Daytrip on HWY 359 to Hebbronville (part 1)

 Work keeps me busy but blogging must continue. Now and then, I do venture past Santo Nino, Texas in order to view the outside world. Recently, I took a daytrip to visit the city of Hebbronville. I had never actually been there, other than to drive past it on my way to another destination. I was rather surprised at the feeling of these small towns that dot HWY 359 in south Texas. 

First stop was Oilton. Cool name but if you sneeze you will surely miss it. It's the the feel of a 70s action movie where the the small town sheriff harasses the out of towner, and that's exactly what I was expecting and I poked around town and took random pictures of the town. 

HEB sending wares as they rule south Texas

USPS drop off bin seems to be there since 1965

Empty town like in Children of the Corn, minus the corn

No more lonches at this stand

  

Z-93, Thrift Stores, video camcorders and the years before Tik Tok (pt. 1)

 No other activity gives me as much pleasure these days as rummaging through used piles of media that I come across as I scour through second-hand stores and auctioned storage units. The main reason why I enjoy finding old videos and photographs is because they piece together a past, a Laredo that is gone and mostly disappeared but reassembled only through forgotten footage and long-lost snapshots. 

One such day occurred last September. There was a box full of yearbooks and home recordings of VHS tapes that I happily bought for 10 dollars. It contained dozens of pictures of strangers I had never met. While this did give me a pause to reflect on the fickleness of our earthly possessions, I took it as a moment to rescue snapshots and images of Laredoans that would otherwise be lost, as a sort of digital Indiana Jones. 

There was one such VHS tape that caught my attention. It was titled "Melissa singing 1991". 

What drew my attention was the year, 1991. It was a memorable year, the Gulf War, Clarence Thomas hearings,  Jeffrey Dahmer, and Marky Mark has us feeling his vibrations.  But locally, the triple-ax murders rocked our city of 122,000 led by then-Mayor Saul Ramirez. The radio stations of the time might have been Y95 or Energy 98, but my personal favorite was Z93. Known mostly for Tejano and cumbias, it was the radio station of choice for many of the local youths of the time. I remember many Friday nights during this time period when my neighbors held their weekly Friday night carne asada ritual and the obligatory Tejano Z93 music blasting from their lowrider mini-truck. It never failed. The elders would be outside reminiscing of the 1960s and swigging Shaffer Light, the younger kids running around playing tag, while the teens huddled and recorded themselves singing and dancing on their Panasonic camcorder. 

When I saw the year the tape had been recorded was 1991, I immediately popped it into my Magnavox VHS player and uploaded the footage to my Twitter feed. It turned out to be analog gold! In it, a young girl, about 15 or 16, is seen  singing and dancing as if auditioning for Star Search. She takes turns with her friend singing Tejano and pop melodies. No doubt, if the scene played out today, the teens would be going live on Tik Tok in the hope for instant likes and shares. In 1991, there was no such pretenses. The best you could do was share the tape at school or at a family carne asada and await your fame to spread, days after it was initially recorded. Or worse yet, wait 25 years for some fool to find it in a long forgotten bin and upload it to social media.

 In the video, one of the young ladies is named Melissa while the other goes unnamed. But its this anonymous singer that captured my attention due to the fact she is wearing what has to be the greatest Z93 sweater ever made. I remember that sweater very clearly because a couple of classmates had a similar one in the early 1990s. So if you remember the days of lowrider minitrucks, constant Z93 Tejano, running around with a bulky camcorder eternally joined at your shoulder, then enjoy the video below and keep alive the memories that should not die. 

Things I learned about Laredo 1984'

I was scavenging and old box full of mementos and old documents and I came across an old newspaper someone had given me years ago. It's the April 17, 1984 LMT edition and I could not help but peruse through it in search of some interesting tidbits. Here below are 5 things I learned about 1984s Laredo.

1. Apparently, in 1984, Cigarroa's Silver Roses helped to trim beards for contestants that wished to enter a beard growing contest that was sponsored by Laredo Noon Lion's Club. The 5 dollar entry fee donations were split between Sacred Heart Children's Home and a "Crippled" Children's camp in Kerrville. The winners of this hairy contest enjoyed such prizes as a paid weekend at the Encinal Holiday Inn, a one year free front row pass to Laredo Council meetings, or a "prominent position in the snakepit" for the Frontier Day Celebration. Oh joy! Just delightful. (by the way I'm not making these prizes up. Read it for yourself.)

