October 04, 2005

Milk and a bag of powder in my pocket

I'm not a big milk drinker. Never have been. When I was a kid I would do anything not to drink my milk. I would say it was bad, I would say I was full, I would say I was going to vomit if I had to drink it. Whatever story I could tell Mom to get a reprieve from drinking milk I would invent that story in a flash and tell it with the saddest, most pathetic expression I could muster.

Sometimes it would work too, but more often than not I would have Mom standing at the ready right next to me and giving me the ultimatum. "Tomate la leche o te la hecho en la cabeza." Then I, not wanting to have milk poured over my head yet again a lo chicharos, would pick up the glass like it was some kind of dangerous lab experiment and gulp the white liquid down like a purgante. As if I was drinking a whole glass of Milk of Magnesia instead of Vitamin D Homogenized.

There was no messing around with food at my house when I was growing up. If our family had left Cuba to not be without and both my parents were slaving at two different jobs to put food on the table, you were damn well going to eat every crumb and drink every drop.

For school, since my dad didnt believe in getting free lunches from the government and we were sometimes tight on money, Mom always packed me a lunch. It was your typical school kids lunch back then. A sandwich, an apple, a cookie or two and, of course, that ominous Thermos filled with milk.

Each day mom would pack my lunch with the dreaded milk, each day the lunchbox came back with the unopened milk Thermos. And each day Mom would call me in from playing outside or from my room where I was doing my homework and make me drink the damned milk. Or else.

This went on, day after day, for I dont know how long. I suppose I could have thrown the milk out. Poured it out somewhere and be done with it, but it didnt seem right to me. I was always told there were kids in Cuba without food, without clothes, without milk. Not to mention the fact that I was afraid Mom would surely know I had thrown the milk out. She was funny that way. Always knew when I had done something wrong, sometimes even before I had done it.

Then one day as I sat with my school chums in the lunch room, open Scooby Doo lunch box in front of me, I noticed there was something new in there. Something that I hadnt seen when I had pulled out my little sandwich. It was a little plastic sandwich bag. Rolled up and tucked in between the milk Thermos and the little box of raisins. I knew what it was immediately, without even having to pull the darned thing out.

So I took out my little milk Thermos, set it down on the table in front of me and opened it. My friends were probably a little surprised. After all, I never drank my milk at lunch time. Never. Then I took out the little plastic sandwich bag and carefully unrolled it. The contents were pure gold.

Ovaltine and a little bit of sugar, perfectly mixed together. Just add milk.

I dont know why she didnt just mix the Ovaltine and sugar into the milk in the Thermos. Maybe she thought I wouldnt even open the Thermos. Maybe she didnt have the time. Who knows.

It didnt matter at all. I had chocolate milk.

From that day on, even when she no longer packed my lunches and I would buy lunch at school, even if I was already in 8th grade, I never left the house in the morning without my little plastic sandwich bag of Ovaltine and sugar gold in my pocket.

I never told her that I could get chocolate milk instead of regular milk at the lunch counter in school. Even on the days when there was no regular milk left and you had to get chocolate milk, I always used my Mom's little Ovaltine sandwich bag. There was just nothing like my Mom taking the time in her already hectic morning to fill a sandwich bag with the perfect mixture of chocolate and sugar. Just for me.


*

Today's my Mom's birthday and I dont think I can say it any better than last year's birthday post:

She has been there for me when I won awards and when I totalled her car. She would pour food over my head when I wouldnt eat and always made sure that I would never be want of anything. She has made me clothes and combed my hair and taught me respect. She has made me know dignity by example. She's taught me to appreciate the simple beauty of a flower and the complexity of love.

She has outlived two of her younger sisters. She has lived through a world war and poverty. She has lived through deadly hurricanes, bombings, and the destruction of her country. She has lived the life of an exile and raised a family. She's a grandmother and great grandmother. She raised her younger sisters and countless cousins and is the de facto matriarch of the family.

But best of all, though, she is my mom, and I am a better man for it.

Felicidades hoy en tu dia de cumpleaños, Mami. Happy Birthday, Mom! You are the strength of my convictions and the tenderness of my soul.

And thanks for the chocolate milk.

Posted by Val Prieto at October 4, 2005 02:53 PM

Comments

Happy birthday! And many more...

Posted by: FL Mom at October 4, 2005 03:37 PM

Please add my greatest wishes for you mom and many more Happy Birthdays.

Posted by: River Rat at October 4, 2005 03:40 PM

Happy Birthday to your mom Babalu..

Posted by: yamy at October 4, 2005 03:55 PM

Happy birthday, many more, con mucha salud y alegria. Let us thank God for our strong Cuban mothers!

Posted by: Alberto Quiroga at October 4, 2005 04:12 PM

Feliz Cumpleaños Señora Prieto! Y que sean muchos mas llenos de salud y felicidad.

