Post #2

The second most important thing to my mother - After her offspring...is her family name: Gaxiola. It's a Basque/Spanish language type of dealio. Along with it comes an inordinate amount of pride. Her mom, My Nana Josephine, came here to Nipomo as a child. A Yaqui Indian (a whole tribe w/17! brothers and sisters) hailing from Arizona when it was just a territory. So my Nana hooked up with my Grandfather, Eugene Stanley Gaxiola the first...there are 3 E.S. Gaxiolas now, only the other two go by Tito & Stan. My grandfather or Tata or Daddy (as we All came to call him) came from Spain by way of San Francisco then Guadalupe... Gene & Josephine met and married in 1937. They had 10 Gaxiola children, the first Generation Californians. And we've been here , in this very house, ever since. I could hear how stoked that first born Gaxiola was, telling someone, "Oh Yes, I live in the same house where I was raised...." My mother remembers helping her grandfather spread Sage out on tarps to dry. The funky family business so to speak. They would bundle and sell it on the roadside, making enough money to buy more property. Which was probably like fifty cents an acre or something crazy like that....

A lot of the property still remains the same as open fields. Only it's squared off and mowed down of course. Across the street from our house is a field and across the field is the Nipomo Men's Club.

this is my dream truck....by the by.

only not white - shimmering

turquoise with a flame job

a nice roomy compartment for

every tool all-organized w/a king

cab and a lumber rack. I'm drooling, sorry.

Meanwhile back at the men's club...I was there practicing my horse shoe throwing. My mom came along to look after Pop-pops. Also because she likes to be right by us even though we see her All The Time. They're both a little too attached, if you know what I mean. But that's a whole other post for a whole other time. They Bug! Together, the two of them are like Crazy-making. Her because she's constantly getting after him - very Loudly - for every little thing. And him because he likes to get into every little thing, paying no attention to the constant...oh never mind. We apparently wouldn't have it any other way. I love my mother so much. She's one of those strong, highly nurturing, queen bee, goddesses that rule with an iron fist, feisty, bossy, take care of Business types. Without her: Our lives would suck.

But back to the post at hand: As they played [nicely]on the playground equipment...my almost 70 year old mother marveled that it was the same equipment that had been there when she was a little girl. That's some well made and sturdy stuff, huh? Kinda like my mom.

and her offspring.