Quiet, adults are talking.

When I was growing up, no one ever had to say to me, "Quiet, adults are talking".  I can recall a few holiday parties, my mother's Tupperware parties and a few children's birthday parties when I walked up to where my mother was sitting, put my arm around her neck and listened because the adults were talking. I enjoyed watching the expressions the adults would make as they spoke. I liked how they would switch from English to Spanish in conversation constantly. I liked hearing the stories and it was comforting to me to just be around the voices. I didn't always understand everything and I remember how that felt. I also remember the topics that had a lasting impression on me and what would sometimes go through my head when they were mentioned.Most of all I remember hearing of Watergate, Vietnam, Freddie Fender, Patty Hearst and Karen Ann Quinlan.

Whenever Watergate was mentioned in my mind would appear the image of the irrigation ditches we'd see on our walks. Once my mom had pointed out a strong current that flowed over the water gate. That image was satisfactory enough. Watergate was somewhere near the fig trees.

I did understand Vietnam, it was a war and our cousin died and it was far away. I do remember being confused and not really being able to distinguish between news of Vietnam and the television show M.A.S.H. Once that was clear it wasn't until I was ten or so that I realized M.A.S.H wasn't about Vietnam. I didn't watch an entire episode of M.A.S.H. until that time.

I did understand Freddie Fender, he was just like us, spoke English and Spanish. He sang one of my favorite songs at the time, "Wasted Days and Wasted Nights". The lyrics went over my head. and I thought Freddie Fender was living in Del Rio and a good friend of the family because he was mentioned so often. I wondered why he never came to visit.

Talk of Patty Hearst resulted in me finally asking what brain washing was all about. I would think of the girl on television every evening having to endure showers of icy water and how terrible that was indeed but wondering what that had to do with her being in a war. I thought she had something to do with Vietnam.

It was years before I found out the Karen Ann Quinlan was not a girl from Del Rio at the Val Verde Memorial Hospital. I remember driving past the hospital and thinking that poor Karen Ann was in there. She was mentioned at church and we would pray for her. I remember starting kindergarten and hearing her name mentioned and how we should pray for her.

It's rare these days to catch the scent of Jean Nate but when I have it is like time travel. My mother wore Jean Nate throughout my childhood. When I'd walk into the room where the adults were and put my arm around her neck, her curly hair would fall just above my arm and as she spoke her curls would bounce and tickle me. The whole time her perfume was helping commit all that I was hearing, seeing, feeling and thinking to memory.