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Chapter 33: Jaime and RichardLong hair? No problem; drugs? Yes, problem
In the late 1960s and early ’70s, Mama suddenly found herself with a house full of hippies. Jaime was first. Once he no longer had to wear parochial school uniforms, he blended with the other teens at Pueblo High School who dressed in torn jeans and T-shirts and grew their hair long below the ear. Richard got into the scene in the early 1970s.
My brother Raymond never grew his hair long. The furthest I got was wearing jeans, boots and my old, faithful blue knitted poncho. I parted my long, black, straight hair down the middle and listened to a lot of Carole King and Santana with my sidekick, Aida. Man, we were cool. Mama took it all in stride, so long as it was simply a fashion statement and we continued to bring home good grades. What bothered her was drugs. She prayed to Santo Niño de Atocha to keep us straight. Jaime was first to smoke pot. “I prayed and told him that being a marihuano was not good. He was too big to spank. All I could do was talk to him,” Mama says. Jaime seemed to settle down. “I was glad. Jaime was very intelligent. He just had to learn to use his intelligence,” says Mama.
“Tía is the ultimate mother and aunt,” says Jaime. “Even though my childhood was troubled, it wasn’t from her. She was always good to us. All my inner trouble was caused by memories of my dad.” When Jaime reached his senior year, he wanted to quit school and join the Army. El cabezón would not listen to Mama: “Graduate from high school first.” “He told me he would finish high school in the service. “Jaime was the adventurer. He did what popped into his mind. And he was always laughing. That was his personality. You could be scolding him and he was smiling.” The Army was not the best place for a budding marihuano. San Francisco was not the ideal posting; neither was Germany. “I got into a lot of different types of drugs. I took LSD, acid, cocaine, speed, downers and I smoked a lot of hash. There was a lot of drugs being done all over. It was so easy to get drugs there,” he recalls. Jaime was lucky he never got hooked on drugs. Maybe the prayers worked. Jaime came home after the Army, but didn’t stay long. He went out to a nightclub one night and never returned. Then he finally telephoned. He was in Los Angeles. He had gone for the weekend, but had decided to stay. He’s still there. Jaime married and had three children with wife, Rita. Edelle, 24, is a chiropractic assisant; Krystal, 23, is a baker; and James, 21, is a sheriff’s deputy. Jaime and Rita were married for 17 years before they divorced. In 1996, Jaime married Shelly, a single mother with a 12-year-old daughter. Richard went through drastic changes in high school. He was a clean-cut football player his freshman year, as his big brother Raúl had been in the 1960s. But Richard’s life took a turn when he discovered drugs his sophomore year. The long, long hair and tattered jeans were just a symptom. Mama began praying again to God and Santo Niño de Atocha to show Richard the light. She knew way before anyone else where Richard was headed, but he did not heed her consejos. “I left sports and fell behind in my classes, dropping out my sophomore year,” recalls Richard. “I did a lot of pot, LSD, mescaline and a lot of speed. I tried heroin once. I sniffed it, but I didn’t like it. I never did it again. Once, my Tía found a bag of marijuana in my (dresser) drawer. I was busted. She flushed it down the toilet.” It just took time before he was arrested. He ended up at Pima County Juvenile Detention Center. Richard had a choice face lockup or go back to school and straighten out. He chose school, and Mama lighted another candle. Richard had to repeat his sophomore year, and he needed to show Pueblo High football coaches Don Bowerman and Bill Bell he meant business before he was allowed to play football. He cut his hair and got back into shape. “This training taught me a lot of discipline, mentally and physically. It taught me that there are two sides to your body. You can either take care of it, or let it go to crap like I did. I felt the before and the after. I lost weight, and I got all that crap out of me,” says Richard, who now works long days as a plumber in the new subdivisions sprouting in metropolitan Tucson. At Pueblo High, Richard played defensive tackle and aspired to be a star his senior year like his older brother Raúl. But his experience was too much like Raúl’s. His playing time abruptly ended when he injured his leg. The injury did win him votes for Homecoming King for the 1973-74 school year. And he became the first of Florencia’s children to graduate. In 1978, Richard was breaking rock underground at the San Manuel mine. He graduated to blasting making tunnels. “Back then, we worked underground at 2,600 feet. It was hard. I was scared all the time. Then after a while you don’t get scared anymore. It’s like working at Kmart.” But the hard work took its toll on him and others. It was at San Manuel that Richard journeyed back to drugs. “I got pulled into the cocaine. Then I got involved with this girl from Mammoth. I met her at a bar. She shot up in her veins. I tried it once, and the next thing you know, we were doing it all the time like that,” he says. He worked and functioned, but he was definitely hooked. “I figured one of these days I was going to lay there and never wake up,” he says. He turned to Irene, who helped him get admitted to a drug rehabilitation center. He has stayed clean. “I admire Tía for her strength. There is everything I put her through, what everybody the world put her through. Yet she can still stand up and say ‘I’m here.’ “I love her. She is a solid rock. She probably will live forever.”
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Ch. 1: Field of death
Ch. 18: The New Deal
Ch. 24: Cotton pickers and copper miners Ch. 27: The family doubles its size
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