Oral history interview with Frank Garcia (part 2) [with transcript], August 17, 2006.

              NAU.OH.97.68.44B
138633
Frank Garcia- Part 2
Interviewed by Kathy Ladell and Delia Ceballos Muñoz
August 17, 2006

Ladell:  We are back with Mr. Frank Garcia.  This is an oral history project, Tape 2, with Los Recuerdos del Bario en Flagstaff.  It is August 17.  The time is 5:20, and this is a Northern Arizona University project, specifically with Special Collections and Archives.
So Frank, you talked a lot about teaching and your influences in teaching.  I forgot to ask you what year did you actually start your career in teaching, and when did you actually come to South Beaver to teach?
Garcia:  Well I started teaching, I believe my first year was 1987-88, and I taught fourth grade at Ray Primary School in Kearny, Arizona.  I taught there for three years, then I moved to the White Mountain Apache Reservation where I taught at White River Elementary School on the White Mountain Apache Reservation.  That was very fun, because I was working for a lady named Myrna Hillyard, and her maiden name was Guenther, and her family had been among the first missionaries on that reservation, and so she was really well established, and really just an amazing lady.  I still get Christmas cards from her every year because I just love the lady to death.  So I’ve been very fortunate in both those two teaching jobs, that I worked for really, really good people, and with really, really good people, and people that I’m still in contact with, the people who really had a big influence.  I’ve taken bits and pieces of everybody that I worked for, and kind of brought them along the way.  So I taught in White River for two years, and then in 1993, with the impending birth of my first son--or my only son--who went to school here, just finished going his seven years here at South Beaver, and is now starting middle school.
Ladell:  That’s great!
Garcia:  We moved back to Flagstaff because both sets of grandparents were here, and we wanted him to be near his grandparents.  That would have been 1993 was the first year that I taught here--1993-94.  And I taught first grade here for the six years I taught here initially.  And then I did a year of fifth grade that I combined with a counselor job that I had here.  And then I moved into administration, and I’ve been doing that for seven years.
Ladell:  Okay, so seven years.  So you started with administration in 1999?
Garcia:  Uh-huh, yes.
Ladell:  And were there extra courses or schooling you had to take in order to get an administrative credential to be a principal here?
Garcia:  I’ve got lots and lots of education.  I’ve got my bachelor’s in elementary ed, my master’s is in counseling education.  So I’m certified as an elementary school counselor.  I’m also an English-as-a-second-language specialist--I’m certified in that.  I also have my principal’s certificate, which was another twenty-seven hours on top of my master’s.  And I am now finishing my superintendent’s certificate, which has been about another twenty hours on top of that.  So there’s lots of education back there now.
Ladell:  Yeah, no kidding.  So how do different principals kind of--like their philosophy about running South Beaver, and how are you kind of like them or different?  Like what kind of evolution of maybe how education has changed.
Garcia:  Well I think back when my dad was going to school here, the principal was somebody you feared.  That’s not where you wanted to end up.  And there’s still a component of that to the job.  I mean, there still has to be that you’re the last straw.  But I’ve also found that in doing this job, that the kids respond also very well to your example.  And I treat the kids with respect.  I say good morning to them when they get here in the morning, and "how is your day going?"  You know, we’ve got a little signal that I go the first day of school and tell 'em....  Because after a while, that got to be a problem when I would walk out in the hall and kids were like, "Mr. Garcia!"  So every year the first day I have to go around and tell 'em, "How do you say hi to me in the hall?"  We’ll do this wave, because they do it without talking, and when they’re in line.  And sometimes I walk by a line of kids, the teacher’s walking by with the kids in a line, I put my hand up, and they all high-five me as they go by.  They know I care about 'em.  And I know that that carries over, because I have different parents....  In fact the other day I had a parent I didn’t know was working at the district office, and I had a guy come in and do a workshop the other day with my teachers, and I needed the fans in the gym turned off.  All that stuff they do by computer now, from a central location.  They don’t have to even come to the building to do that anymore.  So I called the maintenance lady and I said, "I need a huge favor"--because you’re supposed to give 'em twenty-four hours’ notice if you need that stuff shut down--and I said, "I need a really big favor.  I need somebody to shut my blowers down."  And then she said, "Well, when do you need it?"  I said, "I actually need it in the next hour, hour and a half."  And she goes, "Well, because you’re my daughter’s favorite principal...."  "Who’s your daughter?!"  And she told me, and I was like, "Oh! Okay!"  And she doesn’t even go to school here anymore.  So that was kind of....  I keep crossing parents, along the way, cross their paths with parents in different situations.  And don’t get me wrong, there are those parents out there that just think I’m the devil reincarnate because we didn’t get along, because I can also be really hard-nosed if I need to be.  There’s some behaviors from kids you just can’t tolerate, and so I don’t.  But by and large, for 99 percent of the kids, you know, they’re the ones that I put my arm around every day and high five and ask 'em how their day is goin’.  We talk, and it’s really a nice place to be.  I don’t think it’s necessarily that fear factor anymore that drives the place.  In fact, the story I was telling you about, when I almost switched schools.  That was really kind of humbling experience, because not only did I realize how much the kids enjoyed having me at Beaver, but I also found out that the teachers really liked having me at Beaver.  So it was a good experience for me to have that happen.  But I think people ultimately understand that I care about 'em, and that I am invested in the south side, even though I don’t live here anymore on the south side, that I’m still very invested in the south side, in the El Charros and in all of the people and places and things that are down here.
