Blessings, Mercies and Graces: Living Life Celebrating God’s Daily Gifts

By Joe Gonzalez and Cookie Gonzalez

*Book information not available this time

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 14, 2023
• ISBN: 9798369400777

Joe Gonzalez

I am a retired police officer by profession. I was born in Harlingen, Texas. Our family migrated to West Texas in the early 1960's. As a pre-teen, I shared time with my two older brothers selling popcorn up and down the aisles inside a movie theater back in Harlingen. When we grew up, we went to work in the cotton fields hoeing weeds during the summers and picking cotton in the fall. We were back in the fields during the onion and cabbage harvest season in the early frosty mornings of fall in order to help our parents put food on the table. Back when one could earn twenty five or thirty cents an hour, working ten hour days in the hot summer sun, was no fun. But it meant growing up, feeling grateful for what God gave us and sleeping with a full stomach. At times, it was fun because it also meant making new friends who were doing the same thing for their parents. It was an honest way to survive poverty. Thanks to our parents, who always wanted us to finish high school, we all graduated high school at New Deal ISD, which is in Lubbock County, Texas. I attended Texas Tech University but eventually, dropped out in order to marry my high school sweetheart. After 49 years, I still love her with all my heart. She is still the apple of my eye. She is my best friend and my life is complete having her at my side. My jobs went from working the fields, working at a slaughterhouse, a meat market, a warehouse, and driving the big rigs. From there, I went to work for the Lubbock Police Department as a street cop until retirement. During my years of working, many friends have touched my life. The fact that friendships make a huge part of our lives, is what inspired me to write this book about dreams and friends and what they do to pass the time. We’ve all had those types of friends. I am also a writer and a regular commentary contributor to the Lubbock Avalanche Journal Newspaper which publishes my op-eds in the Sunday commentary pages every three or four weeks. My wife, Orelia (Cookie) is, and will always be, my inspiration. And having her as my biggest critic, I am thankful to her for allowing me to continue to write my stories and my books. Thank you for all of your unconditional love and support! I love you forever and always!

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Copyright © 2023 by Joe and Cookie Gonzalez.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 06/12/2023

