Palm School Tags Used in Events

I remember school, going to school. You know, all the different classes. Trying to uh, one of the things I wanted to do would be a Safety Patrol. Back then they used to have students crossing the streets

But we had Safety Patrols. That was like the fifth and sixth graders. Once and awhile they would come and pick- if you were one of the Safety Patrol, they would need extra guys and they would come to classes and pick- select somebody. I got picked once, and I think that was exciting.

And I remember entering high-, the school, I remember the tree, you walked in, one two rooms, one left, one on the left, on the right, and then further up you would enter this- on the left side, there was the office. And then upstairs, towards- you go upstairs, there was a library, and it faced the First Street, I believe, my first room, my first class, first grade, was the first room on the left, I remember, and I remember being there. And then I think they had a downstairs, and from the downstairs exit to the back, that led to the Palm Park. This be a park there. I think it was part of the school. So they had swings, merry go rounds and a swimming pool. And then the Superior Dairies was there too. But right next to Superior Dairies was the cafeteria, and also it was a- a stage and the lunch room. And the lunch room, I remember going and getting food there with the show all their card, and I think was $35 a month, I mean not $35, $0.35 to eat there for a month or a week. I remember they used to give me $1.05 and we would pay. There was a lady there taking our money. Give us our card. Yeah.

Well, my first grade, I remember being there. And I remember was we had, it was Columbus Day, and the teacher gave us all pictures of Columbus, so we had to color it. And then she took the best ones and displayed them. I remember. And mine was one of them. I remember that. And I remember, in October, she, she did a play, well, actually, not a play, but a story telling. We got around the table, and she would, she would tell this gruesome story about parts, body parts, eyes, fingers, and she would pass them or something around. And we thought it was, and it was kind of, and it was scared. The girls would scream, and she would sit on, this is a heart, this is an eye, finger, you know, would pass it around. I remember that.

No, the only teacher I remember was my, I think my sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Schultz or Mrs. S, and that was upstairs. I remember, I remember Mr. Boyd, one of my- the last principal I knew. He was a real nice guy, too. I remember, I remember going to the office getting paddled a couple of times. You miss misbehave in class back then you misbehave- I don't know what I did, but me and my friends, we went up to the school principal's office, and he had a paddle. It was a baseball bat cut in half. You know, that took off the round part, and it was a flat and man, it was big. Whap. Paddles.

What the paddling? Yeah, if you were bad, I guess, yeah! Yeah...

I think once or twice, but that's something you don't forget. I think Mr. Boyd, when he came in, he didn't do that. It was the form- with the other principal. I don't remember him. I just remember getting paddled by him, but it was maybe once or twice. But I must have done really bad. I don't I have no idea what it was.

No, I know it was prior, before, maybe the, maybe the fifth or sixth, before the before the fourth and sixth grade, I would say. Maybe the fifth and sixth, maybe the last two years I was there. But he was a real nice man.

A lot of windows. Yeah, a lot of windows. Yeah, like, I remember the first grade. I think fifth grade and sixth, I remember. I remember. I remember one class which it faced the it faced the highway. And sometimes we could look out the window, you could see I-35 under construction. I remember that. And I remember the- I remember math. I realized I used to love to do- The teacher would call us up and do math problems, division and multiplications. And I was really good at that. I enjoyed that. I remember going- I remember the the heaters. They were the steam heaters, not like, not AC, like you got today, so in the winter time, as part of it was, it wasn't cold, but it wasn't really warm. It was comfortable. You had the steam heaters, or, I don't know if you ever saw em, but they're big old iron things. You turn the steam- steam on, and the iron heater would warm up and warm up the room. But I remember doing a lot of projects on the black the green board. There were black boards. They call them black, but they were green. I have never understood that. And in the sixth grade, yeah, it was the fifth by fifth grade class, the message we played with right across each other. So I remember us going across the street, and I remember we had a recess in the hall playing jacks. I mean, we could- We had a recess every day. Now come think of it- never then. I remember Ms. Shaussey's class.

I remember one of my schoolmates. I forgot his name, but he he was in an accident. Got all burned. Yeah, he burned his face, and he came back and he looked bad. You know, he was all- all covered up. But I remember that Ms. Shaussey’s class.

No, no, I'm trying. Never thought about it... other than the Pledge of Allegiance.