Ladell:  Uh-huh.  What types of new programs have you implemented as a principal here?  First in general maybe talk about the programs that you have here, and if there’s any new programs that you’ve implemented as a principal.
Garcia:  Well, I didn’t implement the magnet program per se, but I did have a good hand in helping that get off the ground.  That’s the magnet that we have now, which is academics, character, and technology.  In fact, as the counselor here, one of my focal points was to implement a character education program here.  And that actually has been very fun, and that’s carried over to where people will tell me how well-behaved and how polite and how nice my kids are [unclear].  And you’ll hear me over and over say, "my kids."  In fact, I got a really funny look one time at Target because there was a lady that had walked by me and said, "Hi, Mr. Garcia, how are you?"  And my son and I--he was probably about six or seven at the time--and we were walking by, and we walked up to the counter to pay or whatever, and my son said, "Who was that, Dad?"  And I said, "Oh, that was one of my kid’s moms," (laughter) not even thinking about the connotation.  It took me until I got to the car, "Oh, that’s why that cashier was looking at me like that!"  (laughter)  So I do refer to them as my kids. What was the question?  I forgot.  (laughter)
Ladell:  That was one of the programs that you kind of helped.  And then in general what kind of programs do you have here at South Beaver?
Garcia:  Now, the name of the game in education--and it’s even changed since I’ve been in the profession.  Now the name of the game is test scores, and is in being data driven, and being prescriptive in what you do.  And kind of the days of a teacher going in their room and closing the door and doing their thing are kind of over.  Now we have state standards, we have to teach to those.  We have the tests every year that are getting more and more high stakes, to where kids aren’t getting into college if they don’t pass the tests.  So what we’re starting to do at this level is we have a program here called Foresight.  It’s a group of tests that are predictors for AIMS, and what you do is, you give these tests and you give them before the AIMS--you give them three times.  And in those tests, the tests are broken down per question by Arizona state standard.  And so when you get these test scores back, teachers can go back and look at what their kids did well in, what their kids didn’t do well in, track that over to what state standard they’re doing well or not doing well in, re-teach those standards, which ultimately will raise your AIMS scores at the end of the year.  And they do that by kid--not even by class, it’s by kid.  You can look at Johnny’s not doing well in two-digit plus two-digit addition, so I need to go help Johnny with two-digit plus two-digit addition.  So it’s getting very prescriptive and very precise, and getting to be a lot more high stakes.  Another thing that we’re starting on now in education is curriculum mapping, where we’re starting to align curriculum per state standard.  So that what the ultimate goal of that is a guaranteed curriculum, regardless of which teacher’s class you’re in.  So that if I’m a second-grader at South Beaver, I’m gonna learn the same thing that the second-graders at Thomas are learning, and the second-graders at Marshall are learning, and the second-graders in Tucson are learning.  And so it’s getting that broken down.  And that’s been a struggle, because when you have teachers that have been raised and trained in a generation where you would find your stuff and you were very good at it, they’re having to find that they’re having to give up some of their stuff.  And I’m a third-grade teacher and one of my big deals is dinosaurs, but the state decides that dinosaurs are second grade, I’d have to give that up.  And so that’s one of the other things that we’re starting to do now, is the curriculum mapping and just curriculum alignment, and trying to be a lot more efficient, because the goal now is to really help kids learn everything they can while they’re in school.  I think before, in previous generations, it was you either got it or you didn’t.  And now we’re looking at it more of it’s our job to make sure you get it.  So that mentality of, "I taught it.  If they didn’t get it, that’s not my problem," now it is your problem, if they [unclear].  So you have to go back and re-teach and do all those things.
Ladell:  You’ve talked a little bit about like the anniversaries at South Beaver.  Can you explain what kind of happens and kind of the people--what kind of people come for those anniversaries at South Beaver?
Garcia:  Primarily it’s the people that are vested in the community that show up.  I came to the fiftieth as a participant, not as a [unclear], and that was fun.  You know, you see lots of your old friends, and you see a lot of the families, and you see your old teachers, and they were all here.  And then we did one for the sixtieth--same types of things.  For the seventieth we kind of went all out and kind of did a media blitz to really put South Beaver out there, because it is kind of a cool history of all this stuff that’s gone on here.  And so we did the seventieth, we had a big huge dinner, lots of people came, and the [news]paper was here, and we were on the news in Phoenix, and on the news in Flagstaff.  Those kinds of things never hurt, as far as your school goes, to get you out into the public eye, and to kind of move your school forward.  I mean, you know, I’m looking forward to tomorrow.  Tomorrow the governor’s going to be here tomorrow morning.  This is her second trip through here in the last five years.  And I just really....  I think those kinds of things are really neat, to get those kinds of people in here, for the kids to see.  And also, because a lot of times what they’re doing is they’re acknowledging the job that you’re doing as a school.  So she’ll be here in the morning.