Xlibris

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CONTENTS

Golden Years of Love

Chapter 1     Fate Wins Every Time

Chapter 2     Getting to Know You, Getting to Know Me

Chapter 3     Families Grow and So Do Tomboys

Chapter 4     Working the Fields and Making Friends

Chapter 5     Going Back to Find Everything Has Changed

Chapter 6     College, Traveling, Sewing and Working

Chapter 7     Little Noises, Baby Bottles and Track Meets

Chapter 8     First Came Love and Then Came Marriage

Chapter 9     Back to New Deal and Back to Farming

Chapter 10   Cantaloupes, Watermelons and Noisy Pipes

Chapter 11   The Sierra Madre Highways and Enormous Mountains

Chapter 12   A Patriarch Is Gone

Chapter 13   Swimming Holes and Charlie Days

Chapter 14   Old Friends and New Jobs

Chapter 15   The Interesting Thing About Timing

Chapter 16   Old Homes and Old Dogs

Chapter 17   Be Careful What You Wish For

Chapter 18   Events That Mold Our Lives

Chapter 19   There Are Jobs And, There Are Jobs

Chapter 20   Lives Change With the Changing Times

Chapter 21   Training Is Not Always As Easy As it Looks

Chapter 22   Special Olympics, Tom Landry and George Bush

Chapter 23   Health Issues Become Family Issues

Chapter 24   Memorable Summer Vacations

Chapter 25   A Light At the End Of the Tunnel

Chapter 26   Time Always Brings Changes

Chapter 27   A New Page, A New Chapter

Chapter 28   Getting Published

Chapter 29   Cellphones and Landlines, Religion and History

Chapter 30   New Friends and Old Friends

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

O RELIA AND I are both retired police officer by profession. I was born in Harlingen, Texas and my wife, was born in Sunnyside, Washington. Orelia and I got married in May 1972. Last year, with God’s blessing, we celebrated our Golden Anniversary. As for my side of the family, we migrated to West Texas in the early 1960’s. As a young kid, I mainly shared time with my two older brothers selling popcorn up and down the aisles inside a movie theater back in Harlingen. I would have to say that selling that hot popcorn was my very first job. I was seven or eight years old at the time. So much for child labor. But it was definitely fun for me. I wanted to work. Back in the 1950’s, earning pennies a day or earning a dollar or less a week was still not too bad. When we grew up, we went to work in the cotton fields hoeing weeds during the summers and went to pulling cotton in the fall. We would head back to the fields during the onion and cabbage harvest seasons in the early frosty mornings of fall. We did all this in order to help our parents put food on the table. On the other hand, Orelia’s parents left West Texas and headed for California to find work. She came from a farming environment. In the mid-sixties, they became migrants, just like us. They left Texas and headed as far west as they could possibly go. Back then, one could earn twenty-five or thirty cents an hour, working ten-hour days in the hot summer sun. It was no fun, but it helped put food on the table. It also meant growing up, feeling grateful for what God was giving us, and most of all, going to sleep with a full stomach. At times, it was fun because it also meant making new friends who were doing the same thing for their parents, just like we all were. It was the most honest way to survive poverty. It also gave us a beautiful tan, whether we wanted it or not!

I am so grateful and thankful for our humble parents, who always wanted us to finish high school. Before we knew it, we all managed to graduate from high school in the small farming town of New Deal ISD, which is in Lubbock County, Texas. Three years after I graduated, Orelia graduated from the same high school. I attended Texas Tech University but eventually, dropped out in order to marry my high school sweetheart. By the same token, I waited for Orelia to graduate from high school and we got married. Like I mentioned before, in 2022, we celebrated our 50 years of marriage. I still love and care so much for my beautiful wife with all my heart. We may not always agree on everything that comes our way, but we sit down and discuss all our differences and our options. I guess that’s why we are both still together. We believe in Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Savior. Orelia is still the apple of my eye. She is still my best friend and my number one fan, and my life is complete having her at my side. My different jobs took me from working the fields, working at a slaughterhouse, a meat market, a warehouse, and driving the big rigs. Orelia went from working in the fields, the school’s cafeteria, working at a book binding company, and all the way to becoming and retiring as a police officer at Texas Tech University and finally, from the Preston Smith Lubbock Airport. After 37 plus years, she finally put away the uniform and her badge. As for myself, after working in the fields as a young kid, I went to work at a warehouse and at a slaughterhouse. I then decided to try my luck as an 18-wheel truck driver. In the course of trying to find my true job, I worked at several different butcher shops and when we were down on our luck, I even worked a couple of part-time jobs trying to make ends meet. In the end, I also became a police officer for the City of Lubbock. I was a street cop until my retirement. After retirement, because I loved driving the big trucks, I went back to driving the midnight runs of hauling the US Mail. After seven and a half years of driving the midnight shift, I finally retired for good and started focusing on my writings. I wrote (op-eds) opinion editorials for the Lubbock Avalanche Journal for about ten years. Toward the end of 2020, I was censored several times. I gave up writing columns for the newspaper. All the research I was doing was pretty much in vain. By then, my op-eds were being published in about 15 different cities in the state of Texas. To my surprise, several were even published in national magazines and in other states. I was invited to speak at several different organizations, which I did with much enthusiasm. I was very well received and congratulated by countless of people, many of whom I had no idea as to who they were. All I can say now is, Thank you for those wonderful memories. Those days are over, for now.

During our many years of working, many countless and unforgettable friends have touched our lives. The fact that friendships make a huge part of our lives, is what inspired us, both, to write this book about dreams and friends and the blessings, mercies and graces that God has given us since our marriage began. Our friends are countless and they have all been very special to us.

My wife, Orelia (Cookie) is, and will always be, my inspiration. And having her as my biggest critic, I am thankful to her for allowing me to continue to now write stories of our marriage and this very special book. Honey, thank you for your unconditional love and support! I love you forever and always! May God always bless you as much as it has always blessed our marriage. And so, we now re-live the stories of our lives as we do our best to live as one.

DISCLAIMER

The events and characters in this book are totally fictional. All the characters in this book were added to the story because of their individual characteristics. Events and locations may exist but were used in this book only for entertainment. The mentioned locations in this book do exist but were only written into the story for the writing of this fictional story. No mal intent nor harm to any person or location was intended in the writing of this book. This book was purely written for your enjoyment.

This book is warmly and fondly dedicated to:

David A. Sr. and Bertha H. Gonzalez

Maria Luisa and Oscar Rodriguez

Sara Gonzalez

Margarita,

Maria Del Consuelo and,

Maria Del Rosario Gonzalez

Fred Adame Jr.

Zenaida Flores Gonzalez

Noe Juan Gonzalez Jr.

