Josefina Contreras Cardenas: Josefina Contreras Cardenas, Josefina, it's J, O, S, E, F, I N, A Contreras is, C, O N, T, R, E R, A, S, Cardenas, C, A, R, D, E N, A S.

Aengus Anderson: I just like to ask, Where and when were you born?

JCC: In 1960. It's gonna be my birthday this by the end of this month, all right? And it was mom and dad lived in Barrio Santa Cruz now, but it used to all be together Barrio Kroeger Lane, okay? And then when Dad and Mom had their own place, it's a little rancheria on the other side of the river in Cottonwood Lane. And there's where I was raised and I met my husband, so I jumped the river again to Barrio Kroeger Lane, and there's where we have raised our children and now our grandchildren.

AA: Okay, cotton, I was just doing an oral history about Cottonwood Lane with the Russell family.

JCC: Oh, awesome. So one of our was it with David?

AA: It was with David, yeah.

JCC: Yes, yes. He's awesome. His his mama, Miss Jean Russell, is neighbors to my dad and mom when I was raised.

AA: Okay.

JCC: So my outing was to to go through our wooden fence and go to their side of their property. And that's where the acequias flowed, and they always have, I don't know anymore they do, but um, bamboo.

AA: Yes.

JCC: Carrizo, so that and dad had chickens to go all over, so my rest time would be to go on that side. See the acequias flow, see the chicken, roosters of all colors, and eat ice cream, because I would steal it. But not really steal it. I would take it, no, from señor Price. He would store, he lived on the ranches across from the river and and he would store ice cream there for his, his farm, of of, of hogs.

AA: This is fabulous.

JCC: And he and so the ice cream would be for those, those his stock.

AA: You were stealing ice cream from pigs?

JCC: So when, when I was and I couldn't speak, my mom would say, Josefina, you took the ice cream again.

AA: This is great. Well, tell me more about Cottonwood Lane. I've been so interested. What did it look like then in the mid, I guess we're probably talking about mid 1960s.

JCC: It was paradise. It was paradise because the acequias flowed. That's why its name Cottonwood Lane, because there were cottonwoods along the the road, the where the acequias were flowing, and a lot of a lot of trees and and the neighbors helped, like from Barrio Santa Cruz, there was señor Bob Ormsby that we would call and he would go open the well water flow so we could all water. You've made the story of señora Olga Leon as well.

AA: Yes.

JCC: So they're all neighbors there with mom and dad. So.

AA: So you'd call up Ormsby, and he'd open the well waters, huh?

JCC: Sí.

AA: So do you, was there like in your family's property? What were you growing?

JCC: Our food. Because that one side, my dad had all his fruit trees. The other type would be the garden seasonal.

AA: So you really were growing a lot of your own food?

JCC: Sí, our own food. Everyone grew their own fruit during the those times, it was so interesting that mom wanted to go shopping, and it was in South Tucson, and I said, why would you need to go shopping? If dad is a butcher, he has his other meat, he has his our crops, and she would go buy canned food. As a child, we would always struggle about that. Why mom? No.

AA: Did she feel like she's doing the futuristic thing that, like, you know you're supposed to do?

JCC: It was so confusing as as a child, and it was at TNT market she would go and there the Asian, Chinese family had an IOU for her. So since dad was, um, was was disabled, because being a horse jockey, he had got hurt, and so he was disabled, so his check would come monthly. So mom would would put it all in for her grocery shopping.

AA: That's amazing. So she knew the family at the TNT market?

JCC: Yes, yes.

AA: Can you describe what the market looked like? I'm always curious, because these things are gone. You know what was like? The look or the feel of the market? Because it sounds like this is a place you might have gone a few times.

JCC: Yes. Well, the counter was at the begi-, at the entrance, that the cash register, no. The counter was there. And then the some rows were this way, and some rows were that way. Okay.

AA: Okay.

JCC: So you just got your food. It was small. Oh, and then and the meat market was at the back.

AA: Okay.

JCC: Yeah, and you know, everything there was the person with the meat, wrapping it up, okay, cutting it up.

AA: And you said your dad was a butcher. Did he work at home? Did he have people bring stock to him? Or where did he work?

JCC: As well. There was Farmer John that now doesn't exist.

AA: Okay.

JCC: The Busbys that doesn't exist. No. Another Rancheria were close to Mr. Price, where he he lived. Yeah, there was one there. And then he also traveled to Wilcox.

AA: Oh, wow. So he worked all over as a butcher?

JCC: Yeah, and then people would call him. He would go to San Xavier. He would go to South and the different ranches.

AA: So he would do like on site?

JCC: Yes.

AA: Wow. That's very neat.

JCC: So he was very well known, very well liked to care for.

AA: Yeah. I remember David Russell spoke very fondly of him.

JCC: See, he did? Oh.

AA: Yeah, because we just recorded. So it's like, oh. It's like, oh, that's the the Contre- Was it, Joe?

JCC: Yes.

AA: Yeah, Joe Contreras, yeah. So that, I mean, it's funny. Someone was just telling me about your dad, which is really neat. What kind of, you said you were growing fruit trees on your property? What kind of trees did you have?

JCC: Everything but pomegranates. And that's interesting, because I would also go over to the Russells, because they had a lot of pomegrans, and go and go get one there. So everything was apricots, peaches, apples, grapes, yeah, that's what I remember.

AA: This sounds like a very, very nice place.

JCC: Yes, it was. Now I can't go back because it's such a disgrace.

AA: Yeah, how has it changed?

JCC: The water. Miss Jean Russell was the one that that was in charge of organizing and making, making an agreement with the city of their water there, their water rights and and it was interesting that it was connected with Flowing Wells district.

AA: Oh really?

JCC: Yes. So I asked her whats, because it was in 1995 when they lost, they had to close up the well stop. So I asked her, why and why just 20 years because they thought it was going to be there was a lot of years. And 20 years came, and every, they closed.

AA: Came and went, huh?

JCC: So every everything started, started dying.

AA: Because it went over to city water. Is that what happened?

JCC: Mhm. And with now, with the New Mexico Acequia Association, there that they have there. I want to see how we build the relationship so we can at least preserve or map them out. Where the acequias is used to be, because that's going away too. There's a compuerta there in the compuerta is like the gate where the water will go different directions. So when I go by and I see it abandoned that it can be destroyed. I really want us to save that story.

AA: Yeah, when you go to the neighborhood now, can you see where the old acequias are?

JCC: I can see. I don't know if it-

AA: Is that because you know where to look? Like if I went, would I see them?

JCC: I would hope so-

AA: But maybe not. Yeah. It's so interesting how much change in just like one small landscape you've seen over your life.

JCC: And that I would see it during my life, when I was a child, and they wanted to take me to Barrio Kroeger Lane, because, you know, Barrio Santa Cruz, Kroeger Lane, that's where father was my father was raised, so they had me there when they lived close to his parents, and family members of my mom as well. So there was family members on both sides of 22nd Starr Pass, but there was in the street then. So when they would want to go visit, I would say, No, no, it's ugly over there. Leave me here in my wreck.

AA: Really?

JCC: And it's so happened that there is where I jumped the river and raised mine where I didn't want to. So that's what I work hard now to preserve what we have, because we need to realize as individuals, as humans, how we destroy Mother Earth and the surroundings ourselves? We do it. They it doesn't get done if we wouldn't permit it, right? But the human is the one that destroys.

AA: And so when you were born, the freeway was already in, right? Yeah, so that would have already so the partition of the neighborhood had happened. Did your parents ever tell you anything about did they have memories of when the freeway went in and Cottonwood Lane kind of got split off from South Tucson?

JCC: No, because mom and dad didn't want to be political. They would say, so they believe what government's going to do what they want to anyways, why even bother to say. Later, father was sharing more. In fact, when I started wanting to organize and learn, they would think I was crazy. No, that's loca. Like, get to work.

AA: That sounds like a really big generational attitude towards politics that change, like, from your parents to you, they sound like they were kind of like, let the city do what it's going to do. Is that a fair-

JCC: And then imagine, well, that they thought it wasn't going to help say anything.

AA: Okay.

JCC: Because also in my family, the indigenous background heritage was also lost, because in their times, it was either dangerous or or a disgrace of claiming to be indigenous. Now, I mean, when I started asking our what indigenous background we had? You know, hear your crazy person starting again. No, we're not Indian and and now they can claim their their Yaqui. So I said, No, I'm not going to do it, because when I asked you, you didn't want to. No.

AA: That's so interesting. Yeah, big changes in sort of like, what is seen as appropriate, or, yeah, what you want, what identities you want to take on. But it sounds like you had a different opinion than your parents, even when you were a little younger, you were curious about that stuff.

JCC: Even younger, you know, when. They weren't church goers either. We live but by the 10 Commandments, but without church.

AA: Oh, interesting.

JCC: You know? And without the Virgin, the history of Virgin, knowing that the Virgin Mary, either or Jesus. I learned it from my husband, coming from Jalisco.

AA: Oh, really?

JCC: Yeah, so you don't steal, you don't lie, you don't kill. Which is all good.

AA: Yeah, it's a generally good policy. I mean, unless, well. so I was curious about when you were a kid and you were growing up in Cottonwood Lane, how far could you go by yourself if you wanted to go out and play? You know, it sounds like you could go to the neighbor's yards, but I'm trying to get a sense of the you know, how much freedom did you have?

JCC: Although they took care of each other? No. The acequia that I was sharing, the compuerta. Olga, Miss Olga Leon would share the story of my my my little brother. He would, we would always be barefoot, especially during the summer, especially when you started school, while it was it was hard wearing a shoe, no, so he was all all dirty. And he would be at the acequia, and she would pass and say, Chepu, what are you doing? Oh, I'm taking the bath. And he's all known, all filthy. So my outings would be like, I help dad with raising calves, because those calves would go to the auction that was on 29th Street, to the auction there, and that would buy us our clothes. And when we started school, well, that was even more needed, no? So my outing would be to take my herd of, of little calves out to go eat, because there was a lot to eat outside our our property, as well as horseback riding. There's where my husband and I would have a chance to see each other, would be riding a horse to the river.

AA: Really?

JCC: Yes, because I wasn't allowed to speak with, with, with him, or anyone, any man.

AA: This is amazing. So you got to go out on horseback. It's, it's so fascinating to me that we're talking about stories in, like, the 1960s 70s, probably 70s for that. And I mean, when you describe that to me, I could imagine that in any era, almost. And it's so incredible that it that could happen that late in Tucson.

JCC: Yeah, and not long ago, I, I heard this beautiful compliment. It says, Do you remember when you would ride your horse, your hair long and your hair would flow, when your your horse would run it and it. This when I would go over to Barrio Santa Cruz, where my favorite aunt lived and my grandparents, and she would notice that and I no, I thought it was a compliment.

Adelita Grijalva: Adelita Grijalva. A, D, E, L, I, T, A. G, R, I, J, A, L, V, A.

Aengus Anderson: All right. Set the audio levels. And because I ask everybody this, where and when were you born?

AG: I was born here, Tucson, Arizona, TMC, October 30, 1971.

AA: All right, and you are going to tell me about a photograph?

AG: Yes.

AA: Is that what we're gonna do?

AG: Yeah. So I submitted a photograph. It was a picture of my dad when he was two. My nana, Rafaela Grijalva, my tata, Raul Grijalva. He's Raul Manuel Grijalva. And then my tia, Sarah Martinez. And it's a picture of them up against a wall. And it's one of the first ones of my dad when he was not a baby. So you know, back in the day you You took advantage of an opportunity. If there was a picture a camera around. So they did. So he, it was, he was pretty young, that baby. So he's 70 now. So is 76 years ago. Yeah. And so my nana used to have this saying that, no te olvides que nacistes con un nopal en la frente. Which essentially is, you know, remember where your roots are, remember who you are, and that's the way that you're going to find out. Like the person that you grow into, you can't forget where you come from. So that was always like a big teaching memory for me. And so I was always super lucky to have my nana, my tata and my grandpa way into adulthood, which is just such a privilege. And so much of the stories that they talked about like what Tucson was like. Then I can tell my kids, because they told it in so much detail, like, just like, vibrant detail, that I can walk by and say, hey, well, there used to be a McClellan's here. There used to be a like, you walk downtown and you'll see the tile, the old entrances from different locations. And I can picture what it looked like, even though it was long gone before I was born.