Ladell:  Wow.  Can you give me a little bit some of the history of the anniversaries that take place in South Beaver and why they take place?
Garcia:  Usually it’s just year commemorations of "we’ve been around this long."  And a lot of the things that happen is we’ll do dinners and we’ll have open houses for people to come in.  Although over the last few years it’s kind of gotten to be one big open house all the time, because it is really not unusual for people to just come walking through.  And you can always tell who they are, because they walk through the door and they look up, they look around.  And then they walk to the pictures and start talking about the people in the pictures because they know them all.  And so, "Oh, here’s this person! And that person! And this person!" at which point I know what’s going on, so I walk out there and say, "Hi, can I help you?"  And then they start telling me their stories very much like this!  (laughter)  I’ve gotten to where I just give them the key to the school--I mean not literally, but say, "Go have a ball looking around."  And they’ll go by and they’ll look around, and they’ll tell me what was there when they were here, like when I went to school here it was like this.  When the people who went to school in the forties, this was the school--the wing we’re sitting in, the lower wing right here didn’t exist.  The gym wasn’t on the school yet.  And so this room that we’re sitting in, if you kind of look up here, this was two classrooms that then had a collapsible wall right under where I’m sitting here, and then this was also the auditorium, this big room.  And so that was something that was explained to me by one of those visitors.  There was a kitchen upstairs, and that’s where my computer lab is now.  And if you go up there, you can still see where the stovepipe went out of the building.  There’s a room in the basement that the floor is slanted down, and that’s because that’s where they used to drop the coal.
Ladell:  Oh, interesting!
Garcia:  And the hole for the coal-burning stove is right next to it, so a guy would have to stand there and shovel coal into the furnace.  They’re all gone now, but we had the steam radiators in the school, which was a whole different thing, because the clanking and the smell of the steam and all of those things were unique to South Beaver.  And so those people have all told me the things that were here.  The people would come in and talk about the teachers and having to stand with your nose against the chalkboard with your gum--or having to dip it in a sawdust box and chew it because you weren’t supposed to be chewing it.  You know, the gentleman upstairs that I talked to one day because they were here and they were staring out the window and talking, and it was because the football field was across the street, and the teacher used to let them watch the Flag High games in the afternoon if they were good on Friday afternoon.  And so everybody that comes in here I gather something from. The one thing that’s unfortunate is that I’ve found lots and lots of pictures of the outside of South Beaver, but there’s not too many of the inside of South Beaver, and I’m not sure why that is.  I would imagine it was just the technology of photography, and that probably people didn’t have their own cameras.  And if they did have their own cameras, the flash and all that kind of stuff, whether that....  But I’ve never found too many pictures from the early days of what the place looked like on the inside.  I would have liked to have seen pictures of what it looked like.  But you walk through here, and you know Gertrude Schnebly taught here, and Tommy Whitzel [phonetic] taught here, that there’s all these people that have been through that have walked in our footsteps of the folks that are here now.  And I really do push--they probably get tired of listening to me--but the teachers now, that’s one of the big things that I push on them, that this place means something to this community, and this is a real focal point.  And it’s their school.  And for some people, it really is their school, because this is the only school they ever knew.  They never went to high school, they never went to college, and so this is their school.  I believe this was K-8 when it opened, and so this was school.  And so it really does mean something to that older generation.  When we did the seventieth, they did a nice article on the Trio [phonetic] family in the paper, and it’s because grandfather, father, and daughter all went to school here.
Ladell:  What year was that again?
Garcia:  That was last year.
Muñoz:  The seventieth, okay.
Garcia:  Yeah, the seventieth, yeah, because we really did a nice blitz of putting people....  They interviewed Sylvia, I had a bunch of my teachers on the "Thanks to Teachers" thing.  We had proclamations out there from all kinds of people:  the governor, from the city council, from the county supervisors, from the state department of education, all of those.  And all of those people sent representatives, which was very cool, to the school for that celebration.  So they’re definitely recognizing the value of this place in the community.
Ladell:  So what are your plans for the future of South Beaver?
