Category Archives: My Life Story

My Life Story: 1994

February 18, 2024My Life Storyjrdiaz@arizona.edu

This particular entry is divided into two parts. The first is the narrative for my life story in 1994. The second part includes a lot of graphics, including photos, postcards, maps, documents, news articles etc.

I began the year by continuing to work at the University of Arizona Libraries and living with my partner Ruben in a spacious, two bedroom apartment on the west side of town on Shannon Road, near Pima Community College. I turned 35 in mid-January, and was presented with a beautiful birthday cake that our friend Roberto made for me. It was delicious too. At the end of February, Ruben and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary as a couple. We had our share of ups and downs during our first year together, but we managed to work things out as we got to know eachother. We’re still together 31 years later. In March, he started school at the Allure College of Beauty, and within a year he would become a licensed cosmetologist and hair stylist. In April, we bought a new car, a 1993 Nissan Sentra, and we soon began taking road trips to places like Albuquerque and the Grand Canyon. It was so nice having a car that didn’t break down every other week, and we kept it for a very long time, 11 years to be exact.

Work-wise, 1994 was a very busy year. I passed my second year review as I continued to juggle a variety of responsibilities in my role as Assistant to the Dean for staff development, recruitment and diversity. Each area of responsibility was quite demanding. I was also a member of the Administrative Group and Library Cabinet, the library’s leadership teams, and attended every meeting and every training session held for these groups. The restructuring process was still unfolding, and there was a great demand for staff development and training. I continued to set up, as I had the previous year (for example, see: Library Wide-Training Plan Summary, June, 1993-December, 1993), scores of training sessions for the staff and the administration this particular year, and allocated several thousand dollars of funding for staff attendance at workshops and other events. However, I enjoyed the work I did in the area of diversity the most. I worked with the Library Diversity Council to set up a variety of informative programs, including a lecture on women in Islam, a Passover seder, a lecture on Black aviators, as well as a Cinco De Mayo lecture and celebration, among others. In July, the Diversity Council wrote an annual report for 1993/1994, that outlined all of the activities it sponsored and issues that it confronted. The Dean of the Library was quite impressed and pleased, and commended the group for its work. In July, E.J. Josey, a distinguished leader in African American librarianship and former president of the American Library Association, visited and gave a lecture on diversity in librarianship for the campus. In the Fall, I received funding from the University administration to host the writer Leslie Feinberg, whose novel, Stone Butch Blues, had just won the ALA Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s Book award for fiction. Feinberg was at the forefront of the budding transgender rights movement, and I organized both campus and community events that gave people the opportunity to get to know this amazing individual. As a result of my organizing these events, I was invited to become a member of the board of directors of Wingspan, Tucson’s lgbt community center. I accepted the invitation, but within a month or so realized that this was too big a responsibility to take on, so I resigned. Wingspan needed a lot of attention, and I just didn’t have the time. In November, the Diversity Council hosted the Equity Institute, a diversity training organization that provided training to the Library faculty and staff on the issue of racism. This was the first of several all staff diversity-focused training events that I would be involved in coordinating while assistant to the Dean. Looking back, it’s a miracle I didn’t collapse from exhaustion. It was a very busy time for me. It was not without its ups and downs, either. I experienced some conflict with one of my senior colleagues in particular, whose good friend, one of our library consultants, told me flat out at one point that I was not qualified for the work I was doing. This was after I refused to go to the student union to buy her and my senior colleague sandwiches one night while we were working on planning training for the staff. I told them I wasn’t their errand boy. They also told me that they weren’t there to teach me, after I asked questions about the work we were doing. I later mentioned this to the Dean of the Library, and she gave me the authority to decide whether or not to bring this particular consultant back for more training. We never did bring her back as a consultant, but she managed to continue working with us in other ways.

I was also involved in a lot of service-related activities, including the ALA GLBTF Book Award Committee, which I’ve noted awarded Leslie Feinberg that year’s award for fiction; REFORMA, at both the national and local levels, and the Arizona State Library Association, where I chaired the Services to the Spanish Speaking Roundtable. I also managed the student chapter of REFORMA, and we took a number of field trips to various libraries, including a college library in Nogales, Sonora as well as local libraries like the El Rio Center Library, located in the heart of Barrio Hollywood. Because I was on the “tenure-track” at this point in my career, I also had to engage in scholarship. This took the form of either writing for publication or giving formal presentations at professional conferences. This particular year, something I had written while at Michigan, a chapter titled “Collection Development in Multicultural Studies” was published in the book, Cultural Diversity In Libraries, edited by my colleague Pat Tarin and Don Riggs, Dean of Libraries at the University of Michigan. I also participated in writing a couple of chapters for the publication, Magazines for Libraries. I recruited colleagues from the UA Library and the local public library to help me write descriptions of recommended core magazines and journals from Latin America for libraries. We also included magazines and journals focusing on the Latino experience in the US. The work would not get published for another year, but we completed it in summer, 1994, and the editor of the publication, Bill Katz, a well-respected library leader and publisher, was quite happy with our work. I also participated in a number of professional development workshops, including a seminar on time management, a workshop on working with the media, strategic planning training, facilitation skills training, and other programs. I also attended two national conferences, ALA Midwinter in Los Angeles and ALA Annual in Miami Beach, and one state library (ASLA) conference in Phoenix.

There were several major family events that occurred this year. My dad married his companion, Guadalupe Lopez, in March. They already had a child, my little brother Jose’, the previous September. The marriage took place in Bullhead City, Arizona, and was attended by most of my dad’s brothers and sisters. My great niece Estrella Ochoa had her first child, a boy named David. In December, both my aunt Dora Sainz, one of my mom’s younger sisters, and my cousin Martin Olguin died. I went to my aunt’s funeral in San Francisco, and attended my cousin Martin’s services in Tucson. I grew up with Martin, and we were very close at one point. His death made me very sad. He was only in his mid-30s.

My childhood friend, Richard (Ricky) Fass was killed in late June. He was an undercover DEA agent, and was shot by drug dealers in a botched up undercover operation. It was quite a tragedy. Ricky and his brother Bubba grew up two houses up the street from me, and we spent lots of time together as kids. Another friend, Kidd Rivenbark, also died this year. We weren’t that close, but he was a very nice man. I met him when I was with my first partner, John. They had been in the Air Force together. Kidd was from North Carolina. He was quite fond of me, but I was young and flighty and didn’t keep in touch with him.

Several major events occurred in 1994, including the Zapatista rebellion in Chiapas, Mexico, and the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement by the US, Mexico and Canada. Both events occurred on the same day, January 1. Later in the month, a major earthquake hit southern California and was centered in the town of Northridge, just north of Los Angeles. 1994 also saw the emergence of both the internet, the World Wide Web, and the companies Yahoo and Amazon. OJ Simpson was accused of murdering his wife, and Nelson Mandela won the presidency in South Africa, in its first ever fair and free elections. California’s Proposition 187, which would have denied many social and public services to the undocumented, was passed and then quickly repealed as illegal.

The following musicians, actors and other celebrities died in 1994: Amparo Ochoa, Cab Calloway, Papa John Creach, Dinah Shore, Jackie Kennedy, Cesar Romero, Harry Nilsson, Henry Mancini, Carmen MacRae Marion Williams, and Major Lance.

My personal interests at this time revolved around collecting Mexican music and classic movies. I loved the music of Lucha Villa, and sought out her recordings whenever and wherever I could. Pepe Aguilar and Alejandro Fernandez were two other Mexican ranchera singers who were both relatively new to the music scene, and I purchased every recording of theirs that came out. I even got to see Pepe Aguilar perform with his father Antonio Aguilar and his mother Flor Silvestre at the Pima County Fairgrounds.

