Mr. Dance Machine and wife
Abuelito
Abuelo
Tio Douglas
Compadre
Don Douglas
My second Dad
Grand Pa
Dance Machine
Viejo Loco…
Those are all the other names that my Dad is known as, he has a very endearing quality and is very charming, he becomes part of the Family (evidence of that is the high amount of fake cousins in my life,) and is part of a lot of inner circles and his own circle of influence is pretty massive!
To this day whenever I go to any kind of gathering I am introduced as Don Douglas’s Son, I don’t mind that’s just how it is. Right after that introduction has been made I just say hello say a few thing and just stay quiet, what comes after that is your usual stories about my dad’s great dancing moves and some crazy thing he did or said at some gathering or party, he is not the kind of guy that want’s to call attention to himself but he just does.
He is like the most interesting man in the world, but he doesn’t drink Dos Equis, he drinks Venado and Ron Botran!
He puts his foot in his mouth constantly takes it out and tells you how good it tasted, he also suffers from wonderingeyeitis and sometimes when telling a joke misses the punch line completely, (I seem to be the only one to have noticed it though, because everyone else is in stitches before he even gets to finish the joke.)
He is also the most Politically incorrect guy you could ever meet, here are few examples:
Hey el Chinito is here to see you…
Dad his name is Lindsey …
Okay, Your friend Lindsey… El Chinito is here to see you
Ugh..
Hey, your other Chinito friend is here to see you…
Daaaad, his name is Ellis and he is not Chinese he is Filipino…
Oh yeah, Filipino… Hey is he a Mormon?
Why would he be a Mormon Dad?
Well he is Filipino, all the Mormons on Mission Street are Filipinos…
No Dad he is not a Mormon.
So maybe he is not Filipino!…
He then proceeds to question me in front of him, why is it that he is Filipino and not a Mormon!
Calgon please take me away…
I would tell you a story about a former African American Female co-worker, that happened when I was in the Hospital recovering from surgery, but this is a Family friendly Blog!
And these stories repeated themselves over and over again, with my friends who were…
Chinese
Filipino
Black
Gay
Mixed
White
Any other kind of Asian or Pacific Islander
And anyone who was racially ambiguous
But, guess what was the first thing people said when they saw me?
Hey how is your Dad?
And then they proceeded to tell me how much fun the had at one of his parties, how good my mom’s food was and how they loved talking to him. Which is amazing since my Father’s mastery of the English language is almost non existent.
One time he managed to get all of my friends to throw me a surprise party, I still have no idea how he managed to communicate with most of them.
Who you gonna call!!!
If you needed help with…
Moving
Painting your house
Planting a garden
A place to have a social event
General work done in your house
Landscaping
Carpentry
Cooking….
And the list goes on and on, you would call Don Douglas, sometimes (well most of the time) he would drag me with him as a “volunteer.” he never asked for anything in return ( talk about sending to give.) And he didn’t have to, people just wanted to give back to him so much, he would get all kinds of payment for helping out, from a hug to money and various kinds of goods! I remember that our house was furnished pretty much by gifts that people had given him.
The only downside to that is that some people took advantage of his helping nature, some by borrowing money that they never paid back and assuming that because he was Family that he was obligated to help them get out of every kind of jam.
But overall everyone was always very thankful for his helping hand!
So you are asking yourselves, how my non-English speaking cheeky father has anything to do with Send Out Cards ?
Well here it is…
He always carries with him a little notebook with everyone’s Birthdays , Anniversaries and every other special occasion, he has a stash of cards and picks the right one for every occasion. Not only that personalizes every single one of them with a poem or a heart warming story or some sort of joke and signs it!
I remember he even had some cards were you could insert a picture in a slot, that was like prehistoric Picture Plus!
So sometimes when people are talking to me about my Dad they mention the greeting cards that he had sent them and how the words that wrote in them touched them and sometimes moved them to tears.
They also tell me how much they miss him and my Mom and always ask me to say hi to him, (he retired and moved back to Guatemala.) He is quite the poet, I think that if he had been born in a time and place were he would have been given more opportunities he would have been quite writer.
When life gave him lemons he smiled… because he already had some shrimp, onions, tomatoes and jalapeños…
So he ended up making some Bad Ass Ceviche!
Douglas E Valenzuela.