Posted by: Tati at October 4, 2005 04:20 PM

Val, this is the most adorable story! I love it! And I love your mom! Please wish her Happy Birthday y feliz cumpleanyos muchos!

Posted by: A.M. Mora y Leon at October 4, 2005 04:26 PM

Happy Birthday! I'm sure you made her proud!

Posted by: Don at October 4, 2005 04:56 PM

Felicidades, Señora! Difruta el día y que tengas bastantes mas.

Posted by: Illy at October 4, 2005 05:14 PM

And forgive your son when he shaves his legs again.

Posted by: Murel Bailey at October 4, 2005 05:48 PM

¡Felicidades, señora! Tu hijo te da toda el merito que tu mereces. (Val, hasta sintiendome mal me sacastes las lagrimas, cabrón.)

Posted by: George L. Moneo at October 4, 2005 05:58 PM

¡Feliz cumpleaños Señora, y muchas mas con su familia tremenda!

Posted by: caltechgirl at October 4, 2005 06:40 PM

Val,
You are fortunate that you did not have to eat the U.S. Government food from El Refugio. I bet your mom remembers if she was here in the early 1960s. I sure do.
Cuban exile families would each carry a cardboard box in the basement of the Freedom Tower, from stall to stall, to receive in each the following delicacies: powdered milk, powdered eggs, powdered mashed potatoes, and other U.S.D.A. edibles. The crowning item was a five-pound metal can of peanut butter, with black lettering.
Most Cubans had never eaten peanut butter and they complained that it tasted like crap. Yet, they were polite enough not to refuse the can given them, but would then leave it by the exit door. I used to see at least a dozen peanut butter cans piled up on the way out.
Then some Cuban abuelas who lived in the "Pastorita" projects (the buildings back of S.W. 35 Ave. and 9th St.) began mixing sugar and peanut butter and made some delicious cookies for us kids who used to swim in the now disappeared "Pastorita" pool.
We paid five cents to take the bus to Gesu School and receive bilingual classes. I got my first winter coat from the free "ropero" run by Father Vallina.
My younger sister does not remember these hard times, when I experienced hunger and poverty. Your mom will recall them if she was here in the early 1960s. Happy birthday to her.
Tony

Posted by: delacova at October 4, 2005 06:42 PM

Professor, my abuelos got their box from the refugio and I loved peanut butter from the first time I tasted it. Forty years later, it still reminds me on occasion of those days. When Katrina knocked out our power I made spam and eggs on the gas grill for our breakfast the day after. My son thoroughly enjoyed it -- as I did at his age when my grandparents made the spam they got at the refugio with huevitos fritos for me. (My wife and sister-in-law, well, that's another story...)

Posted by: George L. Moneo at October 4, 2005 07:15 PM

George,
Thanks for reminding me of the Spam. Somehow, I had blocked that out of my mind. I had the same aversion to it as Val had with milk. I have not eaten Spam since. Very traumatic times indeed.
The exiles mixed all that powdered food with TAP WATER. Our refrigerator water jug always had tap water as did the ice trays. Evian or Dasani was unheard of. Besides, no one could afford it.
Kool Aid was a special treat. Unsweetened was five cents a pack. We also mixed that with tap water.
No one ever got sick from drinking tap water.
We were happy to get used bicycles for Christmas and rode them without expensive helmets or body pads. We stuck baseball cards between the spokes with a clothes pin on the frame to make the bike sound cool.
Roller skates were made of metal, including the wheels, one-size-fits-all, that you could tighten with a metal key to the desired length.
I also had a four-inch transistor radio "Made in Japan" that I held up to my ear. No fancy headphones then.
Gasoline was 25 cents a gallon but minimum wage was 50 cents an hour.
My father was one of the fortunate Cubans who got a job in Miami in the summer of 1961. Fifty cents an hour for sweeping the parking lot of Shell City store with a broom on the graveyard shift.
Somehow, all that hardship and determination made us very determined and resilient. That's who we are.

Posted by: delacova at October 4, 2005 07:53 PM

Posted by: Brandon at October 4, 2005 08:02 PM

Wow! Shell City! Now you really brought back memories. That was the place I bought my comics books at. Every Saturday my abuelo would buy me at least one, sometimes two. What sweet memories...

Posted by: George L. Moneo at October 4, 2005 08:22 PM

i am not as old as you guys but i definitely remember the refugio. but what i remember the most was the 50 pound brick of velveta cheese. all of a sudden, grilled cheese, macaroni and cheese, ham and cheese, cheese on everything. to this day, i can't stand that stuff.

and in my house, the spam was fried with a little bit of sugar on top, that was delicious.

habby birthday to your mom val. she sounds alot like my grandmother. they probably would have gotten along great had they known each other.

Posted by: tony v at October 4, 2005 11:31 PM

Happy birthday!
Have some Ovaltine for me.

Posted by: Fausta at October 5, 2005 09:21 AM


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