That song on Beck's 2005 CD makes me think of 1987, P.E. class, South Junior High in Edinburg, Texas. South Junior High had 3000 students and I was one of maybe 100 gueras--white chicks. We would
"suit out" for P.E. and the
cholas would borrow (without ever meaning to return) my extra gym t-shirts--their favorites being my
Guess t-shirt or my sweatshirt with puff-paint SharPei dogs smiling on it. I had to suit out fast or else I'd end up wearing to P.E. the same shirt I was wearing to school. The
cholas had names that were never typical Mexican-American names like Claudia, Marisol or Elena. Chola names were memorable monikers like Tweetie, Aurora, and Chona. They had all repeated 6th or 7th grade several times and dated 20 year olds who wore black pants with a chain connecting their wallets to their belt loops, dudes called
cholos. Because they never left their grade level,
cholas were institutions. Tweetie served as the 7th grade
chola; Aurora acted as the leader of all
cholas but also the 8th grade
chola representative. It was important for the prettier, more feminine cheerleaders to have at least one
chola they could count on to provide them
esquina when they were about to be in a fight on the playground.
More endangered than a white girl's gym shirt was a white girl's newly purchased Coca-Cola. I drew the line at giving my 35 cent coke away. There was no bottled water then, so I was lost-in -the-desert thirsty, and even an 89 pound white girl had her limits. I developed a defense strategy after the one time Aurora smugly stuck her hand in the coke machine as my soft drink was coming into the dispenser, grabbed it and gave me a cursory, "thanks, guera" as she stole my beverage. I would first make sure that the 5 foot, 150 pound head chola was in the middle of dousing her pitts with that saccharin smelling spray-on deodorant and standing in front of the giant fan to dry her sweat off(the fans were as tall as we were, where was OSHA to protect us from electrocution or chopping each other's hands off?). The showers had no curtains, so Aurora chose a fan/deodorant bath--a method all the 12 year olds viewed as a fine substitute for water and soap. But Aurora was the only girl who fan-bathed naked. This made being down draft of her sweat mist especially unnerving to the girls changing clothes at their lockers. If I timed it right, the whoosh of fan noise handily muffled the clickety-clack of the coke shooting to the dispenser. The second the can landed (you had to really prevent the last clack by catching it before it hit the dispenser for assured success), I had to pop it in the pockets of my parachute pants and keep walking out of the locker room like nothing happened. (Guess I should've nodded over my shoulder, "Gotcha' cola,
chola.")I don't really know if learning to deal with a
chola is fortifying or life-altering, but I certainly have a hard time feeling intimidated these days. Anyone who has gotten a real job, by that qualification alone, could not possibly be a
chola. Therefore, there's not one chick I'll contend with at work or on a commuter bus who could make me hide my coke in my parachute pants.
We got our poodle, Henry. He's been home for over 2 weeks. There have been some surprises, but he's well-behaved, house-trained and smart. He didn't respond to "Cotton," though we called him that for 4 days. We tried several other names, but Henry was what he responded to immediately. These photos show how intimidating they can look and how tall they are at adulthood. He's a cute little guy, but look what his mouth is going to look like! Ouch!