RIP

NOTES

All scripture readings marked NJB at the beginning of each chapter are from The New Jerusalem Bible, © 1985 by Darton, Longman & Todd Ltd. and Doubleday, a division of Random House Inc. Re-printed by permission.

This writing, titled, ‘Grateful For the Things in Life" was submitted by Joe Gonzalez. It was published and printed in the Lubbock Avalanche Journal on July 1, 2015.

This writing, titled, Holiday Cheer All Around Lubbock, was submitted by Joe Gonzalez. It was published and printed in the Lubbock Avalanche Journal on December 10, 2016.

This writing, titled, Only God Knows the Answers was submitted by Joe Gonzalez. It was published and printed in the Lubbock Avalanche Journal on August 22, 2016.

This writing, titled, Watching Weekend Heroes- Pathetic was submitted by Joe Gonzalez. It was published and printed in the Lubbock Avalanche Journal on September 30, 2017.

This writing, titled, Best Christmas gift would be to see all hatred go away was submitted by Joe Gonzalez. It was published and printed in the Lubbock Avalanche Journal on December 17, 2017.

This writing, titled, There are plenty of reasons to be proud of America was submitted by Joe Gonzalez. It was published and printed in the Lubbock Avalanche Journal on September 2, 2018.

ABOUT THE BOOK

T HIS NOVEL IS an extension of my first novel, my third book, Smiling at Mother Freedom, Laughing with Father Time. This is a collaboration of events that happened in mine and my wife’s lives during the course of our marriage. I decided to include my wife’s side of her own childhood life, including her growing up as a teenager and as an adult. Cookie, as she is known by her siblings and many of her friends, is normally the nucleus that keeps the life of the party going in the majority of all the family gatherings. She has always inspired me to write with truth, honesty and with passion. Prior to our getting married, we had our own share of struggles due to having strict parents who were barely earning enough money to buy groceries, buy us our school clothes, pay the rent and being able to put food on the table. Earning twenty-five dollars a week back in the fifties and sixties while trying to raise a family was not easy for anybody. In those days, many families were living just like that. So, how do you make ends meet?

Back in those days, kids skipped school to go work in the fields. Many kids were forced to drop out of school. Many kids never got a chance to graduate from high school. Many never learned how to read or write their own names. And later on, they went back to get their GED. It wasn’t the same as receiving a high school diploma, but it was something.

During our first years of being married, he had our own share of struggles with money and paying our bills. But we always kept God in our lives. We both came from very strict Catholic parents and we will always be grateful and thankful to them for that most wonderful gift, and that is, to love and trust in God and in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, no matter what happens in our lives.

For some unknown reason, we were not bless with children of our own. Only God knows why. After working at several businesses and locations, and doing odd jobs, something led us into the law enforcement profession. Maybe, it was the Holy Spirit or maybe it was Divine Intervention. Altogether, Orelia and I were in law enforcement for over 61 years. Because I got into law enforcement at a much older age, I was in law enforcement for a little over wonderful 23 years. As for Orelia and me, there are no objections and no regrets. Before retiring, we both suffered minor injuries, which normally comes with the job. After thirty-eight plus years, Orelia finally retired. After retiring from the PD, I went back to driving trucks. After that, I decided to write. And now, the rest is history. Throughout the years, I know that we both always felt the God was blessing us with his mercies and graces. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for everything you have always given us, good or bad.

"Living life to the fullest and in God’s graces beyond

Mother Freedom and Father Time"

A Memoir

With all my love, written especially for my wife, Orelia

GOLDEN YEARS OF LOVE

Another year, another Spring, another day in May.

It’s a gift to us from God, this beautiful day, today.

Together, we have added promises to promises

Since the first time we both said, Yes!

Little did we know, the lifetime trips we took were lessons

In growing up and maturing into who we are today.

Our early years were rough and tough, but mainly, hard.

Now, here we are today saying what all is living in our hearts.

For fifty years, we’ve followed winding roads and dusty trails.

At times, we smiled at Mother Freedom and laughed with Father Time.

When we were young and free, and filled with laughter and fun,

We faced the world without prejudice, regret or fear.

We unlocked our cellar dreams hidden deep within our hearts

With God’s Lighthouse taking us way beyond the portal of His love.

We have lived trusting and believing in the Holy Trinity,

And here we are today, renewing our fifty years of vows.

So, in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad,

And for richer or for poorer, I still vow to always love you.

You will forever live inside my heart, my soul and deep within my mind.

Till death do us part, together forever and ever, my sweet wife.

