Morals ?

I remember being a kid growing up in Colusa, I don't think i was a teenager yet. There was this one time i was outside and one of my cousins came up and stuck his one finger in my face and i said what the heck are you doing and he says, this means f u, he learned it from one of the older guys that just got out of jail. so i tried it and said hey this is pretty cool, so we went around telling everyone f u ( all our cousins and friends that is ) and sticking our middle finger out at them. Before we knew it, everyone was doing it, then a guy comes out with a different version, he pulls the two fingers that are next to your middle one down and gives it a whole new look, so there we go again practicing all over the neighborhood, well i didn't see my Mom standing out there with my Tia and my Mom asks me, what does that mean ? I just kinda shrugged my shoulders and thought, man am i ever in trouble now, i couldn't even say hell in front of my parents, but my Tia says, i know what it means and she tells my Mom. Mom turns towards me and i think but i'm not sure but i think she called me Cabron and goes on to say, if i ever catch you pointing that finger like that again i'm going to.........well i don't remember her exact words, but i know they weren't very nice. Of course she had to tell my Dad and i think but i'm not sure but i think he called me Cabron too. To make things worse Dad asks me at the dinner table, what did you do to get Mom mad at you today. Dad says it with this big smile on his face, everyone's looking at me and i'm trying to find a place to hide. Funny how you can look back at these things and laugh about it, but at the time it was serious stuff for a young guy. Now a days kids drop the f bomb all over the place and don't think nothing of it, but that doesn't make it right. A lot of things that were not right back in the day are ok now. I remember my Mom making me go with my Sis when she went out on a date. She was like 18 at the time. It was ok by me, i used to get candy, sodas, go cruising and i got to go to the show sometimes. The thing is, they never seemed to mind having me with them. I'd like to think it was because i was such a cool kid, but i could be wrong. Whenever we walked in a house that was not ours we had to be on our best behavior,Mom and Dad made sure of it. The last thing you wanted to do was disrespect a Tio or Tia or any of your elders for that matter. My Mom had a pretty strong sense of moral character that she expected all her kids to live by and my Dad backed her up almost all the time, but there were times when Dad would tell Mom nope you can't expect him to do that or he would just stick up for you if he thought Mom was being a little too hard on you and when he did Mom would back off. Most of the time i guess he would just figure "you screwed up Cabron, so now your gonna pay for it". You couldn't argue with them cause you knew they were right. I was hardly ever accused of doing something that i wasn't guilty of, so you see there's always some exceptions. One time the police came over to the house and Dad went out and asked him what's going on and the police said i stole something and my Dad called me out there and said did you do this and i said no, which was the truth. I didn't steal it but i knew who did, now if the police would have asked me if i knew anything about it, i would have been in big trouble. My Dad told me when he got me by myself, if you stole it, you go and turn yourself in. I told him i didn't and i can honestly say i was telling the truth. Thank God he didn't ask me if i knew who did. wheew.

Slow pitch softball

I started playing on an adult softball team when i was about 14 or 15 years old, my brother Richard asked me if i wanted to play for him, cause he was short a player and of course i said yes. It was an opportunity to play with the big boys. It was fast pitch softball and their pitcher was a no show so my Bro asked me if i could pitch and i just said yes and i had no idea what i was doing up there and of course i got bombed, the next game he put me at third base and i had never played third base in my life. Well to make a long story short i almost got killed by this big Dude running the bases, he ran into me and knocked me about ten feet. I might have weighed 100 pounds at the time.

I moved to Woodland in the 60s and started playing for a team called Franks Market. We didn't win much, but we sure had a great time. I met a guy on that team named Manuel and we ended up playing ball together for over twenty years. Goes without saying that we became very good friends.

We ended up being the dominate team around these parts in the 70s and part of the 80s. Sometimes we would play against these big giants and we would just base hit the hell out of the ball and beat them. I remember hearing one of those guys say "damn we let those little guys beat us". That felt pretty good. I played outfield, i had a pretty god arm, but the reason i was asked to play was because i was a good right field hitter, That's why they picked me up.

I played on a team that, when we played in a tournament on the weekends, some of the guys would have a beer with their breakfast right before the game and we would drink beer all during the rest of the day. These guys were some great players and that's just the way we rolled. I remember one time we were having a good game, we were playing in a tournament the score was tight and right in the middle of the game the police came and arrested our pitcher, yup put him in handcuffs right on the pitcher's mound and took him away. These guys were a bunch of characters and a whole lotta fun to be around. You just never knew what they would come up with next. When someone didn't show up for a game, we knew he either got too drunk the night before or got busted or both, but these guys were still a pretty reliable bunch to play ball with.

We weren't "purty" like some of the other teams,we didn't have uniforms, but we knew how to play the game. We just went out and kicked ass. We also had a large rooting section, they would fill up the bleachers and line up along the first and third base line, the place would be packed and it was always one big party when we were on the field.

There was this one lady who owned a bar that agreed to sponsor our team and buy us uniforms. Of course we took her up on it. After a game we would go to her bar and party till closing time, then she would close up the place and let us party and play pool for free till the wee wee hours of the night. She was a great lady and one of the most vocal spectators in the rooting section. When Dubach park was built,teams would come from Sacramento, Vacaville, San Francisco, Marysville and other places to play in tournaments here. They all enjoyed playing here. Of course we didn't win all the tournaments, but we did win our share. Those were some really great times.

A friend of mine named Melvin got me started coaching, he told me i would make a good coach. Of course i had my doubts, but i said i would give it a try. I started with a mens team, we got our butts kicked all over the place, but i wouldn't give up, i kept right on trying, then he got me involved coaching a girls team. After about a couple of years, i had all the right players on the girls team and we made a run for it, these girls became one of the teams to beat in this area, we had some rowdy players on the team that were always ready to kick ass. We got along with most teams but there was always some that didn't like us. That was o k, it made for a good rivalry. I remember these girls playing in a tournament one time and we were the underdogs, we made it to the finals and we played the team that was favored to win it and we beat them in a hard fought tough game. Talk about being proud. I couldn't have been more proud of them. My wife played on that team and she made some very good defensive plays at catcher to keep the runners from scoring. I'll never forget that game, it stayed etched in my mind. My team showed a lot of character and class in that tournament, they way they played and their sportsmanship, you just couldn't top it. I still have the newspaper clippings. They finally gave us a real nice write up. Back then some of the teams that took second or third place in tournaments would get a big write up on the first page of the sports section. We would take first place and get a write up in the third page down at the bottom of the page and it would be about two inches by two inches big. Since then, i've coached men's, women's, co-ed and seniors softball. I guess i must have done something right, because i have a bunch of trophy's to show for my time and effort. I'm 66 years old now and i'm managing two men's teams ( one is a seniors men's team i pitch for) and i'm helping coach and pitch for a co-ed team. I still pitch for the younger men's team once in awhile, but with the new batts they have out now, the ball comes back at you too quick for me, i've been nailed quite a few times and i've seen people get nailed, it's not pretty. People are starting to wear masks and chest and shin protection, but that's where i get off. Don't know how much longer i can play this game, but i still enjoy it, probably as much or more then i did when i was younger. I guess i'll just keep on keeping on till my body says "no mas".