Garcia:  The continued plan is....  I have to be very careful, and one of the things that I have to be very careful of is remembering that not everybody knew South Beaver the way I do.  For everybody this isn’t home.  And for everybody this isn’t a part of history.  And for everybody it’s not a part of their familial history.  For some people it’s just an old rock school.  One of the things that always comes up is because of its age, and because of the smallness of it, and some of the inefficiencies....  I mean, you won’t find a school with this much glass anymore.  And the reason is because they’re hard to heat.  I mean, every window in this place is a single-pane window.  I would bet that most of these windows on the bottom floor have been broken at one time or another, especially on the playground "L" here.  The ones upstairs are still the original glass.  I mean if you go upstairs and you kind of stand off to one side, you can see the waves in the glass from the way they used to make glass.  And so I have to be really careful in that I can’t have it get in my head that of course South Beaver’s going to stay open, because it’s South Beaver!  Why would you ever close?  I have to pull myself out of that emotion, and I have to understand that if this place is going to remain viable and stay moving forward, it has to be one of the best schools--not just the school that everybody loves.  It has to be here for the purpose for which it was intended, and that’s to educate kids.  And so I have to keep that in my mind all the time.  And so the goal is to maintain the history and the culture and the importance in the community of this place, but also continue on the path to making it one of the best schools in Arizona; because we are continuously doing things that we’re not supposed to do.  And that is, we’ve got an 80 percent free and reduced lunch rate, we’ve got a 30 percent E.L. rate with kids who don’t speak English.  And we continuously give the schools in the "better" neighborhoods in Flagstaff, if you will, a run for their money--and I’m really proud of that, and I’m really proud of the teachers who teach here, because they never give up on the kids.  And so when the times come for the ax to fall, and they start talking about closing schools, it’s a lot easier to keep....  They’ll close the small inefficient schools, but they’re not gonna close the best school, because one of the things that happens in Flagstaff is we have such a big charter school movement in Flagstaff now, that for lots and lots of my kids here, this is an alternative to the alternative, which is the charters.  They don’t necessarily want to go to their home school in their neighborhood, but they really like the things Beaver’s doing, so they bring 'em here--which keeps 'em in FUSD.  So there’s lots of stuff that I’ve got planned. We’ve made some pretty huge gains along the way.  When I first started teaching here, there were 246 kids that went to school here.  It wasn’t a very big school.  And then right now, under the leadership of Kevin Brown, who’s now the superintendent, and then of Mike Cromer, who handed the reins off to me, we opened school with 302 kids yesterday, and growing.  And 330-340 is about all this place will hold.  So we’re turning kids away.  It’s not good that we’re turning kids away, but it’s good that we’re in demand, and it’s a good place.  So I’m looking forward to seeing the continued increase in what the kids from here are able to accomplish--and to also maintain that this is home, and lots of 'em really feel like it is, that this is where they came from.  That’s an interesting balancing act for me, and I think that’s a unique perspective that I bring to this job, that unfortunately I don’t think there are too many people that could bring that perspective to this place.  So I’m glad I’m here for that reason.
Ladell:  I’m kind of jumping back a little bit.  What was it like for you growing up as a Mexican American in Flagstaff?
Garcia:  It was reasonably calm.  I think Flagstaff actually was one of the....  It wasn’t really racial stuff, per se, that I ever remember being really conscious of.  I know that there probably was for my dad and for my grandparents--the racial stuff--because I remember my parents talking about how you couldn’t go into Nativity Church when they were kids.  They talked about the main players in Flagstaff, the family names.  I won’t mention the names.  But the families had pews assigned to them at Nativity, and that was their pew, you didn’t sit there.  And the only thing these guys from Guadalupe Church went up to Nativity for was to get holy water, and they wouldn’t even let them in for that.  They would open the door, give them the water, and then they’d be off on their way.  That very much....  I don’t know if the practice was still there when I was a kid, but the feeling was still there when I was a kid.  You didn’t go to Nativity, you didn’t go to Pius, if you were a Guadalupe person.  That just didn’t happen.  And if you did, because there were always the few people that had moved out of the south side.  I remember that kind of being, "(ppfftt) They go to Nativity, they think they’re better."  And so that was kind of the thing that I would feel a little bit of on the way.  I never was subjected to the real racism, but I remember always being made conscious of the fact that because I was Hispanic there may be times that I would have to work a little harder, or push myself a little more, to get something done.
Muñoz:  You mentioned last time something about Safeway, when you [unclear] that experience.
Garcia:  Oh yeah, that we used to weigh aluminum cans at Safeway and pay off.  That was back in the early or mid-eighties when recycling aluminum was a big thing.  And I remember one time going to pick up some guy’s to weigh 'em and he slammed his hand down on his bag of cans and said, "I don’t trust you, you’re not from here."  And that really made me angry.  But I also remember my dad telling me stories of when he was in the service during the war, of being in the South, being in the Carolinas and down through the South--I think it was the Carolinas, maybe Texas--but being in places where he had seen signs on restaurants that said, "No Mexicans or dogs allowed," things like that.  He remembers having to watch in the South the Anglo folks walking down the sidewalk and the African-American people having to get off the sidewalk to let them pass, and to tip their hats.  Those stories all stuck with me.  Fortunately I never really experienced anything real dramatic in that realm. I kind of remember a little bit about being....  There was some familial stuff that went on in Flagstaff that I remember, and some of it was involving my older sister.  My older sister is really, really smart--really, really smart.  I mean, just to kind of give you an example, she acquired a math degree and an accounting degree both in four years--two bachelors’ in four years.
Ladell:  What is her name?