CHAPTER 1

Fate Wins Every Time

P EOPLE SAY WE all have the soul mate of our life waiting for us somewhere. How do we know when we have truly found that soul mate? I don’t think it’s always love at first sight, but it can be. Old friends can mysteriously turn out to be soul mates. It probably happens more times than we care to know. So, does fate play a huge roll in where or in how we eventually live out our lives? Are we really masters of our own successes, our own failures, our own destiny or, in our own demise, while trying to live out our lives? Maybe God has something to do with it. We just don’t know it. Is there some kind of mysterious or mystical and invisible being out there that guides our hearts and our lives along, from the moment we are born up until the day we give our last breath here on earth? I’d say, yes, and maybe, all of the above. But only God knows, right? Back in high school, studying science, we were told that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. As far as I know, that is still Newton’s third law of motion. Is this always true? And does that law still stand in today’s way of thinking and discovery? Who knows, right? I am certainly no scientist. I just know that what I see right in front of my eyes is what I see. So, I go back to fate every single time. To me, fate wins every single time. I fell in love with the girl of my dreams, my future wife, in the Spring of 1968. It was toward the end of May, to be exact. This story is, in a way, a love story and a continuation from my first novel and third book, Smiling at Mother Freedom, Laughing with Father Time, which was published in 2018. In a way, you could say that this is the story beyond the story. I go back to what St. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 13, Verses 4 thru 7 of the New Testament. He tells us, Love is always patient and kind. Love is never jealous. Love is not boastful or conceited. It is never rude and never seeks its own advantage. It does not take offence or store up grievances. Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing but finds its joy in the truth. It is always ready to make allowances, to trust, to hope and to endure whatever comes.

So, what is fate? Recently, while doing research for a particular writing, I came across the word, fate. I knew the meaning from my high school years. I also knew that words have a tendency of changing meanings or of being used in different ways. I guess it can also depend on the conversation. I wanted a more precise intellectual meaning. I grabbed my three dictionaries and decided to check them out. A 1978 print of Webster’s told me it meant, power of determining events. Believe it or not, I still have in my possession my very own 1964 Merriam-Webster Dictionary from my junior high school days. It got me through junior high and high school. It is still a reliable source for spelling words and researching definitions. This particular dictionary defined fate as The cause beyond men’s control that is held to determine events. It also mentioned, lot and fortune. I was more than satisfied with my 1964 Merriam-Webster Dictionary edition and meaning of fate. It defined everything I needed to know about the word, fate. I was now satisfied, to say the least. I was glowing! When I saw Orelia for the very first time standing outside that junior high building, I knew that it was fate! I was meant to be there and so was she. And I, for one, was now officially in love! All I had to do now was find out everything I could about her. I wasn’t that shy, but I was not that bold or courageous either. I got around with friends just like everybody else. But she was way different and more beautiful than any of my friends, guys or girls.

Sometimes, I have to ask myself, Who would have ever thought that two totally different kids from two opposite ends of the spectrum, in this case, the country, would someday be at the same place and at the same time? Not only that, but they would also happen to be at the same small town of West Texas when they had both come from two totally different parts of the country? I say that because I was born way down in the most southern part of Texas and I would later learn that she had been born way up north in the most northern state in the country, the state of Washington, also known as, The Evergreen State. My birth and my deep Hispanic roots, which I am very proud of, take me back to the Valley, or better known as, the city of Harlingen. Orelia, on the other hand, was born in Sunnyside, Washington, which is in Yakima County. As far as distance is concerned, we were born 2, 227 miles apart. When we met, we had narrowed that distance by 653 miles. It would be several months before we would actually start talking. School was now out for the summer. Three months after I first saw her, I jumped in headfirst and decided that I really needed to make my move. She would eventually have to say yes or no! It was a take it or leave it, moment.

I would now be a senior when school started back in the fall of ’68. To my benefit, she would now be a freshman herself. I say, she, because I still didn’t know her name. I had one full school year to make my move and get her to fall in love with me. I was a bookworm, but I was willing and ready to let a few grades slip by and still graduate. Through one of my brothers, I finally found out her name. Her name was Orelia. That’s all I needed to know. They were in the same grade. I was two and a half years older than her. Little did either one of us know that we would both end up realizing that we had lived somewhat similar lives before meeting each other. Moving to New Deal had never been part of the plan for her and her family. This is where fate comes in.

