Marciano: The Man in Bib Overalls

By Alberto Luis Aguayo

Where but in America could seven children earn seventeen college degrees.

Against all odds, but with full support of their hard-working parents, this has been possible for the seven Aguayo children.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Nov 26, 2014
• ISBN: 9781496954718

Alberto Luis Aguayo

Albert Luis Aguayo is one of seven children born to Marciano and Jovita Aguayo. Dr. Aguayo and his four sisters and two brothers have earned seventeen college degrees as well as numerous awards and certificates. These accomplishments were possible due to the sacrifice, support, and tenacity of their indomitable parents whose ancestral roots lie deep in southern Mexico and, perhaps, even in sixteenth-century Spin in the province of Galicia.

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© 2014 Alberto Luis Aguayo. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 11/24/2014

ISBN: 978-1-4969-5470-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4969-5471-8 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Contents

ABOUT THE TITLE OF THIS BOOK

Dedicated to

Prologue

Introduction

Part I La Barranca De Las Cabras

Part II Los Antepasados

Part III Early Roots

Part IV MARCIANO

Part V Marciano’s Wife, Jovita

Part VI Livestock

Part VII Gandy Dancer

Epilogue

About the Author

Editors

ABOUT THE TITLE OF THIS BOOK

The photograph on the preceding page does not clearly reflect the gregarious, hard-working man that Marciano Aguayo was yet it should give the reader a cursory view of Marciano: The Man in Bib Overalls. This rare but cropped photograph was taken at the end of yet another grueling day working as a gandy dancer on the Union Pacific Railroad. On that job, weather was the enemy of an individual’s performance and more often than not reflected on one’s face. Marciano had soft, alabaster skin yet in looking at the man’s face one can see the toll weather has taken on his facial features.

There are two other photographs in this book that do reflect his ability or wherewithal to dress for the few formal occasions that occurred in his life.

However, Marciano was an informal man, one accustomed to wearing a pair of Kelly-green work trousers underneath his customary pair of Oskosh B’Gosh bib overalls, winter and summer. That perpetual style was for function and not for form.

He was an unusual man given that in Dickens-like fashion he was pretty much on his own since the age of thirteen.

Short in stature (his height was five foot two inches) he answered to the name of Shorty for most of the 53 years that he lived in Sedgwick, Colorado. Marciano may have been Shorty to many but to his family he was a giant of a man!

During his lifetime he most certainly reached deep down for the strength and resilience to respond to both challenge and opportunity and there were many!

Marciano was a mortal but he was constructed of a fine grade of steel. He must have been as he absorbed physical punishment, as a mere child, in the railroad shops at Aguascalientes, Mexico, in the agricultural fields of the southwestern United States and along hot railroad tracks of the Union Pacific Railroad.

We have a bias toward this singular man and we leave it to the reader to see if they agree.

This is Marciano’s story, one filled with memories and associations.

BY

ALBERTO LUIS AGUAYO

Dedicated to

Marciano Aguayo, our father and to our beloved mother, Jovita Ortega Aguayo, an indomitable couple who gave life and opportunity to their seven children.

Quienes fueron de mi querida raza

Raza de los españoles.

Raza de los chichemecas.

Generaciones de honor.

Raices que existarán para siempre.

En La sangre de Los de Aguayo.

And to our beloved sister, Alicia, who left us long before her time. We miss her terribly!

We also miss:

• Feasting at her bountiful Thanksgiving table where everyone was welcome

• Savoring home-made pies of all varieties

• Being vanquished by her skills at Scrabble

• Covering her home-made tortillas with generous dabs of butter

• And, so much more.

As this author, who now suffers from an incurable lung disease, walks slowly down the path of long goodbyes to where Alicia dwells he knows he will have to sit on that long, oak bench of penance just outside Heaven’s door waiting for his sister Alicia. She will approach and say

"Hermano, come walk with me to the house of our Lord and I will speak to him on your behalf".

No one will have a better spokesperson!!!

Prologue

There he was sitting atop a wooden fence clad in his customary faded Oshkosh B’Gosh bib overalls all the while gazing who knows where as he picked at the center of his top lip, a life-long mannerism. Only he knew where his thoughts wandered. Beneath his wooden perch several muddy, white pigs in all sizes grunted and tossed great sprays of earth as they rooted for green weeds or long-lost kernels of grain. The great storyteller watched in silence as a once-hot sun disappeared into a distant horizon. A bluish haze now merged with darkening shadows of the pig sty and an occasional brown rat the size of a small cat emerged from its unknown hiding place to cast a furtive glance toward a safe spot where it would later enjoy some elusive kernels of overlooked grain.