Garcia:  Patricia.  She works for the geological survey, she’s a mathematician-cartographer-mapmaker for them.  But there was familial stuff because I remember there was a struggle when she was a senior because she was in the running for the valedictorian.  And she was in the running with a couple of other kids that were from more affluent prosperous families.  And I remember there being some disagreement about who should be the valedictorian.  I think two of them ended up being valedictorian, my sister being one of them.  But I do remember my parents having to go to Flag High and have that discussion with the administration of Flag High ...
Ladell:  What year was this?
Garcia:  That would have been ’78.  ... over that issue.  So I guess there was some of that stuff going on.  But I think that was more Flagstaff politics than it was blatant racism.  I think it was more like, "How can we let a kid from the south side be valedictorian?!" kind of thing.  But she earned it.  And that was something my parents were never above....  For being, per se, uneducated, my dad was very smart and very well spoken, and he had a way of getting things done.  And one of the things I always really admired about him, really, was that he didn’t change for anybody.  You know?  Where other people would get dressed up to go to this or that, he was like, "This is who I am, and I’m not trying to impress anybody, this is who I am."  And I can remember instances with him buying cars, and with things he would go....  They paid for everything with cash.  There was no credit cards, there was no checks, everything was cash, to the penny.  You know, standing in line with my mom while she counted out the change.  If it was $7.35, then she counted out $7.35.  If it was $6.98, she counted out $6.98, paid the bills and did all that. I do remember one time going with my dad to buy a car.  The dealership’s still in business, so I won’t mention [the name].  But the salesman coming over and my dad was looking at the car, and my dad at that time probably, I’m guessing, had somewhere between six and eight thousand dollars in his pocket--cash.  And the salesman walking over to my dad and my dad is dressed in his dirty old millworker’s clothes, torn up, whatever, and saying something kind of subtly offensive, which was....  You know, my dad was talking to him about the car, and the guy looked at him and said, "Well, do you think you’re comfortable with the price of this car?"  Which isn’t blatant, but it’s subtle.  I remember being kind of dumbfounded at my dad’s reaction, because he turned to the guy and he said, "You know, I can buy this car and you too."  (laughter)  And the guy’s like, "Well, I’ll get you another salesman."  And my dad’s like, "No, that’s fine," because by that time he had....  You know, he said, "I really wanted to spend this money.  Bye!"  And he walked out the door, and he never went back.  And even today, that’s something that I kind of carry with me.  I guess I can be guilty of holding grudges like that.  If somebody crosses me once, I don’t go back.  And so I had to work on that over time, because that’s very much how really my whole family was, growing up.  They were tough people.
Ladell:  Community celebrations in Flagstaff.  What type of celebrations were there, and what particular days, when you were growing up as a child?
Garcia:  There was the Cinco de Mayo.  That revolved around church a lot.  And so I remember being part of that.  There were celebrations involved with school.  We did the traditional cake walks and that kind of stuff.  And then the retirement parties.  I think I mentioned last time that my parents somehow got put in charge of Mrs. Fern’s retirement, and ended up doing all this cooking, and how funny that was, to watch them decorating the gym out here, and those kinds of things.  So there was lots of school stuff. And then the Powwow, which was the community-wide thing, that until I got older I never realized was as big a deal as it was.  I used to think, "Oh, this is just a Flagstaff thing."  And then as I did reading along the way, looking at how back in the forties the trains from L.A. to Chicago used to advertise the Powwow on the trains as they passed through town.  And they said that it wasn’t unusual for Flagstaff to go from its, I’m thinking 8,000-10,000 population, that on Powwow it would be 30,000-40,000 people in town, with all of the Native Americans that came, and all the tourists that came to see 'em.  That was a big thing.  I didn’t realize how big it was until later.  It was just for me something that happened every Fourth of July.  We would go to the parades, we would go to the carnivals, and we would go look at the jewelry, and watch the dances, and do that kind of stuff--and eat.  So that was something that we always had in Flagstaff.
Muñoz:  You mentioned that your father [unclear] a lot of turquoise.
Garcia:  My father always liked turquoise jewelry, and it’s the really big gaudy stuff--you know, the big ol’ belt buckles and the big watch bracelets.  That was one thing that my dad and I, unfortunately, never matched eyes on--the style of things.  That was something that we continuously bickered about was my style of dress versus his style of dress.  My dad was of that generation that when they bought something and it was nice, it would stay nice.  My shirt from 1964 will be nice in 1994.  And so when he was walking out of the house with his avocado green shirt with the lapels that were at the ends of his shoulders--you know, the collar--we’d be like, "Oh, Dad, just stop!"  My sister and I still laugh about that shirt in particular.  But that was something we always bickered about, was the styles, because I would kind of change with the style, and he would be like, "Oh, here, this looks nice--this’ll look nice with that."  I can remember one time he....  It was during my teenage years, because I was growing, and so I needed to go somewhere.  It was to a school dance or something.  I don’t remember where I was going--maybe it was a concert, one of my band concerts--but I needed a suit.  And I had my suit hangin’ there, and I didn’t bother to try it on.  And so the day of, or the day before, I went to try on my suit and it was too small.  And so I’m like, "Dad, I need a new suit."  And he looked me up and down and goes in his closet, comes out with this absolutely hideous, just horrible suit.  And he’s like, "Here, this’ll fit ya’."  I’m like, "Oh no it won’t.  No, I’m not wearin’ that."  And so that was just something we always continuously bickered about.