2. It seems that in 1984, newspaper reporters sat around at the post office to interview people that waited till the very last minute to file their income tax. In this piece of hard-hitting journalism, writer Sam Yates notes that things got "mean and ugly" right before the midnight deadline. Read the interviews below.

3. Students and clergy opened up academic discussions at Laredo Junior College with a hearty rendition of "Kumbaya". It seems that the spiritual song was not cliche in 1984.

4. Gaby Canizales's supporters wanted his hometown to support the esteemed boxer during a nationally televised bout. The problem was the lack of venue large enough to accommodate such a large quantity of spectators. At the time, Shirley Stadium was "the only logical and possible place for the event". However, the LISD board, with their old-fartsy and dickhead regulations, "did not permit the private use of the stadium for private profit".  The question was simple! Would the LISD board cave for hometown hero Gaby Canizales and his legion of supporters? Well, if you were around in 1984, you COULD HAVE BEEN COUNTED by sending in the form below. Anyone know how this turned out?

5. On a side note, right next to the Gaby Canizales piece is the showtimes for 1984's "Footloose". Ironically, it too features a similar scenario. Local people attempting to defeat an city ordinance for the benefit of the townsfolk and in defiance of rigid authorities. Classic 1984!

Forbidden Dances, Blackface, and Tantangelo: The 1990 WBCA Parade (part 1)

Updated: Link to video here :1990 WBCA Parade Laredo, TX

I have finally been able to upload at least a small portion of the footage of the 1990 WBCA Parade. The first footage I was able to capture was former Mayor Raul Salinas being interviewed by KLDO's Lupita Benavides. Raul is looking young and he still had quite a bit of hair! You can view this footage here!  Updated: You can view part one of the 1990 WBCA Parade here!

Come back in a few days and you will be able to see more of the 1990 WBCA Parade. Including Cigarroa High students doing the lambada dance, parade participants in blackface and former hero / Mayor Tatangelo doing his golden boy bit. Oh, I miss the 90s.

WBCA Washington Parade 1990 (What I learned)

If you follow me over on the ol' Twitter account, then you are aware I recently picked up some home movies on VHS at a local thrift store. Some of those tapes included some truly gold vintage TV recordings. One such treasure was titled Washington's Parade 1990 and its a taping off the TV broadcast of this WBCA event. I sat down and watched most of the recording as it was truly fascinating.

Hopefully, I will be able to upload the video to my Youtube channel in the next few days. For now, here are a few things I learned while watching a recording of the 1990 WBCA Washington's Parade.

Apparently, Laredo in 1990 had no qualms with using blackface.

Lupita Benavides was already looking great with her sweet 1989 hair. 

Cigarroa High students danced the Lambada and nobody batted an eye. #Forbidden

Tour La Pulga 359 Laredo, TX

     I find that many local people are hesitant to travel out to Laredo's best known flea market, Pulga 359. This is mostly due to its dingy appearance and its less than desirable location. However, one vlogger, eddvloggs, has done a fairly good job documenting this local market. Check out his video vlog below.

Joy Cometh in the Morning: Kismet When you least expect it

(Sometimes, Laredo surprises me. There are 250,000 stories in this naked city, and this here is just one of them.) 

The encounter I had with an unknown woman at a local Laredo gas station started off just like all the countless others. Little did I know, that chance encounter would convert me in a believer of kismet.

For months, I had been selling music-filled USB’s to various customers off local Facebook groups. Alongside inexpensive party speakers, I would also sell these thumb drives filled with music du jour, which in south Laredo mostly translates to corridos, cumbias and banda. I would run a quick post on social media advertising my pirated usb hub and invariably I’d get a few responses and a few buys. Usually, I would make quick arrangements to do an exchange in a public place, like parking lot or gas station, no doubt a product of watching too many episodes of 21 Jumpstreet.

Close to Christmas of last year, I got a message from a woman named Silvia. She was interested in purchasing a USB, so I agreed to meet her at a gas station close to Saunders. I grabbed a handful of USB’s and expected her to ask for the same mix of music as everyone else: cumbias, corridos and banda. However, I was taken back by her request.