Straightening momentarily on his wooden perch he pulled a gold Waltham railroad watch from faded, denim confines of his bib overalls and with a practiced motion its gold protective cover was opened to reveal resplendent blue-black slender hands amidst black numbers and dashes lining the circular white face. Time to go he mused as he replaced his treasured railroad watch into a rectangular pocket sewn midpoint between two denim suspenders that rose to his shoulders only to disappear down the back of his bib overalls. He gave an unneeded tug to his sweat-stained straw hat and climbed down. It was long past time to walk home and the weight of more than 70 years of back breaking labor, the last 30, working as a gandy dancer on the Union Pacific Railroad lay heavy on his ancient shoulders.

Marciano Aguayo knew that his wife Jovita and his seven children were holding his meager, yet tasty, supper of arroz or rice, refried beans, hot tortillas, strong, spicy, roasted jalapeño peppers and stout black coffee. He did not have far to walk across a field of buffalo grass until he reached an old black shack he called home but despite that fact his aching body knew that he was in the winter of his years as he crossed a barb-wired fence. He also knew that his children would gather round after supper as he told stories that usually began with these words "Allá en La Barranca de las Cabras," Away, in the Valley of the Goats. . .

Days later while digging out a dead cherry tree a sharp pain coursed beneath alabaster skin stretched over his sternum and he leaned forward momentarily on his long shovel to catch his breath. Resting for what seemed to be an eternity he stopped digging, leaned his well-worn shovel against a sagging wire fence and went into his home where he told Jovita about the sharp pain and that he needed to go to Julesburg, Colorado to see the doctor. Then he washed his hands, exited the house and climbed into the broad seat of his green, 1959 Chevrolet pickup. He raced the engine and his slight body lurched back as he clumsily released the clutch. He gripped the steering wheel with both hands as his old truck lurched onto the main road. Some thirty minutes later the pain had intensified as he parked his dilapidated truck at the Julesburg hospital and went inside. Marciano spent a few minutes with medical staff who informed him that he had a hernia and that he must immediately check into the hospital.

You don’t say! But by golly! I need to go back home and feed my animals and then I will be back, he said and out the door he went.

Two weeks later he was recovering from a hernia operation and he could feel the icy grip of his ancient foe, arthritis, tightening first around one arm then another until the invisible sarcophagus it created around his slim body robbed him of whatever limited mobility remained in his eighty-two year-old body. It was a genetic enemy that had announced its presence some twenty years earlier and even then its relentless assault seemed unstoppable.

Within a few weeks of his operation his herniated area had healed but what remained was little or no movement due to a severe case of arthritis that had robbed him of nearly all his mobility. He struggled to rise with a tubular steel walker and he told his family to put him in a nursing home where he would not be a bother. Reluctantly they agreed and once there he faded away from a robust 145 pounds to ninety pounds and although he battled daily his family could see his spirit fading so they resolved to take turns caring for him in their homes. They agreed that their beloved father would not feel the uncaring environment of a nursing home no matter how well it was managed. Marciano would go home!

While there in the homes of his children he suffered in silence only to cry out with embarrassment and pain when one or another of his children would lift his naked, emaciated body to bath him, change sheets on his death bed and to massage his aching limbs until he would have no more!

"Es mi tiempo," It’s my time he said one day. "Quiero regresar al hospital," I want to go back to the hospital. "Ya saben que uds. tienen su trabajo," you know that all of you have your work but the scepter of death was fast approaching.

On December 2, 1979 when Marciano’s gaunt body lay motionless in the stark whiteness of the hospital bed he focused his sunken eyes into a corner of the ceiling.

¿Qué mira, Dad?" What are you looking at Dad, asked one of his sons.

"El rumbo por dónde camino." The route that I travel was his whispered response from behind parched lips and a few moments later Magdalena, José’s wife who was medically trained gripped his thin wrist and feeling no pulse turned to others in the room and sobbed He’s gone, and then, and only then, did that arthritic vise that had gripped his body relax its deadly grip.

