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Why am I such a great writer? (Of course, I'm kidding. I'm sounding like The Brownsville Vulture's Robby Williams-Cervantes. The blogger never stops praising himself for his many accomplishments, which, however, don't include writing. He treats the English language like a drunk coming home in the wee hours of the morning and beating the shit out of his wife because the alcohol has filled his besotted mind with thoughts of his own failures. We can hear El Puro Pedo's Jose Machado telling a group of fellow tipplers at the Palm Lounge, "Billy Shakespeare was a friend of mine and Bobby Williams-Cardenas ain't no Billy Shakespeare." At The Murphy Report we have contended that Texas disbarred the bullying blogger because he couldn't submit a coherent brief and the judiciary axed him for his inability to string two sentences together.)

Why am I such a good writer? I believe we can agree on that assumption. I can string two sentences together. Sometimes I can even string two paragraphs together. I have confidence that I can turn a phrase and unveil a metaphor that puts into perspective a reality that hadn't been observed from a unique angle. I could list examples of my talents, but the purpose of this essay is not to embellish my many feats. I'm a solitary soul who needs no praise. It's just the opposite. I'm the one who is generous with the plaudits: "That was a great fuck, honey!" I am here to answer the question: Why am I such a good writer?

From 1950 to 1955 my mother had five children. My youngest brother was born in 1960 and my youngest sisters were born a few years apart after his birth. My parents for many years didn't allow a television in the house except for the month of December so we could watch the Christmas shows. They were readers and they wanted us to read. Besides a pile of historical books at his table side, my father hid behind newspapers.

While my sisters read novels like Little Women, Anne of Green Gables and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, I wasn't into any children classics like Call of the Wild, Gulliver's Travels and Huckleberry Finn. I read fictionalized books based on the lives of Willie Mays, Duke Snider and any number of sports heroes. Their exploits excited my fantasies. I was embarking on the same path they had taken and one day I would be slamming a homer to win the game or leaping over the wall to snag a game-winning catch. These stories didn't make me a writer, but they fed my imagination. There wasn't a night that before I tucked myself under the covers that I wasn't Sergeant York leading his platoon over the top on a daring charge in which he would lose his life. Dead, I would fall asleep.

I went to parochial schools from first grade through eight grade. My parents convinced us that the Catholic schools were superior to the public schools. When most of us entered public schools, it seemed we were more advanced. The teachers recognized us because we would rise to our feet whenever we answered a question. They would laugh and say that there was no reason to stand and we could remain in our seats. I can only assume that I read and wrote. When I look back on my high school days, the sole tangible skill that has stayed with me throughout my life was learning to type. I'm employing the skill at this very moment.

I enrolled at Modesto Junior College. We had to take an entrance exam in math and English to measure our level. I flunked my English test and had to take a remedial class for a semester. From kindergarten to graduating from college, I don't remember that we were taught writing. In college we would answer questions in our blue books that in some cases would require two or three pages of discussing the works of Robert Frost or John Steinbeck, but the professors were more interested in comprehension than in expression.

I came to Brownsville in 1975 and taught two years at Hanna. Teaching in a program for projected drop-outs, I was lost in my English class and chaos reigned. I needed to exit. During the second semester of my second year Bob Rivard, who went on to a distinguished journalistic career, had landed a fulltime gig on The Brownsville Herald's sports desk after a year of selling vacuum cleaners. When he had settled in to his new job, he called and said the paper needed a part-time sports writer. I jumped at the opportunity; I couldn't handle my incompetence in the classroom. There was no writing. I learned to lay out a paper, but the editor was a curmudgeon who insisted that I had no calling for the profession. He fired me near the end of the school year. I went to the publisher and pleaded my case that I had found a job that I loved. He sent me 30 miles down the road as a sportswriter for The Harlingen Valley Morning Star.

My writing career commenced. Initially, besides helping with the lay out, I posted PSAs. It would take me an hour to write the following passage. I wanted every word just right: "The Harlingen Little League Association is hosting its first meeting. It is set for 7 p.m. this Monday at the Knights of Columbus Hall. Refreshments will be served." At the conclusion of this paragraph I would think I was on the verge of becoming the next Tolstoy. Unlike his predecessor, my sports editor was a laid-back guy and he gave me more writing assignments--covering games and writing features. The culminating moment came when he allowed me to write a column about a college baseball coach recruiting. The crowning jewel of this milestone was my mug shot at the top of the piece.

Back at The Brownsville Herald a coup was taking place. The managing editor and the sports editor were both fired. It was near the end of August. The managing editor called and ask if I wanted to be the new sports editor. I thought I had found the gold at the end of the rainbow. I rank the next year of my life as one of the happiest. I hired "Delta" Dave Handelman as my assistant and a go-getter high school student for a part-time position. I was in charge. This was the year that I discovered I could write. I covered games, wrote features and posted three columns a week. The columns, since I had been raised on the erudite columnists of the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Francisco Examiner, made me infamous. I was The Peerless Observer. I called out coaches like they had never been called out in their lives and Brownsville was blessed with more than its share of talentless teams. It made the pickings easy.

More often than not, I would sit in front of my typewriter with all these jangled thoughts and ideas in my head that I was trying my best to put in order. I never lost my appreciation for the audience and I wanted to entertain them to the best of my abilities; I didn't want to expose myself as a bad comic telling stupid jokes. When I wasn't sure if I could reach the bar I had set for myself, I would tell myself that if it did meet my expectations, I could write anything in the future. It was seldom that I didn't achieve my goal. I put my heart and soul into every article, but I was besieged by those same doubts. Week after week I would face that blank sheet of paper and I would ask myself the same question: Can I do this?

And I did. It was a slow ascent. Step by step I perfected my skills until I had established myself as a voice in Brownsville. I had become a writer. The ascent never ceases. The peak is shrouded in clouds and I have doubts that I will even reach the clouds, but as it has been said many times: It's all in the journey. I have never ceased writing since 1977. I have written for many small newspapers. The periodicals have come and gone like the May flowers wilting in the summer sun. I printed El Rocinante, my own publication, for more than a decade until I switched to blogging in 2000. Twenty years later I'm blogging this remembrance at this very moment. I have written 17 books of poetry, short stories and novels. I am presently composing The Coronavirus Chronicles of which this will be an entry.

The ascent continues. I am writing my best stuff these days. I pray COVID doesn't get me; I feel I have ten year's worth of good shit in me. There is satisfaction that only art gives you and like making love it never gets old. I am a writer. It is a source of great pride to me and it was that one year from August of 1977 to August of 1978 that changed my life forever. How? you might ask. It gave my existence meaning. 

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