mi apa

Today my father turns 52 years old.

I’ve been wondering what to write about my apa for days now.  There are so many great things about him, it’s hard to pin point one thing.  So many stories, mostly fishing tales, but I’m not good at telling those, he’s way better.  He always seems to make you feel like you were there right next to him as he pulled out his prize winning fish from the salty water.

I could tell you the little things that make him amazingly special to me.  Like the fact that he whistles every morning, even when he’s going to work he whistles.    Or how every time I say bye to him he says, “Adios Mi Amor, cuidate!”  I could brag that he’s the 2nd child of 9 children and had to be the father since his father was never around and the oldest son passed away years ago.  So every single one of my aunts who is married has been walked down the aisle by my father.  He’s also like this big kid who laughs and jokes around all the time.  Then there are the Mexico road trip stories, he’s the best person to travel with, he’s so social and never pessimistic when we run into a bad situation.  Those road trips are NEVER boring.

But I think I’ll tell you the story behind my blog name and how it has more to do with my father than with the actual song.

Apa is a supervisor for a probation department.  He started out as a probation officer and worked his way up.  During my high school years, his office was located right across the street from me.  Yeah, great place to put a high school, huh?  I often took the bus home but every now and then I’d stay late and walk over to his office so I could catch a ride home with him.

One day, I’m sitting on the couch in his office doing homework when we hear a ruckus outside his office in the waiting area.  I could hear the front desk lady just screaming at the top of her lungs telling someone how if he didn’t calm down she would have him escorted out.  The front desk lady was super nice to me, but if you crossed her…well she’d get a temper.

Apa got up from his chair and walked out to the front waiting area and about 5 minutes later a huge African American guy, about 7 feet tall (Apa is like 5’6”) was walking into the office and apa motioned me to get out.  I was scared this guy was going to just pulverize my father.  He looked way too angry and just out of control and kept saying, “I’m no n*gger man! That guy out there called me a n*gger. I’m not a n*gger!”

So I walk out of the office and apa shuts the door and I hear my father scream, “Sit down you big ass n*gger!”

I almost choked thinking, “Oh no, this is going to go from bad to worse!”  I looked up at the front desk lady and she looked at me and said, “Don’t worry honey, your dads got this. He’s a good man.”   We both listened in and the guy started to scream at my dad and then I hear my dad laugh and say, “Wow! It’s nice to know that I have so much control over you. See, I’m going to make you mad again. Watch… sit down you N*GGER!”

The guy started screaming again and I could hear my dad say, “See! I just controlled you.  I made you angry just by saying n*gger. How can you give this wetback so much power over you?”

The front desk lady laughed and looked at me and said, “I remember when I got that speech.  Someone called me a n*gger once working here years ago.  That’s the last time it ever bothered me.  Your dad ever give you that only you control you speech?”

What can I say, I think he practiced with me to be honest.  My dad gives this speech often, usually to people who are angry at the world for whatever reason.  They got the short end of the stick, life took a bad turn and every thing makes them mad or sour.  Personally, I got the speech once when I was in elementary school and some kid kept teasing me about being short.

Kids are cruel sometimes.

I remember going home and my dad calling me “chaparra” and I just lost it saying I wasn’t short and he was wrong and never to call me that again.  He sat me down and said, “Whoa…what’s the problem?”

The speech is never the same, it’s always different, considering the circumstances, but the message is always the same.  Never let someone else control you by making you feel inferior, angry or negative in any sort of way.  No one else controls you but yourself. We have the strength and the ability to control how we feel about everything.  If a perfect stranger comes up to you and is negative towards you, why are you going to let this one person who you don’t even know ruin your entire day or even any part of your life? Who are they to control you?  Be strong, learn to pick your battles, because life wasn’t meant to be lived sour and mad or angry all the time.  Life is good, trust yourself, have confidence in yourself, but most importantly…love yourself.  Sure one bad word could ruin your day, but you have the choice not to let it.

After waiting about 2 hours outside his office, everyone had already left for the day and I was more then done with my homework, I wondered what could be taking so long.  Finally the door opened and this huge man who earlier was filled with so much anger didn’t look so huge anymore.  He gave my dad a big hug said, “Thank you Mr. D,” and walked out the door.

We walked out of the building with my dad locking up and whistling to some tune.  He looked at me and said, “So how was school today?”  I said good, I then asked how his day went, he said, “Not bad at all.  It’s been a good day.”