AA: Just because they gave you oral history?

AG: Right, and they talked about it all the time, and what it was like my tata and my dad grew up on Canoa Ranch when there was very little there, and so to be able to have pictures and memories of walking back through those spaces with both of them. And my dad was young, he was, he was four when they moved from Canoa, and just what the experience was like growing up in that environment for him is a really great memory. So I, you know, I've lived here in this area, literally my entire life. I represent District 5, and I have lived in District 5 my whole life. So I think that that's a little rare. But, you know, we have, we have a lot of memories of this neighborhood and this space, and so I remember my nana and tata live right around the corner, and I remember walking to Market Basket and being able to walk there, and there weren't a lot of cars, and I wasn't really worried, because everywhere, if I would run too fast, I would have all these other neighbors of my nana saying, cálmate, te vas a lastimar. And it's like, so you always knew that people were watching out for you, and if you screwed up, they'd also hear about it. So I was pretty, I was trying to always be like, you know, my P's and Q's around them.

AA: Oh yeah, I'm totally imagining, like, you know, your parents just getting phone calls as you go down the block. She's here, she's here all the neighbors are watching.

AG: Well no, and not even that, you just, know, I mean, really, we there was a phone, is a rotary dial there. I mean, like, you know, you just had people sitting out on their porches a lot and enjoying, because we, most people, did not have air conditioning. So during the monsoons, you could literally look outside and see everyone outside, because it was just really nice. I remember when we were little, as soon as the monsoons would come because of flooding in the streets, you could literally get a cardboard box and just float all the way down.

AA: I was gonna ask about something like that. Yeah, like, what were those childhood pastimes?

AG: Yep, that was it, pretty much. We rode bikes and hung out with friends and, yeah, it was just we, I grew up in walking distance from all of my elementary, middle and high schools, so that feeder pattern is what was around me all the time. So you grew up, I literally run into people on a regular basis that I went to kindergarten with, and we matriculated all through and even graduated from the University of Arizona, all around the same time.

AA: That's a pretty amazing sense of community that I think a lot of people don't have.

AG: Yeah, I don't think we do. And I think it's really sad, because generations of families have lived in all of these spaces, and so it's really great, and I'm glad that we have the opportunity to be able to talk about some of it, because so many of the elders in our communities don't have, you know, are no longer with us to tell the stories. So it really is incumbent upon all of our younger generations to do it and and I think so much is lost of oral history. Like it's so important to be able to talk about those things, because now you'll be able to have them forever. But I have video of my nana on some random little recording device that the little, teeny, tiny device that she's teaching us how to make tamales. I can't even look at that anymore yet because, like, the technology has advanced so much, but being able to have the opportunity to digitize that so my kids can watch her and learn the same way I did is just a wonderful opportunity. So I'm glad to do it.

AA: Ping Pong media, right?

AG: Right.

AA: Yeah, that's where you take it.

AG: Yep, exactly.

AA: With the picture of your dad. When you look at that photo. Now, what questions, because it seems like you have a real sense of history and thinking about family history. So when you look at this picture of your dad as a small child, like, what do you want to ask him? Like, what jumps out at you as like, oh, I wish I and I can ask this.

AG: I can. He, I mean, the nice thing about it is my dad is pretty, both my mom and my dad really talk a lot about family history. And so I asked him, what were you doing during this time. He goes, I was all excited, and you could see my face. I'm not smiling, because we were on our way to go get an ice cream, and they stopped us, and we'd like mid-walk to stop and take this picture. And he's like, why? And I you look at it, and I have my tia Sarah, who my cousin is named after, was a nurse. She was married and divorced because her husband was not kind to her. And it is so, like just in one snapshot of a picture for that period of time. In 1948 for you to have a career, have been married, and divorced is just so rare. And she, not only did all of that, finished her education and continued to work. And so I look at that picture, and they're just like everyone looked like they were making an effort, like when you when you went out of your house, you were representing your family, yourself. You know, I wish I had, I wish I did that sometimes, because sometimes I just, you know, go out in yoga pants, and I think that's okay, but I think that it's really important to just appreciate where in our in our society, how much things have changed that are positive. And how much I think of what was valuable before. Like your connection to family, and space, and community is so critically important that I hope that people relive that time and sort of regain that sense of family, of being able to be near each other.

Melissa Berry: Okay, so could you please state your name?

Victoria Vasquez: Victoria Vasquez.

MB: And could you spell that please?

VV: Victoria V, I, C, T, O, R, I, A, Vasquez V, A, S, Q, U, E, Z.

MB: And do I have your consent to record this oral interview today?

VV: Yes, you do.

MB: Okay. So this is Melissa Berry interviewing Victoria Vasquez at her home on March 8, 2025. So, we were starting to talk a little bit about your parents.

VV: Yes. My dad, born and raised in Tucson, four generations, lived on South Herbert, which is in not too far from Santa Rita Park. And they, they came to this house after it was built in 1957. Yeah, so I'm the oldest of eight, eight children. I've got two sisters and five brothers, one brother that is deceased, but this is the Flowing Wells area, and at the time my parents bought the house, it was sort of far from, you know, regular Tucson, and it was farming [land]. There was an irrigation ditch behind our house when we moved. There was a, a tractor that had been abandoned at the end of the street. So it was rural, I guess is what you would call it back then. And now you know this, this is, this is not really rural anymore, but yeah, so I went to kindergarten down at Iola Frans, which is part of Flowing Wells High School. And I was born in San Antonio, Texas. My dad was in the army. He was stationed in San Antonio right after my parents got married in 1951 in San Francisco, where my mom was born and raised. So they, they drove down to San Antonio, where my dad was in, stationed in the army there, and that's where I was born. And so we were there for I think, a year and a half, and then my dad was out of the army, and we moved back to San Francisco, and we were there for I think about a year and a half, there, too, and my brother George was born there. So each, each place, like, we went, like, my sister Rebecca, who's number three, was born in Tucson, at TMC. My brother Greg, my dad was working down in Nogales, he worked for a loan company, so we lived down in Nogales, Arizona, and my brother Greg was born down in Nogales, Arizona-- very small hospital, he was the only baby in the nursery. But my mom had gotten tired of going back and forth from Nogales to go to TMC, so, that's why they decided to stay down there. And everybody else was born in Tucson, and, all my other siblings.My brother George, who was number two son, number two in the family myself, George, Rebecca-- number three-- and I think my brother Greg, we all went to Catholic school in Sacred Heart church, which is in the '05. So we went from first grade to eighth grade, and my parents couldn't afford to go to Salpointe, which was the Catholic school, so we were only four blocks from Flowing Wells, so we walked to school. It was a great school. It was a smaller school. And it was in a Mormon area, and so there were quite a few Mormons that went there, but it was a great, great, you know, school to attend and be from, and I'm still friends with people that I went to high school with. A lot of them moved away, but there's still some that are still in town. After I graduated from high school, I went to Pima College for two years, and I had taken a civil service test for the federal government and I had scored high in the test so I'd gotten a call-- before I had graduated from Pima, because I was in the legal profession at that time. I was either going to go medical or legal, and I didn't like needles or blood, so, I went into legal. So, I got a call about getting a job at the U.S. Attorney's office, so that's where I started my career, my legal career, was there, at the U.S. Attorney's office for seven years, and then I left and went to Europe for a while, just traveling with a friend, and then came back and had some part-time jobs and stuff like that, but then I got a job at Pima County Superior Court for a judge that I had worked with at the US Attorney's Office. So I was there at Superior Court for 30 years, and then I worked at... [I] went back to the US Attorney's office after John Leonardo was appointed US attorney, and worked there for seven years, and I retired in 2019. I also worked for private attorneys for a couple years, but I, I worked downtown most my career, so I was ready to retire after almost 44 years. Yeah. So. I'll be 73 in June. So yeah. Yeah. So I've been retired, and it's been great. And I was living with my mom when my dad passed away in 2013 so I started living here with her. So we were roommates and everything. So this is a family house now that all the siblings, we all own it together. So, I was very comfortable here after 10 years. So I own a house with my niece that's on Twin Peaks North. So she lives there and and it's worked out. It's been comfortable for me living here, and we're never going to rent it, and we're not going to sell it, unless it comes down to that. But, yeah, it was really, you know, it was good. There was, it's a cul-de-sac here. So when we were growing up, there was about 100 kids on this whole block, because there was a lot of, well, mostly, most of the families. There's nobody that's original, except for my mom here now, but I always, we always say the Summers' house, or the Paulsey's house, the people that we knew, you know, so, so, oh yeah, the Vida's house down there. That's how we know which house we're talking about. But lot of kids and, you know, play outside. And it was, play cards and, you know, just different things, you know, just and we were always so bored. It was just like, Oh. I thought-- I would give anything to have a summer off now, you know, but as a kid, you're just going, ugh, there's nothing to do. There's nothing to do. But you know, it was a good, it was a good place to grow up, really was. And my dad's, we used to visit my, my dad's parents, who lived on Herbert Street, which is north of 22nd Street, and probably about two or three blocks from Santa Rita Park. So we used to go visit my grandparents and, and just hang out with them and go visit my cousins who lived across from Santa Rita Park. They would come down from San Francisco to visit their grandparents. And, yeah, we just had, you know, really fun time. And we knew some of the kids that lived on my grandparents' block too, so we would see them and be playing outside with them too. So yeah, it was good. It was good growing up.

MB: Do you have any specific memories of things that you guys would do, playing around [here]?

VV: We would go to the park at-- my uncles played baseball on city teams. My uncles are 10 years older than me. My dad's twin brothers, the youngest ones, and we go to their baseball games at Santa Rita Park. Yeah, and it was, my uncles play, you know, baseball and stuff like that. And, yeah, so that that was fun, you know. And we go to the Dairy Queen, which is on 22nd Street, and get a ice cream cone and and different things. Or we go and get something to eat with my grandparents and and things like that. So, yeah, so, you know, it was, it was good memories. There was a lot of people out and about, you know, and riding bikes and stuff like that, so and, yeah, so it was, you know, things change, you know, that's, that's part of life, yeah.

MB: Do you remember when about the park started to change? And--

VV: What, when it started changing? I would say probably late 70s, early 80s. You know, it was just, a lot of people sold their houses. And there's a house probably about four houses down that there's a couple families that live there, and you see that a lot. And on a street, a couple streets over there's, there's usually about six or seven vehicles there, and, and you know, there's, that's what they can afford. You know, they they can't afford it themselves. So, you know, they have a place for all of them to live and, and so you see that a lot more you really do.

MB: Do you remember any specific restaurants or stores that you wanted to open back up or that you---

VV: [cough] Um, let's see, trying to think, well, I know down here, where there's a school there, there used to be a grocery store that was a long time ago, though, and my mom didn't drive for a long time. So we would walk to the store that was over there, Food Giant that was on the corner there. They were either family owned and couldn't, you know, couldn't afford to stay open anymore, and things like that, or some of the bigger stores too that left, like at the at the mall over there, where Sears closed down, and different stores that closed down that you were used to, you know, going into, it just happens, yeah.

MB: After your parents moved here, did you have any other family, like aunts or cousins or grandparents who lived in the area, or was it just your parents?