Ruben and I became big movie buffs and we bought the following films, all on vhs:: The Story of Ruth, Of Human Bondage, El Cid, Paris is Burning, Shindig Soul, Two Mules for Sister Sarah, All In A Night’s Work, The Man in the Iron Mask, Stage Door, James Brown and Friends, Pretty Baby, Sweet Bird of Youth, Dark Shadows, 2,000 Year Old Man, A Stolen Life, The Children’s Hour, Barbarella, Making Love, Aretha Live at Park West, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, The Night of the Iguana, Reefer Madness, Norman Is That You?, The Country Girl, Nijinsky, The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, Quartet, The Sound of Music, The Wizard of Oz, Guitarras, Lloren Guitarras, Where the Boys Are, It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, A Charlie Brown Christmas, Midnight Cowboy, Yours, Mine and Ours, The Last Emperor, Fantastic Voyage, La Cage Aux Folles, The Count of Monte Cristo, In This Our Life, Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and Gone With the Wind.

Little did we know that the vhs format would soon be replaced by dvds. We still have some of these tapes, and they do work, but we gave many of them away and replaced them with dvds. Maybe one day they’ll, like lps, make a big comeback! You never know.

Happy New Year!

1-1-94 –The beginning of the Zapatista rebellion in Mexico.

On the same day-January 1, 1994-The North American Free Trade Agreement, signed into law in December by President Clinton, takes effect.

I celebrated my 35th birthday on January 15.

My friend Roberto Ramirez made me this gorgeous birthday cake. It was quite yummy.

An magnitude 6.7 earthquake hit Southern California’s San Fernando valley on January 17, 1994.

ALA Midwinter in Los Angeles was interesting and fun. The conference was held in the downtown area. I had never really spent any time there before, so it was a new experience. I stayed at a hotel called the New Otani Hotel, in Little Tokyo, which was close to City Hall, Olvera Street, the train station and skid row. One evening I took the bus to West Hollywood with my friend Mario, and we spent the night partying at a bar called the Ramrod II. It was great. I also found some very hard to find Lucha Villa recordings at a store called Ritmo Latino and I visited Olvera Street, where I had some very tasty champurrado and bought some Jesus Hilguera prints. It’s LA’s original site, and is home to several historic buildings.

The Northridge earthquake had just hit two week prior to this conference. Some of the hotels in downtown LA suffered damage. What was I thinking? In hindsight I should probably have skipped this conference and avoided LA for the time being, so soon after a major natural disaster! Oh well. Thank goodness things turned out fine.

This was my fifth ALA Midwinter Conference. I had been to Chicago in ’90 and ’91, San Antonio in ’92 and Denver in ’93. I would continue to attend these conferences every year for many more years before I slowed down.

A map of downtown LA showing all the hotels in the area. My hotel was the New Otani on the northeast side in an area called Little Tokyo. Getting to the Convention Center took some time, as it was at the opposite end of downtown.

This is the hotel I stayed at while in Los Angeles. I’d never stayed in the downtown area before. One had to be careful on the streets as skid row was not that far away.

An older postcard of Olvera Street. This is LA’s birthplace, and there are several historic buildings in the area. I had some delicious champurrado, which is like hot chocolate, but a bit thicker, and I bought some Jesus Helguera posters. It was fun–kind of like being in the tourist area in Nogales, Sonora, only much more compact.

This place, now closed has become legendary for carrying a very wide range of Latin music. I was in heaven!

I found the cd re-issue of this recording by Lucha Villa, one of her very first, issued in 1962, at a record store called Ritmo Latino in downtown LA. I was so happy when I bought it. There’s nothing like her early recordings. I was in the middle of my Lucha Villa craze and finding this recording was like finding the mother lode.

This is one of my very favorite Lucha Villa songs.

Amparo Ochoa dies. February 8, 1994. She was a great promoter of “la nueva cancion” in Mexico, and recorded some beautiful, traditional Mexican folk music including an entire album of corridos and songs from the Mexican Revolution.

What a sad, beautiful song. Amparo Ochoa was one of a kind.

Valentine’s Day cards.

Ruben and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary as a couple in late February. He celebrated his 31st birthday in June.

Ruben started beauty school at Allure in early March. The tuition was expensive, but in the end, it was well worth it. He’s been cutting hair now for nearly 30 years.

My dad and and his partner Lupe got married on March 19. Accompanying them in this photo are my Aunt Josie, Aunt Carmen, Aunt Helen, and Uncle Ralph.

I bought a new car in the Spring, a 1993 Nissan Sentra. We needed it badly. My old Corolla was literally falling apart. Unlike the car in the photo, mine was a four door.

Nelson Mandela wins the presidential election in South Africa on April 27 in South Africa’s first fully multi-racial elections. He becomes the first democratically elected president the following month.

In celebration of El Cinco de Mayo, Lupe Castillo, a well-known local Chicana activist and history instructor at Pima Community College, was invited to the Library by the Diversity Council to speak about the cultural and social significance of El Cinco de Mayo to Tucson’s Mexican American community. She talked about immigration along the way, which ruffled a few feathers, but I thought it was great. The event included a musical performance by Mariachi Arizona and a potluck. I coordinated this program on behalf of the Library Diversity Council. When Mariachi Arizona was playing, the leader asked me if I would sing the song “Volver, Volver”, and I did! It was a lot of fun, and I wasn’t even drinking any booze! Ha ha ha!

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis passed away on May 19, 1994.

This was our second trip to Albuquerque in two years. We went in 1993 for Ruben’s birthday and again this year in early June. We visited his sister Mina while there.

ALA Annual in Miami was a lot of fun, but getting around to the various meetings was a real challenge. Some of the meetings were held in Miami Beach, and others in the city of Miami. It was a logistical mess. I had fun any way and went dancing several times, hung out at the beach, and I also enjoyed spending time with my friends Richard DiRusso and Mario Gonzalez, who drove us around in a red convertible one bright, sunny day. It was great.

This was my sixth ALA annual conference. I had been to Dallas in ’89, Chicago in ’90, Atlanta in ’91, San Francisco in ’92 and New Orleans in ’93. I was on a roll. I loved to travel!

My buddy Richard DiRusso and I roomed together at the Hotel Carlton.

On this particular ALA trip, I roomed with my friend Richard DiRusso. He and I were both on the ALA GLBTF Book Award Committee.

Everyone was glued to their television sets as they watched O.J Simpson elude the police on the California freeways. He was tried for murdering his wife. It was a huge spectacle, and people argued at length over whether or not he was guilty. It even split some families apart.

Another American Tragedy –Richard Fass, a close childhood friend, is killed on 6/30.

What a great movie! The soundtrack is wonderful!

The Library Diversity Council held a get together at Libby Hilmar’s house on July 17. Libby was a wonderful friend.

The world wide web was born in 1994. According to some estimates, there were just 10,000 websites and two million computers connected to the Internet. Amazon, Yahoo! and Mosaic Communications (later Netscape) were in the beginning stages.

I contributed a chapter to this book back in 1991-1992, while I was working at the University of Michigan Undergraduate Library. It finally saw the light of day in early August, 1994. It’s available here: Collection Development in Multicultural Studies, book chapter in Cultural Diversity in Libraries, edited by Don Riggs and Patricia Tarin, Neal-Schuman Publishers, 1994.

Grand Canyon with Ruben. First week of August.

This was my second visit to the Grand Canyon taken during the first week of August. Ruben drove most of the way. My first visit took place back in 1976 when I was 17.

What fun, crazy movie. Some of the scenes are quite racy, to put it mildly.

Leslie Feinberg won the 1994 ALA GLBTF Book Award for fiction, and as a member of the book award committee, I had the pleasure of meeting her and inviting her to speak at the Univeristy of Arizona campus on September 30.

This beautiful flyer was designed by Ken Godat of Godat Design.

California’s Proposition 187 was designed to deny social services, non-emergency health services, and public education to undocumented immigrants. California voters passed the proposed law by a margin of 59 percent to 41 percent at a referendum on November 8, 1994. The law was challenged in a legal suit the day after its passage, and found unconstitutional by a federal district court on November 11, 1994.

