I’ve been pretty lucky.  As I get older, friends are passing away.  Fortunately, I haven’t known anyone has died violently.  My dad passed away six years ago just before my first baby was born so he never got to meet Rafael so that sends me.  I love my father a lot, and I miss him.

He ended up getting cancer; a man who hiked every day, never smoked, was always been and wiry and played tennis.  He got cancer and was gone within a few months; it was very, very quick.  It seems like he went too early.

Mom was so saddened by this that she moved back to Minneapolis.  She sold the house, and moved away.  Of course, we didn’t have the babies then so she is sad that she left.  She hadn’t met my wife yet, but she talks to the kids now every day.  We went back for a visit this summer, and mom has flown out a few times to see the kids; she has even met us in Sedona.

I had always wanted her to visit Sedona and she finally got to go.


Teaching Music to Thousands of Kids

What I’m most proud of is all of the years that I worked at the Mexican heritage corporation developing the youth mariachi program. We went from fourteen kids to 650 kids. I taught mariachi and a number of schools in San Jose. That’s what I was doing up until a year ago, when I got laid off from work due to a lack of funding.

For so many of these kids, this program changes their life. They’d never held an instrument before and they learned how to play in a short time. Within a few months they were playing songs. Even when my boys were born, that’s what we’re doing. They got to go to a lot of performances.

Part of my job was to write the music. I’ve written 160 Mexican songs. I write them out for all the instruments and the mariachi. It’s something that I’m pretty good at. I’m probably one of the only guys not country that writes out Mexican music. And it’s usually all play by ear. To go in and study what everybody’s playing has been very interesting.

To get my boys to go to sleep I play this song: Lullaby Ragtime. I play very quietly, and it always works.

The Mexican heritage corporation was built by the community for $14 million. It has classrooms are gallery’s; we’re part of the Smithsonian. My job was to start a mariachi youth program. The idea was to go to the schools and sell the concept of having a mariachi program at each school.

It took a number of years but finally there was a waiting list. We only had fourteen reliable teachers, and we always needed three teachers in each classroom, one each for strings, rhythm, and trumpet. At some schools it was so popular that the classes offered during the day, five days a week. At other schools it was an after – school program.

I think music really makes a difference in a child’s outcome. It doesn’t matter what kind of music, but if the child can master and instrument it makes them feel so good about themselves.

Some of the schools have kept this program going without the help of the Mexican heritage corporation, and that makes me happy.