1971 - The Village That Raised Me
In which Teófilo reminisces about the neighbors who would help raise him.
“It takes a village to raise a child.” ― African Proverb ...
The year 1971 started uneventfully. It was then when my awareness of the neighborhood began to expand.
Two houses from ours in the direction opposite to where the aunt of my future bride lived was the house of Don Tomás Torres Muñoz. They had a daughter we knew as “Ita” but that’s all I remember. Don Tomás was a close friend of Don Luis Ferré, then Puerto Rico’s governor.
Either Don Tomás rented or sold the house to its next family, the Thomasson family if I recall their names right, if not the right spelling. They were the first US Mainland people I’d ever interacted with. I think they were from West Virginia, though they may have been from the Old Dominion instead. The father worked at one of the petrochemical plants in nearby Peñuelas or Guayanilla. He and his wife whose name I can’t recall had four daughters: Jane, Joan, Lisa and I’m sorry I can’t remember the name of the last one.
Jane was my same age and Joan was a year older, but it was Jane I first met. One day I saw this blond girl grabbing the irons of our front gate. She wanted friendship. I approached her and said my first ever interactive conversation in English. I asked her “What’s your name?” “Jane!” she said, and we became friends. I was so excited I ran into the house to tell Mom I had spoken in English, and someone had understood me.
I recall Mom teaching Spanish to the older girls. One day they moved out. I don’t recall if I ever said goodbye.
Beyond the Thomasson house lived the Hernández’s. Mom was a friend to one of the daughters whose name I forget at the moment, but her brother Efraín got for me the first G.I. Joe action figure I’d ever owned. Efraín would inherit the home from his parents, and later on in the decade, he and his wife Helmi would become pivotal figures in my life.
Across the street from us, the Peña’s lived with their two daughters and one son. The son was my classmate a la Academia along with several of the neighbors’ children. Behind our house lived Dr. Andrés Grillasca, scion of a renowned Ponce medical family. “Frankito” was his son and his grandmother also lived with them, I want to say her name was Doña Justina.
One house down after my would-be bride’s aunt lived the Martínez and their two boys older than me, Alan and Patrick. They were older than me and often bullied me. Their dad, however, collected stamps and was most amiable. Their mother was French. The Vientós family with their two daughters and two sons lived next door to my future aunt-in-law, but none of their children were my peers and in fact, were much older. They did attend my school’s high school side at the time.
Two homes down lived Magda and her son Kermit. Mom also used to talk to her, and I want to say Magda was once a beautician. Right next door to them, the Rodríguez family made their abode. The father was a pharmacist and they had two sons and a daughter, Maryalice, who was also a classmate at la Academia.
On the corner behind our block and beside the Grillasca family lived the Bauzá’s, Don Bautista and Doña Diadina. Don Bautista was a Spaniard. They were elderly and would become even more so as I grew up.
Across from them there was a wide-open field where we flew our kites and played at war.
Also, along the same street the Irizarry family lived, with their two daughters, Ivonne and Midzaida. Ivonne was my age, and also a classmate at my parochial school. The far corner of that street was the Quiñones homestead, with their four daughters of which the youngest, Jannette, was my peer and also a classmate at, you guessed it, la Academia. Both their parents were also from Spain. We called the girls “Las Españolitas.” Their corner home at that time marked a dead end, with weeds growing wild and funky rodents running about.
The entire suburban development was called “Perla del Sur” or “Pearl of the South,” a nickname also applied to the city of Ponce at large. All the streets had letter names. I lived on “J” Street along with the Thomasson’s and the Martínez’s. My future bride’s aunt also lived on “J” street. The Peña’s lived on “M” Street, the Hernández’s lived on “B” and Magda and the Rodríguez’s on “L.”
With a couple of more and very important additions later, this was my “village”, the children I would grow up, play, and go to school with, and the parents who also, in a way, got to parent me a little.
The year 1971, then started well but there were clouds on the horizon, and I didn’t see them until it was too late.