Mom’s sister Dora died in early December. She was one of my favorite aunts. She and her husband left Tucson in the late 40s and never turned back. They lived in the city at first, but then settled in South San Francisco, and lived there until her death. Our family visited them when I was a kid, back in 1966. In 1978, I visited again. Aunt Dora was a very smart lady. She had to quit school at a young age to help support her family, however.

My cousin Tish drove a bunch of us into the city when we visited for my Aunt Dora’s funeral. I asked her to take me to the Mission District so I could buy some Lucha Villa stuff at the Mission Music Center, and I wound up purchasing a number of cassettes there. Unfortunately, many of them have deteriorated and are no longer playable. I should’ve bought the lps instead!

My crazy cousin Martin. This photo was taken while he was in high school. He was a very talented musician, but didn’t keep it up. We took a summer school class together in high school, but ended up partying a lot more than we studied. He was a travieso.

Cousin Martin dies.

I was a member of the ALA Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s Book Award Committee in 1994. I received complimentary copies of a number of books, many of which are listed below. My job as a committee member was to review them and to be prepared to discuss and debate which ones were the best in their respective categories. It was quite an assignment, as there were many, many wonderful books published in 1994.

That’s all, folks!

My life story: 1993

August 5, 2023My Life Story1993, Autobiography, Bob Diaz, Joseph R. Diazjrdiaz@arizona.edu

As I look back at 1993, I have come to realize that my job was just a part of my life, not my entire life. I’ve delayed writing about this period because I’ve been avoiding writing about the years when I served as Carla Stoffle’s assistant at the University of Arizona Library. In many ways, I felt inadequate, humiliated and burned as the Assistant to the Dean for Staff Development, Recruitment and Diversity. By the time I stepped down from the job eight years later, I was totally fried. I don’t want to just focus on the bad stuff, however, and I don’t have to, so I’m going to mostly write about all the other stuff that happened in my life. I have many fond memories.

1993 was a year that changed my life for the better overall. However, I had just been hired at the University of Arizona Library in June the previous year and was beginning to realize how intense my job was. It was very demanding, and at times I struggled to keep up with the pace. We were in the midst of a major organizational overhaul, and there was a constant demand for staff development and on-the-job training. I worked with a variety of people–national consultants, local consultants and other staff– to coordinate and deliver these efforts. We were in unknown territory, working to completely change the structure and culture of the library while consolidating units, changing work priorities and trying to convince people that diversity and working in teams were good ideas. There was a lot of resistance among the staff to these changes, but we charged forward.

My colleague Karen Downing and I worked on this project before I left Michigan in early 1992. It was finally published at the beginning of 1993. We received very positive reviews for our contribution and were later asked to conduct this workshop live at UC Berkeley. Click the link below to access the full chapter.

“Instruction in a Multicultural/Multiracial Environment”, co-authored with Karen Downing, in the book, Learning to Teach: Workshops on Instruction. American Library Association, 1993.

This recording was released on January 1, 1993. Judy Collins and Bob Dylan have known each other since early 60s, when they both were part of the Greenwich Village folk scene. Many of her albums contain Dylan material. Her versions of Masters of War and The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll are outstanding. This album is great and full of new Dylan material like Sweetheart Like you and Gotta Serve Somebody.

I lived alone at the beginning of the year and turned 34 on January 15, but didn’t do anything but watch movies at home. My car was giving me problems, so I was stuck. The photo below is what my car, a 1980 Toyota Corolla, likely looked like back in 1980, when it was brand new. After having survived 12 Michigan winters, it was not nearly as pretty as it once was, but it was what I had at the time. I spent a lot of money on repairs, but by the following year, I’d have a new vehicle.

This is a 1980 Toyota Corolla, the same model that I owned in 1993. I bought mine in 1990. It never looked as good as this one.

Here are some of my birthday cards from that 1993.

My sister Irene has been sending me birthday cards every year for over 30 years.

I really missed my Michigan friends. Barb Hoppe and I were very close. She was one-of-a-kind.

This was from the staff at the UA Library. There were some very nice people who worked there.

My buddy Richard and I attended this Charlie King concert on January 16, a day after my birthday. King is a professional protest singer, and that night I wasn’t in the mood to hear that kind of music, so I made fun of it the entire time. I still feel had about my behavior. I was being a real jerk.

Nevertheless, here’s one of the songs of Charlie’s that I really like:

I have had lots of trouble with the issue of political correctness over time. I think my leftist friends can get quite dogmatic and they easily put people down who aren’t “enlightened” like they are. I disagree with a lot of what they espouse, especially when it comes to one’s chosen use of language/ terminology and attitudes about various issues like what foods one should or should not eat. There are certain words like queer and latinx, for example, that I’ll likely never use in my own day-to-day speech because I don’t like those terms, but they’re politically correct, so to speak. I also refuse to add pronouns to my signature. If you can’t tell I’m a dude, something is wrong! Seriously, if you want to know, just ask. But don’t make me feel obliged to include it as part of my signature. Oh well. I know who I am–a gay Chicano socialist, or as Archie Bunker might say a “commie, pinko, fairy” through and through. That won’t ever change.

Bill Clinton became our new President in January. He was on several magazine covers. The one on the far right was photoshopped, for sure, but was quite popular with the gay crowd at the time.

Even though I had an uneventful birthday, a week or so later I got to go to Denver to attend the 1993 ALA Midwinter conference. I’d never been there before.

I love Denver. What an interesting city!

I was in Denver for just a few days, so I made the most of it and had a very nice time, but I was also there to work. In 1992, I had been elected national secretary of REFORMA, The National Association for the Promotion of Library Services to the Spanish Speaking, so I was obligated to attend and take minutes at all of the REFORMA meetings held at Midwinter ’93. Here are the minutes from two of the meetings I attended:

Reforma Executive Board Meeting minutes 1-24-93 Denver ALA MW

Reforma II Minutes ALA Denver 1-24-93

My hotel was right in the middle of downtown Denver. It was a great location. It was formerly called The Brown Palace Hotel and is now a Holiday Inn Express. At the time of my visit it was a Comfort Inn.

We were in Denver at a time when there was a lot of conflict in Colorado over Amendment 2, a ballot initiative passed by Colorado voters in 1992 that prohibited the state from enacting antidiscrimination protections for gays, lesbians, and bisexuals, but that had been blocked by the courts. I and other colleagues from the UA Library, including our Assistant Dean Shelley Phipps, attended a protest rally at the Capitol in support of the gay population of Colorado. I did my best to keep up with what was happening.

These are some of the lapel buttons that I collected during my visit to Denver.

The protest rally I attended was held at the steps of the State Capitol.

The following article provides more detail about the controversial conference location and many of the activities that took place at the conference.

Under Protest ALA Midwinter in Denver

Here are two more articles that summarize the activities that took place at the conference:

A_Rocky_Time_in_Denver ALA Midwinter

American Libraries Midwinter by the Numbers

The highlight of the trip for me was seeing the exhibit titled “Aztec” at the Denver Museum of Natural History. I was blown away by the incredible sculptures and artifacts that were on display. The exhibit was gorgeous. I remember I hitched a ride with one of my colleagues, Janet Fore, but the car was crowded and Janet wasn’t very happy, so I had to find my own way back to my hotel.

Exterior view of the West side of the Denver Museum of Natural History and Science at dusk.

A very fuzzy photo of the exhibit gallery.

I bought this poster and book while visiting the exhibition at the museum in Denver. I was blown away. I later gave it to my partner Ruben and we had it framed. We still have it.

This book served as the exhibition catalog. I bought a copy for my personal library.

I also got to eat at a few really good restaurants and explore the various record stores and bookstores in the downtown area, as well as the 16th Street Mall.

16th Street has always been the center of downtown. It’s now a pedestrian mall.

I enjoyed visiting this bookstore. It was well stocked and busy.