Days later, Marciano’s body was placed into a golden, oak coffin. As he lay there in eternal silence we prayed that GOD would accept him into his grace and then we accompanied our beloved father as he followed his designated route to stand in his appointed place with our antepasados, those that came before us.

Introduction

President Barack Hussein Obama, in his inaugural speech of January 20, 2009, stated among many points; that the strength of America comes from its patchwork ethnicity. It is a strength that is an essential element to the gift of freedom that so many of us enjoy. Many in America have fought for that freedom across all corners of our planet and those of us who carry on must be continually mindful of their ultimate sacrifices as we live, enjoy and work within a mosaic that is the fabric of our society no matter whether we are poor or rich, Jew or gentile, gay or straight, ethnic minority or not and handicapped or not.

Genetic markers passed down through the ages have placed each of us in our particular spot to toil and reap in accordance with our daily lot. For some, those unique characteristics inherited from a long line of THOSE who came before us remain a mystery but for others like Emilio and José Aguayo who have traveled hand over hand along the misty rope of time in search of our antepasados, their efforts to identify those who came before reveals much to appreciate, ponder or even question.

In this book, stories, experiences and perceptions of Marciano and Jovita Aguayo are real life laced with a bit of luck. That luck was fostered and guided by our indomitable parents, Marciano Aguayo and Jovita Ortega Aguayo who exposed their seven children to the benefits of education and their life-long belief in that axiom spoken so often in semi-darkness of their black shanty as they shelled gleaned ears of corn that sustained the family’s pigs. These animals would one day pay for college tuition.

And, while we sat shelling the gleaned ears of corn in a semi-circle around a battered galvanized tub, our gregarious father would always end his stories or lessons with that axiom’s unforgettable words.

"Recuerden hijos, que el destino esta en sus manos," Remember children, destiny is in your hands.

Destiny was in our hands since there is no place like America where migrant parents, descendant from ancestors traced more than five hundred years back in the dusty pages of time, and their seven ragtag children could attain the levels of education they reached and enjoy myriad experiences that they have had to date in our beloved country and throughout this world. For that simple reason, Aguayos have contributed to the development of children from all walks of life in the field of education, to their respective communities and in service within the armed forces of the United States of America.

Here is a summary of the post-secondary degrees that Marciano’s children earned.

• Herlinda Aguayo, Barnes School of Business, Denver, Colorado

• Anita Aguayo Laguna, Associates Degree, Northeastern Junior College, Sterling, Colorado B.A. Colorado State Teacher’s college, Greeley, Colorado and M.A. Cal State, Hayward, California

• Alberto Luis Aguayo, B.A. University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado. M.A. University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico and Ph.D. University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado

• Alicia Aguayo Leal, Associates Degree, Northeastern Junior College, Sterling, Colorado, B.A. University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, Colorado and M.A University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, Colorado

• Emilio Aguayo, Colorado Institute of Art, Denver, Colorado, Associates of Art, Seattle Central Community College, Seattle, Washington, B.A. University of Washington, Seattle, Washington and M.A. Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon

• José Aguayo, B.A. Loreto Heights, Denver, Colorado and M.A. University of Denver, Denver Colorado

• Celia Aguayo Scholl B.A. University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, Colorado and M.A. University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, Colorado

Many college degrees, similar to those earned by the spouses of the Aguayo children, have been earned by Marciano’s grandchildren and still others have found success in technology, medicine, firefighting, as helicopter pilots, in advertising and as entrepreneurs and so much more.

All by children who were beyond poor as they shared four hundred square feet in an old black shack located in tiny Sedgwick, Colorado, a hamlet that one could describe as being located about one block from nowhere.

Indeed, Destiny was in their hands. It was a great life that began with Marciano and Jovita’s antepasados those who came before and continued by this great man as he faced nearly insurmountable challenges and opportunities. This humble work presents some aspects of the life of Marciano Aguayo and his wife of more than fifty years, Jovita Ortega Aguayo.

Marciano Aguayo’s 82 years on earth could be, more likely than not, presented in seven parts: La Barranca De Las Cabras: Los Antepasados; Early Roots; Marciano; Marciano’s wife, Jovita; Livestock; and Gandy Dancer.

A brief epilogue concludes this book.

Part I

La Barranca

De Las Cabras

There are many details conjured up from dusty books and gauzy remembrances as Alberto