South Texas during the social turmoil of the 60’s.

Many of his poems touch the cultural and political issues of our times.

Today, Ralph lives in McAllen, Texas where he supplements his poet’s income by moonlighting as a science teacher at a local high school.








Window Shopping Dreams
Juanita Lamb

(Reading of Oprah's handbag racism reminds me of a family story.)

My grandmother—Mama Sarita—
would take my sister for walks downtown,
"window shopping.” A little girl could entertain
fantasies of wearing beautiful clothes on display
while she played with her blue-eyed
golden haired doll.

Passing the "Anglo" bakery,
Mama Sarita and my sister talked
about the fancy wedding cake displayed
and dreamed aloud of hundreds
of wedding guests in attendance
at my sister's fairy tale wedding.

And so it went, grandmother and child
passing a fanciful hour or two
spinning dreams and wishing wishes.
One day they were at the windows
of a very expensive department store
gazing at the beautiful high heels adorned
with jeweled buckles, satin bows
and criss-crossed straps as thin as angel hair.

But their daydream was shattered
when a store clerk came to the door
of the shop and called out to them
"no zapatos for you Madama. Vamos".
And shooed them away
with sweeping hand gestures.

How do you explain to a child
that some people think even dreams
are not for them? How do you explain
the unexplainable?

Juanita Salazar Lamb grew up in a bilingual, bicultural familia along the Texas border.

She writes from the heart, which is puro Mexicano.

Her fiction and essays have appeared in Zopilote, Latina Magazine, Border Senses, Azahares, Cuentos del Centro: Stories from the Latino Heartland, and Primera Página: Poetry from the Latino Heartland (2nd Edition) and La Bloga.

Deported
Lois Chavez Valencia

I need to see my mother.
Working,crying I want to rest
but my thoughts turn to nightmares,
and my pain makes me suffer.

They sent you away from me.
I can’t see your face,
I can’t see your beautiful smile,
nor feel your hugs that
made me feel safe and loved.

I'm alone in this land
without support or family,
dreaming of days
when you were with me.

Day by day, year by year,
you gave me all you could
without complaining,
with all the love
only a mother can give.

I need to see my mother,
deported so far away from me.

Lois Chavez Valencia- I was born in Albuquerque New Mexico in February of 1955.  Before starting school I had learned both the English and the Spanish Languages. My family history is rich and full of stories. My father and mother told us so many true stories. My dad wove wonderful tales of his childhood and from those days forward I was hooked on writing. But on the very first day of school my world was forever changed. I was told NOT to speak Spanish because it was a dirty language. I did it anyway in secret, but soon forgot alot of my language. When I was 6 years old we moved to Boyle Heights in Los Angeles. When I moved to Los Angeles it were as though a whole new colorful vision had opened up to me. The murals, the smells, the music and the people all had a hand in forming how I think and write today. The stories of  my life and the diversity of the city have all had a hand in the formation of my art, verbal, written and depicted as drawings or sketches. These memories have made me stand up and fight injustice. And now that I am older, and hopefully alot wiser, I do this through written word. My sisters both write poetry and other articles of interest. I guess you can say we are a family of stories to write.

Ya Basta!
Bulfrano Mendoza

In memory of David Silva, 33 year old husband, and father of four murdered on May 8, 2013, by 9 racist Bakersfield, California Sheriffs Deputies, Sworn to Serve and Protect...

All that remains of him, the story
in the newspaper said, is that his
blood stains are still on the corner
of Flower Street and Palm Drive.
Another Mexicano, father of four,
beaten to death by nine white
gestapo California Sheriffs deputies,
who claim he was resisting arrest.
He begged, " Please spare my life! "
Instead, he was murdered in front
of his children and his wife!
And those witnesses who filmed
his murder on their phones,
were threatened by these sheriffs,
then they confiscated their phones.
The gestapo tactics perpetrated
by these racist deputies on our
raza must come to an end.
Time for a new revolution for
our freedom to begin!
These white chotas must leave
all of our brown gente alone,
so we can feel safe on our
streets as well as in our homes!

Rick " Bulfrano " Mendoza is the founder of Poet Warriors, and one of the regular poets at Gallist Galleries, in San Antonio, Texas. Rick has a Masters degree in English Literature from UCLA, and has been writing poetry for a couple of years now. Poetry speaks to me on so many levels, and in so many voices, and at the oddest times. I remember writing poems in Miss Trudes 3rd grade class, in my Big Chief tablet, and now at fifty nine years old, I am writing poetry that is tender, loving, sad, visceral, and most of all immediate. Poetry has changed my life. And if you want to feel the power of the written word, read your poems out loud. You transform the experience into something memorable. A good poet is attuned to the way he reads the words he writes. The emotion I put into reading my poems
comes from a special place. I want my audience to feel, I want to mesmerize, to catch the world through my eyes. A poem is only as powerful as the voice behind it.