The U.S. Yeah. "I pledge allegience to the United States of America. One republic, for which it stands, one nation under God, indiv- something like that. Yeah, I remember that all the way to junior high. I believe.

I never know when I don't know the Texas one, off the top of- I don't know it.

No. I mean, well, well, no, no, no, I don't, I don't recall anything. Just, I remember just in the fifth elementary It was mostly just basic stuff: math, arithmetic, reading, writing, stuff like that. American, American history. I remember American history in the fourth grade talking about George Washington, yeah. But just basic American history. Texas- I don't think the Texas history was. It wasn't until maybe junior high, high school. I can't remember.

No, it was just something I did. I mean, it was- I learned basic math. Excuse me, let me get some water. All right, yeah. Now math- I mean, I learned the basic math, arithmetic, multiplications, division, adding, basic stuff. In high school, they wanted me to take algebra. It was something, I guess, that was required. I took it. I didn't understand- I didn't to this day, I didn't understand algebra, and I didn't understand why I needed algebra, and I needed that to for credit for to get to graduate. I remember that, but I took it, but I couldn't. I still can't figure it out today, but have never used, never, never had the opportunity to use algebra. And later in my life, I became a purchaser. I was dealing in 1000s of dollars when I was a purchas- that’s another story. But algebra never came up there either when I made when I was purchasing for Texas State University. So what I was algebra was math, was basic math I had no problem, just algebra. I think my brother Marcos aced it. I think, I don't know, but I didn't.

It wasn’t a story, but I think my favorite is history. That's my favorite. I love history. I continue study my history even after, after I got out of high school, history was my favorite subject. I attended Texas State University for about three years. I'm an official college dropout of the family, but I took a lot of history courses at the university level. I love the history. I still, I still study history today, you know. But as far as you know, just that was my favorite subject, history, everything else I had to do, because I had to do, I even took typing. I feel that I can- I think I failed typing, but I've, but I can type pretty good. Somehow it's whatever I learned. It the basic stuff, it stuck with me. So I've been, you know, using a computer and things like that. I learned something, though it sticks with you.

Well, it wasn't- It was harder than I thought it was, yeah. So you had to kind of look at the traffic and kind of figure out when a car would come by. So you don't, you don't want to- You would you want to block the kids, then you look around, make sure there was no cars coming. Then you would let them go to across the street. There was, like two or three crossings. One was on 1st Street. I want to say 1st Street, I know it's Cesar Chavez and some of the new guys might like that, but we always knew it as 1st Street, "la calle primera." So it was on 1st Street, cross into across the 3rd, Highway 81/ I-35 and then crossing over to towards Rainey Street, and the other one was on the north, going north, crossing to 2nd Street.

Yeah, they gave you- they gave you a hat, like a military hat, but it was white and some kind of a collar. It was- it'd go across here. It was white, had a little badge you put around here. But they didn't give us a flag. I don't recall a flag. I-

I don't remember. Yeah, I think that came later. Yeah,

I don’t know how that got it- I think that there was the big guys, you know, the sixth graders, fifth graders, and then when they have- didn't have- maybe somebody was absent. They would go to the fifth or sixth graders. And I guess, you know, were looking for it. Raise your hand. A bunch of guys would raise their hand. Okay, you it was random pick. One time I got picked.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, the teacher had to let you go, as far as I know. Yeah, it was close to, you know, thee the class. Yeah, maybe 10 minutes before class ended.

Well, you know, it's not a- it's not a- it's not even bad. But the one memory about the the Halloween story and the Christopher Columbus. And then, I think I was in the fourth grade, and we- we were drawing or coloring, and I got in an argument with a little girl named Mary Alice, for some reason, it had to do something with coloring. It was right before we had recess, we had a period, we go outside and play, and she had just sharpen her pencil, and she got mad at me for some reason, and she stabbed me right here with it. I still got it in the blue dot. That's my first tattoo. I think it's on this side. And I remember that. I never forget it. I remember her name, Mary, Alice, but I can't remember her face, but I remember the teacher consoling me. And I think she kept a little girl, and then from at that, we went outside and played. But I remember that I'll never forget it. It's not a bad memory, just a memory, you know. But I remember that.

No, no, I don't remember. Yeah, it was other than the paddling, yeah. I mean, everything, everything was, you know, nothing dramatic, you know?

What were the other children like? Or, how do you remember them treating you like?