VV: No, my dad's, his two sisters, Laura and Alice, still live in Tucson. My aunt Lena, his oldest sister, had lived in Whittier, so she, you know, they would come to visit and stuff like that. And my twin uncles lived, they were in construction, Bob and Dick, and they lived here in Tucson. So have cousins and, you know, people like that that we would see different times, either weddings or funerals and stuff like that, you know, kind of thing. But yeah, we would, we would see them, and then my cousins from San Francisco that would come down and visit and stuff like that. They would, they'd visit with their grandparents, but there wasn't much to do, so they'd want to come over here. So and their grandmother used to say, you can't go to the Vasquez' because it's like, got so many kids, you know, my dad said, no, no, they can come over. You know, they would come over and we'd, we'd have fun with them, and they'd be with my brothers and stuff like that, and go out and and ride bikes and everything. So it was, we always have been around family. Yeah, it's been important.

MB: What was your impression of your dad like? Was he always kind of like a, everyone come in--

VV: My dad very, yeah, my dad and mom both, very welcoming, you know, very and my dad was from a family of seven. He was, [he] had an older sister, and then my dad was the second one, but, yeah, very family oriented. Family, you know, meant a lot. It still does a lot, yeah, but he was my dad was amazing.

MB: Is there anything else about your dad that you really want to share?

VV: [He was] funny. [sniffles] Sorry. But, he worked for Social Security, and he worked with some, some women that were Papago (O'odham). So he took a course to learn their language. So he'd sort of known, yes, known, not know the language completely, but know, some words and, you know, and they they thought, Oh, my God, he's really wants to understand us, kind of thing. But anybody that would have questions about Social Security, they call my dad at home, you know, kind of thing, because he was able to help, you know, a lot of different people and stuff. And a lot of people wanted to talk to him because he was a Spanish speaker too. And they would go, no, we want to talk to Louis, you know, kind of thing. But yeah, so he was, he was good at whatever he did. And my mom, she didn't work until after my brother, Alex, who was the youngest I went to school. She worked at the cafeteria down at the high school, and then she also worked for American Cancer Society and the MS Society. She worked as a bookkeeper at both of those places, yeah, so, so she was all, I don't know how she did everything, you know, she had eight kids, and she'd have dinner ready, she'd be home, you know, in time. And for, for everything, you know, she was just there all the time.

MB: What's the age difference between you and your siblings?

VV: Let's see, I'll be 73 in June, and my brother, Alex is, let's see my sister, we're 10 years apart. So Alex is going to be 62 this year. So within 11 years, my mom had, yeah, the eight kids. No twins, you know, just like and like, like, my nieces will say, Oh God, you know, we have one kid. How did you do with eight? Well, I'm the, you know, being the oldest and stuff. You know, I was 10 years old when my sister Mona was born, and she's the, number seven, and you know, we just, we just learned we had to take care of each other, you know? And it's just, like, my nieces that have one child, you know--that never-- you know, the one and only-- we never had to deal with that, because there was always somebody, you know, you always had somebody, you know, so that, that was, that was different, you know, and it's different for them, when they have a sibling that they were raised with, and now to just have one child, it's just like, wow-- you know, we didn't have to go through that! Yeah, so, yeah, but, I think-- let's see, my brother Ted, who's number six, he works at the U of A so he's supposed to be retiring this year, so, Alex has a couple more years to go. But yeah. So everybody you know, the years go by and they go by quick. You'll find out. As my mom always said, just wait, the years are gonna fly by. Oh, yeah, okay, yeah. But she was right, yeah.

MB: Did you have any pets as a child?

VV: We had birds. We had some fish. My mom didn't want anybody, you know, anything, because she said, I'll end up taking care of it. So after I left home and stuff like that, my brother Ted's [dog] and my sister's dog had puppies, and they, my brother Ted begged my parents, please, let us have a dog. Okay, okay, I'll take care of him. Yeah, okay. So they did. They we had one dog, you know, Bruno, and my parents fell in love with him, you know, after, and he died of cancer, and everybody was so sad, but it was just that was, I forget how long, yeah, he was, he was around for a while, but they used to take him camping, the boys and everything, you know. It was just, he loved going with them, but, yeah, so that was basically, but it was just birds and fish. That was it. Yeah. No time for pets. Yeah.

MB: Do you have hobbies?

VV: Yeah, I like to read, I like to garden. What else? I like to shop. But I'm not really-- I have to be in the right mood to shop, you know. And if I'm gonna go shop, I want to go. I know what I want, you know. And it's just in and out kind of thing. I'm really not a like-- some of my nieces and my sisters are great shoppers, but I don't really enjoy it that much. Yeah, but I like to read and and, and take care of the yard and everything, and go to the casino sometimes with my but my best friends up in Phoenix, so we go and so, yeah, it's, it's, it's good life, yeah.

MB: What kind of stuff do you like to read?

VV: I like to read mysteries. I like to read some biographies, depending on on who it is, yeah, but and some historical and depending on, I like to go the bookstores and just look and see what's around, kind of thing. I was just up at Barnes and Noble the other day, and just, I just like to go and see what's, what's, you know, what's up, you know, kind of thing, and what, what's new. Yeah, there's some stuff that I wouldn't mind reading. I like to go to Bookmans too, because it's cheaper there, and it's really a nice Bookmans on Stone. Have you been there? No? You'll have to go. Yeah. It's really nice. It's just south of River and just north of where the mall is.But yeah, you can, they've got a lot of different things there, and it's very well set up. There's a lot of room and stuff like that, and they've got music and everything. So it's a nice place. Store.

MB: Bookmans is a local store, right?

VV: Yeah, it is, Bookmans, yeah, it is local. And you can trade. You can go in and sell and trade. You know, they'll give you a, either you can get some money, or you can give, they'll give you more. If you want to have, like a, you can, like a coupon to buy anything with it, kind of thing. But it's a, yeah, it's a local store. It's been around for a while. It's really good.

MB: Do you remember how old it is?

VV: Oh gosh, it's gotta be late 80s. Maybe is what I'm thinking. I might be wrong, but I think I'm right, because there was one right there at Campbell and Grant right where the, that-- now there's a Starbucks there, yeah, so they, they tore that down, but this Bookmans, over there, used to be on Ina, and they just moved last year over here. It's a bigger place, which is nice. And I think there's a Bookmans on Speedway also, yeah. Have you been there? Yeah, okay, so you know, yeah, yeah, yeah. My uncle, Dick, passed away in 2015. He was in he was a general contractor, and he was a twin. So to, to, to be a twin, and lose that part of you, is just unbelievable.And my cousin that passed away in, I think it was August of '20, yeah, I guess it was 23, their birthday's tomorrow, yeah, so and they're the same age as I will be, 73, so he goes, yeah, he goes, part of me just left, when Ed left, you know. And it's just, it's true, but it was he, he always, "but I'm the oldest by three minutes", or something like that. I said, "Oh, yeah, I know". You know that's always, doesn't matter. "You know you're the older brother." And he said, "Yeah, that's it. I'm the older brother." But, yeah, we had-- my mom's father was a twin, and, and my mom thought maybe she would have twins. But no, no twins. I know my, my aunt Laura, my dad's sister, her daughter had twins. So I think it passes a generation, is what it is, I believe. But yeah, no twins, so. I don't know. Yeah, but we would go back. My mom, being from San Francisco, we'd go back, usually one, one, in the summertime to go visit. And of course, we'd have to go-- the station wagon-- you know, go back there and and we had cousins and stuff there. My mom had two sisters and a brother, so we had cousins that we always had a great time there, going into the city and, and it was just a great, great time. And sometimes my sister and I would, we would stay there for a month or so, and then we come back on the bus, and, oh, we used to have so much fun because my cousins were there. We go the movies. They would get on the on the bus, and just, we'd go out the whole day, you know, kind of thing. It was really, really, some great memories being up there. What else?

MB: Was that one of the cousins that [was a twin]?

VV: Yeah, that's one of the cousins, yeah, he, they moved down. There were truck drivers in one construction and stuff. They lived in Seattle and Portland. They lived in different places. And they eventually moved back down to Tucson, and that's where they lived and retired kind of thing, but yeah, so, I'm hoping, I talked to my, my cousin's brother, and said, you know, we'll take Tom out for breakfast some morning. And he goes, "Well, we're gonna see if we can get him out to go to dinner. He doesn't like to leave the house." I said, "Well, I hope he does", you know. But he, last time we were together, we went [to] Bookmans. He loves books and and he, he said, "How old am I?" And I said, "you're 72", I said, "your birthday is coming up". And he goes, "Oh, how old am I going to be?" I said, "73" he said, "Are you sure?" And I said, "Yeah, I'm pretty sure". And he goes, "it'd be Ed's birthday too". And that's his brother. And I said, "Yeah, would be Ed's too". So he just, he talks, he talks about him a lot, you know, which is good, but he just, he's sort of lost without him. Yeah, sort of lost. And that happens, I think, even worse for twins, yeah.

MB: Did either of them get married or have kids?

VV: [coughs] No, no that, and you know, it just the, the one twin that passed was-- and I would, would used to go visit them, and when they were in Seattle and Portland and, and he was with-- Ed, the one that had passed-- was with a girl that we really thought he was going to marry, but he just couldn't commit, and his brother goes, "I wish I would have known, because I would have married her". You know, it's just like, it doesn't work that way.

MB: They were identical twins?

VV: Yeah, yeah, identical twins. And so are my uncles, too. But once they, once they got a little bit older, you could, you could tell, you know, but, yeah, identical twins, it's just like-- and their mom, --the ones that live in San Francisco--, she didn't know she was having twins, because in that time there's the son-- there was no sonograms and anything like that. And she didn't know she was having twins. So she and she had two boys after that, but when they had the baby shower, they thought it was just for one baby. And here she winds up with, you know. So she had the, the twin stroller, you know, she got big, she got a twin stroller. And I think after, after, she got done with the when the twins were older and stuff, she gave the stroller to my mom because my youngest brother and sister just a year apart. So we used the stroller here. Yeah, it was pretty nice. But not to know you're gonna have twins. It's just like, oh gosh. She just thought she was-- I forget how much they weighed or how big they were, but maybe she just thought she was having a big baby, I don't know, oh gosh.

MB: To go back to when you were a little bit younger--

VV: Yeah.

MB: What was your elementary, middle, high school experience like?

VV: Well, I was at Catholic school, you know, with the nuns and stuff like that, and it was good. And that's when there was a new math that was coming out. And we had a really great teacher, Sister John Anthony. She was really, really good. And, I made, you know, a lot of friends and and most of them were going to Salpointe afterwards, some of them were going to Amphi. Flowing Wells and Amphi were rivals, and the cutoff point was Fairview Road. If you lived east of Fairview, you went to Amphi, and West you go to Flowing Wells. But now I think you could pretty much go almost anywhere, I think really. But it was, you know, it was good. It was good, you know, going to Catholic school for me and my siblings and stuff. The other ones, I think, the four, four younger ones, they went to Walter Douglas, that's on Flowing Wells. So they didn't, they didn't go to Sacred Heart, yeah.

MB: Is that a K through eight? Sacred Heart?

VV: Yeah. Well, it was, it was, I think it was first. Well, let's see, because I went to kindergarten down there. I think they didn't have a kindergarten there. I think was first through eighth. Yes, first through eighth. And I forget one that closed down, you know, where they didn't have the school anymore, because the church is still there and and they have catechism in the classes and stuff like that. But, but thethe nun that taught the math, Sister John Anthony, she became the dean of a school in Florida. Yeah, it was, I forget the name [Barry University, Miami, FL, 1981-2004], but she was, she was very well known there because she, she, developed, or she got funding for this college there, and she was there for like, 18, 19, years, yeah, but it was just, I thought, oh my god, that was my math teacher, you know. But she was such a brilliant, such a wonderful person, you know, I wasn't surprised. But I said, Oh my gosh, you know, that is, that is her kind of thing. And I did write to her one time, and she wrote me back, you know, just to tell her she taught, you know, I was at Sacred Heart and, and you were my teacher. And she wrote back, and she goes, oh, you know, she thanked me for writing and, and I told her that I had seen an article on her, and she goes, "oh, yeah, there's lots of articles". She goes, she goes, "you can't believe them all". And I said, "well, I believe this one", you know, kind of thing. But, yeah, you remember certain teachers that were really... and in high school, in Flowing Wells too. It was history. [The] history teacher was great. There's certain teachers that really, you know, stick out in your mind, and it's--

MB: What was special about the history teacher?

