1986 was a year of ups and downs. It started off badly. My cousin Charlie Mendoza had just died in a tragic car accident in late December and my friend Dennis Krenek died on January 2. Charlie was only 19. He was my Aunt Helen’s son and was named after my brother Charles, who was in the Navy at the time he was born. He was a nice kid, very quiet and polite. My friend Dennis was only 33 when he succumbed to the AIDS virus. I had met him when I was with my first partner John back in 1978, and then later worked with him when I volunteered at the Southern Arizona Mental Health Center. He was an occupational therapist and a very good friend and mentor.
In addition, at the beginning of the year, I was halfway through library school, still working at Fry’s and doing my radio show, and still with Brent, even though he continued to live and work up in Chandler. I kept very busy and juggled a lot of responsibilities. I missed Brent, but I made new friends early in the year. Thaddeus and Sandahbeth Spae showed up in my life in early January, and they hung out with me for about a month or so. They were musicians and gypsies, shady characters to some people, I’m sure, but nice people to me. Sandahbeth hailed from Virginia, had a gorgeous voice and could sing just about anything, from swinging jazz to blues to country music. Thaddeus was a hyper-active, multi-talented instrumentalist from the Northwest. Together they made an odd, but happy couple, and they called themselves “Amber Tide”. One day, on my birthday, I invited them to my parents house to hang out with me and my family, as my mom had made food and bought me a birthday cake. They graciously performed a few numbers, and we all had a blast. My mother was especially thrilled when Sandahbeth sang the Hank Williams tune, “Your Cheatin’ Heart” just for her. I can’t remember how long they stayed at my house. It might have been a month or more. I had to get them to move on eventually. My friend and landlord Ted thought they had stolen his son’s stereo equipment, as it went missing one day. Who knows? It’s possible they did it. I didn’t think so, but I was so naïve at the time, the possibility that these two roving gypsies would do something like that never crossed my mind.
I got increasingly jaded working at Fry’s. I took my job for granted and didn’t realize how good it was. I felt tied to the money as I was acquiring debt in the mid-80s, and I needed the job to pay my bills and keep a roof over my head. The company knew I was about to reach my 10-year anniversary, and thus close to getting vested with the Union’s pension plan, so I believe they were looking to get me fired. I was also active as a union steward and was busy recruiting new members, which didn’t help my cause at all. In mid-May, the unimaginable happened. I got fired for ringing out my own order during a break. One of the assistant managers, who didn’t like me, caught me doing this and informed me that it was against company policy and that he would see to it that I was terminated for it. I was devastated, because I didn’t have any savings. I was unemployed for a month and a half, I believe, until I finally found a job at Sears in the auto parts department in early July. It was humiliating. I hated that job, but it kept me alive until the end of the year.
While Brent and I were still a couple, it was hard maintaining a long distance relationship. We did our best to keep it together, especially when his parents came to town in April for a visit. We both spent a lot of time coming and going from Chandler to Tucson and back. After a while, he started having trouble at work, and he eventually was let go, so he moved back home from Phoenix sometime in May, if I’m not mistaken, and for a while we relied on his income as a tile setting assistant. Things were tight, but we managed.
During the first semester of 1986, I took two classes and had an internship at the UA Main library. The internship consisted of doing data entry for a project a librarian named Maria Hoopes, who happened to be my friend Peter Segura’s aunt, supervised. She was very nice and supportive, and one of the only librarians of color on the staff. The internship also consisted of spending time at the reference desk, helping students and others find materials for their research, and answering basic reference questions. I learned a lot working at the reference desk, even though I didn’t feel the same level of support from some of the librarians with whom I worked while working there that I got from working with Maria.
My other classes were titled Reference Sources in the Humanities and An Introduction to Bibliography, in which I did quite well. For my class project, I compiled a comprehensive annotated bibliography on the works of Margaret Randall, a writer and poet who had lived in Mexico, Cuba and Nicaragua for many years, and who had recently returned to the U.S. She was currently under the threat of deportation because when she became a Mexican citizen, she gave up her American citizenship. The US government did not like her writings, either, which were all about life in socialist society. They thought her too dangerous and sought to keep her out of the country. I attended a reading she gave one night in late January at the U of A Social Sciences Auditorium, and decided that I wanted to find out more about her, so I took on the task of compiling all of her works and reviews about her works into one very long, annotated bibliography. I received an A on the project, and even got to correspond with Ms. Randall during the course of completing it. She was also able to use my bibliography in court as a record of her work. I was thrilled about that.