Well we all got along. I remember like at recess. We, for some reason, everybody liked to play jacks. Actually, that's what you could do. You sit on the floor. Already played jacks, or heard of it. You just sit on the floor and, yeah, and we all, we all got along.

Yeah, that's little things like a cross the metal, metal, metal, and you throw the ball out, you pick up the jack and catch the ball, it's eye coordination and stuff, it was fun. I couldn't do it no more though.

Do you remember having any best friends at Palm school?

I remember is it wasn't that big. I remember the counter was facing the windows, though, as you looked at the window, there was a counter there, and then the rest the library. But it wasn't really that big. But I remember the library. Just books. We used to go there and read books and stuff like that, I don't remember that much.

No, it was away from class. Look at books. You know?

Yeah, I guess you just see movies about, yeah, the army never did phase me, but yeah, that would just, I just saw myself sitting in a jet plane. Well, I did join the Air Force, but I didn’t become a pilot. But, yeah. But you know, I remember in junior high, we started talking about Texas history. I remember that because I remember one of my professor, instructors, teachers, told us about Pancho Villa. He gave the history of the history of Texas, and Pancho Villa, guy would come across the border, and I remember that that was in junior high. That's when I first started learning about, you know, history and for the United States and other countries and stuff.

Really, I guess so, yeah, yeah, I've heard of these guys, but never really heard nothing much, yeah.

Jerry Jones is- was a former student from Palm School. I don't remember when he left, but we were in a couple of grades together. We became friends. Later, when I ran for public office, he was also running, and we talked about Palm and he eventually became Supreme Court Justice for the state of Texas at the time that I was County Commissioner. So we, we kind of kept in touch with each other a little bit, but not a lot. We just remember and we both went to the same first grade, and uh second grade, I think after that, I remember when, I don't know when he left, his family left. You know, there was other students that I remember, but it was Ralph Morgan. He stayed. He didn't leave. Some of the Martinez, they stayed. They would go all together by the time I finished, well, I didn't finish it. Stayed an extra grade. They were- we got along. I even had black friends when I went 8th Street, 11th street didn't go to school with me, but we hung around together during the summer. We hung on together, but we didn't go to school together. Even junior high!

Yeah, in the fourth grade. It was one of the guys who was in love with this girl, and he didn't want nobody to mess with her. And there were three or four guys who also wanted to talk to her. You know, it's fourth grade, and one of the guys of my friend, Gutierrez, and Frank Rios, Marcos de Leon, Quintanilla, Fred, you know. And we went outside, and he wanted to kick my friend's ass and another one. And I asked him. I asked him, “Why? Why? Why are you so mad?” He said, “Well, he shouldn’t be messing with my girl. What did she did.” I said, “but we're all friends. We're all playing when we play kickball. We're all thinking we're the best team. We always win.” I can't kick worth a damn but Frank Rios can kick to top of school. “Why? Why? Why this? Why do you want to cause this?” You know, and what? The Gallega guys agreed not to talk to her if he wanted to be his girlfriend, and they were fine with that, but he if she talked to them, which she did, he cannot assume that they're flirting. “Can you deal with that?” I told him, because they ain't going to talk to her, but if she walks over to them, don't get mad at them. Don't get mad at her.

I was in love with her, too. She was from Mexico, (laughter) the prettiest girl. I wouldn't say her name. She may still be here in town! But that’s a conflict and making them understand is that you know, porque te enojes if she goes, that's the part, because you know she can talk to anybody, everybody about. (laughter).

No, you won't. And Boole and then there was Baby Huey. And what happened? They passed, and when they put their name, they didn't put their their nickname. So you say, “hey, you need to go to Rios Funeral." "Who's Rio? Where’s Baby Huey? Boole, que es tu name?” “Haha Alex Guerrera.”

Well, White Out is, oh, my God. He was Guerrera too and his wife worked at… White Out was real dark. That's what they call, the guys called him that name, but he used to protect me all the time. I was little, skinny kid all my life. You see the portraits I was anyway, I weighed 120 pounds when I graduated high school. That was my weight. I was like, five. I'm 5’5, 5’6, I think I was about five, five, close to five six when I graduate. I was a skinny kid. But no, I don't know. I remember what White Out told me his name, his wife became the the lady took care of the cafeteria at Sanchez. It was, worked at Palm then Sanchez. But I don't remember his I can remember where these… Tippie Toe was Robert Guerra, Hamburger was Terrazas, Alberto Terrazas, Gogo was with Joel. Mullet was Alex and and then there was Possum, Joe, Joe Ramirez. So they had nicknames, but you grow up with names, and they, when you go to these were at Salvation Army. At Palm, we didn't have any nicknames.