VV: Oh, he was just, he just, was just, so-- everything was interesting, you know, and a lot of participation with the students, stuff like that. And he just was, he knew everything, you know. You could ask him anything, and he would-- we're going, "how does he know that?", you know, kind of thing. But yeah, he was just just a, and he could relate to the students, which is really good. A couple of the math teachers, uh, just not, you know, geometry, and what was the other one? Oh, I forget. I took it, but it was just too much geometry, I think was mine. I thought, "why you need to know this stuff?" Gosh, you know, it was just like, you know, but, yeah, they were different. They're in their own world, I guess, numbers and everything else.

MB: They had a hard time connecting with the students.

VV: Yeah, they were in another world. Yeah, this and they-- one was so smart, it was, he had no common sense, kind of thing. You know, he was [a] brilliant guy. But you know that that doesn't mean anything when you're trying to teach, you know, people, you've got to come down to their level. Well, they couldn't have, it, but it was, but the what, but the students that were at that level, you know, they, they really got a lot out of it. But no, mostly, yeah.

MB: Did you have any friends that came from Sacred Heart to Flowing Wells or was it only other schools [that they attended]?

VV: Um, no, let's see. Because, I'm trying to think, yeah, well, there was, there was a family on the next block over that. Some of them went to Sacred Heart and then went to Flowing Wells. Not a lot of them, because a lot of them were from that side. So they would go to Amphi, or some other school over that way. But not a lot, not a lot.

MB: But your siblings came over with you, the older ones.

VV: Yeah, right, right, yeah, they did. And, you know, we knew everybody in the neighborhood, because they all went to Flowing Wells, so, and it was nice because we were able to walk home for lunch if we wanted to. And that was really nice. Yeah, that was nice because sometimes you didn't want cafeteria or bring your lunch, you know, kind of thing. So, and then being able just walk to school was was nice.

MB: Do you remember what the cafeteria food was like?

VV: Um, it wasn't bad, really. They had some good cooks and stuff like that. You know, it was okay, because there were, there were some times I think it would go half and half, because my friends, we'd eat there, and some of the ones, let's, we're just gonna go home. So we would just, we would just do that.

MB: What about your college experience?

VV: Oh, well, I was the first year, 1970, was when Pima College [started[. And it was good. It was, I went to the west side, but they were still getting stuff together. So I had some classes over on old Nogales Highway, south of Valencia, and one of the big hangers, I guess is what you would call it. They had, they had some classes set up there because they were still working on getting it finished. But no, it was really good. I really enjoyed it a lot. Some really good teachers and, and, no, it was really good. And I had gotten my first job at the US Attorney's office before I graduated, and so I was doing night school, plus, plus going, you know, to work. And that was hard, but I was glad I did it. But it was, yeah, the first year, 1970, for Pima College. But it was, it was good, you know, new college and and teachers were great. And, you know, a lot of lot of students, not just from Tucson, but from other places, you know, nearby, would come. There were some people from Nogales, Arizona that would come, and some from Tumacacori , you know, they're from the South there and, and I don't know Marana, I don't know if Marana was even established, but kids that came from other places besides in town, yeah. So it was, it was good, it was good experience. I was glad I went.

MB: Was it more general education, or did they also have some classes that you could use for your law career?

VV: Oh, yeah. No. They had, they had stuff for, yeah, because I was sort of in the legal secretary, like a program, kind of thing, yeah. So, it was good. It was. I learned a lot, but I learned a lot more having a job, an actual job, learned a lot, yeah, so, and it was a great career, great, you know, we had really, I was very fortunate to have really good bosses and judges and people that I met, a lot of attorneys and and I would go somewhere and see somebody I knew, and my brother would go, "who don't you know?" And I said, "well, when you work in this field and stuff, you know a lot of people", you know, court reporters, clerks, a lot of the sheriff's department, you know, I knew a lot of people, and working with the judge and stuff like that, I I got to know a lot of different people, and not just from Tucson, but, you know, attorneys from all over. So, yeah, it was really a great career. [I] really enjoyed it, and lot of good people and memories, yeah.

MB: Do you think what your parents did influenced your--

VV: Oh, I'm sure, yeah, they, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, you know. And it was just like my Dad says, I said, "well, this is just starting out", you know, "the college" and he goes, "well, try it, try it", you know, and, and no, they were always there to guide us, but it was always it's your choice. You know, it's your choice. They, they, you know it's like they say, you can, you can instruct them and teach them and stuff like that, but after that, you have to let them go and they make their own decisions.

MB: It sounds like you're really close with your parents.

VV: Oh, yeah, very, very, all of us. Yeah. I don't know if you see Alisha's picture up there, one at the end, and you know her daughter?

MB: No--

VV: That's her daughter. The little one in the front, yeah, that's Athena, yeah. But, well, like, the thing says, that they're family. [gestures to sign reading 'family'] I think my sister got that for me for Christmas. But yeah, everybody, and I'm surprised nobody's come over today, because they usually come over on the weekend, you know, just to come over, and, and my, my niece, Tanya, was here before. She brought me my mail from the house up there. And so she goes, What time is your interview? And I said, at one. And she she said, "oh, I've got to get going. I've got to stop here and here". I said, "okay". She goes, "tell Melissa hi". I said, "okay". She's a school monitor at Keeling, which is on Glen, just west of First Avenue. And so she, oh, she loves those kids. She's been doing it for God how long now, seven, eight years now, yeah. But the kids love her too. She's really good with them, yeah. But yeah, with everything that's going on with the government and everything like that. And they're, they're doing, taking away money and, you know, shutting down departments and just getting rid of people.

MB: What changes have you noticed with that over time?

VV: I'm sorry?

MB: What changes have you noticed with that over time, like in the Tucson area? Social support--

VV: I think it's, I think it's going to be getting worse with everything that's going on. It's just really, really sad, because the people that really need the help are the ones that are-- it's going to affect the most. And that's what's really, really sad, because it's, it's, if they don't have that help, what's going to happen? I mean, you know, and the homeless are, it's bad now, but what is it going to be like later? Because the funding and stuff and a lot of the grants and stuff like that, and, you know, I don't know if, I don't know if your thing is on a grant-- it is on a grant, yeah, because you need things like this, because if you don't, everything's lost, you know, if you don't have records of different things, they're gonna say, I don't remember that, there's no record of it. Oh, okay, you know, and that's not how it should be. You need to remember things you know and have a history, yeah.

MB: Did your mom bring any of her bookkeeping archival [skills]--

VV: Um, no--

MB: --back to the home?

VV: She was tough. She was an amazing... she, she kept records of everything, you know. She kept records of everything. It was just, if we wanted to know somebody's birth date, or when somebody died, or this or that, she knew everything. And she she would balance her, her books each month, and to the penny. [If] it was off two pennies, she would go back and look for everything, you know. How did I miss this? And she would guess what, in her, in her checking account and stuff like that, you know, I said, "Mom, you don't have to do it to the--" "Yes, I do", you know, but that's, that's how it was. You know, when you're a bookkeeper, you have to keep track of everything. But, you know, she was, she took care of, you know, family of 10. You know, it was amazing. I don't know, after everybody was leaving, you know, the house, after they grown up and stuff. Took her a long time to cook for just her and my dad. So she would make stuff, and then she go, she'd call and say, "come over and get some of this",you know, "your dad doesn't want to eat it for leftovers again", kind of thing. So she finally, you know, after a while, but you know, she didn't have she didn't need recipes. She knew exactly what to make for a family of ten, and my dad needed to have something for dessert. So she was a great baker and and we always, you know, had good meals and stuff. And she's, of course, the last one to sit down. You know, that's how it is with the mom.

MB: When you moved out, did you end up cooking anything that your mom made?

VV: Oh, yeah. Well, tacos. You know, we make tacos, and she would-- her being, her father was from Greece, and her mother was from Mexico. So living up in the, San Francisco, where they did, it was an Italian neighborhood, so my grandmother taught the ladies up their Mexican food recipes, and they taught her Italian. And so my mom would try all different kinds of food. We ate all different kinds of things, as long as my dad liked it. [coughs] One time she made liver. Dad didn't like it; we never had it again. Thank God. But we would, she'd [make] Italian, Mexican, Greek. We'd had all different like, we'd have artichokes, and I'd say it to a friend-- "artichokes, what's that?" A lot of them were meat and potato people, you know, so, but my mom had tried different things all the time, so we we had a good selection of different foods that, and then foods that would that you could make, that would be a lot, you know, kind of thing. And so whenever we would have desserts and stuff, there was anything left over, we'd get a a piece, put in the refrigerator, put it, have our name on it, make sure nobody else got it. Because that's how it was. Because it's just like you have to, you have to, you have to mark it. You'd have to mark it, yeah, but it was, sometimes we'd have a piece of cake or pie for breakfast, you know, in the morning, go to school, kind of thing, which is, you know, "that's okay, you know, that's what you want go for it", but we wanted to make sure we got it before somebody else did.

MB: Did you ever consider leaving Tucson, or was it, was family always a reason for you to stay?

VV: Yeah, no, and because of my work and stuff like that and my connections here, no, I just never, I don't think I ever did, because of my career here. You know, it really was-- and I never, I never did get married. I came a couple times, maybe close, but never did. But I was just, I think, from being the oldest and stuff like that, you know, you sort of feel like you've raised kids already. So I enjoy all my nieces and nephews. There's nine of them, and then, and then their kids, now too. So, yeah, so there's always something going on. Yeah.

MB: Tell me a little bit more about your career.

VV: Oh, gosh, just working in the courts. You know, for 30 years with I was a judicial assistant, worked for a judge, so keeping track of his calendar and all the correspondence and setting up stuff in court and stuff. And we'd have a courtroom clerk and a law clerk and a court reporter. It would be like the four of us and I was always in the office, and then the other ones would be going in and out of court and stuff like that, but I worked in criminal and civil and was at juvenile court for probably about three years, and the judge I was working for was appointed presiding judge of the whole court. So then we came back to Superior Courts from juvenile court, and that was more administrative stuff. He wasn't in court that much, which he really missed. He missed. He was just a really good judge, very good administrator, but a lot more administrative duties, you know, kind of thing and and he must have did that for about four years, but, no, very, I enjoyed it a lot, you know, and and then working at the US Attorney's Office too, that was my first job. And then I ended it seven years there, and then seven years, I had 14 years, and by 2019 I was ready, yeah, I was ready. So I thought, now I've done enough time, and it was right before COVID. So that was, yeah, that was, that was tough. And my brother that passed away, Greg was diagnosed with cancer that year in '19 when I retired. So I was able to, with my niece, his daughter, we were able to take him to chemo and do everything. And he was diagnosed the end of February, and passed in October. So I was glad I would had been retired so I was able to, you know, help out and stuff like that. But, yeah, I don't know how I worked all those years. I mean, you think. It was so nice when I retired, just being able to get used to not having to get up, get dressed, psych myself up, okay, and go on and during the week and stuff, being able to do things, go out and it's, it's, it was nice. It took me a little little bit, but not too long, once I got used to it. And now it's been, it's going to be six years now, yeah, it's going to be six years. April 1. My brother, Fred, who works at the post office, retired on the same day, same year that I did on April 1 so, and he had 30 some years there, I think, yeah. So it was, it was a good, good career. It's just, can't believe I worked that long, yeah, yeah. But it was something I enjoyed. I was very fortunate, because I just can't imagine people having a job that they just hate going to, yeah, and I know there's a lot like that. I understand that. So, [I] feel very blessed.

MB: Did you-- do you and your siblings have any, like, regular times you guys get together, or do they just filter through?