Fate brought them to New Deal, is what I have been telling her for years. At the same time, it was a chance meeting for the two of us. We both knew that. It turned out that one of my younger brothers was graduating from middle school and now getting ready to enter high school. Orelia was in that same grade. But up until then, I had had no idea that she even existed. One look was all it took for me. She, too, was graduating from junior high, or middle school and would now be getting ready to enter my high school. I would definitely be ready for day one! She had recently moved to the New Deal area from the small-town over to the north of New Deal. She lived out on a farm located in the Abernathy school district. As for us, we were in the process of moving inside the small New Deal farming town. This was back in ‘68. We had already been attending New Deal ISD on and off since 1966. This time, Dad had finally saved enough money to buy an empty property right in the middle of town. Having saved enough money from our field working days during the summer, Mom and Dad finally had enough money to buy a small piece of land that, at one time, used to be a small lumber yard. Dad had enough money to also buy an old wood-framed house. A few weeks later, it was finally moved inside the little town of New Deal. Incidentally, our oldest brother had just left for the Marine Corps in early 1968 bypassing his high school graduation. He was about to leave us all behind for a new and different graduation diploma.

He would soon be on his way to Vietnam and leaving us all behind. He was going to the other end of the world. We were still the green and gold New Deal Lions. He now proudly wore scarlet and gold and had a mean looking bulldog for a mascot. We were still the roaring New Deal Lions. He was now a Devil Dog. To me, there has always been something scary about that name. But they are what they are! We have a mascot and they have a mascot. Everybody has a mascot. And just like that, we were way out of his league. We were not even close. We were still teenage high school kids playing sibling games back home. He, on the other hand, was getting ready to fight in hand-to-hand combat, forfeit his entire future and was now willing to give his life for this country. It was a time when the Vietnam War was in full force and many young men were either signing up voluntarily for the military or were being drafted into the service to go fight. Most everyone in the Army and the Marines was headed for Vietnam. We were six brothers and one sister. When our oldest brother left, we didn’t know if we would ever see him again. The school year, 1968-1969, was my senior year in high school. My mind was now focused and pre-occupied on a new freshman girl in my high school. In a few eight short months, I would be graduating and moving on.

Approximately two and a half years later, after seeing combat from the frontlines, my oldest brother finished his tour of duty in Vietnam. He came back home and surprised us all. It didn’t take him long to fall in love. He went and got married. Little did we know that all our lives were about to change forever. Our entire family was in for a huge surprise and was about to take a different route. That sibling of ours had left home as a teenager to fight a war and he had literally come back as a completely different person. That boy was now a man. I wondered to myself, Is that all it takes? I also wondered as to how many young kids went through the same transformation. As you can see, I was still very much green behind the ears! As far as I could tell, he looked alright from the outside and still the same when he returned from overseas. But was he really and truly mentally, alright? We honestly didn’t know. We hadn’t been there with him when he was wondering through the jungles of Vietnam. We hadn’t seen what he’d seen. We had done what he’d done. I could not even imagine. Anything could’ve happened up there, right? We would probably never know. He wasn’t giving any of us any details. It would forever be embedded in his mind. Had he locked the door and thrown away the key? Unfortunately, he had the only key. In the end, someone else would have to convince him to unlock it and let us all in. Physically and, thank God, he was still in one piece. That was the good part. Mentally? We still weren’t quite sure. We had never seen the bloodshed that comes with a war with our own eyes or experienced it in our own short lives. We had seen movies, though. We had seem plenty of episodes of the TV show, Combat. Some of it didn’t look very pretty. I didn’t know much about wars except for what I had read about in school about the Civil War in the 1860’s. And even that, I was clueless about the hardships of a war. I had made A’s and B’s, but I still had no clue. For sure, our war hero was now acting way different than before. To a point, he scared us by how bold and firm he now talked, how loud and with conviction he now went around yelling orders. He showed us how he could easily and with tremendous force break things with his bare hands just for fun right in front of our eyes. Was PTSD slowly creeping up and building inside his brain. Sadly, there was nothing any of us knew about it or could do about it. What was PTSD? Once we began hearing the word on the news, it was a new word for all of us. It was a word that was not in my old reliable and faithful 1964 Merriam-Webster. My mind was now and completely preoccupied with a certain young girl.