Some did. not all of them, because some live, if you lived past Comal. I think Comal or Chicon you went to? They went to Zavala. Some prefer to go Zavala then go to palm. Their choice or Metz. When Metz had opened up to desegregate, because for a while, which was an Anglo school, you know. And so I went to school 54 which was along time ago, and there was, and then by 1960 they started to do the highway, and that was a big division. It was hard for the kids later on, because having to cross I-35 was very, very dangerous, but that's kind of what happened.

We did that we did that for, we did both. We will go for shoes, clothing, for food and Thanksgiving and Christmas. They'll have big Christmas events at Salvation Army, and they will have Santa Claus there. I got into a big fight one time. They were beating up my little brother Jerry, and so I got him in the head lock, and I just started beating him. And Danny Ruiz said, No, not Danny, his older brother. Mr. Ruiz said, "Marcos, if you don't stop beating on him you can't come to the Christmas party.” I let him go. Because that was a big event!

My it was Gutierrez, my brother, my, you know, my two brothers. Sometimes, when Frank got went to Austin High, then it was just me and Gerardo, we would walk together. And then there was, there was my cousin Janie, who lived on 3rd, 3rd street, and couple others, and the rest of us, Guteirrez and the Cunias, and the Ramirez, you know, just it's una tangita we walk together. We just all walked because we knew that would happen. And but there were some fights in the school between blacks and whites and us and but there was a Civil Rights incident. The girls, I remember, Janie. Two things happened. One was they wore a Mary Jane shoe and a loafer two different shoes. And they was like “you can’t do that”, and wonder why. What it was is they had an annual powder puff flag football game between the girls and Janie was good. She had brothers. You know, she knows how to play football. No, I remember. Now. You remember what they did. They were boycotting they didn't want to play because they didn't allow her to be quarterback. They just want the Anglo girls to be quarterback. So they protested. So we joined them. We started wearing different socks. That was good for me, because I never had a good pair, but we joined them, and we started boycotting. We started wearing things in our socks, and they fighting at them. They realized the university realized they doing the same thing. They racist stuff. I was my first I remember, it's Junior High. I was like, in the seventh grade, and I remember we were all joining the girls. Yeah, we joined. We so we start protesting with them. It's a quiet protest, right? Just, just don't wear things. Like they want us to tuck in our shirts. We're, you know, we're pachuco, right? We wear shirts outside. Wear black stacey's and camisas we don’t tuck in the shirt, and we had to tuck in our shirt, so we showed up one day with a shirt, and we tuck and said, “Why do this?” “Because they won't let the brown Mexican girls play football”. And we just tuck the shirt, we tell them why why we had a shirts out so we wouldn't get kick out, that because they kick you out ofschool or they put you in detention, you know?

No, but I'll tell you what, he was the director of the Texas museum over here, next by the Law Building. I don't remember his name, but we got into a big fight. Now, I won't believe my own elder with the truth about the truth about our people the Nahautl, Aztecas, Toltecas, the Mexicas and the Mayans and all the other folks than him, you and the massacres that were wrong. but then again that’s where it is that's the conflict, right?

History. It was my favorite subject.

The thing about it is mainly it was all Anglo history, because they are talking about, you know, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Who else? William B Travis, all the presidents was part of history. Texas history was the Alamo, San Jacinto, and all the celebrations correlated with the history that we learned at the school. The history was not our history. It was mainly Anglo history, and the Mexicanos were, were losers. You know, the Alamo was very prevalent about that. But we did ask about Juan Seguin, they couldn't ignore that. To the, he helped Sam Houston to feed them Santana. So that was prominent, but there had to be more. But there wasn't. We learned about Juan Seguin that he helped win the revolution now, if you go the Alamo, now they have names on a lot of Mexicanos who fought at the Alamo. And then now a historian, I forget his name. Uh. There's another battle that happened in Goliad that was run by Mexicanos. It was not Anglos. It was our people. We believe in freedom. But that's what we learned. It was not those Maypole celebrations. There was fourth of July celebration before school was out, there was about American history. The flag with the Pledge of Allegiance It was all Anglo history. Rarely anything Mexicano know anything, if it was Mexicano it was negative, like Santa Anna was a dictator, an emperor, trying to be free. And the Anglos, and we didn't know that people fought the revolutionary war in Texas, who fought other mexicano, who fought at the Alamo, the majority were from Tennessee, Kentucky, you know, Connecticut, New York, you know, from the Far East, as you call it. You say, anybody from New York and main from the Far East? (Laughter)

