NENA DONATES HER CHARLES BARKLEY COLLECTION TO RV PARK LIBRARY

Nena, 1977, sitting
on our first Sears
charge, a  plaid couch
for our home on
Scenic Hill, North
Little Rock

From the editor:  I just left the library/computer room of my RV Park's rec hall.  I went there because my internet stopped working and I wanted to use theirs.  It was not working either.

As my eyes wandered around the room, I saw the Charles Barkley books Nena had donated;  "I May Be Wrong But I Doubt It," "Who's Afraid of a Big Black Man?" and "The Wit and Wisdom of Charles Barkley." I told Nena that no one in this Trump-infested park would read anything written by Sir Charles.

Yet, Nena loved Charles Barkley.  He made her laugh as he was just as outspoken as she was.  Her last few years, I would wake her up, turn her TV on, whenever Charles, Kenny and Ernie were on "Inside the NBA."  She was not that fond of Shaq.

During Nena's army days, she was housed with blacks, Puerto Ricans and a few other Mexicans.  The whites had their own barracks in the early 60's.  

When the army basketball team, all black enlistees, needed a coach, someone with rank,  Nena, a Spec 4, was called upon to be "coach."  

"They told me not to worry about anything.  They knew how to play," Nena told me many years later.

Nena, 5'3", 95 lbs "coached a team of black girls, all well over 6' on a tour of U.S. Army bases.

"They never lost a game," Nena explained.

One of Nena's favorite remembrances was a Temptations concert in Atlanta, circa '63.  

Stevie Wonder,  15 years old, opened for the Temps, doing "Scratch My Back" on the harmonica. 

After the Temps played their first set, an usher came over to Nena and her black friends, explaining that they needed to leave so the next audience could come in for another performance.

Nena said the biggest girl stood up:  "And who exactly is going to make us?"

They stayed for the next Temptations set. 

 The bleached out pic of Nena at the upper left is my favorite.  It reflects her becoming herself in Arkansas, where we lived thirty years.  It was there, she said, that she became her own person.  

In the U.S. Army she was known as Perez, with the accent on the last syllable, just like her father, Manuel Perez, 30 years U.S. Army, then a decade or so with Border Patrol.

What Nena loved about Arkansas is that she was accepted as a person, not simply a Mexican.  Some speculated she was Italian or European.  During our ten years assimilated into the black community, the prevailing thinking was that she was part black.  Why else would we be there?

Nena loved Arkansas because it allowed her to be Nena, simply herself.

She lost that feeling, coming back to Brownsville, always wincing when people assumed she didn't know English.

Nena's dad, Manuel Perez, a native of Ciudad Victoria, did swim across the border in 1940, making a better life for himself and his future family in this country.

 ADDENDUM:  I've not dated since Nena's death April 9 despite her orders  few weeks before her death to "find someone."

Laura Miniel, like a daughter to me, has taken me to the Half Moon, Terra's and Dodici in recent weeks.  Laura doesn't want me to atrophy. 

I did meet a woman from the Philippines, Lyn, who commutes daily from Guiguinto, Bulacan to Manila's priciest hotel to work 12 hour days as the Human Resources Director, in charge of payroll, time clock and job assignment.

Lyn has a two year old son, Athan, the total motivation for her work in a high stress job.  We are set to meet in Cebu.

I created some issues for Lyn by posting her pic on Facebook.  She was inundated by criticism at her workplace that she was pandering to a rich white man from the U.S.  Lyn deactivated her Facebook for a day, but has since restored it.

Of course, I'm white, but not rich.  Lyn is beyond my wildest dreams, but who knows?  

As Nena said:  "I want you to find someone."