I also went out a few times to the gay bars and nightclubs. I remember one in particular. It was called “Charlie’s” and it was a very crowded country western bar. There were other gay bars around too, just to the east of the Capitol building on Colfax.

Colfax Avenue went on for miles and miles. It was very busy thoroughfare.

I really enjoyed the conference, but I had a lot of work to do at the Library when I got back. We were training our staff how to become teams, and we worked with a consultant named Maureen Sullivan. It was my job to communicate our plan to the staff. This work kept me quite busy. Having fun was a luxury, but I did manage to go to a few concerts like the one noted below.

This was released in 1993, the same year I saw these guys at Coyote’s on W. Lester. They were a fun group.

This was one of my friend Richard’s favorite songs of all time.

Premiered on February 17, 1993. This is a great movie and the book is fantaastic too.

We held a Mardi Gras celebration for the UA Library staff on February 23. My good friend Chestalene Pintozzi helped out a lot. It was a fun party. It’s been a long, long time since I was this thin!

I recently found the following announcement in a 1993 Library newsletter.

The woman standing next to me is Debbie Friesen, a good friend. She worked in our business office and was longtime volunteer for Tucson Meet Yourself.

On the last day of February, I met someone. His name was Ruben. We hit it off and we fell in love. His mom grew up in the thirties in Superior, Arizona, next door to my dad’s family. She used to play with my aunts Carmen and Helen, and my dad knew her brother, Maclovio Barraza, a union organizer who had recruited my dad to join the union at the mine. Ruben and I had also gone to the same high school and worked at the same grocery store, but at different points in time so our paths never crossed before. It was uncanny. We became inseparable and by May, we decided to live together. It’s now been over 30 years!

I had never heard of the great transgendered writer and leftist activist Leslie Feinberg at the time of the publication of this book, but within a year or so, she would win the American Library Association’s GLBT Book Award and I would bring her to Tucson to speak to the gay community.

What a song!

Released on March 25, 1993. Dwight Yoakam is one of my favorite contemporary country singers.

I just love this song.

Ruben was born in the year of the Rabbit and I was born in the year of the Boar, and according to this place mat, which we got from a Chinese restaurant on Speedway near Tucson Blvd, it says we were compatible. I’ve kept the place mat all these years! Ruben thinks I’m crazy.

Piel de Nina was released on April 1, 1993. Alejandro Fernandez was new to the music scene, and this was his second album. He and Pepe Aguilar started out roughly at the same time, and I bought every album of theirs that I could find. At this point in my life, I was deeply into Mexican ranchera music, and Lucha Villa was my very favorite singer of all, although I sought out all the traditional material I could find. Que viva la musica ranchera!

This guy is amazing.

In early April, at Easter time, I rented a car and Ruben and I drove with his friend Enrique Gomez and another guy named Roberto, who Enrique was dating, to Rocky Point. We had to take the long way, through the back roads in Sonora to get there, because Roberto was from the other side and could not cross into the US. It was a rough road, and the rental car I drove took a beating. This was not a great trip. We had some misunderstandings with Enrique, and things got tense. I realized on this particular trip that I didn’t like Enrique at all, and was never able to get over it. Ruben and I ended up finding our own hotel room in Rocky Point. The only thing that I liked about the trip was the food. We ate grilled fish and later found a little taco stand outside the hotel that sold the most delicious tacos. There’s nothing like tacos and beer to satisfy one’s hunger!

Our hotel wasn’t the best, and the water barely made it out of the shower spigot, but we got by. We stayed for just one night.

The tacos we ate were mouthwatering. We must’ve eaten at least six apiece.

I bought this in Rocky Point. I’m sure there were a few other things I found, but I can’t remember what! It’s been thirty years!

Arizona Daily Star, April 18, 1993. I’ve seen this group so many times, I’ve lost count. They are my all-time favorite band.

Aaron Neville’s newest release, The Grand Tour became available in record stores on April 20, 1993. I love Aaron Neville’s voice and have several of his albums. This one includes the Song of Bernadette and Betcha By Golly Wow as well as other great classics.

It’s rare to hear a man sing this one, but he does it justice.

Urvashi Vaid was an Indian-born American LGBT rights activist, lawyer, and writer. An expert in gender and sexuality law, she held a series of roles at the National LGBTQ Task Force. I loved listening to her. I found her inspiring and eloquent. She is shown here speaking at the National March on Washington. I was quite saddened to learn that she had passed away in May, 2022.

At the same time as the March on Washington, Tucson was hosting its 11th annual Tucson International Mariachi Conference. This year’s featured performers were Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlan, Mariachi Cobre, Mariachi Los Camperos de Nati Cano, Angeles Ochoa and Linda Ronstadt. I made sure not to miss this event!

Here’s Linda Ronstadt singing the great song, Por Un Amor.

I had the honor of meeting Cesar Chavez twice in my life, the last time just two years before he passed. My dad saved the newsclipping shown below. Chavez died on April 23, 1993. He was 66 years old.

There are various version of this corrido. This one by Los Perros del Pueblo Nuevo is great.

Sometime in late Spring, Ruben’s niece Marissa, Jerry’s daughter, had her first holy communion at St. Ambrose Church. She was only five or six at the time, and was the cutest little girl. She lived with Ruben and her grandparents. Ruben bought her a beautiful dress for the occasion. We all gathered at his parent’s house afterwards. This was the first time I had been around his extended family. Here are some photos of the occasion.

By early May, Ruben and I were living together in a two-bedroom apartment on N. Shannon Rd, on the far west side of town, just down the road from Pima Community College West. The apartment complex was called Desert Hills Apartments and had been built sometime in the Sixties. He had convinced me to move there because the rent was a lot cheaper and it was close to his parent’s house. The complex consisted of several long buildings like the one shown below. We spent a lot of time at Ruben’s parents house, and they were very nice to me. Before I knew it, I was part of the family. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same about my own family. They weren’t very nice at all.

The photos that follow were taken around his birthday on June 7. Our friends Roberto and Enrique Navarro joined us during the day, and later we drove to Albuquerque and stayed for a day or two. It was a fun trip. Some of the photos were taken on our drive back through central Arizona.

Ruben and I on his birthday, June, 1993.

I had visited Albuquerque 10 years earlier when I went to see my friend Frank. Brent and I also drove through there on our way to Michigan in 1985. I’ve always enjoyed visiting this place. It reminded me to the Tucson I grew up in, before the population swelled.

Ruben and I visited the Spanish History Museum and I bought this coat of arms. It’s one of many Diaz coats of arms out there.

Central Avenue, looking east from San Mateo Boulevard. We visited several antique stores along this street.

These photos were taken somewhere near Globe Arizona. We were on our way home from Albuquerque.

These photos were taken in our apartment.

As soon as I got back to work, I had out of town guests to take care of and host. They were visiting the library from the University of Michigan. Barbara MacAdam was head of the Undergraduate Library there and Karen Downing was a librarian and member of her library staff. Lester Refigee was a student assistant who worked at the reference desk and was part of the Peer Information Counseling program. Carla Stoffle asked me to arrange for them to visit the UA Library to talk about undergraduate services and peer information counseling. They stayed at the Arizona Inn. Over the weekend, I took them on a tour of southern Arizona. We visited San Xavier, Patagonia, Tumacacori, Nogales and the Saguaro National Monument. It was a fun, but exhausting day, and they really enjoyed themselves. I did too. Barbara is now retired, and Karen still works at Michigan. Lester went on to get a medical degree and is now a physician in the Chicago area.

Barbara MacAdam is the woman with the blonde hear on the left and Karen Downing is the the right of Lester in the above photo taken in front of the Arizona Inn.

This is Gloria Estefan’s masterpiece. It was released on June 22, 1993.