Ladell:  What church did you attend, and where was it located?
Garcia:  Guadalupe Church, and it was right where it stands today.  My grandfather helped build it, and the people that went there....  In fact, just the other day....  Where was I reading that?  Just the other day, between these two interviews, I had read a story talking about how the people that had built the church brought the rocks there with horse and carriage.  That was something I learned.  It was built, I think they said, in ’25 or ’6.  But my grandfather was involved in that project.  But, you know, the people went there, and I can remember the Guadalupanas and they were always there--still there--my sisters are in 'em now.  So they’re still there.  And I remember the older Mexican ladies with their veils and with the long scarves and those kinds of things at mass.  And the folks didn’t change.  Now, in today’s mentality, you make mass when you can make mass, whatever time that happens to be.  If you get up at eight, then you go at eight.  If you get up at ten, if you have something to do on Sunday, then you go at five on Saturday and you can skip Sunday.  And back then it wasn’t.  Once you picked your mass, that was your mass.  And for us it was 5:15 on Saturday.  And so we would go to mass.  And even after I moved, I would come back and it was all the same people, ten, fifteen years later.  And now, it’s funny, because now that Pius is the main church, if you go to the five o’clock mass at Pius on Saturday, lots and lots and lots of those people that I used to go to mass with at five o’clock at Guadalupe still go to five o’clock Saturday mass at Pius.
Ladell:  And what were the other churches when you were growing up that were in Flagstaff?
Garcia:  Saint Pius was there.  Nativity was there.  So those were the two I really focused on.  There were the other ones that are old too, but being Catholic I didn’t worry about those.  I don’t remember the Newman Center being a player at all in it.  I’m sure it was there, I just don’t remember ever having any experience with it at all.
Ladell:  Who were the Guadalupanas and what did they do?
Garcia:  Well, I’ll probably get myself in trouble here.  I don’t really know what they do.  I remember it was a group of....  And I really know people in this group, so I’m really going to get myself buried here.
Ladell:  It’s your version of it, and it’s your truth.
Garcia:  I really don’t know what they do.  I remember when I was growing up they were an older bunch of ladies.  That’s since changed.  But it was an older bunch of ladies, and I remember that they all wore veils of some sort--either black or white, the lace veils--and they always had rosaries.  And there’s a song that’s the Guadalupana song, and they’ll still sing it at Guadalupe.  In fact, I think they sing it at the end....  They do a once-a-month mass there, and I think they still sing that song at the end of the mass.  Really, the big thing I remember about the Guadalupanas--and they still do--is they make the best enchiladas.  And so when they do enchilada sales, man, you’re there in the front of the line, because they’re really good.  But I think it’s just a service group, if I’m not mistaken.  But that was a group that’s been part of Guadalupe as long as I can remember.
Ladell:  And also, there was an interesting story told previously about how your dad used to come home at lunchtime and what you used to do as a kid when you’d see him coming home.
Garcia:  Oh yeah.  My parents really were--I really think they were good parents.  I really do.  And looking back now, and on the trials and tribulations my own kids give me, I think they were real good parents.  And one of the things I did when I was little, before I started school, I can remember being home with my mom in the morning and playing and watching her cook.  And then when I got to be about five, when my dad--he had an old, I think it was a ’68 Rambler that he put together--he always used to just love to work on things--and this car actually one of my uncles gave him, because my uncle was mad that he couldn’t fix this car, and couldn’t get it to run.  And finally one day my dad went over to the house, and my dad said, "Oh, you still haven’t got it to run?"  And my uncle was mad and he said, "Ah, you know, I’m not gonna get it to run.  If you want it, take it."  And so my dad took it and he fixed it like in a day, and then drove it for the next fifteen years.  That was his work car, and it was kind of a neat car because he had the Saint Christopher, little plastic magnet statue stuck in the middle of the dashboard. But I remember that when I was little I wanted to be like my dad, and so I had shirts like him, and I would wear my jeans.  And he had this belt that I pestered him until--because he made the belt himself--and I pestered him until he took a piece of leather of the same exact leather and made me a belt with the same exact buckle.  And then I would put on my Tonka hat, which for the people don’t know what a Tonka hat is, it would be like the "Bob the Builder" hat now, the yellow plastic construction hat, and I would put that on, and my belt and my jeans, and I would go sit on the corner.  And people wouldn’t be able to imagine this either--sit on the corner of Butler and Elden, on the sidewalk, and wait for him to come.  Since we lived right there, I could watch, and I could see his car coming from a long ways off.  And then he would pull around the corner and stop and pick me up.  And it was a good twelve feet the rest of the way to my house, but I’d make him stop and pick me up.  And I would do that every day, all summer long, until the weather got bad, I would be out there.  And I’m sure he got razzed about it, because I remember watching all the guys he worked with driving by too.  They’d all be going home for lunch too, and so I’m sitting out there waving at 'em, and then my dad would finally come.  And he would come, and sometimes my uncles would come with him if the weather was bad--they’d come to my house and eat, because my house was the closest house to the mill for all of 'em.  So I can remember them doing that.  And I can remember a couple of times him bringing friends home because--A--either the weather was bad, or for some reason their wife wasn’t home, because heaven forbid they should have to cook something for themselves, because that was very much the generation that I grew up in.  That was what the wives did.
