That blue house a block away? It's gone, you say? Ah, I knew that place. The family that used to live there were friends of my family when I was young. I don't know what happened to them. Perhaps they all moved to the other side, to the U.S., perhaps not. At the time we were the only children their mother would trust her children with. They were allowed to go with us when we went places. All their other friends could only come over there, not go anywhere. The father was very strict, you see. But he was more than strict. Let me tell you....
They had a ranch out in the mountains near Tecate. It was an olive ranch. And the father -- ha! he would have his sons invite friends out to the ranch for a weekend, and then make all of them work. "What do you think you are here for?" he would ask, "Nothing but to ride horses and eat all my food? No, you must work!"
Once I heard that two of his sons' friends went out Friday night and he made them work all Saturday digging a swimming pool for him! All morning and all afternoon with only a short break for resting at lunch -- sandwiches and water, they said. But -- ha ha! The ground out there is very sandy so the sides of the hole kept falling in while they were digging!
That evening the two friends decided they were not going to stay another day with that father. So they walked five miles through the night to the highway and managed to get a ride back into Tijuana. When their parents heard what their friend's father had made them do, they threatened to take him to court.
What? No, he never finished the swimming pool. The ground, yes, was too sandy for unprofessionals to dig and the father was too cheap to hire real excavators. Codo -- yes, that's the word, gringo.
Copyright 2001 Daniel Charles Thomas
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