At the end of June I was traveling again, this time to New Orleans to attend the American Library Association’s annual conference. Man, it sure was hot there, and very, very humid. I cannot stand this kind of weather, but I wasn’t about to stay indoors. New Orleans is a hopping place, and I made sure to visit the sites and eat a lot of good food in the French Quarter. While at the conference, I attended REFORMA meetings and took minutes, but also found time to have dinner with friends, party at the gay bars and visit various bookstores and record stores, of which there was an abundance.

This was my first of several trips to the Big Easy.

My hotel was just outside the French Quarter. It was nice.

A pocket guide to gay New Orleans. There were bars everywhere in the French Quarter.

The Rawhide. Wow, what a place! I had a lot of fun in this bar over the years.

This was one of several amazing record stores in the French Quarter. I spent a lot of money in these places. Unfortunately, only one or two of them are left. Lps, while having made a comeback in recent years, were not as sought after for a long time after compact discs and mp3 files were introduced into the marketplace, and many record stores ended up closing their doors. Now all the old records are collector’s items!

I bought this for Ruben. It was the first of three that I purchased over the years.

I spent quite a long time sorting through zillions of these, until I found just what I wanted.

This is Bourbon Street, the heart of the French Quarter. It got very, very crowded at night, with people drinking and carrying on in the street. The fist time I was there, it was fun. After that, the novelty wore off and I felt claustrophobic most of the time while there.

In early July, the Diaz clan held its first family reunion in Tucson. My dad and all of his living brothers and sisters showed up with their children and grandchildren. His brothers Raul and Val had already passed, but their children and families and the rest of the brothers and sisters and their families came from all over to partake in the festivities, which were held at St. Demetrius’s social hall and at Reid Park. We held another family reunion in 2007, and there’s currently talk of another being planned.

My dad’s family in 1993. Ruben and I felt totally out of place. I had no idea my extended family would react so badly to our being at this event together. It was awful. I was the first in the family to openly admit to being gay. It would take a few more years for others to come out. We now have several family members who are happily out and proud.

The families of Raul, Valentin, Belarmino and Tony Diaz, 1993.

The families of my tios: Ralph Diaz, Josie Diener, Helen Mendoza and Carmen Basurto, 1993.

My dad and his wife-to-be, Lupe at the park during our family reunion in 1993. She was pregnant at the time with my little brother, Jose’, who was born in September.

Premiered on July 16, 1993. What a fun film!

Ruben and I bought two birds just like these at the Desert Pet Center on July 18, 1993. The are called orange cheek waxbill finches. They were so cute!

The Clinton administration came up with this policy, which was officially enacted by the end of the year. It was disastrous. The gay community had such high hopes when he was elected, and this was a real let down. It would take years and years before more progressive measures were put in place that allowed gay men and women to serve proudly and openly in the nation’s armed services.

I was the primary organizer for the opening reception for this conference, held in Special Collections at the UA Library. I wrote a separate blog post on it. See below.

Status of Hispanic Library and Information Services : A National Institute for Educational Change, July 29-31, 1993. I was a member of the planning committee for this institute and was responsible for coordinating the opening reception. Members of the Library staff and students from the Library School assisted with the logistics and with hosting the event. A fun time was had by all.

Some of my library colleagues who helped at the event. They include Patricia Promis, who would later become my team leader, Atifa Rawan, and Mimi Hernandez. The other two people’s names escape me at this point.

Dr. Arnulfo Trejo, Tami Echeverria and Carla Stoffle, whose face is just barely visible.

I rarely wore a tie at work. It was a very casual atmosphere most of the time.

My best friend Richard with his daughter Luz. He and his wife Emily were so proud of her.

I had spent the first half of the year at work coordinating workshops, participating in training and learning how to juggle many responsibilities at the same time. In August, after new team leaders were hired or appointed, we were finally ready to get the staff together to begin designing the work of their individual teams. We held all staff workshops, led by our ARL consultant Maureen Sullivan, at the Student Union in mid-August. The photos that follow give a snapshot of the work we did.

This anthology of previously released and unreleased recordings by Los Lobos was issued on August 31, 1993. It included songs both in English and Spanish.

I furst heard Los Lobos’ version of Bertha on the Just Another Band from East LA Anthology. This live version is just great.

This is yet another film that first appeared as a book. It premiered on September 8, 1993. Both are excellent.

This rare tune appears on the above anthology. Joan sings this Donovan-penned tune with her sister Mimi Farina.

I think this is her masterpiece. Oh, Emmylou, I sure do love you!

I participated in the Tucson Aidswalk again this year. There was a high turnout at this particular event, and lots of money was raised to support the cause.

In October, I attended a workshop on management skills in Chicago. It was another program sponsored by the Association of Research Library Office of Management Services. I had attended one the year before in Raleigh, NC called “The Training Skills Institute”. Once I was done with the workshop, Ruben flew in from Tucson and we stayed and enjoyed a nice vacation in the city. It was lots of fun. I had been to Chicago before, but this was Ruben’s first visit. We went to the Art Institute, the Natural History Museum, the Al Capone Museum, and the Chicago Historical Society, and saw some great exhibits. We also went to the top of the Hancock building, and ate tons of great food.

Ruben and I stayed at this hotel on Ohio St.

We took a boat tour along the Chicago River and Lake Michigan. It was a lot of fun.

Visiting the Art Institute of Chicago was one of the highlights of our trip.

When we visited the Chicago Historical Society we saw Lincoln’s death bed. It was a somber moment for sure.

We visited the short-lived Al Capone museum. Public outcry over the glorification and celebration of a know murderer led to the closing of the museum. That didn’t stop me from taking a picture with him. What was I thinking?

The Chicago Historical Society was a wonderful place to visit. It had some great exhibits.

This is one my favorite Jackson Browne albums. I especially love the title cut. The album was released on October 26, 1993.

I love this song. It’s one of my all-time favorites.

Released on November 2, 1993. This album is great, one of my favorites.

I love this.

I spent a lot of time in my job establishing ties with various Latino groups, including the services to the Spanish-speaking staff of the public library and Latino faculty on campus who were members of the Arizona Association of Chicanos in Higher Education, of which I became secretary for a year. I also met with Latino students enrolled in the library science graduate program. They helped me coordinate the reception for the Trejo Institute in July, and I later hosted them for dinner one evening at my home. On November 12, several of us took a field trip to Nogales, Mexico, where we visited with staff from El Colegio De Sonora and had lunch. It was a great group of students. One of them is now a library science professor at San Jose State. Others have already retired or are continuing their work as librarians in communities across the country.

These are some of the graduate students enrolled in the library science program at the UA that I worked with in 1993. Their names are Adrian, Jose’, Ramiro, April and Pilar, if I remember correctly. Adrian works and lives in the San Jose’ area. Jose’ is now a professor of Library Science at San Jose’ State University, Ramiro is a retired public librarian, April, who is married to Jose’, works in Phoenix for a medical library, and I don’t know whatever became of Pilar. I think she moved to Colorado shortly after having graduated.

Linda’s powerful vocals on this Tish Hinojosa song transform it into something far beyond what’s written on paper.

The Arizona State Library Association conference was held in Phoenix in early December. I was chair of the ASLA Library Services to the Spanish Speaking committee, and coordinated a panel program on library services to the Latino community. It was titled, “Library Services to Latinos in Arizona: A Diversity of Perspectives,” and in addition to me, who filled in for someone who didn’t show up, it featured three speakers, including Liz Rodriguez-Miller, Guadalupe Castillo, and Pernela Jones.

The ASLA Conference took place December 1-4, 1993. I traveled by bus from Tucson and back this time around.

Ruben and I took Vivian Sykes, a library consultant to the Desert Museum on December 5. It had been a long time since I had been there.

Right before Christmas, Ruben and I were invited to Nogales by his friend Enrique Gomez, the same Enrique that we went to Rocky Point with back in April. We stayed in a hotel about seven blocks from the border, and hung out with Enrique and his friends at his house. We were supposed to go out to the bars with them, but decided to stay at our hotel. Enrique and I did not like each other, and I think we sensed that things weren’t going to go too well if we went along. Ruben, who doesn’t speak Spanish, was also badly treated by one of Enrique’s friends. We ended up eating campechanas at a small seafood stand across the street from our hotel, and shopping in the tourist area. I always enjoyed doing that.