Ladell:  And the house that your grandfather had in Los Chantes, can you talk a little bit about that, what you heard about that?
Garcia:  Yeah.  Well, they were very old houses.  They weren’t very nice houses.  There wasn’t a lot of heat.  I can remember my dad talking about frost on the nails in the morning, of the wood, and how cold they would be.  But I also remember my dad had really fond memories of being around there, of the camaraderie, and of the wooden sidewalks.  I think I told the story last time about the gentleman whose bicycle broke on the way home one day.  It was at dusk, and this guy was walking his bike.  Well, he had it grabbed from the handlebars like this, on his back.  And so he’s walking in the dusk, it looked like he had horns.  All the kids thought it was the devil, and they went running home. I just remember my dad having really fond memories of living there.  One of the people there had a project.  Who from, or how they acquired it, I don’t know, but they used to show cartoons on a bed sheet.  My dad talked about Woody Woodpecker.  There were still those little twinges of things in my dad, that he wouldn’t quite get right with his speech because of the Spanish accent.  I can’t replicate how he would say Woody Woodpecker, but I always remember "Jimmy the Cricket."  He could never get Jiminy Cricket.  It was always "Jimmy the Cricket," that he said that his whole life.  It wasn’t until my kids came along that I really realized that that was what he was saying.  I always knew it sounded kind of strange, but I didn’t really realize what he was saying until he started talking about that with my kids.
Ladell:  Medicine and healing.  What types of home remedies do you remember growing up with?
Garcia:  I can remember mint was a big one, to settle your stomach.  For different things there was yerba buena, which translated means "good weed."  And so I remember people boiling that.  I can remember doing the rice water thing, which is now--Rice-a-lite is what they call it now--kind of PediaSure.  But then the ladies would actually boil the rice and you would drink the water out of that.  And then I can remember whiskey on the gums for toothaches for kids with their teeth growing in.  They would rub whiskey on your teeth.  In fact, I can remember when my son was cutting his teeth....  Nowadays, since there’s something for everything, you just go buy what you need.  And I remember that we were so fixated on trying to find Orajel, and then how horrified we were that my dad would even mention putting your finger in the whiskey bottle and rubbing it on your kids’ teeth.  But it was like, "But it worked."  But they did lots of stuff like that. I kind of remember you didn’t go to the doctor unless you really had to.  You had to be pretty sick to go to the doctor.  And that’s something else that’s kind of stuck with me.  I’m one of the people that will get up and drag myself to school.  In the twenty-odd years that I lived in the house with my dad, one time he broke an ankle and was home for a while, but as far as calling in sick, I think I remember him calling in sick twice.  I mean, he would drag himself to work.  And I’m kind of notorious for that around here.  People will laugh at how fast I come back to work from stuff.  You know, if I’m really sick I’m back instantly, if I’m even out.  You know, there’s been times I remember not this bunch of teachers, but another bunch of teachers razzing me one time because I had like 102o fever, and I was teaching my first grade.  One of them walked in, and I was lying on the table with a cold rag on my head so I could finish the day.  And they were like, "Frank, go home."  "I can’t go home.  I’ve gotta stay.  There’s no room for bein’ sick."
Ladell:  So what doctors did your family use when you were growing up?
Garcia:  We had Dr. Delph, whose office was in the Monte Vista, in the upper offices of the Monte Vista.  Dr. Delph was already an older doctor by that time--very much old school.  But one of the things I remember is my dad always had the doctor’s home phone numbers, which doesn’t happen now.  I can remember one time getting my cornea scratched by a tree branch here, out playing in front of the house.  And it was Saturday, and my dad called Dr. Delph, and Dr. Delph said, "Well, just meet me at the office."  And so he went to the office and patched me up and sent me home.  But to be able to call the doctor at their house, first of all, and then having them actually take time to meet you at the office on a Saturday, that doesn’t happen anymore.  And then we moved on, after Dr. Delph retired, to J. L. Sitterley, who was an old Irish doctor.  And he was older too, but that was who my parents picked.  I can remember him, he was a very slight man, had a pretty thick Irish accent.  You know, "Let’s ’ave a look at you, laddie," when you would go sit on his table.  His nurse was Norma Graves.  I can remember those guys. Todd Lawrence was our eye doctor, and that’s always a joke for my family, and actually I didn’t realize how big a joke it was until I got back here, because that’s how people remember me here too.  I could not keep a pair of glasses on my face.  I was notorious for either having my glasses taped, because I always broke the temples of my glasses.  I don’t know why that was.  So I would either have a temple taped, or I would have two different temples on my glasses because I would go to the doctor and they would look through the box and....  They wouldn’t bother ordering a matching one, because they knew I was going to break it anyway.  And so that got to be a really big joke--I mean, to the point that I would walk out to the car and I’d be like, "I broke 'em again," and my mom driving me up to the office, and the receptionist [saying], "Broke 'em again, huh?"  And then when I came back, people were remembering that.  And then I go look at one of these pictures of me out here, and sure enough, there’s tape on my glasses in the picture.
