We Were Kids
Our local elementary school was built right on the property where I live now. Where out couch is was the baseball field, somewhere between first base and home plate. When I was small we lived across the street from the old school on Rios in Solana Beach. But we couldn't go there. We had to come over here, to Eden Gardens. There were four Mexican families over there, and all four families' kids came over here to school. There was a little bus that picked us up. It was a forty-person bus, and there were only about six or seven of us. We were lucky that it picked us up and we didn't have to walk.
We didn't realize we were being "bused" out of our own neighborhood. We were kids. The thing I enjoyed the most was my little lunch pail. My grandmother used to live right next door to us. The house isn't there anymore. But I would get my lunch and come down and have lunch with her. I loved to come to school with my lunch pail. They brought in a new teacher when I was in fifth or sixth grade. They were trying to help us. She felt we had potential. She really insisted that we study. But she wasn't there too long. They transferred her out, to La Jolla, because she was trying to teach us. She talked to my mom and dad to see if there was any chance my dad could take me to La Jolla every day, which he did, and I lived with my aunt and uncle.
Then it got to where it was too much on everyone, going to school so far away and living with my aunt and uncle. I wasn't doing bad in school, but I thought I would go to work so I could help earn money. I was picking oranges and lima beans. We were making twenty-five cents an hour. It was hard work, but we were kids, so we didn't know. We just knew we were helping out.
