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Showing posts from January, 2021

Arrival

  I arrived in Michigan It was a foggy summer afternoon when I arrived in Michigan fifty-two years ago. The year was 1968. I had an uneventful four-hour flight from Guadalajara, Mexico to Chicago. The 45-minute trip from Chicago to Flint was on an old prop engine commuter airplane. My brother in-law Robert Gatrell, my sister Connie and my niece Ana Lourdes picked me up from the airport, I had been admitted to the US as a foreign student. I was a high school drop-out in Mexico. I did not know what to expect regarding high school requirements to obtain a diploma in the US, but I had the most fervent desire to graduate. My English vocabulary was rudimentary at best; my slang vocabulary was non-existent. I had previously met Bob some years back when he married my sister. I knew little about Bob. He was previously married, and he worked as a general foreman. Bob’s kids from the previous marriage were all adults, except for Mark, a sixteen-year-old who was also a member of Bob’s fa...