Our hotel has since changed its name to the Motel San Luis, but when we were there it was the Motel Don Luis. It wasn’t a five star hotel, that’s for sure. Not even a two star…

A summary of the bulk of my 1993 staff development, training and diversity-related work activities (mostly June, 1993 to the end of December 1993) is included in the report linked below. I wrote this in January 1994. It gives one an idea of how busy I was in 1993. And the fun was just beginning….

1993 (June-December) Summary of Activities

We bought a couple of movies to help us get into the Christmas spirit.

The lady in the photo is Joanne Preston. She was our receptionist at the UA Library. I really liked her, and was said when she took a job somewhere else.

I met Teresa Jones when I was a member of Teatro Libertad back in the 1980s. We re-connected when I moved back to Tucson and would have lunch together all the time. She worked at KUAT television and produced a program called “Reflexiones” that was very popular in the local Mexican American community.

Although we had a bit of a rocky start, Ruben and I made it to the end of the year. This was our very first Christmas tree in our new apartment. We bought a lot of new decorations. Shopping for them was fun.

My 64th Birthday–January 15, 2023

January 17, 2023Family, Friends, My Life Storyjrdiaz@arizona.edu

Sunday, January 15, 2023…

Here it is. 64. I feel great today. No aches or pains or worries. I have Ruben here with me and we are content to be at home. I love my home, and my work. I am a pretty lucky guy. I don’t need anything. I’ve had a lot of fun in my life, and am content now. I am clear headed and healthy for the most part, and I am rich with music, clothes, books, a nice home, family and friends.

The first thing I did this morning was play the song “When I’m 64” by the Beatles, and then I posted it on Facebook. It brings back some very fond memories. Way back around 1967 or ’68, my brother Freddie and I would love to play my brother Rudy’s copy of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band on his little record player in the back bedroom at home. We were just kids. Freddie was 10 and I was 7. When this song would come on, we’d dance around like Dick Van Dyke, twirling our dad’s cane around, singing every word, and getting all silly. This was one of the few times when we actually got along and had fun together. The Beatles had that kind of effect on us.

My sister Irene sent me this birthday card a couple of days early. Then this morning, one after the other, she, my friends Ernie and Nancy, and my other sister Becky all called and serenaded me with “Happy Birthday to you” over the phone. It was so touching. Armando Cruz from work sent me an online birthday card too on behalf of the Library.

The only paper birthday card I received this year was from my sister Irene.

Ruben re-arranged all his appointments so he could stay home with me. I told him I wanted to go antiquing today. He also suggested that we go to the Desert Museum, but it’s likely going to rain, so maybe not. We agreed to go for a drive and out to eat. I’ve been wanting steak.

This was a Facebook gif sent to me by my great niece Estrella.

We ended up going to the 22^nd Street Antique Mall. It was a fun adventure, as always, but very crowded. I found a few things, including a Ken doll dressed up as a not very convincing pirate. I also found some old postcards and a couple of books, including a cookbook filled with recipes from local restaurants and a calendar of African American events, plus a Jackie Wilson 45 rpm single titled “To Be Loved,” which was one of his big hits.

Tucson has a handful of antique malls. This is one of my favorites.

I found a bunch of postcards of cities and states I had been to before for just $1 apiece, plus a couple of books, a record, a bank bag and a Ken doll. Neither the clerk at the shop nor Ruben liked my little pirate, but I thought he was cute. That was the problem. He was too cute. There was no eye patch, no scars or any other blemishes anywhere on his body. A long-haired pretty boy…

At around 2:30, we then went and ate at the Longhorn Steakhouse out on Broadway just east of Craycroft. I had a porterhouse steak, salad and macaroni and cheese. Ruben chose asparagus as one of his sides. Yuck. The steak was big, but a bit dry. In hindsight, I would’ve preferred the ribeye. Oh well. Next time.

From there, we drove out to the Tucson Mall to walk off some of the food, and I bought a pair of pants, a shirt and a sweater at Dillards. Oh boy. I love buying clothes. I need to start dressing up more often. I think it’s time.

Dillard’s was having a big sale, so Ruben and I both bought clothes.

Walking in the mall usually wears me out. I think it’s the concrete flooring that does it. When we got back home, it was time to take a nap!

Throughout the day, I spent time thanking everyone individually on Facebook for their kind birthday wishes. Altogether, nearly two hundred people sent me a birthday greeting. Some friends, like Jane Cruz and Teresa Jones and my tocaya sweethearts Emily Elias and Katya Peterson (our birthdays all fall on the same day), sent me special messages, and others simply said happy birthday. It was all so overwhelming. I feel so blessed and lucky. I need to remember this day when I get to feeling blue. I really am very fortunate!

Margo Cowan and Barbea Williams both posted this on my Facebook wall today. The photo is from a program I produced at work in 2018 in conjunction with the 1968 in America exhibit that I curated. Included in the photo are Ted Warmbrand, Barbea Williams, Lupe Castillo (Margo’s life partner), me and Greg McNamee. It was a night to remember and the last event I ever produced as curator of exhibits and events for the UA Library.

Later in the evening, Ruben went to Sprouts and bought us cake and ice cream. It was a great way to end a wonderful day.

Ruben ran to the store and got us cake and gelato. It was delicious.

Yet another Facebook gif that was sent to me.

Before I went to bed I posted a video of Rodney Crowell singing “It Ain’t Over Yet” on Facebook. I love this song because it speaks perfectly to how I feel about my life. It’s been three years now that I have been completely sober and substance-free. I finally got my act together, and life is GOOD! I am eagerly looking forward to the coming year. It is going to be a great one. I can just feel it!

I love this song.

Lyrics

It’s like I’m sitting at a bus stop waiting for a train
Exactly how I got here is hard to explain
My heart’s in the right place, what’s left of it I guess
My heart ain’t the problem, it’s my mind that’s a total mess
With these rickety old legs and watery eyes
It’s hard to believe that I could pass for anybody’s prize
Here’s what I know about the gifts that God gave
You can’t take ’em with you when you go to the grave

It ain’t over yet, ask someone who ought to know
Not so very long ago we were both hung out to dry
It ain’t over yet, you can mark my word
I don’t care what you think you heard, we’re still learning how to fly
It ain’t over yet

For fools like me who were built for the chase
Takes the right kind of woman to help you put it all in place
It only happened once in my life, but man you should have seen
Her hair two shades of foxtail red, her eyes some far out sea blue green
I got caught up making a name for myself, you know what that’s about
One day your ship comes rolling in and the next day it rolls right back out
You can’t take for granted none of this shit
The higher up you fly boys, the harder you get hit

It ain’t over yet, I’ll say this about that
You can get up off the mat or you can lay there till you die
It ain’t over yet, here’s the truth my friend
You can’t pack it in and we both know why
It ain’t over yet

Silly boys blind to get there first
Think of second chances as some kind of curse
I’ve known you forever and ever it’s true
If you came by it easy, you wouldn’t be you
Make me laugh, you make me cry, you make me forget myself

Back when down on my luck kept me up for days
You were there with the right word to help me crawl out of the maze
And when I almost convinced myself I was hipper than thou
You stepped up with a warning shot fired sweet and low across the bow
No you don’t walk on water and your sarcasm stings
But the way you move through this old world sure makes a case for angel wings
I was halfway to the bottom when you threw me that line
I quote you now verbatim, “Get your head out of your own behind”

It ain’t over yet, what you wanna bet
One more cigarette ain’t gonna send you to the grave
It ain’t over yet, I’ve seen your new girlfriend
Thinks you’re the living end, great big old sparkle in her eye
It ain’t over yet

It’s been a great birthday. One of the best. Thank you, Ruben. I love you!

