Grandma Rangel's Acumen

February brings back other fabulous moments while staying with my Grandmother on those hot summers, clear springs and cool Christmas vacations from school in Imperial Valley.  One February when I was 12 years old I told my Grandmother that I was going to get a girlfriend for Valentines Day.  

After thinking about my comment for a moment she looked at me carefully and said,"Really, that is very interesting."  She motioned for me to sit at her little dining table, handed me a pencil and a blank piece of paper then said,"Here, write down everything that you want in this new girlfriend."  I sat down and wrote everything that I could think of.  She had to run as fast as me.  Climb trees all the way up with out getting scared.  Ride all sizes of bicycles.  I wanted her to be smart in school.  Never ditch classes to hang out with her friends.  No smoking, yuck.  I even wrote down that she needed to be clean.  I wished that she would smell nice.  Be friendly to all people.  Speak well of me and of all her friends.  Not  be mean or angry with a bad attitude.  Never cause problems at school or at home.  Finally that she be pretty with nice hair and eyes...and God knows how many other things went into that exhaustive list.  

This list took me all afternoon.  I would write and erase, then erase and write some more.  You see I wanted her to be perfect.  Eventually after what seemed like hours, I felt that I was completely done.  I sat there reviewing my list over and over because I knew my Grandmother very well.  I was fully aware that once the list was finished, there would be no more adding or taking from it.  She had brought me up to make a choice.  Live up to that choice because the choice was mine.  Once I had made the choice I had to defend my choice not in an argumentative way but in a logical way.  You see this choice was my word as a man and the only way to be a man was to live like one.  Therefore, I examined the list carefully and finally handed it to my Grandmother who by this time had started to cook dinner on her white porcelain gas stove.  She looked at me as I stood there smiling from ear to ear with the look of anticipation on my eager face.  Without even looking at it she handed it back to me and said,"When you become all of these things that you wrote on this list, that is when you will find her."  Not saying another word she turned around and went back to her cooking.  It hit me like a ton of bricks.  I saw perfectly what she meant from it.  It was at that moment when I began to see the true value of what a great companion was and is.  What it truly is to be in a relationship where everyone has great expectations of one another.  Whether it's in business, our family, or God we must be fully vested in each other and the only way to do that is first and foremost to be exactly what we want the other party to be.  

Abuelita Acumen

My earliest memory of this Knowledge of Life by my Abuelita Amalia Leyva Rangel is not too far into the past and that is due to the fact that I just can't remember any further than 1965.  When I was around 10 years old and staying with her in Calexico, CA (yes, that is in the USA) I would work at her little 2 bedroom home mowing her lawn and tending to all her (orange, little peaches, blackberry, lemon, grapefruit, pomegranate, and date) fruit trees every weekend, as well as during my Spring, Summer, and Winter breaks from school.  The funny thing is that I never remember her being really young but, she was better and stronger than me with a shovel, a hoe, and pruning shears.  She could especially hold her own on a typical hot, humid, summer day in the Imperial Valley.  

Our regular workday would consist of her coming into my bedroom at 5 a.m. and whispering into my ear,"Mi hijo, es hora." (My son, it's time) that was it.  You only had 1 wake up call with my grandmother, no more.  She would let you sleep in if you wanted to, but as my cousin Charley found out she wouldn't pay you any money at the end of the day either.  She herself would rise at 4 a.m. make fresh corn tortillas, coffee, and a small portion of frijoles con huevo (scrambled eggs mixed with beans, ham, and spices).  This particular day it was unusually hot, it was so hot that by 8 a.m. it was already 100 degrees F.  I know this because outside of her house was a huge Coca Cola thermostat that hung over the kitchen window.  The only thing that kept me digging, pruning, cutting, watering, and mowing was I knew that today I was going to ask for more money than the customary $1 bill that I would receive for every day I worked.  The other thing that I knew was that we would stop at 10 a.m., eat lunch for 30 minutes and then continue until 3 p.m. after I gathered and dumped all the trash we had generated. 

After taking a shower, she would ask me to sit down at the kitchen table hand me paper and pencil and let me draw for about an hour.  She really enjoyed my drawings and I loved doing them for her.  Although, I know I drew hundreds of these drawings over the years I would only see the most recent ones for a period of about one week hanging on her Curio Cabinet which was covered literally by hundreds of photographs of all her relatives, children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren.  When I would no longer see my drawings I assumed she would throw them away, forcing me to draw better ones for her every week.  

While I was drawing she would either sit with me or as she cooked on a old white gas stove talk to me about different subjects in regards to her childhood or about our families history.  For example where my Great Grand Parents where born, worked, and suffered over the years.  While the food was cooking or boiling she would go into her bedroom and as she walked by me would lay a $1 bill next to me and return to her cooking.  This day I turned to her and I said,"Abuelita, do you know that in this day and age the minimum wage is now $2 an hour?" I continued,"...we started at 6 a.m. and worked until 3 p.m. so that is about 9 hours, that means that I should be getting about $18 today."  She looked at me quietly, smiled, stirred the food and after what seemed an hour to me said,"Tienes razon (You are correct)."  I was really happy to hear that and said,"Let us figure all of this out correctly, write this down as well as you can.  House Payment, $700; Electric and water, $100; Food, about $100;  TV and furniture payment, $100;  Phone, $30;  Cable, $25;..." and the list went on and on and on and on...when she was finally done she added it up and divided it by 30 days, then multiplied it by the days I stay there, then subtracted my pay at $2 an hour and said," Mi Hijo, it looks like you owe me..."  

I took my $1, made change, gave her the usual $0.10 cents for our Parish, $0.20 cents for my investments (which I had no idea what that was) and I could spend the last $0.70 cents on anything I wanted.  I never brought up the issue of money with her again...but, the next day she did bump me up another $1, and said,"El que no habla, Dios no lo oye (If you never speak up for yourself, God will never hear you)"...