1954
Born in Santiago Chile 1954 emigrated to the United
States at the age of 3 in 1958. My father was a tailor and opened a
small tailor shop in Corral Gables Florida. In search of cooler weather
our family moved in 1960 We moved in a 1951 Chevrolet with
a Uhaul trailer attached to it to Asheville N.C..
1961
The few
memories I have of my childhood prior to entering school at six years of
age were... the
house we rented when we arrived in Asheville. The rhubarb, and strawberries that were
growing there. The two little girls that lived across the street sitting naked on their stoop, eating raw potatoes while
their mother swept a dirt floor. Trying to cut the grass with a
push mower and being incapable of pushing it. My father taking me with a
group of star gazers to look at stars and the harvest moon. The man that
lived behind us had a cow and built violins, it was nice watching him
work.
A patch of flat rock that was close to the house
and was nice to
visit. Mr. Brittenhart the preachers wife at the Presbyterian Church
we would go to. Cutting up in Church and later being punished for it.
Telling a neighbor that had lost their dog that my sister must have had
something to do with it. I got in trouble for that too. It was my
oldest sister and she was the most strict to me. Oh I remember first
grade, and Harriet Stevens we rode the bus home together ... My first
love
but she liked Erwin Ball, he had bucked teeth... I wanted bucked teeth.
About a year or two after arriving in Asheville
we bought a small house on the corner of Lenox St. and Murdock Ave. I attended Claxton Elementary
School, which was only two blocks from home.
1963
It was about my second year in school when I
went to Chile for a year with my mother. I has come close to my father
and I missed him. It was a troubled time for me.
We went to live with my grand mother and aunts. It was a large row house
with very high ceilings.
I had moved a lot by that point and felt out of
pace and missed my father. I thought of myself as American and had to
defend who I was to the Chilean children. Chile was in the troughs of
elections a recall how the anti-American sentiments felt to me. I still
recall all the political talk at my grand mothers house.
On Friday, November 22, 1963 President Kennedy was assassinated, people
cried, he was loved a lot in Chile.
Allende ran for the presidency but lost v
missed my father
s then St Eugene's moved from Ashville to Atlanta 1968. Graduated
from St. Pius High School in 1972 , College incomplete.