VV: Yeah, we, let's see, Easter is coming up so we and it's easier for everybody to come here than you know, and we've got room and stuff like that. But Thanksgiving, we had Thanksgiving here. [coughs] Excuse me. We were going the last five or six years to my brother Ted's, who lives on the other side of the Tucson Mountains, and he would have it over there. But this year, this past year, he was going to his in-laws in San Diego, so I thought, well, we could have it here. So everybody brought something. So at Christmas time too we-- and it was, this is how it was throughout the years. Was everybody did their Christmas Day on Christmas, and they would come here in the afternoon, and we'd have the tree, and, you know, everything. And we make tamales also, we would make tamales the week, usually the Monday before Christmas. And so, yeah, so we had Christmas here. So it's usually on the holidays and stuff like that, and sometimes on birthdays, sometimes on birthdays, we'll get together or meet at a restaurant.

MB: Have you changed the house much, since [your Mom passed]?

VV: Not really. It's a three bedroom, two bath. All that in the back, there's another bedroom, and then, like a storage room back there and a family room back there, that was added on, I think, in 1981. So, my grandfather, my mom's father, was a carpenter. He built bunk beds for us, and so we had bunk beds in the back bedroom. You can-- come over here, we'll-- can you bring it (the recorder)?

MB: Yeah.

VV: We had bunk beds that he built. So my, this, this [front bedroom] was where the boys slept. So we had bunk beds in here. And so there was two sets of bunk beds. And then-- you'll have to look these pictures afterwards-- and then this was where my sister, my, my sister and my younger sister, Mona, had-- so we had a bunk beds, and then another bed here, and my parents room with the other bathroom. So that's, this is the original house. [gestures to family picture board containing children's school photos and group photos of the family] And this board was pictures that my grandparents in San Francisco had. So these are all school pictures of all of us and my cousins. This is five of us here, my mom and my dad.

MB: Where are you on this?

VV: [points out girl in family photo in center of board] I'm right here.

MB: Are you anywhere else?

VV: Oh, yeah. [points to a girl's school photos] This is my whole row. See the top here. These are all of us, yeah. So this was a board that my grandfather made. So when my mom would send pictures, they would, they would put them up, yeah. And so there's some cousins here too. And this was my mom and her brother and two sisters there, yeah. So, so this is a lot of memories, yeah, let's see. I don't think there's any now, these are all older ones, so the younger, the grandkids are not on here. This is all just the ones from my grandparents. [gestures to plaque hanging on wall next to photo board] And this is an award for my dad from Social Security from '68 to '87. Yeah.

MB: Is that when he retired?

VV: Yeah, '87, yeah, because they did a lot of, they did a lot of traveling. And this is the, you know, they redid the kitchen and stuff like that. So this back room,the family room, all these pictures here are from my mom's memorial. [gestures to second family photo board] On the bottom, this is my mom and my dad, but these are all pictures that we had it at the service after my mom--at the reception and stuff. We just have left them here. We just, like my niece and my, my sister, put them all together so, they got them out of different books, and there's some behind you here. There are a lot of old pictures.

MB: [points to black and white photo of young woman] And that's your mom?

VV: Yeah, that's my mom, and there was a family, let's see if I can, this picture right down there. [points to photo of two young couples smiling] The guy and the woman there, they were in San Antonio when my mom and dad were there, and they shared a bathroom. There was a house that they were renting rooms from, and they would share the bathroom, and they would take turns cleaning the bathroom. One week would be my mom's, and the other ones would be Marilyn's. Well, they were from Cincinnati, Ohio, and they ended up having eight kids also. And so one year, my parents, I don't know how they did it. There's another bedroom and then a storage room there. One year, my brother Alex, was like a year old. So that was like 60 years ago. We went back to visit them in Cincinnati, Ohio, in a station wagon with eight kids. And they had eight kids. They had-- he owned an office supply store in Cincinnati. Really great people. And let's see, there was, I think they had four, four girls and four boys, so we stayed at their house, and they had cots in their family room--I mean, it was just, we had the best time with them. It was just really a great, great time. When my parents were very close with them. But what a trip to go. I remember seeing the, I don't know if it was the beginning of the St Louis Arch in St Louis, but you know, it was the summer time, so it was so hot, was so hot in the summer and stuff like that. But it was a really great trip. I mean, 16 kids, and then the parents, you know, it was just we went to a restaurant and and people were staring at us like we were from a bus or something like that. Here's all these kids coming in, but we had a really nice visit with all of them. It was, and they, they always still keep in touch with them, the kids and stuff. Both their parents are gone, and now mine. But yeah--all-- after all these years, you know, they kept in touch. It was a good friendship. Really nice friendship.

MB: Was there anyone you were particularly close with?

VV: Yeah, well, their daughter, Susan, we were the same age. She was born-- I was born in June, in San Antonio, and she was born in September, yeah. So we were the same age, so we kept in touch, and she passed away in a fire. Oh God, a number of years ago, but still. And then they just lost-- one of the brothers passed away recently. Last year, yeah, I think last year he had cancer, yeah, so, but yeah, so we still keep in touch, you know, Christmas cards and stuff like that. So, yeah, they came down to visit us too, when all their kids one year, and they thought there's just gonna be cowboys and sand around. They were shocked to see palm trees. You know, it was just like, well, you don't, you just don't have an image. You just have your own images of what it's going to be looking like. But they had so much fun. It was really, really fun having them here too. They stayed at a at a motel on Miracle Mile. They had about three or four rooms they got so because we didn't have room here for them, but yeah, it was good. It was a really nice friendship all those years.

MB: When was that trip out here? How old were you, do you remember?

VV: I'm trying to think... it was after we went there. So it might have been maybe about five years after we went to visit them. Yeah, so let's see my brother, Alex, is just a year old, six? God, we I was in high school, I'm pretty sure when they came down, yeah. So it was a summertime trip too for them. So yeah.

MB: That might have been an adjustment for them, too, the summer here.

VV: Oh gosh, yeah, we were in the pool a lot and stuff. But they enjoyed it because no humidity like back in Ohio. So what else Melissa, can you think of anything else?

MB: [laughs] I'm trying to go through the different stages a bit.

VV: Yeah, I know. Sorry?

MB: Are there any from your-- maybe, between young adult and now, any memories that particularly stand out about living here?

VV: Living here? Let's see. Well, I still know people on the next street that I went to high school with. A mom still lives there. She's one of the originals. And then the corner house, they grew up there, and once the parents passed, one of the daughters and her husband bought the house, so they lived there. So, you know, it's sort of nice to have that connection. And maybe we did things on the house and stuff like that. But the lady that still lives over there, she goes, "my kids want me to move. I'm never moving". She goes, "I'm going to die here". And I said, "that's fine", you know. She goes, "I love my house", you know. But her kids come and her grandkids come and, you know, so, but no, it was just, it's still, still a good place to live. You know, it's different. It's, it's, I know, like a lot of the people, like the guy down on the on the end there, his parents own that house, so him and his granddaughter lived there, but all the other people you know have sold, and there's different people that move in and stuff like that, the people across the street, the grandmother used to live there, and then she, I think, when she died, she gave the house to her daughter, So the daughter still lives there. So I've watched the kids grow up. The two sons, you know, go to school, graduating. I think the youngest son is graduating from the U of A and the other one's going to law school. He's in Notre Dame. So when watching different kids, you know, grow up and stuff like that, that's been sort of nice. And, you know, waving. And there's some, a couple of people that live on the next block, Kilburn, that they walk in the morning. So, you know, you wave and stuff. So it's, you know, that kind of connection with people is good.

MB: So it's stayed, pretty much, over time, that neighborly, connected feeling.

VV: Yeah, yeah, it still is, you know, people, there are still good people, which is nice, but yeah, it is still, you know, and I guess it depends on what neighborhood you live in and stuff like that, yeah, but yeah, it's still, it's still, you know, home and you have a lot of memories and stuff like that from it.

MB: How long did you not live in the neighborhood?

VV: I think I left after... I'm trying to think, after I... I'm trying to remember... I think after I got my job at the US Attorney's Office, and I moved in with a couple girls that had gone to high school with an apartment, you know, we were roommates and stuff like that. And that was the first time I had my own room, you know, because I always shared, yeah, it was just like, oh my gosh, my own room, wow! Yeah, but, yes, I must have been about 19, 20 I think, and, and then after that, you know, my two of my brothers were merchant seamen, so they were in and out a lot. But yeah, so after that, it was, you know, people would move on, kind of thing. And there were less people here. So my sister got her own room, you know, kind of thing. And my sister Rebecca, got married, so she was gone. So it was, you know, different changes in the family, the dynamics and stuff, yeah.

MB: And then you moved back in for your mom, for your dad?

VV: I'm sorry?

MB: Did you move back in for your mom, to help [her]?

VV: Oh, I moved back in when my dad died in '13, yeah. So I was, you know, on my own, the house that we have up on Twin Peaks we bought in 1987, so, and then I lived in apartments and stuff like that, but I was always here in town.

MB: Is there anything else about the neighborhood or Tucson in general and your relationship with it that you'd like to share?

VV: I just... somebody's just pulling up. No, it's always like, I've got friends and stuff up in Phoenix, and I'll go visit them, but I could never live, you know, I love Tucson. You know, it's, and the desert's so beautiful compared to everywhere else, and all the mountains and everything around us kind of thing. And the people are different. Because I remember when I worked at Pima County Superior Court. We'd get attorneys from Maricopa County, and I'd have to call them and say, "well, you're gonna, the judge wants to set this hearing up", and they'd go, "well, can't we do it by phone?" and they'd say, "no, well, we don't do that Maricopa County." I said, "you're not Maricopa County. You're in Pima County, and this is what the judge wants. So you have to come down", you know? So we would get, we would laugh, sort of laugh about that. It was just like, [we'd] have different ways of doing different things in different places and stuff like that. But, yeah, for the judge to order them to come down all the way from Phoenix, you know, for a hearing. You know, this was, this was before they could do it by, you know, video and all that other thing. But yeah, so, you know, in Phoenix and all the town surrounding it. It's just such a big it just, doesn't seem as, I shouldn't say, friendly, but more, you know, I don't know, being smaller, I guess. You know, people from Phoenix say, "Oh God, you have no freeways here." We don't want any more freeways, kind of thing. You know, you need them up there, maybe, but it's just, so it's just day and night kind of, yeah. So.

MB: How do you feel about the interview?

VV: Good. Yeah, yeah. It's been, it's been really good, and you'll have to let me know if you have any questions or anything. Yeah, you know, after you when you go through it, let me know. But no, it's been good. I've enjoyed it.

MB: Is there anything else you'd like to share?

VV: I can't think of anything right now.

MB: We might have to do a follow up later.

VV: Yeah, exactly, yeah, exactly.

Melissa Berry: So, this is Melissa Berry interviewing Billy Powe. Billy, could you please state your name and spell it for us?

Billy Powe: My name is Billy Powe, B, I, L, L, Y, P, O, W, E.

MB: Thank you. So, what is fastpitch softball?

BP: For me, it was my life, for 30 years. I started playing when I was 17, retired in '08, 2008, retired in Prescott. I was the coach slash manager, um, player... but, it meant...fastpitch was, was everything to me. It was my life. I made a lot of friends, my family, everybody I grew up with, [we went] camping...shoot. I can't even explain it, what they meant to me, the Hawks.

MB: Can you give us a little bit of an overview of the Hawks?

BP: Hawks was started in 1958 by my grandfather, Alex Romero. He did it to get the, get all the kids off the street. My dad started playing when he was 17-- 16 or 17. My dad started playing in '58; he retired after 30 years. He decided time was, time was enough. My grandfather started it. My uncle coached it. My aunt, Anita was, she was the manager/ owner.

BP: We used to call her little Steinbrenner. If you don't know, if you don't know who George Steinbrenner was, he was very strict. He's the owner, was the owner of the New York Yankees, but he was very, very strict. So we used to call her little Steinbrenner. But that was my aunt. We butted heads many, many times. But, um, the Hawks were started... my grandfather passed away in '86, and he just wanted the Hawks to continue. That was his, his wish. My aunt continued it. You know, things happen. People pass away, generations. We started another team with the younger kids called Hawks 2. So there was an old team with all the with the all the fathers, and a younger team with the younger ones. I actually stayed with the older ones for a few years before I went down to the the younger ones. When they retired, we became the Hawks. There was no more Hawks 1, Hawks 2.