Orelia was fourteen years old and I was seventeen when I first fell head over heels for her. At the time, I already had my brother’s white 4-door hand-me-down Plymouth Belvedere and I was now driving it. I had been third in line to drive that sixties ageless car. As far as I was concerned, it was now all mine. Well, not really! I kind of knew that my sister would probably be next in line to drive it and she would most likely be the last one to drive it. By now, it had a lot of miles to go with the wear and tear of that old engine, not counting the interior. The seats were wore out. The Kmart seat covers were not helping much at all. They looked nice but they really didn’t fix anything. And I was right! After my sister got her chance to drive it, Dad finally traded it in for a newer model. Like I said, it was time to get rid of it. It had been a good reliable car for a good ten years or more. It had a lot of miles by then and it was definitely ready to be traded. Dad loved those Plymouth cars back then. But it had been all mine for a couple of years. Little did anyone know that I was already saving for my very first car bought and paid for with my own money. It was my secret, and mine alone. At the time, I was also saving money like a banker protects his money.

I was constantly told and reminded that I was very stingy with my money. Regardless, I was always saving for something, even for a rainy day. At fourteen, after reading and studying the driver’s handbook manual, I passed the written tests and passed the driving test with ease. I finally got my driver’s temporary permit. At the time, I could only drive as long as someone with a real driver’s license was up in the front seat with me. That meant that either Dad, or my oldest brother had to be with me when I drove. At the time, my oldest brother was seventeen, going on eighteen. A few times, Mom was in the front seat with me when I would take her to the neighborhood store. She didn’t have a license, but nobody had to know. Lucky for us, I was never stopped by the police for committing a traffic violation. When I reached seventeen, my license was automatically upgraded and I could finally drive by myself without having a chaperone with me. As soon as I could legally drive in town on my own, I took it upon myself to go straight to the bank one day after school. I had it all planned by then. I had already decided to open up my very first checking account. I headed for Lubbock National Bank. I knew exactly where it was. It was on my way to moving forward with my life! I was determined to never be broke! One thing I learned at a very young age was how to save money.

Of course, I didn’t tell anybody. My brothers would’ve probably eaten me alive! This was another one of my very own secrets in life back then. Believe me, I was already thinking about my future in life. I was thinking ahead. I would say, I was probably way ahead of my time! I don’t know if any of my two older siblings had already done what I was about to do. If they had, I hadn’t been told and I wasn’t planning on staying too far behind. They didn’t really confided in me about such matters. I didn’t either. This was my doing! I’m sure they had their own plans and believe me, I had mine. No one in the family really knew that I had been saving my own personally earned money for way over a year when I thought about what I needed to do with my money. Up until then, I had never entered a bank by myself. I had decided it was about time I acted like a grown up. I was still in school, but I wasn’t that naïve anymore, especially when it came to money. I already knew what I wanted in life. I had watched enough TV shows to know what that was, I thought. My dreams consisted of having my own money to spend as I wished and having enough money to buy things for myself or for my future family. I must admit, I had no plans of marrying anyone anytime soon. This would be just a work in progress. I was planning to play it by ear. I was still very much interested in books, grades and eventually, graduation. I didn’t want to let my parents down. Most of all, I didn’t want to let myself down. I actually wanted to graduate with good grades.

But I did want to have enough money to feed myself, clothe myself, and take care of myself. I was also thinking about possibly going to college after high school. Graduation was just around the corner. I wasn’t just saving pennies anymore. I was saving all my nickels and dimes. But I was also saving my ones, fives and tens, whenever I could. Little did I know back then that I could actually open up a checking account with a minimum of twenty dollars and a savings account with only five dollars. When I went to the bank, I did and I did! Fifteen or twenty minutes later, I walked out of that bank with a temporary checkbook and a small booklet that said I owned five dollars inside that bank that was now tucked away in my savings account. I wasn’t rich, but the bank could now tell the world and anyone else who was interested that I had money in their bank. It wasn’t much, but it was enough for right now. I knew I could make it grow. Growing up, many times it had been drilled into my head that I was stingy with my money. I had it in my pocket to spend, but I wouldn’t spend it. In my mind, I had a failproof master plan. I wouldn’t spend it unless I had more than I needed. If I had extra, then I knew that I would never be empty-handed. I would always have a little something left in my pocket. In other words, I would never be broke. Yep, that was the plan that I could live with.

By now, I was no longer working out in the fields. I wasn’t hoeing cotton, picking cotton, planting onions or harvesting onions. I no longer worked at the onion shed with the Thiel’s. I was no longer working where Dad was still working at, which was Goodnight’s Sausage Factory. That all came about as a surprise to me one day. I had actually been recruited to go work at Frank’s Meat Market which was located downtown on Broadway in Lubbock. As soon as school would let out for the day, I would hurry up and head for work. I already knew about boning, cutting and packaging. I also knew how to count money and change in my head. I was always good with numbers. I didn’t get paid a lot, but I got paid big bucks for a teenager back then. And it was all going straight to the bank. That piggy bank was getting fatter and fatter by the week.