Ladell:  So where were you born?  I mean, I know you were born in Flagstaff, but what hospital?  Or were you born at home?
Garcia:  No, I was born at FMC, and fairly quickly.  But that was at a time when you would still stay in the hospital after you had a kid, so I was up there for a little bit.  I wasn’t a sickly kid, but I do remember I had some kind of a nerve mass on top of one of my eyes that they were afraid they were going to have to do surgery on.  And that went away.  I think other than that I had a pretty normal birth, and the hospital did a good job.  I mean that nerve thing was the only thing I can remember people telling me was anything that was near wrong, and they were afraid of that, but then it went....  But I still have some residual--one of my eyes is still lazy from that, so I still have a lazy eye from that.
Ladell:  What about your parents, in terms of were they born in a hospital?
Garcia:  My dad was born at home.  My mom, I really don’t know.  But I’m pretty sure my dad was born at home.  And then the hospital, when my dad was born, was Mercy Hospital, and I can remember him telling me about how he had an appendix taken out there when he was about ten, because it had burst.
Ladell:  Oh wow.
Garcia:  And so he had that surgery done.  I think that hospital was over where the University Plaza is now.
Muñoz:  Who was the surgeon, do you know?
Garcia:  I don’t know.
Ladell:  What about the use of curranderas?  Did your family, like when you were growing up, use curranderas?  Or did your parents use them?  Was that a thing that they had in their generation?
Garcia:  Probably my parents did.  They never really mentioned it.  I think that a lot of the folks....  They would certainly share remedies.  I mean, I know that they would do that.  They would be, "Try this."  But as far as actually going somewhere for that, I don’t--at least I don’t remember them ever doing anything like that.
Ladell:  Okay.  Folklore and other kinds of stories that maybe you grew up with.  What do you remember about things like la llorona or any other kind of....
Garcia:  I remember lots of varying versions of la llorona.  It started with kids.  My parents weren’t very into stuff like that, but I remember other kids’ parents telling us about it.  And we would walk....  La llorona was by Rio de Flag, and so that was where we always would walk to school, because we walked from over on Elden Street this way, and so the way we would walk is we would come up by the little store, by the Jalisco Market, and then we would walk this way.  And I can still tell you who lived in just about every one of those houses along the way.  But it was along the river, and I remember that was somewhere we always walked a little faster, because.  I personally think that story was kind of to keep the kids away from the water, because back then if it would get raining, and even yesterday when I did my drive, the water was pretty high.  You know, a little kid could get in trouble in there.  And so I think that might have been the impetus of it.  But I also remember as I got to high school I would remember hearing different varying versions of la llorona, that Arial Luzano [phonetic] would tell.  In fact, I remember one time in high school we actually did kind of a project or a day where we kind of went through all of those different versions of what had happened and why la llorona always was around, and that kind of stuff--because there’s all kinds of varying versions of it.
Ladell:  What kind of things did you hear about el santo in the Chantes?  Have you heard of that?
Garcia:  Uh-huh.
Ladell:  What can you tell me about that?
Garcia:  I remember that was a place that they were quiet around, that the kids were respectful of.  Just about every older Hispanic that I go--when I go to the funerals in the cemetery over there, very, very few times, if there’s any of the older folks around, will someone not point out that that was the statue that was in the Chantes.  Somebody has to make that statement, they have to tell you that, because they want you to know that.  And my dad certainly would do that, but other people along the way, "Oh, you know that statue that used to be at the end of the street in the Chantes [unclear]."
Ladell:  So what cemetery is it at right now?
Garcia:  In the Catholic cemetery over here.
Ladell:  So it was moved from the Chantes?
Garcia:  Uh-huh, yeah, I believe that....  That’s what I’ve always understood.
Ladell:  And do you know why the santo was in the Chantes?
Garcia:  To look over the people, to watch over the people.
Ladell:  Well, I think I’m finished with my questions.  Delia, do you have any other ones that you would like....
Muñoz:  No, I think you covered it.
Ladell:  Thank you so much.  I know that you have an incredibly busy schedule, and I greatly appreciate for you....
Garcia:  Not a problem.  Glad to do it.
Ladell:  Thank you.
Muñoz:  Thank you.
Garcia:  Yup.