BP: I, I promised my aunt that I would get us to 50 years, so, and I made that promise, maybe at 40 years, I think I promised her that I would get her to, to 50 and I had to self, self taught-- I was pitcher. I had to teach myself how to pitch, which was very challenging. I practiced. A lot of times back here in the backyard, I learned how to pitch in the backyard, but I did. We did get to 50, and we retired. A lot of pain, lot of pain in learning how to pitch and a lot of soreness.

MB: Elaborate on that a little bit.

BP: I mean, just learning how to pitch. I mean, I'm not a small guy. I'm a pretty big guy.Back then, it was illegal to jump off the mound, to hop off the mound, but everybody was doing it. So I said, well, I got to do it. You get a little bit of an advantage. So I used to hop off the mountain about this far, but hopping and all that weight landing on one leg for so many pitches, for every time, yeah, got rough on the knees, got rough on the back. But, yeah, I mean, I wouldn't change any, any part of it.

MB: How old were you when the team retired in 2008?

BP: It was, I was born in '71 so 30...37, 38 years old.

MB: And you played practically your whole life?

BP: I played, yeah, I played for... man. We traveled so much. We played in New Mexico,El Paso... let me see. El Paso, Las Cruces, Socorro, Albuquerque, Hastings, we went to Hastings, Nebraska, twice, Aurora, Denver, Colorado, LA and then all of Arizona, with Phoenix, Tucson, Prescott, Show Low, I mean--

Josie Powe: Desert Blaze.

BP: Yeah, my dad played in Desert Blaze. It was a really a desert and there was nothing. Still, I think there's houses there now, I don't even know what's over there now, but actually, there's some videos. We have some videos of that, but-- of Desert Blaze, but--

JP: Desert Blaze was, uh--

BP: There's just a lot.

JP: It was an empty, dusty lot.

Connie Seras: The dust, dirt was this deep. [laughs]

BP: They used to have horse races there. That's all, that's what I remember. Desert Blaze. [background chatter] I don't, I was too young for softball, but I remember the match races, they used to have match races at Desert Blaze.

JP: There was like a market place right next to it, everything like that. And that's how he [Billy Sr.] also said, come on down. Kids, the boys, you know, there's room over here, you can play over here.

MB: Did you have to, um, do competitions to place in anything to go on these, all these different tournaments, and...?

BP: Yeah, I mean, they were, they were tournaments, so most of them were just entry fee to go play, but you didn't want to go all that way just to play two games. So you didn't go with the, you didn't want to be a bad team, because most of them were double elimination. You lose two, you're out. So you didn't want to have to travel and then only play two games. So you had to be, like-- everyone was invited, except for nationals, and then, nationals, you had to earn your way. But like these other tournaments, it was like, you just pay your entry fee and you could go play. But like I said, we started traveling. We became one of the better teams, and we would travel and go compete, and like I said, we've won-- the Hawks, in general, won over 100 trophies. I don't know--

John Moreno: I've seen them, yeah.

JP: Oh, did you see them?

JM: Yeah, I've seen them.

BP: Yeah, we have over 100 trophies, but that's in... baseball, they started in baseball, there's baseball trophies. There's football trophies, flag football, flag football, baseball, softball, slowpitch softball, basketball. And actually, a few years ago, or not a few years ago, we won a volleyball tournament. So we were called the Hawks. We were co-ed volleyball. We signed up and we won a co-ed volleyball. So we have a co-ed volleyball [trophy]. So. I don't think there's any soccer, no soccer,no tennis, no soccer, but yeah, at least there was six sports that they've won trophies, that the name the Hawks won trophies.

JP: Have you been to Anita's house?

JM: Yes.

JP: To see all the trophies.

JM: I've seen them. I've taken photos of them. There's, like, over 300 trophies there of the Hawks.

BP: And she, my aunt, Anita, used to say she, she changed her mind recently, but she had picked out, like, four trophies that she wanted to be buried with.

JM: Really?

BP: Yeah.

MB: Which ones did she choose?

BP: I do not know, but she did choose four. But she changed her mind as far as she's gonna be cremated now, but, yeah, but she had she-- I said, well, we could still burn the trophies.

MB: [laughs]

BP: You haven't seen the trophies?

MB: No, not yet.

JP: And she was the statistician of the team, you know.

BP: No, yeah, she kept all her stats.

JP: You know, the home runs--

BP: Scorekeeper stats.

JP: How many, you know, you hit this season and all of that. She just did all of that.

BP: We had a, I was just telling them, there was an initiate-- initiation to become a Hawk.

JM: Really?

BP: And... this is the way they thought-- my dad and them. To become a Hawk, they would give you a speech. You know, this is what it meant to be a Hawk, you know, family, friends and, you know. Anita used to have a swimming pool in the backyard. So the first thing they would do is the guy that was being initiated, they would ask him to come and sit, and he had to kneel in front of my, my grandfather. Now, it's a big party. Everyone's drinking, having a good time, so they had to, they had to kneel. And they gave the whole speech of what it meant to be a Hawk and everything. He had a big ring. So what he would do is you had to kiss the ring. He would blind-- they, they'd blindfold them. He'd be blindfolded after-- he had to kiss the ring. So when the guy's kissing the ring, my grandfather had very hairy knuckles,

JP: [laughs]

JM: [laughs]

BP: So, intention-- and I know this because my dad, when my grandfather passed away, my dad became the one that you had to kiss it from. So he used to tell me he would purposely let you feel the hair and stuff. So when they were telling them, and they were saying, okay, now, you're you're a Hawk and this and that. So what they would do after, you know, they would kiss the ring, they would be giving the final, okay, now you are a Hawk, a Hawk, they'll do is they would take off their shoe and put the ring on their big toe. They'd be like this, right, right in front of us, and be looking like, looking like they kiss the ring off the big toe.

BP: So then they would-- like that, so that they would baptize them, and they would pick them up and throw them into the swimming pool with-- all, all full of clothes and everything. So that's what they, that's what they would do to the males. So if they had a wife/ girlfriend, what they would do is that she'd have to put on a skirt. And it was, it wasn't like a short skirt, but it was a skirt. And they would lay an ironing board down, and what she had to do, she's blindfolded, they would put water bottles or beer, I think it was beer back then-- we'll say water bottles--

JP: [laughs]

JM: [laughs]

BP: Water, water glasses. And she had to-- straddling the ironing board without, without knocking any the water so, you know, she'd go across like that. And when she would get to the end, they start telling her, you too have, you know, you're a Hawkette and stuff. But what they would do is, my dad, or my, my godfather would lay down on the board after she would pass--

JP: Oh, yeah!

BP: So it looked like they walked--

MB: [laughs]

BP: --right, like they strattled, like they straddled him with the skirt on. That, that's how they initiated her, and that's how they became a Hawkette.

JM: [laughs]

BP: [laughs]

BP: And they just did a lot of things like that, a lot of pranks, you know, like I said, the Hawks were family. They were a softball team, but, I mean, they were a team, I shouldn't say softball, because they played so many sports, but they were a family.

BP: Frank Borquez, he's our-- his dad played on a different team. His mom was my cousin, Margot, but his dad played on another team called Vida, and when we would play him, he would come and sit in our dugout, and he used to tell us, I'm going to be a Hawk. Your dad plays on the other team! I don't care, I'm going to be a Hawk. And he was, he used to be our bat boy.

MB: Were these other families, or family friends [that you usually played]?

BP: His, his mom was my cousin.

MB: Oh, okay, and sometimes you guys played each other.

BP: Yeah, yeah. We had so many, like I said, we knew everybody. We know all the teams and players would break off from us, you know, go, start their own team. We had- our, one of our biggest rivals became, you know, because a couple of our players left and they started their own team. So they became our rivals. They're our rivals. They were called the Hurricanes. And actually, well, my best friend, he's the one that started the other team.

JM: Billy, do you have any stories of the Hawks when you were playing at Santa Rita Park that stands out in your mind? [Maybe] just the crowds or the families that come [to mind]?

BP: Yeah, oh, yeah. So my, like, I said they were, they were known. The Hawks were known. And my, my godfather, was, you know, one of the main Hawks. He was a pitcher, just to let you know. So they, I was a kid, and he used to tell me, go find me a bottle cap. I'm like, a bottle cap? Okay. Let's go find one-- because he used to scuff the ball. He was a pitcher-- which is illegal, but anyways, that's how it started. So that's-- get any, every advantage you can get. But anyways, he got-- one of the umpires, he didn't like the ball. He hated the ball that they were using. Yeah, so he wanted another ball, and the umpire wouldn't give it to him because he said, there's nothing wrong with that ball. And he was like, I want another ball. And the umpire wouldn't do it. So he turned around and threw it into Third Avenue from the pitchers-- but he threw it over the fence. He goes, now I need another ball. Well, obviously, we got thrown out of the game.

BP: If if you didn't like the Hawks, you at least respected them, especially the older ones, because they used to go... with... not the umpires, I don't know if [they] liked them or not, or what, but yeah, if you didn't, you didn't have to like them, but at least you respected them because of what they, they stood for what they meant.

JM: They sound, they sound very passionate.

JP: Oh, yeah.

BP: They're all very competitive, like I said, even to the poker games later on in life, man, they would make-- making fun of everybody, beating them in poker, and stuff like that.

BP: I mean, I as far as, I mean, I there's just, I don't know if there's a lot of stories. I mean, the ones that stand out, there's one that I tell everybody, but I don't know if I can-- can't tell you guys what really happened. But I was a, uh--

MB: A redacted version.

BP: Yeah, PG version. We had a guy named, actually, Paul Rosthenhausler, my best friend, his, his dad, played, and I was just starting, so I was like 17, 18, and we were at, we were at Santa Rita, and it was a close game or something, and he was very vocal. [He] didn't use proper language, but he would be cussing at the umpires. I was, I was the next batter coming up, and it was a close game. There was a play at the plate. I think he called him out, but he started arguing. I was the next batter and I was coming up, and they're arguing, arguing. I'm standing up there, like I said, I'm a kid, I'm 17. Well, not a kid, but I'm 17. And the umpire tells him, one more word out of you, and this game is over. You guys forfeit. Well, I won't tell you what he said, but-- pretty bad. I just remember him saying that. I just turned around and said, well, we lost.

MB: [laughs]

BP: [laughs]

BP: I tell everybody that story a lot, but I actually broke my wrist at Santa Rita.

JM: Really?

BP: Oh, yeah. So, I had pins, sliding at home. I was, I was sliding at home. And you know what-- the batters, when they dig in, I hit one of the holes.

JM: Oh.

BP: Broke my--

MB: Ugh.

BP: Hit one of the triangles. I didn't get a cast. I had two pins. I had four pins, two up here, two down here. Not a bar like that, because what they had to do was-- it [was] considered shattered, but it was three pieces, and they had to tighten it with an Allen wrench to squeeze, squeeze it together, but.

MB: Did you feel it immediately?

BP: She said I was in shock, but, um. She was a nurse. She's a nurse, or was a-- a retired nurse. So when I broke it, my dad was actually sitting right there. She was in the, in the snack bar.

JP: [laughs]

BP: And she was working the snack bar at Santa Rita Park, and I broke it, and I knew I broke it, and I was like this. And I looked at my dad, I said, I broke my wrist. I said, he was like, what? I said, I broke my wrist. I said, got the--I broke it. And I'm walking, and I go through a dugout. I take my helmet off, the whole time, I'm like this. And my dad, if you don't know my dad, it's like, let me see it. That's it. I broke it. I said, I know. Couldn't-- he kept insisting, he goes, let me see it. And I go, Dad-- goddamn it, let me see your wrist!

