The Douglas and Carmen Story

Doug and I met on our sophomore year at Balboa High School (Biology class) in San Francisco.

At the beginning I disliked him very much because I thought he was one of the “bad boys”. I was very much into my studies (yes I was a bit of a nerd) therefore I didn’t wanted to hang out with “that sort of boys”.

She failed to mention that she used to crank call my house and hang up if anyone other than me picked up the phone, she never missed an opportunity to make herself annoyingly present, although she was very studious, she always managed to find time to make my life miserable.

I was kicked out from biology class because she accused me of harassing her and she always made fun of my lack of grooming (my hair was very long and all over the place, that’s when the term Guatemalan Afro was born.) She also made fun of my mispronunciations of certain English words.

It was during the last days of our sophomore year in High School when Doug and I started flirting with each other, but always from afar. I didn’t want to be seen with a guy who wore saggy pants, and he didn’t want to be seen with a nerdy girl.

There was a time I remember him running away with something of mine, and me yelling “give it back” running after him of course, jejeje.

She seems to remember this story in completely different way… I had to chase HER because she took my walkman, of course I had to chase her, and this particular walkman had a copy of Public Enemy’s Fear of a Black Planet in it!

Yeah I remember her flirting with me at school and at the grocery store, especially at the Safeway store, whenever I saw her she was with her very loud Peruvian Family, yeah saggy pants… But I still made her knees buckle whenever she saw me, jejeje back at ya.

During our junior year in High School, Doug and his friends were hanging around on the corner of the sandwich store (can’t forget those 1$ sandwiches) by the school, and I was with a very good friend of mine flirting with the boys. I can’t stop smiling just remembering when Douglas and his friends where being silly and jumping on each other and he was jumping on top but landed on the other side, very hilarious.

Well, this dumb stunt caught my attention and after school that day May 5 1992, he asked to walk me home. We got to my house and he kissed me and said “you are my girlfriend now, ok?”

Yeah I remember those sandwiches, in between all that bread lettuce and mayo there was a little bit of ham hidden in there, yeah that’s pretty much how it happened.

Yeah… I kind of missed that pile up by about a foot, luckily I was wearing my handy dandy black puffy jacket and my head was cushioned by my big Guatemalan Afro. And she said yes when I made that statement only because I brushed my hair that day, I know her parents were not happy about that and neither was the very wealthy boyfriend she had at the time, (yeah how’s that for a “Nerdy” girl!) But yeah, we celebrate Cinco De Mayo for a different reason.

On November of 1992, our teenage “love” got tested when we found out we were pregnant.

Yes, we were in high school and we were expecting a baby.

This wasn’t in our plans but obvious it was on someone else’s. We named our first born Guillermo, born August 5 1993 in San Francisco.

We were both 17 years of age when we had our first baby and our “teenage love” was tested to the extreme. I’m happy to say that we passed that test and still together and in LOVE.

I won’t even try to lie to you by saying it was all roses and butterflies since our first son was born, we had our share of challenges and difficulties like every other couple, but we always looked for ways to make it better. Regardless of what we were and are going thru we always look for something to be thankful for.

We now have a total of 3 boys, Guillermo 16 years old, Estuardo 12 years old and Diego 3 years old. And we thank God for all the challenges and tribulations we went thru, because we learned a lot.

I really can’t add much to what Carmen just said, other that we became a real Family the day we started to stick up for each other to our relatives and all the doubters, there were also a lot of people that were put on our path by God, the Lord, The Universe, The Force, The Light… Call it what you will but I call Him My Father and Friend that loves me!

In conclusion, if you guys are wondering why there is a really big time gap between Estuardo and Diego, it is because Carmen wanted to try her luck at having a girl. Obviously it did not work, I only know how to produce dudes, good thing too cause I don’t think that I can deal with another “Carmen” in the Family.

I would like to thank all of our friends who are too many to mention, my Sister Brenda and the Paz Family for being a role model of what a Family should be.

With Much Love

God Bless

Douglas & Carmen

Love, Douglas & Carmen

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