My Life Story: 1959-1965

November 18, 2022Family, My Life in Pictures, My Life StoryAutobiography, Bob Diazjrdiaz@arizona.edu

At the time I was born, my parents and five siblings all lived together in Tucson on 22^nd St. in a small three bedroom house, a red brick tract home just east of the Southern Pacific railroad tracks in a subdivision called Country Club Manor, the boundaries of which were 22^ndSt. to 17^th Street and Plumer Ave to Country Club. We lived next to a big empty lot, and had a lot of outside space in which to play. Randolph Park was nearby too. Our church was St. Ambrose Catholic Church on Tucson Blvd, just south of Broadway and our local elementary school was Robison Elementary. There were a lot of families with kids in the neighborhood. Most were either Mexican American or Anglo. It was a mixed neighborhood, and wasn’t considered a “barrio” necessarily, until later in the 1970s and 80s.

In 1959, most of my brothers and sisters were all in school, and their ages ranged from 2 to 15, with some in grade school at Robison, others at Mansfeld Jr. High and the oldest at Tucson High. The boys in the family all played sports, and were usually busy doing things outside the house. The girls were both very attractive and popular, and always had lots of friends. Boys became their focus as they moved into their teens.

My dad worked as a miner in San Manuel and mom stayed home and took care of all of us, cooking and cleaning and making sure that everything at home was in working order. Dad and mom had been together since 1943, and, after 15 years of marriage, had developed a volatile relationship and some ‘unhealthy’ habits, unfortunately, so our home life was not always peaceful, especially in the Sixties.

I was the last of the kids, and my mom kept me at her side all the time. I was a chubby child, was considered a momma’s boy and a crybaby, and everyone called me Bobby Joe, or BJ, nicknames that I have always disliked, but have learned to accept over time. While I wasn’t athletic at all, I was a smart kid. In fact, when my mom went to see my first grade teacher, Mrs. Goldbaum for her parent-teacher meeting, Mrs. Goldbaum said to her, “where did you get this one? He’s so bright!”, or something to that effect. She had also been Charles’s, Becky’s and Rudy’s first grade teachers when they attended Robison in the 50s.

Early on, I developed a love for popular music. My parents even bought me my own record player when I was 3 years old. I impressed everyone with my ability to correctly pick out a record from a stack of 45’s after being told just once what the title was. Again, I was just 3 at the time.

As the Sixties progressed, my sisters and brothers started to leave home either to get married or on to other things such as the Navy, and our family began to grow. My three nieces Belisa, Michelle and Anadine were all born in the Sixties, and I spent a lot of time with them. They were more like my sisters than my nieces because we were so close in age.

I had several close friends as a child, including Billy “Bubba” Fass, and his brother Ricky, Ernie Carrillo, and three sisters who lived next door to our family whose names were Becky, “Tiny” and Debbie Romo. There were other kids too who we played with, of course, but these were my closest friends. We spent a lot of time playing in the alley or on 21^st St, where we would play flag football a lot of the time. We also spent a lot of time at St. Ambrose’s swimming pool, and at Randolph Park where we played sports. One time I planted a little rose garden with roses that my mom bought me at the local grocery store. I also had an aquarium and parakeets at one point, but over time my interest in these hobbies dwindled.

These photos and documents provide a pictorial glimpse of my life as a child in Tucson up through the middle of 1965, or the beginning of the first grade. Most of the photos are pictures taken before I was a student at Robison Elementary School. Others were taken in such places as the local park or at family gatherings. I feel fortunate that I still have them after all these years, and humbly share these treasures here with my friends and family. These photos and documents bring back many wonderful memories, as one can imagine, and I share some of them in the captions that follow.

I was born on January 15, 1959 to Alfred and Josephine Diaz. I was their sixth and last child, and the only one born at Tucson Medical Center. Most of my other siblings were born at St. Mary’s Hospital. My oldest sister was born at my grandmother’s house in South Tucson.

A clipping from the January 16, 1959 edition of the Tucson Citizen . I was one of six babies born the day before at TMC.

I don’t remember Dr. Lacock, but I do remember Dr. Thompson. He was a very tall man and a well-respected local pediatrician. My mom would take me to see him when he was at the Tucson Clinic on Tucson Blvd., just north of Broadway, back in the early 60s.

I was a big, healthy newborn, but the doctor also told my mother that I had a larger than average sized head, which caused him some concern. According to my mother, it meant that I would either be very intelligent or “differently abled”, as they say nowadays. Thank heavens I turned out fine.

Irene, my oldest sibling, was 15 when I was born.

One of my very first memories was of my sister Irene’s sweet sixteen party in November, 1959. I remember being taken to the back bedroom for a nap that afternoon, just as the party got started. I didn’t fall asleep right away. I was busy listening to the music, oldies but goodies like What’s Your Name by Don and Juan and We Belong Together by Robert and Johnny. The following song was also played.

Having five older brothers and sisters exposed me to many different genres of popular music, from oldies to the Beatles to the Temptations. I’ve always loved this song. It takes me right back, believe it or not, to that party in late 1959 when I was just 10 months old.

I grew up listening to popular music on the radio. It was a constant in our home and I was attracted to it from the very beginning.

Here’s another song I’ve been listening to my whole life. The Chubby Checker version was released in 1960.

The Twist, by Chubby Checker was released in June, 1960.

Joan Baez’s first recording for Vanguard Records was released in October, 1960. It was on the charts for a long time. The following song, Mary Hamilton, is an old favorite.

My dad, seated on the far left, with all of his brothers and sisters, Superior, Az, 1961.

At my cousin Olivia’s wedding in Superior, 1961. My cousin Sylvia is third from the left, my sister Irene is to her right, and my cousin Carmelita is second from the right.

I just had to include this. We had a vacuum cleaner just like it. When my mom wasn’t cooking, she was cleaning–doing laundry, making beds, dusting or vacuuming. She worked night and day.

This album was released in 1961 and was very popular in the Mexican American community. My parents owned a copy, as did my aunts and uncles. I grew up listening to it. My favorite song was “El Caballo Blanco”, which included at the very beginning of the song, the sound of a horse neighing. I got the biggest kick out of that! There was also a holiday-themed song on it called “Se Va Diciembre” that I clearly remember hearing at Christmas time every year it seemed.

Jose Alfredo Jimenez’s “El Caballo Blanco” was first recorded on the Columbia label in the 1950s.

Leonel Bravo was my sister Irene’s boyfriend for several years. He graduated from Tucson High School in 1961 and joined the marines. He and my sister planned to get married, but things didn’t work out that way. He was like an older brother to me.

These photos were taken some time in 1962. My sister’s boyfriend Sonny Bravo had just taken me to get a haircut, one of my very first. That’s him on the ground with the monkey. I’m shown here sitting on his car with the monkey he had just bought for my sister.

Doggie in the Window, by Patti Page

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This great song was released in January, 1953, but it was very popular through the next decade.

This song was another one of the earliest I remember hearing. It was recorded way back in 1953, and unlike this version, the original features Patti singing in harmony with herself. My friend Billy Fass had the record. I just adore Patti Page. She has one of the loveliest voices I’ve ever heard. People who remember her for just this one little tune and equate her music with 50s slick pop hit parade garbage are missing the mark completely. She could swing as well as anyone, and her tone was clear as a bell.

This song was a number one hit on the R & B charts in April and May, 1962. I just loved it.

This is a close-up of a photo that was also taken in 1962, but later in the year in Nogales, Sonora . I’m sitting on my mom’s lap.

This is what’s left of the original photo. Included in it are my sister Irene, my brother Fred and our neighbor Mary Ruiz and her daughter.

This was Little Eva’s only top hit. It was number one on the charts for a few weeks, beginning in late August, 1962. I used to love this song.

I just had to include this song. Girls used to sing this to me. I don’t even remember who they were, but it made me embarrassed and happy at the same time. The song was released in late August, 1962.