My classes in the Fall weren’t nearly as interesting as my Spring courses, but I got through them, and graduated in December with a 3.76 grade point average. My parents were ecstatic that I had completed yet another degree, and I was happy and relieved that I had finally finished the program. I was so lucky to have my parent’s support. They were always there for me. Even though I couldn’t handle living at home, I knew I could always pop over for a bite to eat, and my mom helped me with my laundry and ironing. She would always jokingly say to me, “mijito, I’m going to live another year, so I can see you graduate”. I wondered to myself, oh, oh, now what? She was ill at the time, and would only be with us just a short while longer, unfortunately.
Throughout the year, I continued to host the Chicano Connection Revisited on KXCI. I saved many of my playlists and have posted them all in the Chicano Connection Archive. I also have several cassette tapes of programs that I did this particular year, and will eventually get around to posting them in the archive too. Some of these shows include my buddy Richard Elias. He co-hosted several of them with me in the Fall. One of the highlights of the year was getting the opportunity to guest host for Ted Warmbrand’s show, “Music from the Living Loom”. Jamie Anderson, a local women’s music performer, and I collaborated on producing a gay pride Father’s Day show. Links to the show are included below. While the sound quality isn’t great, I’m glad I was able get this transferred from tape to digital format. I consider doing this show one of the highlights of my career in radio.
June 15, 1986: Music from the Living Loom, KXCI 91.7 FM, Tucson, “Gay Pride Show” featuring guest hosts Bob Diaz and Jamie Anderson. Part 1, Part 2.
KXCI sponsored lots of great concerts in 1986, many of which I attended, and my friend and landlord Ted Warmbrand also brought in several wonderful musical performers, so all in all I had a great time attending lots of concerts while continuing to build my ever growing home library of books and records. Some of the more memorable concerts I attended were the Bob Dylan/Tom Petty show up in Phoenix, Queen Ida and Her Zydeco Band at the El Casino Ballroom, and Stevie Wonder at McKale Memorial Center on the UA campus.
In December, I was able to find another temporary job, working as a cashier at the Food Conspiracy Co-Op. I liked this job much better than the one at Sears, but I kept them both until the end of the year. In mid-December, I started job hunting, and I found a job in Nogales as a public services and children’s librarian. I hadn’t really prepared myself to be a public librarian and was hoping to become an academic librarian, but this job was available and I needed one fast. I was hired before the year ended, so Brent and I packed everything up and were ready to move to Nogales by the beginning of January. A new chapter in our lives was about to begin.
Here are some of my exams, papers and projects I completed during the Spring, 1986 school semester:
02/20/86: Exam in LI S 526, Introduction to Bibliography, Dr. Dickinson.
Here is a letter I received from Margaret Randall after I sent her my completed bibliography project. Receiving this was the thrill of a lifetime. After all these years, she still remembers me too, as I was recently in touch with her on Facebook. She’s since written much more and continues her writing to this day.
Music From The Living Loom Show, Gay Pride/Father’s Day Program with guest hosts Bob Diaz and Jamie Anderson July 4, 1986. Part 1. (Audio only).
Music From The Living Loom Show, Gay Pride/Father’s Day Program with guest hosts Bob Diaz and Jamie Anderson, July 4, 1986. Part 2. (Audio only).
During the Fall semester, my last one as a student, I continued to host the Chicano Connection on KXCI. It was around this time that I got my good friend Richard to join me as co-host. We hosted several shows together, including the one noted below. One time we had our friends Mike and Denise join us, and they danced in the studio as we played Dylan’s Romance in Durango. Another time, Richard and I read the little “Know Your Rights” pamphlet on the air. We thought it was really cool to provide that kind of public service. We were both likely pretty lit most of the time, but had a blast and managed to get through each show without messing up too badly. Hanging out with Richard at this point in my life helped me get through the last couple of months of graduate school and working at Sears. By December, I had finished and moved on to other things. I sure miss those days when Richard and I had fun together on the radio. I have a recording or two of us on the air. I’m going to transfer them from tape to digital audio one of these days…
Here are some of my papers and exams from the Fall semester:
09/24/86: Exam #1, Research Methods, LI S 506, Dr. Hurt.
10/07/86: Exam, Academic Librarianship LI S 540, Dr. Dickinson.
10/10/86: Historical Analysis Paper, Research Method, LI S 506, Dr. Hurt.
10/22/86: Exam #2, Research Methods, LI S 506, Dr. Hurt.
12/08/86: Hispanics In Librarianship paper, Academic Librarianship, LI S 540, Dr. Dickinson.
12/10/86: Quantitative Analysis Paper, Research Methods, LI S 506, Dr. Hurt.