“You would’t happen to have any 80s music would you?” she asked sheepishly. A small smile quietly grew on my face. “ I do,” I responded still quite glad someone had requested anything besides Fito Olivares.

“I’m looking for this one song,” she continued. “For the life of me I can’t recall how it goes. It’s the last song I heard on the last night I ever say the one person I truly ever loved.”

I could see her eyes begin to moist and hear her voice quavering a bit. “ I wish I could help,” I responded, smiling with intent of wanting to know more of this tragic story.

 “The last time I saw Benny was before he joined the service…it was 1985 and we had being seeing each other for three years. But, my crazy home life, and he was away, we grew apart. I heard he got married years after, but he was always there, back of my mind”. She continued telling me all this as if we were life-long friends meeting for weekly Sunday brunch.

Even though the toxic smell of gasoline around us was beginning to make me queasy, I was quite captivated by the sincerity of this middle-aged woman just pouring out her heart to some random stranger off Facebook.

“We spent our last night together in the back of his pick-up. He had a camper on it. The stars shone so much brighter in Laredo back then. All night we heard the same tape, and that song that I can’t seem to remember has been like a ghost in my head for thirty-four years”.  The last words trailed off as she seemed to lose herself in a vague memory.

I broke the silence. “Well, I wish I could help; I’ve got about 50,000 songs on my hard drive. Can you at least hum it?” I joked wanting to move the story along.

She smiled warmly and made direct eye contact, “I’ve been alone for three years now and I promised myself if I ever recall that song I’d go out and look  for him. It’s been two decades and for the life of me, I can’t recall it at all. That song holds me in his arms of that stupid camper back in ‘85, but I can’t seem to recall it. And it keeps me way, silent”.

Her words seemed to echo my own life, in more ways than I care to mention. I could truly say I understood her every sentiment. Looking back at my own life, I could easily place myself in the same shoes of this mad, middle aged-woman attempting to decipher life outside an Exxon.

Once again she smiled and stretched out her hand filled with cash. “Here’s the money for the USB” she blurted out, as if caught between nostalgia and tragedy. She finally began to walk toward her car saying “I’m sure there lot of songs on here I’ll like”.

As she walked away I thought of a few people of which I have felt that strong about. People that decades later, we still have that similar experience of fading memories, remorseful regrets and bitter tears of life. I drove down Corpus Christi Avenue thinking of that lady and her story, thinking of campers and Benny and the stars of dark Laredo nights in the mid 1980s. I fully expected to never hear from Sylvia again after that chance encounter but to my surprise I had three messages from her in my inbox when I got home that evening.

“Gabito!” she screamed in a voice message using my online handle. “You have it! It was the very first song on the USB! Dennis de Young sings it and the song is called “Desert Moon”. I can’t believe I finally found it. Thank you so much, I’m making plans to go out there and meet him. I’’ll write soon,” she said, as of in a hurry trying to do a million things at once.

I was stunned. I had not even ever heard that one particular song, up to three days before that casual encounter with Sylvia. I loved Dennis De Young with Styx but was unfamiliar with most of his solo discography. However, three days prior, I was binge listening to Styx when I must have gone down a rabbit hole and discovered the song, “Desert Moon”. Upon first listen, I was immediately drawn to it, so much so that I downloaded the album to my computer and heard the song endlessly for 3 days. When Sylvia got in contact with me days later, I simply copied files unto a clean USB and by sheer luck, the first song on there was the song that had held Sylvia captive, like a roaming ghost.

It all seemed like the strangest of coincidences, the craziest of pure luck moments, a smack in the face by fate, in other words, kismet. Apparently, Sylvia was right. Laredo’s stars did shine brighter back in 1985.

Several weeks later I received two unexpected messages from Sylvia. She had reunited with Benny and was spending night and day by his side, reminiscing at all the beautiful times from their blessed youth. She mentioned they had laughed and cried as they shared their life once again, as if that night spent in a cold Laredo camper had never ended. Sadly, Benny was undergoing Stage 4 cancer treatments and due to life’s circumstances the only person by his side during this awful time of trial was Sylvia.

I thought about Sylvia and Benny and their improbable reunion, and the small part I was fortunate enough to play.

So a sincere salute to Sylvia and Benny, two people, just like the rest of us, trying to navigate their way through life’s dark days. Joy cometh in the morning.