Transcribe
Translate
Ernest Rodriguez' "Impressions," 1960s-1980s
Imparessions
More information
digital collection
archival collection guide
transcription tips
IMPARESSIONS We lived in the barrio of the fists. Sometimes on warm summer nights we would get some blankets and with Mamas permission we would sleep out on top of the long porch of the flats. Before falling asleep we would communicate with the elements as only children can do. We lie down looking up at the stars and the moon watching the the clouds cross the lighted surface of the moon and counting the falling stars and locating the big dipper and the milky way. Sometimes in the evening the men would go up on top of the river bank and play dice or cards, or they would sit around the big flat cement rock and sing to the strumming of guitars. One night they were drinking and singing and echando gritos that gave you an exciting feeling of being alive but also a trace of fear and melancholy. Suddenly there was loud talk and angry words. Mama called us in the house and wouldn't let us go out. We watched from the upstairs window. Two men we're flailing at each other. We saw the silohuetted in the moonlight atop the river bank something in one of the men's hand. We knew it was a cuchillo. We recognized one of the men. We called him Villa. He was tall and slender with a huge handlebar moustache and fierce frightening black eyes beneath bushy eyebrows. Mama made us get away from the window. The next day we saw nothing of Villa. Somebody asked where he was and my mother replied "OK they say he went back to Mexico." We never saw him again.
Saving...
prev
next
IMPARESSIONS We lived in the barrio of the fists. Sometimes on warm summer nights we would get some blankets and with Mamas permission we would sleep out on top of the long porch of the flats. Before falling asleep we would communicate with the elements as only children can do. We lie down looking up at the stars and the moon watching the the clouds cross the lighted surface of the moon and counting the falling stars and locating the big dipper and the milky way. Sometimes in the evening the men would go up on top of the river bank and play dice or cards, or they would sit around the big flat cement rock and sing to the strumming of guitars. One night they were drinking and singing and echando gritos that gave you an exciting feeling of being alive but also a trace of fear and melancholy. Suddenly there was loud talk and angry words. Mama called us in the house and wouldn't let us go out. We watched from the upstairs window. Two men we're flailing at each other. We saw the silohuetted in the moonlight atop the river bank something in one of the men's hand. We knew it was a cuchillo. We recognized one of the men. We called him Villa. He was tall and slender with a huge handlebar moustache and fierce frightening black eyes beneath bushy eyebrows. Mama made us get away from the window. The next day we saw nothing of Villa. Somebody asked where he was and my mother replied "OK they say he went back to Mexico." We never saw him again.
Campus Culture
sidebar
