A Rose By Any Other

Date: Monday November 6th, 2006

Title: A Rose By Any Other.

For: Jeffie and The Wolves From the Town's East Side.

COMMITTMENT TO JUST WIN, BABY

It's sunny and warm in California on an early Monday afternoon. I'm waiting for the southbound Caltrain from San Francisco to take me to San Jose. I have twenty minutes and my lungs to kill so I light a cigarette and read the Sports section in today's Mercury news. I see that the Raiders of California are playing Monday Night Football. I reach for my cell phone in attempt to bring the Silver & Black good mojo by calling someone I know who is a Raider fan. That means I'll soon be talking to one of a half dozen or so relatives: Bobby in Visalia who is married to my Mom's hot cousin Mercy, my Uncle Mickey in Lemoore, my Cousin Mike in Hanford or my new little brother Jeffie Macias.

HURRY UP, BEA. THE JETS ALREADY WON.

If asked to give the name of the first Raider fan that comes to my mind, I would have to say (sorry Cousin Bobby!) my Uncle Mickey. I remember my Uncle Mickey was always quick to smile and wore those v-neck t-shirts, unlike the "wife-beaters" (tank tops) or regular round necks which I always found stifling. Good ol' Uncle Mick got married to my Mom's sister Aunt Bea real quick before my Cousin Mike came out of the Aunt Bea oven.

But even when he was in grade school, if he could go at all, Uncle Mickey had to pick peas in Hanford just to get by. Soon after getting hitched to Aunt Bea, Uncle Mickey got himself my Cousin Anna, too. In the late Fifties, I believe, Uncle Mickey moved himself and his kinfolk out of the agriculture culture in California's Central Valley to the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Aera. Mickey got him a house in Santa Clara and a good "gig" Sunnyvale, working for a then small but well meaning missle manufacturer. in the late Fifties he hardly resembled a Mexican Jed Clampett, packing Granny and the kids that use pieces of rope for belts onto a truck with whiskey barrel headlights. No. I always remember Uncle Mickey had style, like if Marvyn Gaye drove a Dodge Dart and danced to mariachi's.

Even though its common today, not many people I knew in the Sixties went to school after working full-time but my Uncle Mickey did so and rose up the ranks of a fledgling aircraft and missle vendor near Moffet Field in Mountain View. Uncle Mickey broke the Mexican male mold, too, by cutting hair on the side. I guess since flat tops were all the rage back then it wasn't hard to cut guys hair but before the term hair stylist was invented, my Uncle Mickey was checking the length of bangs and sideburns on guys and girls at all the bithday parties and family get togethers we used to have. My Uncle Mickey even made my poor Tia Estephena feel good by checking her bangs and sideburns because that's all she had.