And just like that, Frank’s Meat Market changed names. It soon became known as Pancho’s Chorizo Mexicano. Frank had shut down the retail meat market and began making and packaging Mexican sausage, or better known as, chorizo mexicano. The store had one employee, and that was me! I made it, packaged it, and I delivered it all over the South Plains of West Texas. Frank bought a van and I drove it all over West Texas. Many times, I would be there by myself from opening time until closing time. When Frank wouldn’t show up for work, I would count all the money, take it to his house, and he would then take it to the bank the following morning. This went on for about four years. He would eventually close down the business and I would go back to the meat processing plant. I went to work for Ben Grantham Meat Company. As far as I knew, it was still a weekly and steady paycheck for me. Because of my experience and knowledge in the meat cutting business, the job came with a pay raise. That’s really all I cared about. I was single and I was raking in the money. I wasn’t keeping all the money. I was giving some of my money to Mom and Dad, mainly because I was still living at home. As to what they did with the money, I didn’t ask. I didn’t care.

I didn’t know anything about Orelia when school began. I had seen her maybe once during the entire summer when I went to St. Isidore which is the catholic church in Abernathy. I was hoping she was still living close by or in the New Deal district. Otherwise, I would probably never see her again. The New Deal ISD 1968/1969 school year was finally getting under way. I was now a certified senior in high school. I was told I only needed two and a half credits to graduate. At the same time, I was encouraged, (hint-hint) by some of my teachers to sign up for a full load. Not wishing to disappoint them, I signed up for seven classes. Yes, I did! Two were only half semesters. Thank God! I signed up for English IV, Civics, Trigonometry, Chemistry, Bookkeeping, Calculus, and of course, P.E. No doubt, I had a full load for my senior class. I figured that by graduation time, I would very easily end up with 22 credits instead of the required, 20. That meant that by the time I finished high school, my grade average would hopefully be high enough to graduate. I would be more than satisfied. After all, I just wanted to graduate and move on with my life.

It would be a few weeks before I would finally spot Orelia around the lockers and walking down the hallways. Since I was a senior, our classes were mainly on one side of the building and the freshmen classes were on the opposite side of the building. Many times, I never even saw her during lunch period. I was still hurrying out of class at the end of the school day to get to work in Lubbock. I couldn’t play football because I had to work. I had no idea that Orelia even liked sports. I didn’t know anything about her athletic abilities. I concentrated mainly on my sport, which was track, which was toward the end of the school year. I had plenty of time to prepare for that. In my mind, I thought Orelia was just another girl who didn’t care about sports or about athletic competition. I was wrong! Man, was I in for a huge surprise! In those days, girls played high school basketball and that was it. There was no school money for any other girls’ sports except for basketball. If you didn’t play basketball, you went to P.E. It was one or the other. By now, my two older brothers were out of high school. Like I mentioned earlier, one had joined the Marines while the other was attending Texas Technological College. My younger sister was right behind me in high school and our three younger brothers followed her.

Slowly, I began making my Gonzalez move on Orelia. It was a one day at a time tactic. I always thought of myself as being a very patient person. I was a senior and she was a freshman. In school, that was a huge difference. Then again, she was beautiful and I was in love. And I didn’t care about the age difference! To her, I was a senior and she was only a freshman. There was a big difference to her, but not to me. Freshman didn’t talk much to upper classmen. I think it was a rule. I know I went through the same routine when I was a freshman. Who knows? But it was going to take a lot for her to talk to me. For one, I found out that she was shy and a very quiet girl to begin with. She wasn’t going to be that easy to persuade or conquer. My plan was to get her even notice me in order to actually talk with me. I had my work cut out for me. So, every time I would see her walking down the hallways and in between classes, I always made it my mission to confront her and talk to her. I wasn’t trying to block her from moving forward, I just wanted to see her, hear her voice and be able to talk to her. It took a good while, but we slowly began talking. It practically took me forever to get her to look me in my eyes when we actually spoke face to face. As for me, I was slowly memorizing her beautiful face. And when we did talk, her friends always seemed to be around her. She was like a magnet for all her girl friends. She seemed to have this attraction to those who knew her. It was actually funny to see them clinging onto her when I was around. I slowly began knowing their names, too! There was Vicky, Ninfa and Mary Jessie. It was like I needed their permission to even get close to Orelia so that I could talk to her! But they were all very nice when they gathered around us. To my surprise, they already seemed to know more about me than I knew about them. Like I said, in a way, it was kind of funny. And I went along with their little game and harmless charades. They kidded me more than I kidded them. My interest was now entirely focused on one very special freshman girl, and her name was Orelia.