JM: [laughs]

BP: And I'm like, because I'm saying, go get Mom. I said, go get Mom. So when I let it go like this, it just went--

MB: Oh!

BP: I'm like, see, I told you! And then that's when all the pain hit, and I picked it up, I pick it up, and that's when I was all-- and she's going, and, you know, softball was, it's a beer drinking league, so my, my team's bringing me beers and stuff. I'm sitting in the car and I'm drinking the beers--

MB: [laughs]

BP: --and we get, we're going to the hospital. We go to St Mary's. She's, I swear, man, I think she was hitting every single speed bump possible at full speed.

JM: [laughs]

JP: [laughs]

BP: But then she looked at me, and I remember her looking at me and saying, are you in shock? Because I wasn't--

JP: Yeah.

BP: I was just like this. And she asked me, are you in shock? And I'm like, I don't know. I said, I just know I broke my wrist. I mean, I can't remember exactly what I said, what she was saying, but yeah, I did break my wrist. And then that's when she told me, she never knew how much I cussed until I came out of surgery, and then I was still under the anesthesia. And then she said, I looked at it, and I was like, what the and then she said, I went back out, and, like, a minute later, I woke up again. I was like, using the F word a lot. She said, I don't remember any of that. She said, I never know how much you cussed! But, yeah.

BP: Santa Rita, also, I used to throw slow pitch tournaments because we were, we were we didn't have a sponsor, because we were family. All these other teams had sponsors, we didn't have a sponsor. So we, we'd have to pay out of our own pocket. But I started throwing fundraisers. I started throwing slow pitch tournaments at Santa Rita Park. So that helped us with all the money, especially when we decided to go to Nationals. I actually did get a partial sponsor, but, uh, but we just, we threw golf tournaments, but it started off with slowpitch tournaments. Always, we always had slowpitch tournaments at Santa Rita Park, and I would start on Friday night, all day, Saturday and through, halfway through, Sunday would be championship. So, and we would earn, you know, 5000 or whatever, which would get us for enough for the season. And back then, 5000 was a lot, in the, the '90s.Yeah, we'd all do all that.

MB: So you were the coordinator.

BP: Yeah, I ran... I did everything for the Hawks, like I said, everything from recruiting new players. The only thing I didn't do was keep score, because that was Nita. Anita kept score.

JP: My sister.

BP: She was the, the uniforms I didn't have, really no say. She would pick the colors and whatever we would get on uniforms, because I never cared about anything like that.

JP: They were red.

BP: Like I said, we used, but we went, we butted heads a lot, so, because she wanted it her way and I wanted it my way, and we were both stubborn, but, yeah, but, yeah no, Santa Rita did provide us fields for slow pitch tournaments, a lot of slowpitch tournaments. Like every year we would throw one to get us our money. And then I went to golf tournaments. I switched to golf tournaments.

MB: Do you have anything else about the park and your experiences with the park?

BP: If I think of anything, I'll let you know.

MB: Yeah, maybe you'll jump in during Josie's.

Melissa Berry: This is Melissa Berry and John Moreno interviewing Juan Soto. Juan, could you please state and spell your name for us?

Juan Soto: My name is Juan Soto, J, U, A, N, S, O, T, O. My brother started playing on the team. His name is Frank. Everybody knew him as Tarzan. That was his nickname, and he started playing on the team roughly, maybe 1965 and I think the Hawks originated in '58. My brother joined in '65-- he went in fresh out of high school, and I was in fifth grade, sixth grade, and I kind of became the bat boy, because he take me to the games all the time. So, you know, I'm hanging around and so on. And by the time I turned 15, they had-- the city had-- a rule that you cannot play men's softball until you were minimum 15 years old. So as soon as I turned 15, they put me on the roster, and so I started playing with the Hawks, and I stayed playing fast pitch till the age of 45 with the Hawks.

John Moreno: Can I ask a question? Did you play Little League before that?

JS: I did play Little League. Matter of fact, here at Rodeo Park, we live right down the street here, and my mom... let me remember, we walked to the park when they're doing the groundbreaking ceremonies for Rodeo Park, which is now Rudy Garcia Park, yeah, it used to be Joe Garagiola Park, right? But everybody calls it Rodeo still. But I was actually there for the ground-- groundbreaking ceremonies, and they were going to start a new Little League called the American Little League. And so, yeah, I was there at the very, very first year of Little League. Wow.

JM: Wow, so you had some ball experience here.

JS: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that was, again, around '64, '65. Yeah. So I played with the Hawks until, you know, I was a youngest for many years, and then I became the oldest for many years, and I started playing when I-- it was, some of these guys I was playing with, eventually I'm playing with their sons, because we started getting now another generation of Hawks from the same families, you know, and, and so the Hawks continued to play after I'd retired from fastpitch, and I had to wait five years before I could start playing Senior League. Because [in] Senior you have to be 50 years old. So between 45 and 50, you know, I played some ball here and ball games here and there, but I didn't get into another league, and the team I got into were the Hawks, because now we had a Senior League team and fastpitch team.

JS: So the Senior League is slowpitch right? So we had fastpitch Hawks and slowpitch Hawks. So I started with the slowpitch Hawks when I was 50, and I am now 71 so I've been with them for 21 years. So if you add, what is it, 35 and 21 or whatever, I have about 50 years playing with the Hawks and, and, I was going to start off as saying, because you can tell a lot of this is obvious. How important has that experience been to me? And I'll tell you, it made me very much the man I am today. That's how important it is. Yeah. So right now, we changed our name a few years ago to the Gavilanes, which means Hawks, okay? So our slowpitch, we call-- and the reason we retired the name Hawks is because when the fastpitch team finally retired, they stopped having fastpitch, we decided, instead of being called the Hawks, to honor the fastpitch retirement, we changed our name to Gavilanes. A gavilan is a hawk, and so our shirt says Gavilanes. Right now, combined, we are in year 67 of the softball team, you figure for, from 1958 to 2025, non stop.

MB: Was it ever a decision for you to continue playing, or was it just part of your life already, you didn't even think of it?

JS: Well, I wanted to keep playing. I loved it, you know. And I'll tell you, yesterday, I was having lunch with uh, not--.he didn't play with the Hawkss, but he played a lot of fastpitch, and, and I said-- he stopped many years ago-- and I said, do you still-- Charlie. Charlie, do you still, when you drive up 22nd and you take a peek, do you take kind of, kind of like, a little extra long look at the softball field, and do you reminisce a little bit as you drive by? I do, right? Because, yeah, you know. So, I think that's a lot of us, you know, because it was so important to us, and some of the best memories in our life, the commarad-- camaraderie, you know, somebody becoming family, but like, good friends, yeah, with teams-- other teams, you know, not just our team. But, the friendships-- it was so, so vital to my life. And so, yeah, I drive by and I take that extra long look, and, and, yeah, there's that reminiscing. And I'm sure there's many of us that do the same thing, you know. So I asked Charlie yesterday, he says, yeah, he does, yep. Lot of memories. So, you know.

JM: Excuse me for interrupting, do you-- did you play a majority of your games at Santa Rita, or did you play like a mixture of--

JS: Well--

JM: Rodeo Park?

JS: We worked our way up to Santa Rita.

JM: Okay.

JS: Okay, when the Hawks started, we were not playing double A, triple A ball.

JM: Oh, okay.

JS: Okay, so we might have played a season at Freedom or a season at Jacobs field, whatever, but you had to earn your right to be at those higher levels. And so we eventually got to Santa Rita field number one. You know, Santa Rita was a goal for all teams. That's kind of, you made it as a skilled, really highly skilled team.

JM: They won't let you play there unless you qualify.

JS: Exactly. Yeah, 'cause the city made the schedules out, you know. And I will tell you, our team-- oh, my god, we would end up, sometimes, 28 and 0 for the season, 27 and 0 for the season, 29 and 0 for the season.

JM: Really?

JS: Yes. You know, and you know, we're all, mostly all blue color and everything. We didn't know a lot or didn't have the money, because we all just sponsored ourselves. We never had an organization sponsor us. One year, one year T & T market in South Tucson, one year, because they bought us shirts and put T & T market on the back. I think that's the only year, yeah.

JS: So, so in 1980, during the Ted Kennedy campaign, that's when Cesar Chavez came into town. Yes, and interesting enough-- check, check this out. So again, he was going to do a news conference with Robert Kennedy Jr, here in town on-- I don't remember if it was a Saturday or Sunday afternoon.

JM: Oh, Ted Kennedy.

JS: Yeah, Ted, for Ted Kennedy, 1980 presidential campaign, and the night before Cesar Chavez-- yes, it was a Sunday because I remember it was Saturday [that] I was playing ball at field number one. I was playing a softball tournament, okay? And Lorraine Lee and Alonzo Morado-- good friends of mine-- that were, they were helping coordinate set of Chavez's speech at El Rio Neighborhood Center that Saturday night, okay? And-- but I was playing ball, you know, I wasn't gonna go there 'til later, but they showed up and-- to tell me, Johnny, we need a sound system because the city provided us a little shitty little thing, and no one's going to be able to hear Cesar speak, because-- I'm also a musician, so I'm in a band, and I had a lot of sound equipment. And I said, okay, well, soon the game's over, I'm gonna go home, shower, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, I went and got my sound system, took it to El Rio Neighborhood Center and set it all up. So, so Cesar could have,-- really blast out his voice, because the city wasn't doing him any justice. So.

JS: You know, when you go back and look at Santa Rita Park and-- field number one, again, I'm talking about field number one, where the men played. There used to be bushes on the outside, all around the outside of fence. There used to be vines on the fence back there. You know, it just the aesthetic was just beautiful. But some of the drawbacks, though, the light poles used to be wooden, and the one in center field was inside of the fence, not outside of the fence. And I can tell you, because I ran for a fly ball once and ran into a pole. But people-- you know, it was disturbing because you had a light pole in an inside, in, on the field--

JM: Right.

JS: --before they did the correct thing. Oh, yeah. I mean, you know, it wasn't--

JM: Dangerous.

JS: --a bunch, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so, so, but we started playing out there, and all the, all the lights were wooden poles, and with the lighting, yeah, but the caliber of play, jeez, one zero games are the best in fastpitch. Pitchers dominate it. Okay, so guys that play slowpitch and never play fastpitch don't understand this. There's a lot of guys that couldn't play or or didn't play fastpitch, so they started playing like Senior League slow pitch. And you know, they do fine and do well. But you know, they think this, 15 to 12 game is great, or 20 to 21. Nothing beats a one zero game, where every pitch has a lot of meaning, yep. And those were a lot of the games we had one zero, two to one, three to two- fantastic, exciting games, man. Imagine when we're playing fastpitch. Okay, how fast you have to think from release, do I swing or don't I swing? It's that quick process. You got to be able to see the ball's braking, if it's going to go down, if it's going to go up, it's going to go out, going to go in, if it's going to be a straight, hardball. I mean, all of those is what you need to consider. So as a ball player, you think about, okay, this pitcher-- to give you an example, I knew a pitcher that all he threw was fastballs and change-ups. He was good, yeah, but that's all he threw. So for me, it would be, okay, I'm gonna, I'm not gonna-- even gonna wait for a change-up. I'm gonna be expecting a fastball every time. That way, it's easier to make an adjustment from a fastball to a slowpitch than a slowpitch to a fastpitch, you know? So you have this kind of mentality that you have to think as a batter, knowing what the idiosyncrasies of the pitchers are, you know, and pick up anything you can pick up that might give you an indicator of what he's going to throw, you know, because sometimes, some pitchers give it away.

JS: And the catcher, they know, they get to know the players, what their weaknesses are, strengths, and that's what-- they're giving signals.

JS: Or you can even see the way the batter stands, and you, the way you see a batter stand-- and that's even, right now, in slowpitch, you pitch to the batter, okay? So if a batter is standing far away, then you're gonna try to hit the outside corner. If he's crouching the plate, you're gonna try to hit the inside corner, you know? So you make your adjustments according to the batter, of where his feet are, and so on. So, so-- cause I'm pitching now too, so.