This was Marcie Blane’s only big hit. It was released on September 28, 1962.

Bobby’s Girl was released on September 28, 1962. My sister and her friends used to tease me and sing this to me when I was a kid. I was embarrassed, but loved the attention at the same time.

Released January 16, 1963. My brother Charles probably took Fred and me to see this. He did that a lot.

I just loved this song, much to my brother Fred’s consternation. He realized that I was “different” when I told him I liked this song. Released in January, 1963.

April 7, 1963, Arizona Daily Star. My brother Charles was a star athlete at Tucson High School.

My brother Charles is 2nd from the right in the top row. He was known as “Fingertips Charlie”. This was his junior year, 1963.

For as long as I can remember, this movie would come out on t.v. every Easter Sunday. The witch and her gargoyles really scared the heck out of me.

What a beautiful song.

The recorded single came out in 1939, although the song was recorded for the movie in 1938.

I started watching cartoons at a very young age. These are a few of the ones I used to like.

Bob Dylan’s second album was released on May 27, 1963. His song Blowin’ In The Wind became one of the anthems of the civil rights era.

Photo of my grandmother, Josefa Rascon, on our front lawn on 22nd St, Summer, 1963. I’m on the left.

June, 1963. My brother Rudy had just graduated from Mansfeld Jr. High School and we had a little family gathering on this day. This is a close up of me from the photo above. I’m standing in the front doorway of our house, holding a bunch of 45 records. My parents had bought me my very own record player the year before.

Belisa, my sister Irene’s daughter, around 6 months old.

Rudy’s 8th grade graduation. That’s my mom, with Rudy and Fred. In the background you can see my dad’s jaguar in the driveway. It was usually parked in the back yard, along with several other cars that didn’t work.

Posed pitching shot of Sandy Koufax as Los Angeles Dodger c1963. My brother Rudy had this photo of Koufax in his bedroom. He was a huge fan.

I didn’t discover this until I was in high school. It was recorded at the height of the civil rights movement, just a couple of months before the March on Washington. Listen to Seeger sing Tom Paxton’s Ramblin’ Boy.

This was another film we saw as kids at the drive-in. Released on August 14, 1963. There was a tv series by the same name that followed later that I would watch all the time.

Martin Luther King Jr. at the March on Washington on August 28, 1963. An estimated 250,000 people showed up to support the fight for civil rights.

My record player looked exactly like this. My parents took me to a second hand store one day and bought it for me. They used to trip out because I was be able to “read” the titles of the records when I was just 3. I think what really happened was that I had a photographic memory and only needed to have someone tell me the name of the record once, and I would remember it.

Sherry, by the 4 Seasons, was one of my very first 45’s. It was my favorite too. My brother’s friend Bob Stelburg gave it to me. It had been a number one hit in October, 1962.

Released on October 1, 1963, this film was shot in Tucson. I didn’t see it until later, when it came out on tv, but I loved it. I try to catch it every time it was on tv, just as I would the Singing Nun a few years later.

I was almost 5 years old when this happened. I was in one of the bedrooms at home listening to the radio when the announcer broke in and informed the world that Kennedy had been shot. I ran into the kitchen to tell my mom and others. Nobody believed me…

This premiered on 12/11/63. My brother Charles took me and Freddie to see it at the 22nd St. Drive In.

My dad broke his leg in a mining accident sometime around Christmas in 1963. He stayed in the hospital for nearly a year.

Who doesn’t remember this? These guys changed the pop world. Released in the U.S. on 12-26-63

I remember this like it was yesterday. A memorable occasion for sure!

My brother Rudy was crazy about the Beatles. This is his freshman year portrait, from the 63-64 Tucsonian Yearbook.

My friend Bubba’s mom would drop us off at the Fox on Saturday mornings, and we’d cross the street and wait in front of the Plaza Theater to take the 22nd street bus home. I remember it like it was yesterday.

Summer, 1964. My brother Fred, my mom and me, standing in front of the orange tree in our front yard. This was the day of my brother Fred’s first holy communion.

That’s me standing in back of my cousin David. Summer, 1964. His sister Gloria also had her first holy communion that day.

My cousins John and David and me, Summer 1964. The 22nd Street overpass is under construction in the background. We were all born the same year, but I was the oldest. Our siblings, Fred, Turi and Gloria were also the same age, and had all just had their first holy communions on this day.

Sometime in early 1964, my two front teeth got knocked out when I ran in back of my friend Bubba in the back yard, just as he was about to take a swing at a golf ball with a big wooden golf club. The golf club hit me right in the mouth and my teeth fell out. My mother thought I looked very cute without my two front teeth, so she had my sister Irene take me to have my portrait taken at the Olan Mills studio on Broadway. My sister bought me the jacket just for the occasion.

We always had a tv at home, and I started watching it from the time I was a toddler. This is but a sampling of the shows I watched. I spent hours in front of the television after school every day and on the weekends. Saturday mornings were my favorite time of the week, because that’s when cartoons were shown. I continued to watch tv up until my junior year of high school. Once I started working at Fry’s, I stopped.

We had this 45 record at home in the mid-60s. It was recorded by Shirlely Bassey on August 20, 1964 for the movie Goldfinger. It was a top 10 hit in the U.S. I’ve never really liked anything else by Shirley Bassey. She has a big, brassy voice, not something I care for too much, but I really liked this song for some reason.

This was one of my mom’s very favorite songs. She had the 45 and would play it all the time.

As long as I can remember, my parents shopped at this grocery store, and I tagged along. At one point or another, we went to every one of them, except the one on N. Grande, every other Friday on payday. Mom would get a cart, and Dad would get a cart, and they each went their separate ways in the store, but converged about an hour later, each with a basket full of food and other household stuff.

Mr. Lonely was released in October, 1964. I loved this song.

This was originally released in 1962, but was big hit in Fall, 1964.

I started Kindergarten at St. Ambrose School in September, 1964 and this photo was taken while I was there.

My kindergarten class photo. Fall, 1964. Included in this photo are my cousin David and my friends Linda Gray and Hugo Ruthling, among others. I didn’t complete kindergarten, unfortunately, because I got sick in early 1965. I stayed home with my mom from January 1965 until September, when I started the first grade at Robison Elementary School.

Here’s another very sad ranchera, again, one of my mom’s favorites. I still have the 45. This song is titled, “Cancion de un Preso”, or “Song of a Prisoner”, and it’s by the great Irma Serrano, one of Mexico’s most flamboyant and expressive singers.

I used to love this song. It was released in late 1964, and by early ’65 it was a top Billboard hit. I still have the 45.

This premiered on television on 12/6/64. I was there…

This is an amazing movie. Lucha Villa and Ignacio Lopez Tarso are both fantastic. The song, La Culebra Pollera, from the movie, follows.

It was a great year for music! The following year would be just as good, if not better!

My Girl, by the Temptations, was released on December 21, 1964. By March of the following year, it was at the top of the charts. This was my brother Charles’s favorite song.

This was another big Motown hit and was released on February 8, 1965, less than two months from the release of My Girl. Everybody loved the Supremes.

My brother Charles left home in early 1965. He joined the Navy and was gone for four years.

While in the Navy from 65-69, the ship my brother Charles was assigned to initially was the USS Ashtabula. He also served on the USS Romulus and the USS Mattaponi. While he didn’t see battle, his ship was docked off the coast of Vietnam more than once and he and his shipmates were all exposed to Agent Orange.

Here are some photos our brother sent to us from boot camp. He was promoted to chief petty officer.

This was another tv movie that captured everyone’s attention. It premiered on February 22, 1965.

This concert by Joan Baez was recorded on June 5, 1965 in London, England at the BBC studios in front of a live studio audience. Ms. Baez is at her vocal peak here, in my opinion. Wish I had been there! I didn’t even know about her at this point in my life. I started listening to her in earnest my freshman year at Salpointe in 1974. I love her music. She’s one of my heroes. What a brave, passionate woman.