El Tencen.

It's funny how certain things are like enzymes to the memory.

Yesterday, a rep from the print shop we use at the office came by to wish us a Merry Christmas and dropped off this really nice metal basket filled with chocolate. Now, it wasnt that fancy schmancy collection of chocolates with nougat filling and nuts and such. It wasnt a basket filled with those expensive Godiva chocolates. To me, it's the best chocolate in the world.

See, when I was a kid, about 6 or 7 or so, I had anemia. The doctors had prescribed some kind of injection to battle it that I had to get once a day. Back then, both my parents were working at least two jobs so the duty to take me to the clinic everyday fell upon my grandfather.

Like any kid, I hated getting shots, much less getting shots everyday. I would get home from school, have my merienda - afternoon snack - and then el Primo (my grandfather) would take me to the hated clinic. Of course, it was not an easy thing to get me out the door knowing that I was about to get yet another needle stuck in me. But El Primo was patient, and strict.

He was very nice and soothing about my having to go get injected, but if I pulled one of those "Im not going!" things that little kids pull, he would put his foot down. Believe me, in my family, no one, and I mean no one, disrespected my grandfather. What he said was what was done. There were no two ways about it.

In retrospect and now as a grown man, I have come to cherish those brief memories and glimpses of those days. El Primo used those daily walks to the clinic to teach me things. I learned about traffic signs and ambulances. We talked about baseball and our favorites players. I learned about railroads - he worked for the railroad in Cuba - and trains. He'd tell me funny stories about things and family in Cuba.

El Primo had this way of talking to me and inciting me to respond that always kept my mind off the injection I was about to get.

The whole clinic/injection ordeal never took more that five minutes. Not just because I went everyday, but because my grandfather wouldnt have it any other way, and he made sure the nurses and doctors at the clinic knew that he wouldnt have it any other way. My grandfather was a very hard man to say no to. And I was happy to get out of the clinic quickly, too, not just because I hated the place and I had just been poked in the butt with a needle, but because of what came after.

One block away from the clinic was perhaps every kid's dream store. The Five and Dime. El Tencen.

Every day after the shot El Primo would walk me to El Tencen and let me run loose through the aisles. This store wasnt like your typical store is today. It was a bare bones kind of place. All the merchandise sat atop these long tables that ran all the way from the front of the store to the back. It was rows and rows of tables. Each table packed with boxes full of stuff.

And the merchandise wasnt displayed like today, either. It was all in boxes that had the front or top cut off with a sample of the treasure that was inside taped to the outside of the box. And they had everything. Yoyos, plastic soldiers, water guns, noise makers, cap guns, parachute men. Tops! I cant tell you the hours I spent battling tops with my grandfather.

He would buy me one toy per day, whatever I wanted, no questions asked. I would walk through all the aisles every single day and choose one toy to take home. Then I'd make my way up to the cashier where el Primo was waiting for me and hand my new toy for him to pay for. And here's where the chocolate comes in.

At the cashier's counter there was always a box with the best chocolate in the world.

"Quieres unos piratas?" my grandftaher would say as if he needed to ask.

"Si Primo, please."

Then he'd reach into the box and pull out a little gold mesh bag of chocolate coins. I can't recall what they were called, but we called them "Pirates" because the wrapper at the top had the picture of a pirate. I loved those gold wrapped chocolate coins and I would eat them every which way. Id rip the paper wrapper off the mesh bag, reach in and grabn the biggest coin first. then I d peel the edge off of one side of the coin, and then the other and stick the whole thing in my mouth. It was almost impossible to peel the foil off without getting some chocolate under your fingernail. Sometimes, Id hold one coin tightly in my hands and melt the chococalte then suck it right out of the foil.

Chocolate Pirates Coins straight from the swashbuckler's buried loot.

And that's what was in the metal basket that the print shop rep gave me yesterday. A bunch of delicious chocolate coins and a slew of wonderful memories. A bounty of buried treasures.

Posted by Val Prieto at December 17, 2004 09:19 AM

Comments

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