'The World and Its People
Andrea Mauk

In this world
There are people who wake up
Smile at the sun
Stretch to exchange energy (a scary thought)
Kiss their children's cheeks
Their wives' hungry lips
Pick up their briefcases
Drive to the office
Receive clearance
And oversee the slaughter
of innocentes in far off lands.

These kind of people never blink.
They don't feel the need to wash their hands.

There are people who wake up
with rumbling pangs in the pits of their stomachs
Smell the rot that squelches their hunger
Bathe in rivers streaked blood red
(Blue Bloods never bleed)
Raise their arms
Their need for change
And march in step.
Sometimes their bullets pierce the skulls
of their brothers.

Their tears flow through lands and songs.
Somehow
They have not forgotten how to smile.
These people must always wash their hands
But soap is no match for centuries
Of collective memory.

There are people who wake up
Turn off the coffee maker, pour a cup
Sit down to listen
To the morning news
Grab their keys
Hit the freeway
Wait in traffic
Cuss a little
Get to the job
Help someone somewhere
To turn a profit
And everything is okay
Because their heart flutters
Red, White and Blue
And they do everything they've
Been raised to do.

Their songs are anthems, rock and roll
And they proudly wash their hands
Throw the paper napkin near the can.

Then there are people
Who suddenly wake up
Only to realize
That everything they've ever been told
is an orchestrated fantasy
And anything they think to do
Seems immensely small
So they cry inside
And they go on with a chip on their shoulder
'Cause they know it's all a lie.

These people raise their hands to the sky.

Andrea Garcia Mauk grew up in Arizona, where both the immense beauty and harsh realities of living in the desert shaped her artistic soul. She currently calls Los Angeles home, but has also lived in Chicago, New York and Boston. She has worked in the music industry, and on various film and television productions. She writes short fiction, poetry, original screenplays and adaptations, and is currently finishing two novels. Her writing and artwork has been published and viewed in a variety of places such as on The Late, Late Show with Tom Snyder; The Journal of School Psychologists and Victorian Homes Magazine. Both her poetry and artwork have won awards. Several of her poems and a memoir will be included in an upcoming anthology, Our Spirit, Our Reality. She participates in the group, “Poets Responding to SB1070” on Facebook, a page dedicated to peacefully protesting the Arizona immigration laws through poetry. She is also a moderator of Diving Deeper, an online workshop for writers, and has written online extensively about music, especially jazz, while working in the entertainment industry.

Andrea also teaches 5th grade in downtown Los Angeles. She is a dedicated and creative educator who incorporates the arts and project-based learning into the curriculum. She has completed extensive training in teaching gifted and talented students. She recently enjoyed choreographing 100 5th grade students in a performance of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”

Dino tracks, petroglyphs & our kids' eco heritage

This posting is intended for school-age children. Please pass it along or read it to them. Depending on the age of the child, you may want to read it in parts, not in one sitting. It's about our leaving their heritage intact.

Dear American student,
I made this for my Denver first-graders, but I thought other children might enjoy it.

If you like dinosaurs, the American wilderness, bears, pumas and deer, or the Santa Fe Trail, Native American or Southwest history, you might enjoy these photos.

My wife Carmen, my ACD Manchas and I just visited southeast Colorado. In this first photo you can see it's not all flat and empty.

Even the trees like to be photographed or drawn, like this one that I named the Guardian Tree. Does he look like he's trying to protect something? He is--something special I'll tell you about in a minute.

Here's our dog Manchas, which means Spots, after our hot and humid hike. Three Colorado Park Rangers led us into really deep grass to show us petroglyphs the ancient American Indians left here over 4,000 years ago. Manchas had a hard time 'cause he was shorter than the grass and a little too fat.

Here's some petroglyphs we found, but they're hard to see. On the left in the middle of the rock is maybe a snake symbol. In the middle is something like a handprint. To the right and below is maybe a hunting symbol with three prongs, like a fork.

Here's another petroglyph the Ancients left. What does it remind you of?

After Manchas rested and drank tons of water, we got to the top of Picketwire Canyon. It was really called the French word Purgatoire, but the American settlers couldn't pronounce that, so they changed the name.

The French called it Purgatoire, like Purgatory, because some settlers died there. Ask an adult if they can pronounce Purgatoire. (A hint for you: say poo-got-wah real fast.)

Anyway, we started into the canyon. It was hot, over 100 degrees! We wondered if we'd meet a mountain lion and hoped he had already eaten. Manchas especially hoped so.

The first thing we met was the tree I called Leaner. He looked like he was ready to fall asleep in the deep grass.

But all around us were also many living trees like junipers that love growing together on the sides of hills.

This tree I called Pointer was showing us the way to the dinosaur tracks.

This spider was one of the more colorful ones who wanted us to take him home with us, but we left him there.

The next thing we saw was not a mt. lion or a bear, but it did remind me of a swan, so that's what I named him.