I would, no, yeah. I went, yeah. I went to school. Afterwards. What happened? I got hit. The ambulance came and I was bleeding from my nose. I hit my nose. My nose is bent. And I got here and I was bent. I sat by the curb, and I kept bleeding. I stopped bleeding. The guy said, “You need to go to the hospital. Said, “no,” I said, he said “Look, we need to put you in the ambulance”.” No, I don't want to go”, “Hey, dude, make us look good. Like in the movies,” I said okay. So, like in the movies, I laid back. I was just, you know, in the movie, you see the student, guys in the hospital, ah, ambulance is going in. Yeah. That was me, and I was sent by the doctor. My dad came and they checked my blood and I wasn't bleeding, no internal injury, and says, you want to go back to school? I want to go home. There's nobody at home. Oh, no, does anybody at home? No, my dad went back to work, and my mom just passed away, so I have no one at home. Says, Why don't you go back to school, the hospital is on 15th Street. Martin Luther King is four blocks away. Let me walk. By time I got to school, my leg is swelled up in my jeans. But guess what? I was already dead! "Marcus, you're alive!" When Connie Kirk, a good friend of mine. We've been friends for years, we're still friends. Connie Kirk, African American sing- a beautiful singer, "Marcus," said, “I thought you were dead”. Well the story was that I got dragged down from Martin Luther King all the way on the San Jacinto, I lost my head rolling down on the highway, on the road. (Laughter) It's terrible!

Well, like Mrs. Schuester my second grade teacher, there was Ms. Houston, who was married to the quarterback from University of Texas. She was a math teacher for a while. She was real good at what she did. Ms. Meadows that I remember in my second fifth grade. I try to remember my fifth grade teacher, but Ms. Arman was my fourth grade teacher, and she had a student teacher, I think, I remember her name, but I got in trouble with Ms. Arman because my student teacher, I think her name was, Miss Harold, told us to buy- get a cigar box to bring to the school. This was in April. And then she said, I got some felt for y'all, and I chose green. He says, I need y'all to cover this box, cigar box, inside and out with this felt. I started work on it. And then I asked her, “What's this for?” “Oh, it's a Mother's Day box, jewelry box.” I looked at her like, “girl, don't, you know, I don't have a mother like?” I said, Okay, I didn't say nothing. And you know, it's a Mother's Day jewelry box. So I put it underneath my box. I never worked on it again.

I mean it felt bad. Very. So, when it came in May with May 18th is Mother's Day, I. Just miss Arman came over. She says, "Why aren't you working on your box?" Because she had found it in my desk. You know, it was just the felt was stuck. Nothing else was done. This is, "you know, I don't have my mother, Ms., Ms. Arman," and she made me feel bad. “Well I didn't know that.” So, you know, there's gonna get a grade for this, but Ms. Arman told her not to grade me, just just that could never happen. You know what she did? She took me shopping for clothes. (Laughter) The student teacher took me downtown, took me to Scarlbros, took me to Montgomery Wards, used to be there, and bought me some clothes.

Feel good. She said, she apologized. I said, "you don't have to do this for me." Said "no, no, no," I, she knew we were poor. You know how I found out how poor I was? When I got locked up. "Tell me about it." I was in the fifth grade, and I started skipping school. I missed 42 days. Then I got sick, you know, total, 42 days, week, year, week there, I got sick, and I went to the nurse, to the nurse, sick. “Ugh I'm sick, I'm sick.” “Okay, Marcus, let me use lozenges. Go lay in the back and rest me. You feel better.” “You got you got fever you've got 99 fever, But go lay down.” And then Mr. Garcia was a truant officer for possible showed up. “Is that? Is that Marco de Leon back there? Yeah. Well, he's been missing last school,” he took me in, took me South got on South Congress took me to the juvenile home and locked me up for a week.

