For nine years I was an only child. During those years my older cousins, Teresita or “Teri” (+2013) and Peter (+2018) took their rightful places as my older “siblings.” They were the daughter and son of my Tío Pin. I always looked forward to their visits as we would play together day and night. Of course, I’m talking about Peter and me, and we would drive Teri crazy, since she was the eldest. Christmas was the holiday they came to visit without fail. In the 60’s they lived in St. Thomas, in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
In 1969 Teri and Peter would gain two more siblings, the twins Kenneth and Marie. Mamá Ana, Papi, and Titi Gloria had planned to journey to St. Thomas to meet the new additions to the family, and I was set to go. But before the departure I came down with rubeola, the standard measles. I became covered with red spots in what became the first of my childhood illnesses. I missed what would’ve been my first ride in an airplane and first journey outside Puerto Rico.
Until then I had only the diphtheria and tetanus vaccines. I received them during a visit to Mom’s workplace at the Public Health Unit. Yes, I did cry a lot. I had no prior preparation and all the other children around me were crying so I cried too.
This was also the time in which I hit my left eye straight into the drop-rod of our front gate. The drop-rod was what kept the gate in place in a locked position. Back then the drop-rods' handles curved up because, what could happen? I don’t know how I slipped and fell, and my eye went right into it. Mom started screaming but I wasn’t crying or anything after the event. I was standing there, wondering what had happened and why was she screaming. Mom was screaming as he looked into my eye. She saw I had developed a surface capillary hemorrhage on the eyeball.
A visit to an ophthalmologist revealed the damage had been superficial. I remember to this day the first time I looked at the ophthalmologist’s projection screen. I told him the geometric figures I saw on the screen as he showed them to me. He came out muttering “20-20 20-20” singsongy. He prescribed drops. But the blood stains on my eyeball never went away. I carry them to this day.
This was also the time in which I got my first bad haircut. It was bad because I gave it to myself.
I don’t know how I grabbed Mamás scissors, but I did. I then proceeded to cut my own hair myself. As I passed the scissors around my ears, they made the same sound that Don Angel’s scissors made when Papi took me to him for haircuts. The sound was the same, so I thought I did good. I felt satisfied.
Not long after that I received my very first super-short crewcut…
The year 1969 was also the cusp years for Moon shots. I remember having watched Apollo 10’s lift-off early in 1969. Apollo 11 and the first moon landing was on the horizon. I would wake up early on Saturday mornings to watch “El Club del Espacio” hosted by Colonel Valdés. The Colonel was the director of Antilles Military Academy. This was a military grade and high school located in San Juan. During the show academy students asked Colonel Valdés sundry space-related questions. and he would answer them in stride. The show preceded one called “Universidad del Aire” which I never understood what it was for. Then the Saturday morning cartoons would then follow at 9 AM until noon, all on channel 4.
It was on the vacuum-tube, black-and-white TV set we had at the house where I watched the Apollo 11 moon landing. Though I didn’t, really. The adults woke me up very early to watch the event. When Neil Armstrong made it down the ladder and touched the moon surface, I was unable to make heads or tails of it. All I saw on the old TV were black and gray smudges, though the adults in the room did see it. It took me years to see and understand what had taken place. In this sense, I both watched and missed watching the moon landing.
I drank Tang, an instant orange juice drink. To make it you added water to a couple of spoonfuls of orange powder and there! You had an orange-colored sugar shot. I loved it because they marketed it as “the astronaut’s drink.” Since I’d decided at that age that I would grow up to be an astronaut, I consumed Tang with joy.
One day I asked Papi to make me one as I was too young to make myself a glass. He did, except that he used milk instead. Of course, I refused the concoction and told him why. Papi, who wasn’t known to waste anything, took a look at the drink, and sipped it. He made a “not bad” gesture and drank it all.
I’m sure many other things happened in 1969 but these are the ones I remember the most. Of Peter and Teri, I’ll end their story by saying I’m amazed I outlived both of them. Teri died in 2013 of metastasized breast cancer. Peter died in 2018 when his metabolism collapsed following heart and kidney failures. He was 54. Their twin siblings are alive and kicking, I’m happy to say. Although Kenneth had his own close encounter with cancer, now remitted in full.
Before I close the 60’s, I must mention that right about the time I was born, a star was also born: my wife Mercie. In fact, though we wouldn’t meet until 1980, we came close to bumping into each other. She had an aunt living three houses down from ours. She often visited her aunt, and I may have even seen her there. But she wasn’t to register in my mind until a rollcall started at a certain school. It was to be the same school I was to enter the following year, in 1970: la Academia Santa María.