We finally made it to these ruins of the Dolores Mexican church built in 1871. It was made from the trees that grow there and from rock. A lot of the places and rivers in this area still have Spanish names like Campo, Carrizo, Tecolote and Chacuaco.

My wife Carmen found a gravestone that had the name Maria de la Cruz Abeyta who was only a baby when she died. There's a sign there that says to leave the cemetery alone, so we did.

Manchas kept trying to leave us to get in the shade but we wouldn't let him 'cause that's where the rattlesnakes like to cool off. But finally we found a rock that the wind or water had hollowed out like a cave. Manchas was very happy to guard our backpacks. We rewarded him with cheese, crackers and ham and some dog treats.

A little later we met a tree I named Armless. He's just like some people who had an accident, but I thought he had a lot of character.

After more than 5 miles, we got to the Purgatoire River. (Did you try to pronounce it correctly? Did you do better than an adult?)

You may be too young to hike 5 miles today, but one day you could get there, if Southeast Colorado hasn't been taken away from us. I'll tell you about that later.

Manchas wasn't the only one who was extremely happy to see the water. We had to carry a gallon for each of us to drink. And we had to carry food, snakebite kit, and stuff for emergencies. Only Manchas could drink from the river. Pick up a gallon of water and think about how hard it would be to carry it for 5 miles.

On our way down we met a man and his son who'd come all the way from Florida to see the dinosaur tracks. The boy told us he was disappointed 'cause there wasn't much to see. These were the prints they saw. They're fossils of where Brontosaurus stepped in mud, and they're huge! Plus they're 65 million years old.

We asked him if they'd crossed the river to see the best ones. He said no. It didn't make sense they had traveled 1600 miles but didn't want to cross 60 feet of river to see the best dinosaur footprints in the United States. What would you have done?

We searched the river to find a safe place to cross. We were lucky because two other people who were there found this spot for us. It wasn't deep if we followed the white line of the foamy water. Can you guess where we stepped?

The prints on that side were much deeper and there were many more than on the first side.

Paleontologists (scientists who study dinos and fossils) think these were made by an Allosaurus. If you don't know what they looked like, find it online or in a book. Look at their feet and see if they match this footprint.

My wife Carmen put her feet into two of the Allosaurus footprints. Hers are maybe bigger than yours but they're tiny compared to the dino's.

She sat down next to one so you can see how big it is.

These next tracks might have been made by a baby brontosaurus maybe your age. The dark parts are from water in the holes.

I really like this print because it reminded me of something. What does it remind you of?

From the shadows we knew it was getting late. We had to leave 'cause there's no overnight camping allowed in the canyon. That's to protect this park from people who want to take the dinosaur prints and petroglyphs from us.

You know what kind of people would do that, don't you?

Guess what? There's also government people who want to do that. It's the Army. I can't explain all that to you here. Your parents or teachers can explain it if they go to this website.

As we left the river, a tree I named Dancer helped us celebrate our completing a great adventure.

Above Dancer, on the hill, I thought I heard a mother bear growling to her cub--3 times! I wasn't scared because bears don't like barking dogs and Manchas can really bark.

We did see deer, rabbits, jackrabbits, beautiful orange orioles, hawks, turkey buzzards. And we heard owls and coyotes when we camped at night. If you've heard them, how did they make you feel?

What I heard and saw were animals that are helpless to stop the Army from taking away this wonderful land from you, the children. Adults can go to the website to see what to do about saving everything wonderful in the area. Maybe you can think of more that even a school child can do.

For instance, you can send a SASE (#10 business size), and they'll send you two bumper stickers for free. Then you can paste them on your new car.
You parents or teachers know what this means and here's the address to write to:
Pinon Canyon Opposition Coalition
P.O. Box 137
Kim, CO 81049

This photo is one of my favorites 'cause it reminds me of how old all these treasures are. We should keep them safe from being bombed or trampled by tanks or helicopters. What do you think?

As we drove home we passed these gigantic wind turbines that provide electricity without adding so much to the pollution. I wondered if even they would be around in a few years.


This was one of the last of many signs that we saw in this part of the country. It shows that many people that live there will not agree to give up their land.

Here is my final photo of the one I call Great Dark Tree. If Americans don't stop the Army from taking over this corner of the state, everything around here may one day look like him.

People make fun of me taking photos of dead trees and giving them names. But the dino prints aren't alive either. Do you think I'm silly for doing that?

We didn't get to see bears or pumas or eagles. Hopefully, you will be able to if this treasured land is saved. And if you get to go, watch out for Dancer, Pointer and my other tree friends. If you're not old enough you can only have your teacher or parent send me a message to let me know. I hope to hear from them.

Rudy Ch. Garcia, teacher

Other websites with historical and scientific info on SE Colorado:
Colorado Tourism Office
The National Trust for Historic Preservation

These next few days are critical if you want to prevent the loss of historical, scientific and environmental treasures of SE Colorado. Go to
http://www.pinoncanyon.com
to see what the U.S. Senate can do to prevent a great loss of our multicultural heritage.