>> This isn't Christmas, obviously.
Is it ever in this state?
I hope you had took that in tape too.
It would be a great thing.
I wrote this for an airline magazine.
You know those free things that people steal when they tell you
to take, and it takes about 11 minutes.
You can time me if you want.
By the time the Japanese Imperial forces were deep into the mopping up operation
in the Bataan Peninsula, preparations for the siege and fall of Corregidor were also underway.
One of the defenders was Clemente Garcia, a 23 year old youngster
from Mercedes, Texas down in the valley.
He was born not in Mercedes, but in northern Mexico.
His mother, two brothers and a sister had crossed the Rio Grande at Rio Rico, Tamaulipas,
Mexico and settled in Mercedes for some two or three years after the death of Don Clemente,
Senior, a victim of the Spanish influenza epidemic in the 20's.
Don Clemente had been a veteran of the Mexican Revolution.
While his death, as he was in enlisted careers,
his widow began to receive a smallish pension from the Mexican government.
Mrs. Garcia's decision to cross the Rio Grande was an economic one, and that's no different
from that made by hundreds of 1000's of European and other immigrants
who settled in the United States.
The choice of Mercedes was no accident.
However, many newly arriving Mexican nationals made it a type
of halfway house before they spread out all over Texas, the Midwestern United States and beyond.
One of the many Garcias and of the many Garcias, these settled in Mercedes.
Aurora, an only daughter, did needlepoint
and constructed some remarkably intricate paper designs used as cemetery decorations.
Two of the youngsters, Arturo and Medardo, were apprenticed off
to neighborhood panaderias, bakeries.
Clemente, clearly the brightest according to the family,
enrolled at the all Texas Mexican neighborhood school, North Ward Elementary.
He logged in the mandatory six years there and at age 16, had learned to read
and write enough English to hire on as a sack boy for a local grocery store.
Later on, he became a delivery man as well as a driver.
On his 21st birthday, he came to our home and knocked on the east porch door.
I was the only one home at the time, and invited him.
He thanked me but said he was in the middle of a delivery.
He had stopped, he said, to ask my father's advice on some matter but that he'd call again.
Our people came to the valley as had his with the Eskandon Expedition and colonists of 1749.
Our family happened to live in the northern bank of the Rio Grande
when it became part of the American Union.
His ancestors had lived in the southern bank.
And thus, with the proclamation of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo,
they became Mexican nationals and we, American citizens.
Since Clemente had no father he called on mine for advice.
This is in the late 30's, and there were still some strong remnants
of the old patriarchal system established in 1750.
It's a serious matter Manuel, he said to my father.
And this was the obligatory phrase, and it can accomplish almost anything from a request
for my father as a sponsor, to ask for a girl's hand in marriage,
to putting in a good word, dar una recomendacion, for whatever was needed.
In short, almost anything, but certainly something of importance to the petition.
The Great Depression was still hanging on in the Valley and elsewhere
and steady jobs are hard to come by.
In Garcia's case, though it was something different.
During one of these deliveries in the Anglo Texan side of town,
he had met a man named Claude Rodgers, according to Clemente, Rogers is going to own
and operate a Gulf station on the Texas Mexican part of town.
And Rogers had wanted Clemente if he wanted to work there, had asked him to full time.
Clemente had not known what to say to this, but Rogers resolved it when he said, think it over.
Come by in a week or so.
So my father listened to Clemente, nodded, and then pointing to a chair.
Clemente sat down, and one of my sisters brought him a tall glass of limeade.
I was about to leave him, but my father said I could stay and I did so.
The upshot was that he took the job at the gas station, which was directly
across from our house, and I would see him every day on my way to work or my way
to school at North Ward Elementary.
In November of 1940, a week before Thanksgiving as I was crossing North Texas Avenue
on my way home, I heard a shrill series of whistles.
It was Clemente.
Aquí, he said.
Over here.
