"I remember a little few things when I was a young girl. I can go back when I was a little girl, a little baby. I must have been about four or five. I still remember when Chelino and his friend used to play catch with me. Cause I was real fat and looked like a ball. One day my mama caught them. Oh, she threw a fit! They would throw me like this. They would throw me like a ball. (laughs) I was laughing! I thought it was so funny. But my mother threw a fit. That's as far as I can go to remember when I was little girl.

Me

photo courtesy of Josephine Todd

Mostly [we played], we used to call it "ron, ron, sheepy ron." That's what my daddy called it but you know what it was? Run, run, sheep run. We just hide and the one that stayed had to go look for us. Hide and go seek. I don't remember too much about down there by the tunnel but I remember one time my mother's comadre came to visit and they had told them [the children] not to go down to the tunnel. The lady told the sons not to go to the tunnel but they did. So she made them strip off and go through the tunnel all naked. The mother. And they had a mean father, he was a mean man. But my mother and her got along real well.

They tell us real scary spooky stories but I can't remember them too well. They tell us stories about witches, and la llorona and all that stuff they tell kids. Well, they used to but nowadays the kids scare the parents. We believed them. Chelino would baby sit for us so he would tell us stories and I thought they were really true what he told us. About the time a bear attacked him. He said he punched him and when he punched him, the bear opened his mouth and so he pulled him inside out. He would tell us stories. He told us that he was the one that made the world and I believed him, hijo, I really did believe him. I was just a little girl then. He said that one time he cut the earth together and he sewed it. So he was a hero to us.

[We played] kick the can, and comadres. I used to play comadres with Josie and Carol [my cousins]. My mother would make us some dolls. They used to come out in where it's a print, a sack, and she would cut it for us and then she'd fill them with ajo (garlic leaves). I still got one. Like a stuffed animal or toys. We used to cut our own paper dolls from magazines, old magazines that we could find looking in the dumps.

Annie and Selena and Libby [were my friends]. They lived in Morenci around there. Aurora, my friend, Aurora Ponce, the sister-in-law of Mary, she was my best friend then. We became friends since we were kids and we're still friends. We contact each other but only on the phone. When I became friends to Aurora, they came from El Paso and she had two brothers, Richard, the husband of Mary, and Martin. And one day my daddy went and chased them away because we were playing with them. (laughs) He would tell us, "You're so many girls, you don't have to have any other playmates. You can play among yourselves." Nati and I were the best of friends but sometimes she'd squeal on me. (laughs) She'd say, "Mother, Josie did this. Josie did that." (laughs)

My daddy had a pot belly [stove]. We used to have a huge potbelly stove. I remember when my daddy used to order some wood from the Ritzes [hardware store] they would dump it from that big wall so me and Chelado, and Nati would have to put it in a wheel barrow and take [it] to the little shed. We had to put it just like the way he wanted to. All like a little wall. We were supposed to put it just right or else he would throw a fit. Then he would bring coal and we had to put it in the wheel barrel too and put it in cans, barrels that my daddy had already prepared for us. He had that shed so neat. He was a very neat man. When my daddy couldn't afford it to buy coal, we used to go to the dump and find old shoes or find old tires. (laughs) Then our faces were black and the stinky smell!

I remember my dad, poor my dad, he used to cut the soles for shoes for Chelino and Chelado out of the tire. He used to make sandals. Now they're making them <again> and they're expensive. My daddy used to put soles with the great big things. They used to give us shoes through the relief society, or whatever they used to call it, and we used to call them mata vivoras (snake killers). The girls are wearing these kinds of shoes nowadays, that's the kind of shoes we had to wear. (laughs) Ours were oxfords. Nati would tell me, "You go ask for shoes, Josie and tell them like this, 'I need some shoes and I need dresses for me and you.'" I used to tell them, "We need some dresses and we need some shoeses." (laughs)

We spoke only Spanish. I don't even remember where it [English] came from. That's all we spoke in at home, Spanish. I remember my mother, Chelino would bring his books home, and he would try to teach my mother how to read English. He told her about Lincoln being the president and she was so proud of Chelino, the way he tried to teach her.

[One time] when [Nati and I were six and three] we went with the lunch [for Chelino]. I remember we passed these tunnels and then there was this other tunnel and it was blowing air and Nati said, "No, we'd better not go down the railroad tracks down there because that air will throw us way down." There was a cliff to the bottom. She says, the idea was Nati's, "We go up like that on top and we climb the hill on top to come on the other side so the air won't throw us down." She said a man stopped us. He said, "You cannot take your little sister anywhere else. If you're gonna have to go, you go by yourself." So Nati went by herself and she was crying and we were both crying. I went home. I went and took off. I didn't even wait for Nati because she didn't come. I kept crying 'cause I remember I was crying and crying. Finally I stopped and I thought, no, I'd better go back home.

My daddy used to work under Julieta [manager of the theater]. Julieta used to give him a big roll of tickets and we can go any time. We were kids. But a long time before,when we were just little kids, my grandma used to make tortillas to sell so she could give us some money to go to the movies. It used to cost a nickel and then later on it went to a dime. She used to give us a dime each, one for the movies and one to go buy us a treat.

One Christmas day, it was the movie "Heidi" and Carol won the Heidi doll. She wouldn't even let us touch it. One day she says, "I'm gonna have a party for my doll, for my Heidi, but nobody's gonna be invited, just Pico." Pico was a guy that I married when I was a little girl. She wanted him for herself so she went and invited Pico just for the party but he didn't go. I got all the neighborhood kids to go stone my grandma's house but my grandma wasn't there, she was at my mom's. Someone went and told my mom that we were throwing rocks at Carol. (laughs) Before I knew it, my mother was standing behind me with a whip. That time she did hit us. It wasn't because we were throwing rocks at Carol but because we were throwing rocks at my grandma's house. She hit us with a belt. That time she was so mad.

You know who was the one I liked to ask questions? One day I tell her, "Josie, have you noticed, pick up a rock and see all these little flowers that are printed on the rock. I wonder how they got there?" So she'd tell me, "You know, Josie, one time this earth was covered with water." She said all this earth was covered with water and when the rain stopped, the weeds and everything that was underneath, got printed in the rocks." She explained to me a lot of things. [She was older than me.] Carol was a chiplé (spoiled brat). My grandma used to have her chiple. We used to fight with her. We only stayed around her because my grandma used to give us money. (laughs)"