The months went by slowly. Being a senior in high school had its rewards. Maybe I could’ve taken advantage of that more than I did. But I didn’t. I was still all books, study and make good grades. Homework always came easy for me. But still, I continued working for Frank. By now, I was traveling all over the south Plains delivering chorizo. Before school let out in May, one day I was asked to bring a suit to school. Lucky for me, I had just bought me my graduation suit. A couple of years back, I had been nominated by several teachers as the Most Courteous in school. I never knew who had nominated me or who had actually voted for me. I never asked. This time around, much to my surprise, the school was taking another picture of me for the yearbook. I wasn’t told why. It would not be until a day or so before graduation day that I was told I had been unanimously voted as Most Likely To Succeed! Wow! What an honor! I still wondered the same thing as back in 1967 when I was voted, Most Courteous! All I could do was ask myself, Really? Why me? Yes, most of all, why me? What did they know that I didn’t! I was given a small scholarship just to get me started in college. It wasn’t a whole lot, but it was still a scholarship! I already had my sights set on Texas Tech. I would patiently wait for Orelia to graduate from high school. That meant, I would have to wait three years for her to graduate and hopefully, we would still be dating and thinking about getting married. Only time would tell. Like I stated before, I was known to be a patient person, and maybe too patient. Waiting for her, I would need a lot of patience! For me, it would be a test of wits! Could I wait that long? If I wanted her for my partner in life, I would have to be!

During the school year, I finally had the nerve to ask Orelia to be my girlfriend. I was ecstatic when she finally said, Yes! And from then on, I knew that she was now all mine! And just like that, I no longer cared about money. Funny how that worked itself out. To my belief, I didn’t need money anymore! I was in love! I had her! I had all I wanted. I still had my job after school and on weekends. But even I knew I needed something to make her look my way and believe and trust in me! I needed charm, a nice smile and a car more than I needed the money! As far as I knew, I was on the right track. I had all three! Before school had let out, she had slowly begun to tell me little tidbits about her life at home. I found out she had an older sister who was about eight or nine years older than her. She told me that her Dad was a farmer and that her mom was a housewife. She had a sister who was one year younger than her, a younger brother and a baby sister who was seven years old. In time, I would get the chance to meet all of them. And then she told me that her Mom and Dad were very old fashioned. I thought to myself, So are mine! Because of her age, they would not allow her to date or have a boyfriend! I laughed. Yes, it kind of sounded like my mom and dad! I knew this was going to cause a problem for the two of us. I needed to come up with a plan. I saw her at school, but I wanted to see her before and after! But no, no, no! Her parents had very strict rules! It was a no-win situation for me.

Of course, my brothers, my sister and I still took our brown paper sack lunches to school. By now, we were used to this. As for me, I didn’t think anything of it. I had money in my pocket, in the bank, and I was still saving my nickels and dimes as much as I could. Toward the end of the school year, something made me buy Orelia’s school lunch. I didn’t know if I should or not, but I did. She had recently told me that had started working in the cafeteria in order to help pay for her sibling’s school lunches. The lunches were not that expensive back then, but when you don’t have any money, a little can actually be a lot! I went up to the cashier and paid for her lunch. When I couldn’t find her, I got one of her best friends to find her and let her know. At the same time, I went and found my own group of friends and sat down with them to eat my sack lunch. I was getting close to graduating and I didn’t see any need to change my eating style or habits. I had eaten out of a brown bag my entire life, and I wasn’t planning on making any last-minute changes. A couple more months and I would be gone! I had seen those lunch trays all those years. A few of those cafeteria meals actually looked good. Others, well, you get the point. Hey, it was cafeteria food! Orelia would continue to work at the cafeteria during lunch for the next few years in order make sure that her siblings got a hot meal every day at school. And thanks to her, they ate a hot meal while in school every day. I, on the other hand, continued to work and save money for that long-time coming rainy day. At the right time, and hopefully, three years down the road, I would unveil my plan to my siblings, but mainly to my future bride! By then, I would be 21