Growing up in Laredo

Soy de Laredo, born and bred, my whole life has been spent living it up on the west side. I was an eagle, then morphed into a cub, and graduated a tiger. Si, soy de la Martin (go tigers!) and darn proud of it.

My childhood was spent running up and down descalzos por la Constantinople, playing freeze touch and throwing the football around. When we'd get thirsty, we'd stroll up to any available water hose and cheerfully drink to our heart's content. Of course, first we'd make sure to let it run for a while until it ran warm, not scalding hot. We never paid any mind to whether it tasted funny. We didn't even care what kinda bugs had been crawling on that manguera. That water always tasted good.  

Whenever Mom wanted us to go inside, she'd stand on the porch and yell our names. Wherever we were, we'd stop whatever we were doing and head home. We didn't want Mom to have a reason to get el cinto. I can't say we were ever hit with it but just seeing it in her hands automatically transformed us into perfect angels. My mother's famous 'look' also got the job done. When she combined the look with her pellizcones, her message was crystal clear.

Back then our favorite toy was our imagination. We didn't need electronics. From morning until night, we'd spend our day outside. We were either building forts out of old bricks and boards, climbing trees, riding bikes down the streets, hitting up Peñita's, riding tires that would be spun for us by our tios (totally recommend it) or playing an invigorating game of baseball out in West Martin field. At night, we'd sit outside on Grandma's porch and hear countless ghost stories, most of which had been told numerous times, but they always managed to scare the crap outta us. Siempre andabamos afuera.

My father was the stoic, headstrong disciplinarian and my mother was the warm, affectionate mother goose, who made sure her children were well tended to. Tio, tias, primos, primas, and Grandma were constantly in the picture. Carñe asadas, piñatas, basketball games, football games, Scrabble tournaments...no one needed a reason to hang out; we just did. The influence from outside family members was almost always positive. The main flaw we all had was that we were (are) very competitive. We've always been a bunch of sore losers so there were always disagreements. But they'd quickly blow over and we'd be at it again, trying to out do each other. That's just the way it was.

The way I lived my childhood is not something most kids experience today. It's all tainted with technology, the need to grow up too fast, imaginations used in the wrong way, and the simple fact that families are not what they used to be. But that's an entry for another day. For now, I just wanted to sit down and relive what happiness I experienced when I was a wuerka growing up en Laredo, Tejas. Que pronto pasa el tiempo, pero siempre tengo los retratos....

back then it was okay to get dirty, well maybe not this dirty...we were lucky our parents grabbed the camera instead of the cinto..