Then he grinned and yelled out andale, come on, hurry it up.
And he was standing under the carwash and surrounded by Gulf oil cans.
What's up, I asked.
Look and he pointed.
I said at what, they're oil cans.
He said, yeah, I've been saving them.
And I asked, can you sell them like milk bottles?
And he laughed and he said, no, I'm going to weld them, all of them.
I'm going to weld them.
I'm going to make as a Santa Claus for Christmas.
Really? Out of cans?
He said, yeah, you just wait.
And then I said, can I help?
So well, you'd better.
It's my Christmas present for you.
For me, and he said, sure.
We will begin by rinsing them and drying them out.
What's your dad going to give you anyway?
A pair of khaki pants.
Oh, and a leather belt from Madam Mars [phonetic].
And well, this will be your third Christmas present.
Everybody's entitled to three, you know, just like los magos, the Magi.
Well, Thanksgiving came and went.
And every afternoon after running errands, and doing the daily chores,
I'd run over to Rogers Gulf, rinse some more cans
and watch Clemente weld them for the Santa Claus.
We're going to put it up there on top of the carwash.
I'll get me some good strong wire, and nothing will blow it down, not even the Gulf wind.
And Clemente finished it a week before Christmas.
And then in January, on the day of the Magi, he received a notice
from the local Selective Service Board.
He took and passed his physical in San Antonio in March of 1941, and he was on his way
to the Philippines by October of the same year.
What letters he wrote to his mother were brought to my father to read.
And my father also translated the fateful telegram sent
by the War Department in the summer of 1942.
The Santa Claus stayed on top of the carwash for some 10 years after World War II,
rusted out finally, but I remembered it was big, and red and white
and held there by big black boots, perfect.
In the way of the world of the living, I forgot about it,
and I'd almost forgotten Clemente Garcia, La Norteñita as we call him.
It was an affectionate name and feminine but he was called
that in the singular in honor of his favorite song.
Las Norteñitas, Those oh so sweet northern girls.
Then one December day, I went down to Mercedes on some now forgotten family business.
Urban renewal had taken care of Rogers' station and the house in which I was born.
In its place, it was a parking lot,
but across the street Rogers' station had been replaced by a tire store.
It was owned by a man named Leopolo Martinez.
And so I crossed the street to see Martinez.
I thought that I saw the Gulf oil can Santa Claus.
I walked on, and I was sure I had seen it again, somewhere, but how?
I ran inside the store, and then almost knocked over down a clerk who was taking inventory.
Oh, it's you, doctor.
How are you?
I stopped and looked at him for some sign of recognition.
Found none.
I'm sorry.
I said, Who's your father?
Lotario Davido [phonetic], the truck driver.
He knows you.
I nodded and apologized again.
And he couldn't help noticing my searching for something and asked, can I help you?
I didn't know what to say, where to begin.
Images of the 30's, 40's, and 50's flicked on and off again
as in a slideshow until I finally said, no thanks.
I thought I'd seen something.
It's nothing.
And he nodded.
As I turned to go, the image flashed on again as a reflection somewhere.
It was nothing more than a blown up Michelin tire man waving, smiling at me,
and someone had painted him up as Santa Claus.
The [inaudible] youngster looked at it and he said, oh, that it's a new line.
You know, some of the older people come in and stare at it for the longest time.
You know why they do that?
I nodded slightly and then on an impulse asked did, you ever know
or hear of the widow Garcia on Hidalgo and First?
He said sure.
She must be close to 90, 95, 100 maybe.
She's still alive, you know.
Lives there with a daughter, I think.
And with the memories I said to myself, thanks.
What's your name anyway?
John, sir.
John. Well, thanks again.
Yes sir. And he went back to his inventory.
The Michelin tire man, it looked grotesque somehow.
But and again, somehow, it looked like my third Christmas.
My Gulf oil can Santa Claus, the one I got before the war.
Thank you.
[ Applause ]