I think a lot of the teachers that my teachers, that I had, some were very hard. Some cared. Some did not. But I think that it was the teaching job. And now there were mainly Mexican Americans, very few Anglo, no blacks, but there were Chicanos and and, and the attitude has to be, was for many years, and still was, even to my son at Austin High was, “We don't know if they can learn.” It's always been. "We don't know, we gotta do away a lot of their ways of life, the way they think, to teach in the American way." That's what they were taught here at the university, Texas State, any university "You mean teachers?" teachers, teaching the American way. I know a lot of teachers would like to teach cultural they would like to do, but they were not allowed. I think Ms Schulte was very sensitive to that. She would allow us to celebrate Mexican holidays and even talk about it in the classroom. We don't know where else teachers like that that. I think that a lot of them meant real well to do that. They know what they have a curriculum they have to teach has nothing to do with cultural it has to do with society, expecting you to be be a full fledged society when you graduate and become a part of the American society. Think that was what it was, because what we learned was that was all about Anglos and history, but the Texas history was, you know, the governor is this, and we fought in the Alamo. We became Republic. We were a country before we were a state. And then, nah nah nah…

I thought later on, Ms. Herrera, who became a part of Hortensia’s life, my wife's life, and we knew her. They fought hard to take care of us, to keep us in class, to keep us in school. They were our advocates, that I know of! They advocated for us, and they they later, I thanked her. She loved Hortensia as one of her students for characters and family. Ms Herrera, was her family was has a legacy. Her uh, Mendez is her sister. Mendez middle school. She’s part of that family. And we want something for Herrera. Miss Reyes nothing there at the school, for the school district, she was a very they're both very kind, kind teachers, and they took care of us that, you know, they didn't want us to get kicked out, though it was easy to kick us out.

Yeah, Juanillo got kicked out. Either way he came back to school. One of my nieces got kicked out.

Well, Palm School building was, it was a wooden floors, and the hard walls, solid brick walls and Mason Dolan, the big windows, the big doors, the windows, no air conditioning. I didn't have air conditioning till I was in my last year in high school.

In schools, UJH, they were all open windows, fans. I used to love the fans. I couldn't hear the teacher no more. So if I missed my homework, I'd go “I couldn’t hear you” (laughter). So, no, I was all no air conditioning, and it was all open windows in the summer and cold winter, even though the radiators were old fashioned, you would burn yourself, you forget they're hot, and you get closer, you burn your skin on them. Yeah, that's that kind of school. I mean, it was an old school. It was old.

I don’t remember. In '54 I don't think they needed it in '54.

Nah, I just told you guys be there by seven, 7, 7:30, 8 o'clock. And the only alarm we had was, was ourselves. One time I bought an alarm clock, wind it up, you know, it didn’t last very long. We'd just wake ourselves up. We run to school, you know, getting run, the Desmonds, the strands and Castillo, the Martinez we would all be late to school. It was terrible.

