University Trojans vs Midway Panthers

On January 28, 2008, we went to the University Trojans vs. Midway Panthers soccer game. The rivalry goes back even before Maiko played for the Panthers. Back then Midway always had easy victories over University's under coached and undisciplined players. Midway always had the advantage of getting its core group from the H.O.T. select teams.Neither team looked as strong a they have in the past. Midway didn't have the speed that has helped them score on University in the past. University forward and Midfielders were matching speed with the Midway defenders with no real problems.
University still lacks player discipline. They still try to play too many balls in the air with little control where they kick the ball to. Midway did try to settle the ball down but also lacked discipline and followed University to a kickball game for most of game. University threatened Midway's goal a couple of times before #23 took a shot from the right wing to the far post. Leaving the Midway goalie flat on his face.

Midway had one real shot a the University goal. The ball was shot hard enough to bounce out of the University goal keeper before a defender kicked it out of play. University's goalkeeper never got to show his abilities since Midway never really challenged him.
University dominated the game and kept the Midway goalie busy throughout the game. Credit goes to the Midway keeper for holding University to two goals.
In the second half, University got its second goal with a tenacious attack by #11 and #23 who beat out five defenders and the goalie to head the ball into the back of the net.
It was a sweet victory for University High School. With more player discipline and a bigger effort to control the ball in the air, they will be en route to the play-offs again this year. There were still too many blind passes and missed volleys by the Trojans which caused them to lose the ball during their runs at the Midway goal.

Refereeing is still weak in Waco. The referee called the game from too far away staying in the middle of the field and missing some major elbowing, pulling and pushing done by Midway players. The linesmen did little during the game, never raising the flag when they saw the obvious fouls.
The University fans were very well behaved. One rowdy fan began chanting against Midway, but with no one else following his lead, he quieted down. The weather was perfect for a soccer game. It was a very enjoyable game and I am looking forward to seeing them play again.

The War So Many Wanted....so few opposed

I awoke again to more news that the Iraq war was started over lies from Bush and his administration, old news new details. Never having liked Bush or his political machine, it is still not fair to blame only him and his political machine for this war. I remember too many people getting pissed at me for saying that the war was not necessary and not justified. So many people wanted us to go over there and bomb Iraq, even to nuke it. 3,930 young Americans have died on Iraqi soil for a cause that was a lie, for Iraqis that don't want us there, for the oil companies that are making million of dollars. 28,980 Americans have been wounded. But we don't see them too often in the news, we don't see much of the negative side of the war and there is no real positive side to the war. As easy as it would be to blame only Bush for the Iraq war, we have to admit that we all had a part in it. We either supported it, sat quietly knowing it was wrong, opposed it but took little action or pretended we didn't know it was wrong.

Once the world went to war with Germany because people ignored the need to go to war to stop Hitler, now we went to war because people ignored the need for peace. Anyways, its never to late to try again....

Everybody now!! All together.....

Families at a Wedding

On December 29, 2006, my niece got married in Eagle Pass, Texas. It was a great time to get together and see the relatives we live far from. We had a great time and got lots of great pictures. I took less photos that usual because I spent too much time talking with relatives every time I got up to take photos. In the photo the music is loud, the people are louder, couples dancing, children learning to dance, everyone has a smile on their face. For a few hours while the music plays, there are no money problems, no school problems, no worries.
I like slowing down the speed on the shutter and getting some motion blur. It conveys the movement and action of what is happening on the dance floor. While walking around I came upon the table where my brothers and sisters were talking. It was a good time to get a photo of us together. I don't know whom I handed the camera to, but it must have been someone I trusted. Anyways, they took a very nice picture of Lupe and Juan Almaguer's children.

This is Erika Mauricio Ramirez and Adrian Ramirez. They are doing the "La vibora de la mar". I don't know the purpose for this at a wedding. It is a game we use to play as kids, but it was so long ago I don't remember why. Anyways it is fun to watch.

