Then when a hard rock miner did not show up for work, I would fill in as a miner. I liked doing this because it meant more money. After a few months I was moved to work on the cage and this became my primary job moving muck up to the surface using the skips above the cage in the shaft.

I once asked my uncle how he came to be a mine boss because he was the only Mexican American mine boss. He laughed and told me it was because he and my dad looked "white." My dad had hazel eyes. Once when my dad grew a beard to celebrate the old west festival in Globe, my dad's beard came in red! My dad did not follow his dad into the mine. My dad's first job was working at the copper smelter in Superior. He did not like it and became a butcher. When my dad told me the smelter job was not for him, I remembered, my dad's dad had died a few years before I was born, killed from breathing silica dust from working in the mines.

I liked working at the mine. 98% of the workers were Mexican Americans and they all knew my family in Superior. Countless times an old miner would say to me, "Look at those caps and posts down that drift. See how they are all in perfect alignment. It was your grandfather Chico (my grandfather's name was Francisco and so his nick name became "Chico") who put those posts and caps in." When I worked at the mine, I alternated living between Superior and Globe depending on which shift I worked. If I stayed in Superior it was with my grandparents. If Globe, I still had my old room at Mom and Dad's.

When I stayed with my grandparents, I had daily conversations with my grandfather. I would share my work and the miner's comments with him. He would just smile.

I worked underground at Magma Copper Company for one year and three summers as I first went to Eastern Arizona College (EAC) then the University of Arizona. I graduated 16th in my class at EAC with a biological sciences major and a split minor in chemistry and physics. I could have placed higher in graduation but the first semester I got a "D" in chemistry which locked me out of taking second semester chemistry. I wanted to be a doctor so I absolutely needed chemistry. I went to plead with the chemistry instructor. We looked at my test scores and the cause of my "D" was I never went to class on Fridays. This was my undoing because each Friday there was a pop quiz. I scored high on the final exam and with a promise never again to cut Friday classes, I was allowed to continue with second semester chemistry. I got an "A" in the second semester final exam, so I received an "A" in second semester first year chemistry. The following year I received an "A" in both semesters in second year chemistry: first semester was Qualitative Analysis and second semester was Quantitative Analysis so I had learned my lesson about cutting classes. My third year I transferred to the University of Arizona and finally, the University of Texas.

Family is the key Hispanic building foundation. Church is second. From my own childhood, I remember everything happened at my Gonzales grandparents at 245 Pinal Avenue in Superior. I was born on Silver Street five houses northeast of my grandparents. The first memory I have of my parents was on Stansberry the next street over from my grandparents. I remember a sand box my dad made that was in front of the house. I distinctly remember my dad used tar to seal the corners. The house I remember most after my grandparents' was our house on Porphyry directly across from Roosevelt School where I went to elementary school.

My Grandma was a strong matriarch. My grandfather was quiet — yet strong and a thinker. I still remember my grandfather in 1967 telling me some day cars would have telephones. The one that was hard to accept is the one about some day cars would not need drivers. I remember distinctly asking who would drive them? My grandfather gave me a one word answer — magnets. I did not understand and so he added: cars would have magnets and the roadway would have a rail in the asphalt that would hold the car down along a path in the highway. Both grandparents had good minds and work ethics.

It was the same with my parents. My dad never missed a day of work. He was a butcher/meat department manager so I grew up on steaks. My dad had a second job and on Sundays after Mass, we would pick up the milk truck parked at a small depot on Pinal Avenue and drive to Mesa to pick up milk for the stores in Superior. Many times I went along to Mesa about 50 miles west of Superior.  On the way back my dad had numerous stops from Mesa into Apache Junction stopping at small stores to deliver a few crates of milk. The round trip took about 5 hours and I was happy to tag along because my dad would let me ride in the back of the truck that was refrigerated and I could drink all the chocolate milk I wanted. I could ride up front with my dad or in back between Mesa and Apache Junction stops. Then I would ride with my dad up front from Apache Junction back to Superior. This was quality time I remember with my dad and it was priceless.

In Globe where I went to high school, my mother worked first at JC Penny's and then Sears as the credit manager. In Superior, I always remember my grandfather and grandmother working. My grandmother in the kitchen, unless As the World Turns, the daily soap was on (In English), and my grandfather outside on some project. Even on his day off as a underground copper miner, work was a priority. It was cement that was the foundation for all building. I remember numerous times going to creek beds outside Superior to shovel pick-up loads of sand to make cement. From the cement foundation for the house, a cement driveway leading into the carport, cement was God's gift of durability for house foundations, walls, driveways, flower boxes and even building Saint Francis Catholic Church where I served as an altar boy for countless years and where the thought germinated some day I would become a priest. If I was not at church, I was around the neighborhood with my friends and our BB guns. Then came our 22s for rabbits and then 30-30s that took us looking for deer out in the hills and mountains surrounding Superior. From the importance of family and Catholism flows moral conservative values.

15 years ago, I did study to be a deacon but I quit because I had a fight with Bishop O'Brien on his treatment of Hispanics as second class citizens.