It had to be the second or sixth grade, the most joy. Because I learned a lot from her, and I was able to participate. It was lead some things. She allowed me to lead some some prayer groups. Sometimes just lead the pledge of allegiance. I never got to lead the pledge of allegiance, only the anglos at first and later on, the smarter kids, you know. But Miss Schultz allowed me to do that. She gave me that. That was the most joy. I mean, I had fun when I was younger and struggled. In first grade, I struggled. Second grade, I struggled. Third grade, oh, it was horrible. "Why?" And in third grade, I had an old German teacher, Ms. Menn, M, E N N She was bad. I don't know why she didn't like me. She's guessing my pr…. jokes and stuff. That's been me since I was a kid. That's my personality that never going to that's never going to change. Two things happened. One, we had this cartoon about blood all caught, Disney made about my blood cells and how they travel, and I was to meet her like frijoles. So I was calling frijoles, beans, right? She got mad. She put me in a corner. Didn't see it, but I had a stick pin. So I put a stick pin on the map, and I was just looking into the map. So I gotta talk about it later. You, I choose the you. But the worst experience with her was during Christmas, and we're gonna exchange gifts. And by then, my first year, I didn't know about this, right? I didn't have anything, so I found this brand new toy they had, but it was a Jeep, 1949 Jeep with no wheels. So I wrapped it up and gave it to my Anglo friend, Ronald Bennet. Ronald Bennet was the only Anglo friend that I made friends that stay with me forever, even when I ran for public office, Ronald Bennet got my car. I'm so so bad. I got a coloring book (Laughter). Second grade. I found a coloring book and I thought I checked it. Nobody page. So I gave it to Yolanda. She gave it back to me. He says, "this is, this was used" One page. Someone, I cut a purple flower. I was totally embarrassed. Here's the third grade, Ms. Menn. Mean, teacher said, so I know she I didn't have, I didn't we didn't have anything. There's no way I could get a gift. So I think I had picked Christina's name. So I went back to miss min and said, Look, I don't have I can't get it to him. I don't have any. We're poor, you know. We just don't have it. My father said, Don't do it. So I told her, and she said, "Who has Marcus De Leons name?" Bent over, tore my name up, threw it in the trash. "He's gonna give a gift to nobody. So I need to give this name somebody else." So she didn't do it well. So she gave. The guy, and looking someone said to my chair. "Damn," I thought. So, his is a true story. Hector De Leon, who's not related, and I'll say his name because he knows, you know, maybe I shouldn't mention his name anyway, this guy said he that they had money, and he'll give me his gift. We're gonna celebrate the 20th of December. So the 20th shows up. He gets a knife, a plastic knife. This you can stab, but it goes inside the sheet. It's plastic, but you stab as a spring, and it just goes in your it goes inside the sheet, so it's no problem. So we're up and I remember Gutierrez was there, and he was with me and Rios, Frank, Leah, and he said, I went to get it now. He says, "No, I changed my mind." He said, "No, you said you were going to give me the present, your present, because you get a lot of presents." And then Rios, Guitierrez says, "Yeah, you said you could, Marcus can have it." And I'm grabbing, and he's grabbing it back. I'm grabbing and he grabbing back, and then I hit him, hit him in the eye like this. Busted it. Bust his eye. You know, he's putting me. After Christmas, he and his mother show up at the school. Either was Christmas or the next day, his mother shows up, and what happened? Her son got beat up. Why did she take care of his man? His man said, "It's him. It's him, It's Marcus." So I sat together with him, and she said, "What? Why did you hit my son?" Then I told the story, and she looked at her son, "tell me the truth. Is that true?" He goes, "mmhm." You know what she did? She started to feed me and my brother after school, his mom invited us to come eat during the Christmas holidays. "What was her name?" I don't know. Just Ms. De Leon. I remember mother's name, but she invited us to eat, and we ate. We became friends. That's the story. But Ms. Menn, she would not support me or nothing, just would not.

The neighborhood, the people who took care of me, the people who took care of people, people who made food for us, the guy janitor who told me, "I have a great job, but you don't want to be me." "Was that at the Palm School?" Yeah, Mr. Martinez.

I would tell them hello, or they would see me messing around, and they- I'd be outside the classroom discipline because time out, because I've been onery. He’d be sweeping floor. And he said “Ah, Marcus, what did you do today?” He says “Que hiciste? No, no, no, no, mijo, no. Vete aca para tu clase.”

I think he did. He had to be, he worked there. I don't remember ever see him having a car. I don’t know.

They were sweet. They were only Anglo for a while, then later, Mexicanas came to work, Chicanas. But they were nice they were on, they were disciplined. Some were mean. Some were like “Getch your food!” “What you don't want this? You better eat it.” (laughter)

For me? It was always good, bland, but good. I mean, you know, eating tortillas in, you know, cheese, queso and atole in the morning. My father would always make oatmeal in the morning, make sure we had oatmeal and atole in the morning, oatmeal every morning he would make before he went to work, make tortillas, make sure we had tortillas and cheese. Later we got food. So we ate the cafeteria food. Some people didn't like it. But when you don't have anything, you know it's good. So maybe my brothers complained about it. But I, I had our- ate, and even ate extra stuff if the guys didn’t want any. You know?

I think both. You know I was making fun of the blood, the pallets, the white blood cells? “It look like frijoles!” “Yeah!” everybody laughs. (laughter).

Well, we, generally, we in PE, you do exercises. The PE teacher would take us out. We play kickball softball. That's all about kickball, dodge ball. You know, those were the kind of games we played. And once in a while they would, they would do some do some dancing to the class. And I loved it so much that the teacher just, ah, she got somebody that loves it. I'm gonna bring it back again. You know, “Marcus, will you lead us again?” “Yeah! Como no!”