These get togethers are the right time to get the photos of our families with our uncles and aunts. This is how we are able to teach our younger children whom is related to whom with in the family. Family history is passed on with such photographs. At the weddings a group would form and someone would start taking pictures then another relative would get up and take a picture and then join the group and someone else would come up and take a picture of the group and then join in the group. It is a beautiful phenomenon to see developing.
Ah, then there are the formal family photos with the bride and groom. This is the brides side of the family. It takes anywhere from ten to twenty minutes to get everyone in and as many as five to eight photographs to get everyone in. You take the first picture and then someone remembers that we are missing someone else, and they go call them, then someone else is missing, then they remember that the photographer is also family and needs to be in the picture. Everyone has lots of fun taking this picture, except the photographer.
And this is the grooms side of the family. The photos are the best record of which members of the immediate family where at the wedding.
This is my favorite photograph of the night. The wedding party was waiting to toast the newlyweds. You can see the anticipation in everyone's faces, yet everyone is relaxed and acting like themselves. No one was expecting to be photograph. It is a very normal moment in a very exciting event.
These photos will be viewed over and over again, whenever we get together with other family members.

At That Moment....

I have been taking photographs since 1976, when I borrowed my sisters 110 Kodak. It has been a task of trying to capture a life time, one moment at a time, with all the feelings, emotions, gestures, expressions, atmosphere, and on and on. Always something more to tell a story with. I love it.
We were at a birthday party for a two year old. Elfida was sitting by the window waiting for the cake to be sliced. Isabelle came up to the window to be next to grandma. It was so easy to click and capture that understanding that has always existed between grandmother and granddaughter. It is there in their expressions, the tilt of their heads, the movement of their mouths, and the connecting of their eyes.

Two brothers were playing catch with a football as I walked out of the house. I waited for the ball to be thrown and followed it with the camera. Usually it takes five of six tries before I can catch an object in midair. This time it was one shot.

Great grandma’s house has always been a very warm cozy place to visit. The porch swing is the gathering point during the hot summers and the cool winters. It is a safe and fear-free zone. A child’s paradise. You eat, play and just lay around while you are at great-grandma’s house. Everything is always peaceful, quite, like every grandma’s house should be. I had finished cleaning up some of the trash out of the truck and was walking back to the house when I saw Lily enjoying the swing, thinking happy thoughts that only a two year old can form. I had to take the picture. I have pictures of both Maiko and Carlos sitting on the same swing also lost in their thoughts. Yes, a child’s paradise created by grand parents Lupe and Juana Almaguer.
I love my camera. So many moments, each a memory captured to be viewed over and over, then shared with others.

Growing up with Dirt

Up north the best dirt to play in was the soft powdery sandy dirt that collected at the bottom of the irrigation ditches. While my parents and older brothers and sisters worked the field, we, the younger kids spent most of the day playing. The irrigation ditches were a natural playground. Trees usually grew along the banks providing a cool area and the ditches always surrounded the fields. Our parents could keep an eye on us.
With us we carried plastic toy soldiers, cars, trucks and something to dig in the dirt. A used tin can, a nail, or a stick worked well in any kind of dirt. We built castles, roads, and mountains. Whole worlds were created at the bottom of those ditches. None of our toys talked, moved or did anything without our imagination. Most of these toy soldiers were bought at the 99-cent store or at Kress. A bag of 100 soldiers cost 99 cents plus tax. Between my brother and I, we had hundreds of World War II, Vietnam, American Revolution, Japanese, German, British, Foreign Legion, and French soldiers. We also had Indians, cowboys, Arabs, firemen, and lots of horses, cows, lions, tigers, etc.
The toys were good to have but the best was just playing in the dirt. Laying down with your cheek against the cool moist dirt. Digging your toes into the wet dirt. Letting the sandy soil run between your fingers or just throwing it up in the air and letting the wind carry it off.
Mom didn’t think it was such a great thing for us to spend all day in the dirt. At the end of the day we had mud streaks running down our necks where the sweat and dirt mixed. Our pants’ knees had caked mud ground into the very fibers. Every cut and scrape on our skin had a scab made up of dried blood and dirt. There was always that little bit of dirt that managed to find its way into the corners of our pockets. Before our bath, which we use to take in those old metal bathtubs, mom would make us blow our nose. Most of what came out was mud.
When in Eagle Pass our father provided another source of dirt for us. Dad always had sand, gravel, or topsoil for some project he was working on. That pile of dirt was always kept toward the back of the yard under an old gnarly mesquite tree. The pile would grow wider and shorter the more we played in it. Eventually, Dad would make us scoop it back up into a taller pile. This was the time we would complain about it being too hot, too cold, or too hard a job moving dirt. Dirt was a very cheap toy and we always had lots of it.
I remembered my days in the dirt because Saturday we dug up the front yard and I made a stockpile of topsoil in our back yard. Our grandkids haven’t been by and seen it yet. But I bet it will be a magnet for them, like honey to bees, like sugar for ants. I will be ready with my camera. I bet I will get some great photos.

