Summer 1992

There are summers that a person can never forget. Maybe they changed your life or altered your destiny in some unimaginable way, similar to the magical summer of 1962 that changed The Sandlot kids forever. Well, as we know, Laredo summers can be brutal and there is no escaping the sun or its death rays. For me, there was no escaping the Summer of 1992. It will forever be the line of demarcation that transcended my life into adolescence.

I was 13 yrs old in 1992 and I believed myself to be like Benny The Jet

A recent tweet from Keyrose sent me down to memory lane. He tweeted how it had been the 21 years since a Gonzalez-Bath had gunned down three people at the intersection of San Dario and Mann Road. Instantly after reading his tweet, I traveled back in time and I could see myself and everything I was doing in the summer of that glorious year.

The reason why that year is so clearly etched upon my mind was because it was the same year that my life was forever changed. My parents moved our family down from Dallas to Laredo and the change of scenery could not have been any worse. I had no friends and it seemed to me, a young boy of 13, as if the entire world had turned inside out.

We moved down here a few days after the Gonzalez-Bath slayings and this triple murder was all over the TV, family gossip, and the newspaper.

Nino Brown from violent New Jack City

"Did we move down to New Jack City?" I pondered to myself after first arriving to Laredo. There was no hip-hop (rap) station in 1992, I could not watch the TX Rangers on Paragon Cable and my mother kept buying some heidious chicken from Golden Chicken ("Pollito caliente, sabor diferente. Dime adonde vas? A Golden Chicken!") In short, 1992 was hell.

I cannot stress enough how unhappy I was that summer. The bowling alley was too far, the baseball Tecos team was having a lousy year, and it seemed to me that Laredo was a violent city right out of a Mexican Mario Almada movie.

It was 21 yeas ago but I can see see it clearly. My favorite show was Married with Children; my favorite Ranger was Ruben Sierra; Shortstop Burger filled my belly; Movie Palace was my favorite store, I rocked my UNLV cap everywhere I went, and I all heard on my cassette tape singles was Pete Rock and CL Smooth along with A Tribe Called Quest

It's strange how one little tweet by Keyrose can open the floodgates to a thousand memories. Memories to a time that will never return. Memories of a time when I was growing up and learning about the strange curves life can hurl at a person. The year 1992 was a tough one, and that summer surely did suck greasy Golden Chicken balls, but with time I began to adjust and acclimate to beautiful Laredo. Now, I can't imagine a time when I did not live in this slice of paradise we call Webb County. It's funny how some things work out.