El Chivo (Dinner)
At my Dad’s 99th birthday celebration, there were a lot of family members in attendance. My Dad also got a number of gifts. One gift was a couple of photos. One photo is of my Dad when he was a child with his family. I had never seen that photo before. The other photo he received was taken in late 1952 or early 1953. It is one of the most treasured photos from our family. I will call the photo Team Campos photo.
My Dad came from a family of three girls and five boys, plus my grandparents, Jose and Maria. The children in order were Jesus, Felicitas, Isabel, Elvira, Jesse, Tony, Manuel and Servando. A big family.
The Team Campos photo was taken outside of my grandparents’ home. We called our grandparents Mama Grande and Papa Grande.
All the family was included in the photo. Risers were used for the photo. The photo is featured in today’s post. My Dad is on the top row, third from the right, holding my brother Mike. There are three little girls holding dolls standing next to each other on the front row. My sister Sylvia is the one in the middle.
On the first row are all women including Mama Grande, seventh from the left. The woman with a white coat fourth from the right is holding an infant, that’s my Mom, and she is holding me. That is why I know the photo was taken in late 1952 or early 1953.
A couple of my cousins including my cousin Ronnie Bravo, took the time to photocopy the photo and put white circles on all the people in the photo and assigned a number of 1 through 48. They added a legend with each person’s name next to their number. Way too cool.
I was looking at the photo yesterday and for the first time in all these years I noticed what I first thought was a dog in the bottom right. I looked to see if the dog had been assigned a number.
Lo and behold, it was number 18. El Chivo (Dinner). It was a freaking goat! That is way too funny.
A few pictured in the photo were at the party Sunday including My Aunt Julia and her kids Danny and Elizabeth, my cousins Alice, Alma, and Lina, my sister Sylvia, me and my Dad. My Dad is the only sibling of his family still around.
Quite a few in the photo are no longer with us. Like over half.
Years ago, when I would look at the photo, I remember being glad that I was in the photo. I had made the cut and was in the photo. Like they waited for me to be born before they took the family photo. My sister Aida wasn’t born yet, so she didn’t make the photo. Same for Ronnie.
I also wonder who from my family organized the photo shoot. Back in 1952/1953, there were no group texts and emails. Heck, some folks didn’t even have phones and some that did have phones had party lines. I don’t think Ronnie got that far in researching who did the organizing.
Still, I love this photograph.
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Vera Miles is 92 today. Most of you probably don’t know who Vera Miles is. She was in 1962’s “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence” with John Wayne, James Stewart and Lee Marvin. She and the James Stewart character are a married couple and Stewart is the fella did not shoot Liberty Valence. She was also Laurie Jorgensen in “The Searchers.” She and Jeffrey Hunter’s character are into each other. I also remember her in “Hellfighters.” This movie is loosely based on Red Adair and putting out oil rig fires. It stars John Wayne, Katharine Ross, Jim Hutton, and Vera Miles. Parts of the flick were filmed in Baytown. Happy Birthday, Vera Miles!
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Carlos Correa makes his return to The Yard this evening. The Twins are here for three.