Smoke From a Distant Fire

As 2007 was coming to an end, Elfida and I drove to Eagle Pass. We would reach the end of the year in the town I grew up. It was a great year; with us were the two best things that had come along in the last seven years, our grand daughters. Our sons are all grown, living their own lives and we, we are enjoying our years together.
Ten miles outside of town the lights of that old town appeared. A dull blue sky, a dark horizon with dimly blinking lights. The same flat skyline I had seen so many times before from this same place on this narrow highway. From the south end of town, a slow rising cloud of gray smoke flowed upward, then north as it followed the light southern winter breeze that blows along the Rio Grande.
The scene appeared as a recap of the last seven years, G. W.’s years in the White House. Our future, like the smoky landscape, depends on the how successful those putting water on the fire can be. Will the fire flare up consuming much of what we have worked for?

The economy is on shaky ground, the housing market in a descending spiral, more young Americans fighting in an unnecessary war, business companies reaping millions of dollars from the blood of our soldiers, gasoline so expensive it will become the possession of the very affluent, government corruption at a level not seen since the Nixon years, the murder of children by parents so common that its appearance comes now weekly, racism accepted as long as it is referred to as anti-immigration, and the praises for those government officials caught committing crimes, immoral acts and sins being spoken, written and televised by our own President.

In our nation, our home, our wold.
For years now, there has been a fire smoldering within our nation. The smoke plainly visible from a distance but obscured now by the approaching darkness. Smoke that flow up only to settle back down and spread over our homes, business, school,….our towns.

And the fireman, those who can control it, minimize it, make it tolerable, who are they?

They are you, me, us, we…. As 2008 unfolds, I hope we are successful, prosperous, peace loving…. For me, for you, for us,…. For those two little girls, my grand daughters, Isabelle and Lily.

Strive to be happy.

Old Snow

Back in 1983, I think, we had a lot of snow in San Antonio. We were living at 410 Goodrich which is close to the Woodlawn lake. Ok, I don't know if that was the actual name of the lake but that is what everyone called it. It was the Josephine Tobin Park. We woke up one morning and the ground was covered in snow. We did what we shouldn't have and drove to the Albertson's to buy more film for my camera. On the way to the store we went by the lake and took pictures there. Anyone who has lived there will recognize the lighthouse tower in back. Anyways, we learned that just about everyone in San Antonio went out and bought film that day and took pictures. It took about a month to get my photos developed because of the wait. You could walk into the Albertson's and there were boxes and boxes of developed photographs.
When we went home, Maiko wanted to go out and build a snowman. I was feeling artistic that day, so I told him we would build a snow chicken. I found one of his stuffed animals, which was a chicken. Don't ask why he had a stuffed chicken as a toy, but it served as our model. It turned out pretty good. There are others in San Antonio with pictures of our chicken because throughout the day people would drive by, stop, take a picture and then drive away.
Seein how well the snow chicken came out, we decided to build a snow dolphin in my parents front yard. The dolphin came out kind of short and fat. It still looked good. By the time we finished the dolphin it had gotten dark. Maiko posed behind it. Our houses, which stood side by side, ended up with a snow chicken and a snow dolphin. It was Maiko's first time to build anything out of snow and his hands froze a few times while working on them. I don't know if Maiko remembers being out there with us building those snow animals, but It was because his heart, the heart of a child, kept that house warm thought out all those years we spent in San Antonio that creativity came alive on that cold cold day.
The other members of our snow critter crew where Amador "Chicho" Cardenas and my wife, Elfie. Maiko took the picture of us after I had taken his picture with the snow dolphin. It has never snowed as much again in San Antonio or here in Waco. When it does, Maiko will bring his girls over and we will build something bigger and better out of the white fluffy stuff called snow.