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Decisions, decisions… Every passing year brought Manny more and more problems. He wasn't young anymore. His scruffy white beard and liver spots bore silent witness to the reality of advancing age. Sixty-two years ago, his earth-window opened in the pickle fields of Wisconsin. Manny's family labored there from June through October and then moved back to San Antonio to spend the winter. In a good year, there would be sufficient funds for the family to survive without any further migration. Often, though, they were forced to pick up their few belongings and head for the orange fields of Florida.
Actually, this was fine by Manny, he really didn't like school as much as he loved the feel of the sun on his back, and the long hours spent moving baskets of fruit from field to truck became an accepted part of life. Sometimes the evenings were too long, especially during the first week or so in a new place, until Manny got to know some of the other kids in the camp. Usually, after a few days, he was able to make new friends and it gave him an opportunity to use both languages he'd learned. He actually liked English better, it was more expressive. Spanish was okay, but after learning English, it seemed silly and backwards to put nouns before adjectives, no one ever lived in a house white or had a day bad.
Americans were a contradiction to Manny, even though he was one himself. The same motorist who had just cursed at another who pulled out in front of him, might sit down that evening and write a check to a charity. They were, whether by nature or by circumstance, wasteful. Americans threw away anything that wasn't of immediate use to them. Often, the serviceability of an item was not considered.
This wastefulness became the mainstay of Manny's existence. He was able to keep many of the articles necessary for his existence in a backpack he found in a box sitting in the front yard of a house in Peoria, Illinois. He kept a change of socks, another shirt, a pocket knife, one pair of Jockey shorts, and a pair of Levi's that he'd been given at the mission in Petaluma. He only wore them occasionally, but it made him feel secure knowing they were there. Very few road warriors kept jewelry or articles which could be sold or pawned. It didn't take a Rhodes scholar to understand that flashing a watch was the equivalent of putting flashing lights around the bull's-eye painted on your chest. The jackals and buzzards would circle, and as sure as the sun rises in the east, they would pick your bones clean while you slept. Inside the secret pocket Manny had painstakingly sewed in the waistband of his overalls, he kept the one symbol which connected him to his past, the scapular his mother had given him the day he made his First Communion.
Like most of the people of Hispanic descent, Manny was Roman Catholic; at least, he was brought up in the faith. He quit going to any formal churches years ago. This was in violation of the rules he had been taught, but he hoped that God would be able to forgive him. Prayer played an important role in his life, and he said the Holy Rosary most every night, or at least a couple decades of it. He was able to remember many of the prayers of his youth, and the prayer to St. Michael the Archangel became his mantra. St. Christopher was the patron saint of travelers, and Manny also asked for his supplication and intervention with God. Faith overcame most of his doubts and fears, if only because it gave him comfort. Manny was a simple man, but he was far from being a simpleton.
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