The way I, like I was telling Hortensia and we both agree. Anyone who drives by Palm School, who went to school there, is like, boom, it's like a beacon just lights up. "I remember when I remember, I met my girlfriend," like some people, had childhood girlfriends at the school, then they got married later. I've heard those stories. They met at Palm, then they went to junior high then they went to high school, and then they got married. But that's a beacon. It's a reference of their childhood. They remember. They remember everything. Like you asking me, "well, you remember," "I remember this, I remember that, and did this. Then Ms. Menn did this to me, and Ms. Schulte did this to me." I think when they see the word Palm School and they see it, it's like a beacon. It's like a light that lights up in their hearts and lights and in their mind. That's why it has to be kept now, the question is, when they see Palm School and they walk in, what do they see? Being part of the Travis County Steering Committee, what we're asked, What do we want to see? I want to know what Palm, I want an alumni to come tell me. I know a lot of people want, but I went to high school. I mean, with the public school alumni, tell me when they walk in, what do they want to see? For me as a person, what I want to see when I walk in there, if I'm in from Tupelo, Mississippi, or I'm from, you know, from Boston, Massachusetts, right? Or from Cleveland, Ohio, or Seattle, Washington, or all from city of California. When I walk into school, what do I see? What I want to see is toda la fami- What I want to see, for sure, is like my brother, who served 27-25 years in the Air Force, I want to see how many veterans, how many of our men and women serve our country, someone put their lifeline, somebody went to Vietnam. You know, my brother went to Guam. He was making putting bombs to bomb Cambodia. So he's part of Vietnam, but not in a way that, you know. And I realized that, how do these veterans from Palm get to be known? Is there going to be a part? When you walk into the hall and the wall, you see all these plaques and all these people graduated, went to Palm, and they served their country. That's important to me at Palm Park when they have a pavilion or an area and they say, Well, this is named after Mr. And Mrs. Maria and Juan Gonzalez. They lived on East 3rd Street, and their children went to Palm. Oh, they came to Palm. Oh, this building near this, this play scape, is named after the Gonzalez family, the Cortez family. That's what I want, because this is we're gentrified. Me and Hortensia we have a house there on Canterbury and Chalmers Street in the Barrio, still one of the very few people, but soon we'll be gone. So the building in the point the park is the only legacy we have with the Mexican- if you go to mission, Texas, Mission District in San Francisco, it's all totally gentrified. And there something was happening there is happing here, where a lot of the homes are not the same when people walk in. Two I did a short poem that day, my mother, my grandmother, and my uncle died. The poem reads like “I go to my Barrio en la calle cuatro 4th street and my grandmother's house, where my uncle live, is a two story, dark house. So today, my grandmother and my uncle died because whatever memories I have of them is gone.” So if we're gone from the Barrio, and there's some building there that many of us went to school there and lived our life there, fell in love in that school. Were influenced by people. And from there, we went to different we went all over the country, all over the state, all over the county. For me, my link is not very much. My thread doesn't go very far. It goes here, Lemon street ,Canterbury, to Airport Boulevard, to there, and it comes back to the Barrio. And then I go here before the State, I was probation officer, assistant. So I'm a professional job. I was a college advisor for almost 20 years. I was an elected official, you know? So where, so, where do you put that here? You know? So, you know, where do how many elected officials? They went to Palm graduated became elected officials. I know two me and Jerry Jones. You know for sure. I don't know anybody else. They're probably more, but I don't know. So what? What is that? What is going to be in there? Is going to be all artifacts and a couple of bones, of Mexican bones that really were Indians. I don't know. Or is it going to be something when people walk in there, a learning center, a teaching center, and also knowing the people who, who are hidden, who walk the who walk this path and these house contribute to the city, to this county, to the state and to this country. And I know we have people who did that and that, to me, that's important anybody as we lose as the Barrio becomes all white, okay, that- that's happening. You can see, look at Rainey? My brother, he freaked out. My older brother, when he saw Rainey, yeah, they're 15 tall buildings on this little piece of land. It teaches you, how does you want to look in your friend? New York? You've ever been to Manhattan? Here's a mini me in Manhattan. A mini me because I've been to Manhattan, I've been to New York, I've been to all over New York. I've spent- been there eight times, you know, I know how everything's, you know, and it's a little bitty island, so, yeah, but what happens to the center? What happens to the Palm School building? This is why it's important as Steering Committee reaches out to the alumni and other people get their ideas so we can finalize something that, because the final rests on the Commissioners Court and the architect, and then the concept was doing, gather all these ideas, see how they, get them all together, and present something to the- but so we need to give ideas to the Commissioners Court. What's important for us as alumni, we would like to see inside that building.