Good Service Dairy on Clark En El Barrio de San Juan Watercolor on Paper circa 1980 The House is made of stone. It and some stalls still stand. It's hey days were in the 30's and 40's of the previous century, for many years the hey barn was home for many bats. The Southern Pacific Railroad Tracks, The Franklin Canal the Texas Company are The only things older in that area. Iglesia de San Juan Bautista was built around 1919. To the south was a valley bottom land of farms. I am certain that the army from Fort Bliss used to have military exercises in this are and they had a route through here to cross the Rio Grande during the Mexican Revolution of Pancho Villa. This neighborhood in El Paso was an probably still is one of the poorest communities that has ever existed in Texas. I would not be surprised if General Black Jack Pershing and Francisco"Pancho" Villa each rode a horse though there on more than one occasion. I know that for a short while Angeles a general for Villa kept a house on Collingsworth Street not far from here.
A working man's black lunchbox with a a round top where the thermos fit. Written on the outside in white script, Joe. On the inside the box was white, room for a couple of wax paper wrapped bologna sandwiches, maybe an orange and some Fritos. My old man would slurp from the brim topped cup, his first sip of coffee with milk and sugar. I've been drinking coffee ever since then. Bluegreen was my favorite crayon. Forty-seven years later the box sits in a garage filled with an assortment of dust coated screws, nuts and washers. That is a lot of years, that is a lot of coffee, that is a lot of dust.
At the kitchen table as the yellow light from early morning sunshine would come in through the fixed square glass window, I would show off my crayon on ruled paper drawings of monsters and dragons.