JM: Oh, you are.

JS: Yeah.

JM: Woah.

JS: [laughs]

JS: So--

JM: Did, did you take a while to get in, to do it? I mean--

JS: You know, I never, I never pitched-- I was always an outfielder, okay, but going into now, I'm going into my 70s, I said, okay, longevity wise, if I want to keep on playing, I need to move to the infield, because the legs are only going to hold out so long in the outfield, you know, you need young blood up there, you know, so on. So I said, okay, I'm going to move to the infield. So, I started playing with teams that will let me play third base, second base, first base. Then my team needed a pitcher, and I practiced at home-- well, I went to the park, put a mat and bucket of balls and practiced. I think I can do this! So, I told the guys, I'm going to give it a try, and it's worked out. So, I'm the main pitcher for the Hawks now.

JM: Wow.

JS: Yeah.

JM: How many innings you play?

JS: Seven.

JM: And you pitch the whole--

JS: Yeah.

JM: --game?

JS: Yeah.

JM: That's very... how's your record?

JS: I got a winning record. Yeah, yeah, I'm something like six and two, maybe?

JM: Wow.

JS: Something like that.

JM: That's awesome.

JS: Yeah.

JS: [laughs[

JM: Would you guys have, have barbecues like you used to do?

JS: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

JM: At Santa Rita Park, I haven't seen it in a long time.

JS: Not as much.

JM: Yeah.

JS: You know. But yes, team still have barbecues and cookouts and so on.

JS: But Santa, oh, Santa Rita, it was great, but-- we had a lot of shade out there too.

JM: Yeah? So, maybe you could go a little bit about the inner-workings of the Hawks and the tournaments and how you guys recruited players.

JS: Yeah.

JM: And how, you know, the structure was and everything and how-- so, one of the things I was interested in, too, is how you, you pass it down from generation to generation? Because obviously it's been about four, five, ten-

JS: Yeah, I wil tell you, our first baseman right now is-- Alejandro Romero, who started the team, it's his grandson.

JM: Yeah, oh yeah, that's right.

JS: [laughs]

JM: Billy [Powe] told us that.

JS: Yeah, it's his grandson. He's playing with us, yeah. And, you know, for me, my older brother, you know, now it's me. But the way it started, you know, Alejandro, you know, they're living there in the Southside, and the kids are running in the streets and playing ball in the streets and, and he decided, you know, you want to do something a little more formal for these kids, you know, get them off the street, maybe get them into parks. And so he, you know, he had a son, George, who was a pitcher. Then he had an older son, Bobby, [who] didn't really play, but-- to help manage their-- manage them, and then Billy was dating their sister, Josie. And then, you know, that-- they had friends, you know, and to-- they, they put a team together. They started, actually-- Oury Park, they had something called the Orphan League. Okay, yeah, at Oury Park, and the guy, David Herrera and Chino Quiroz were running the league. The-- Oury Park's named after them now-- or dedicated to them. You see the sign at Oury.

JM: Where is that park?

JS: I-10 and St Mary's.

JM: Okay.

JS: Next to Davis Elementary. Yeah, they had something called an Orphan League, and I got to play a little bit there on Sundays too, as, as the city was organizing city softball and so on. But they had, they had the Orphan League there. And-- anyway, he-- so, they got the players together. And it wasn't only softball. They also played city baseball, okay?

JM: Hardball.

JS: Hardball too. And so they got enough guys in the team where sometimes you had a baseball game and a softball game on the same night. So they would split the team, half the team would go play baseball, and half the team would go play softball.

JM: Oh, wow.

JS: [laughs]

JS: Yeah, but softball was the main thing that was, that was the love, because the city also used to have flag football, and that one stopped because of too many fights.

JM: Oh.

JS: [laughs]

JS: Yeah, yeah. So when-- when you go to Anita's house and you see that living room with her 150 trophies, or something--

JM: Like 300.

JS: You know, yeah, something like-- well, there's a couple of football trophies in there too. Yeah, there's a couple of volleyball trophies because they got in with some of the women to do co-ed volleyball tournaments, and won a couple of trophies in co-ed volleyball, and there's some baseball and there's some basketball, because we had two basketball teams. We had hawks number one and hawks number two, yeah, we had two basketball teams. I played in Hawks Number 2. Hawks Number 1 were at the higher level, you know, but we, we played men's basketball steadily for quite a few years, and we had two teams for that also.

JM: Wow.

JS: Yeah, so a lot of athlet-- athletes, you know, but not the same guys. We had some guys only played basketball. We had some guys, only played softball, right.

JM: And you did it all.

JS: I did voll--

JM: You said--

JS: I did volleyball too. I think-- I didn't do football, that was before my time. But of course, softball was the main--

JM: Yeah.

JS: By far, by far. So, you know, you will, you recruit friends, you know, to get together, and then you're looking for guys that can play certain positions. You know, it's like and even-- even today, still, you know, you need a third baseman, so you're going to look for someone that does play third base, or can play third base, yeah, yeah. So you feel those specific needs when you play in the league, you know, it's fun and you know you're competitive and so on, so on. But when you get into a tournament, if you still have that spirit in you, okay, you raise your level. It's like-- dive for a ball, when on a regular game, you probably wouldn't, but in the tournament, you will dive for a ball. You raise your level, yeah, you know.

JM: Play harder.

JS: Play harder, yeah, you know, and you're more intense, and recruit, you know, higher caliber players.

JM: Yeah. That makes sense.

JS: Yeah, so, so that's kind of how it has been done, and it still is, yeah.

JM: What's your fondest memory that can think of?

JS: Oh gosh.

JM: I know-- off the top of... of Santa Rita Park?

JS: I just, you know. Oh, you know, I was not a home run hitter, okay? I wasn't big, you know, and so I only had-- in fastpitch, I only had two home runs in my career, okay? I had a couple-- it was just--

JM: Harder.

JS: --because I ran--

JM: That ball, that ball's a bit--

JS: --you know, out of the field. But at Santa Rita field number one, we're playing this tournament, and we were undefeated, and we met up with a team from Las Cruces, New Mexico. I don't remember the pitcher's name, but he was a well, well known pitcher, man. He just throw BBs, but they're all straight, right? So all you got to do, is time it, because he's not going to throw a curveball. He's just gonna, boom, boom, boom.

JS: Yeah, yeah. He had good control, right?

JM: Yeah.

JS: And I was the ninth batter, so that wasn't, I wasn't a good hitter at that time. There are times I played first, bad at first and so on. But at that time, I was the ninth batter, which usually is your weakest, right? And so I go up to bat, and-- right now, at that time, the score is one to one. Now, I went up to bat as the ninth batter, and I took a swing on one of his pitches. I hit it. It went dead center field, over the fence.

JM: Wow.

JS: Yeah. So that did-- I, I ran a home run trot, you know.

JM: Yeah, yeah.

JS: You know, we took the lead. We won the game. That shot us into the championship, you know. But even, even guys that were outside the fans watching the game, some of the guys, they even walked all the way in from partying out there watching the game just to congratulate me.

JM: Did they pick you up or anything?

JS: No, no, that happened in sixth grade.

JM: [laughs]

JS: Right here, when I won the championship. Yeah, yeah, they picked me up on the shoulders. Yeah, yeah, yep, I was in sixth grade. Actually- the umpire-- kind of full circle. The janitor here at Van Buskirk [Elementary School] was the umpire for our school tournament. He's the brother of Anita Romero.

JM: Oh, you're kidding.

JS: Okay.

JM: Yeah.

JS: So Joe, the umpire, we're having a tournament, and-- this might be my fondest moment of my whole life, on this one. We're playing for the championship, and it was classroom by the classroom, right? We're playing for the championship, and I'm playing first base, right? And they had a kid who was from Mexico, and you know-- what they used to do back in the day is, even though, even though, you know, you're smart, whatever, but you didn't speak English, you'd be 14 years old and you might be in fifth grade. I mean, they would do it that way when they bring kids from Mexico.

JM: Yeah.

JS: Right. So we had this one kid from Mexico. Every time he came up to bat, he was hitting a home run. He always hit it to the same spot in right field. So when the time came up for him to bat, they had a guy at first base, and so I called a time out. I was a captain. I called a time out, and I switched with the right fielder, put him at first base. I went to right field, and then went and stood on the spot where he kept on hitting the ball, right?

JM: Oh, really? That's smart.

JS: Yeah, and, gosh darn if he doesn't do it again, right? And so the guy in first takes out running, thinking that's a home run, I'm out there, and I catch it, I throw it to first-- double play, game's over, we win the championship. So of course, everybody kind of threw me on their shoulder and everything. They gave us a trophy.

JS: [laughs]

JM: Did you have to reach really high to get it?

JS: No, no, I didn't. I was there, caught it, yeah, yeah. So anyways, I think, I don't know what my real fondest moment in fastpitch, but that's definitely a highlight, that home run I hit off that, that pitcher. I don't know. We won a lot of championships. One, maybe one other one that I can think of right now that popped into my mind-- we're playing a tournament-- field number one, and my brother Tarzan was pitching--

JM: Can I ask a real quick question?

JS: Yes.

JM: How'd your brother get that nickname, Tarzan? [laughs]

JS: You know, when we used to live in Nogales--

JM: Yeah.

JS: --at the time when the original Johnny Weiss Miller Tarzan movies were starting--

JM: Yeah.

JS: And so he, you know, they used to go see the Tarzan movies up in the theater downtown in Nogales, and one of the guys that was a friend of his thought he looked like Johnny Weiss Miller because of his hair. And so he started calling him Tarzan. And so when we moved to Tucson, it just so happened that this guy here, el partido-- Arthur Milano-- I don't know if you know him-- he also moved to Tucson and ran into him, and that's what the-- Tarzan name picked up again, and that's where it took off, that's... but, he has a different story. My brother used to tell the girls when they'd ask him, why did he call you Tarzan? He was only like 16-- because I have hair on my chest.

JS: [laughs]

JS: Trying to impress those girls, right?

JS: [laughs]

JM: Yeah.

JS: Yeah. So, so there was one tournament where I was hot-- hitting, hot, hot, hot, and they gave two trophies at the end of the tournament. We won the championship. So they called my brother and they called me out there in front of home plate. My brother got a trophy for pitcher of the tournament. I got a trophy for being the highest batting average, the best hitter of the tournament, so me and my brother standing out there, both with our trophies.

JM: Man, that's--

JS: Yeah, yeah. But-- I don't know-- there's so many memories. Yeah, they started a women's fastpitch softball league last year. They were playing at Lincoln Park, and there were like 6, 7, 8, teams that were playing.

JM: Really?

JS: Yeah, you know who started it-- Rocky LaRose, when she retired from the U of A, and Rocky used to play at Santa Rita field number two, which is-- when she was-- I remember her back when we're like, high school age.

JM: Is she coach now?

JS: No, no, she retired as assistant athletic director--

JM: Oh, okay.

JS: --of the U of A, you know, and so, when she retired, she started fastpitch league here, and I don't know why it didn't happen this year, but-- they did it last year and... yeah, she's one of these girls that used to play at Santa Rita field number two back in the day.

JS: You know, you ask guys, what-- a lot of times, what did you like the most? Lifelong friendships that you develop. And I, I've been told that by guys when I ask the question, what'd you like the most about all these years we played fastpitch? Lifelong friendships.

JM: You guys are still playing.

JS: And a lot of us are still playing. In, in my team, right now-- 67th anniversary of the Hawks-- I have at least 11 of us that played fastpitch, and so we're playing right now in my team.

MB: Did you ever play with them when you were younger?

JS: Yeah, at one time or another, yeah. Three of them played with the Hawks, and myself. The four of us that are in Gavilanos right now in our 60s and 70s, played with the Hawks when we were 20, 30 years old.

JM: Damn.

JS: Yeah.

JM: That's awesome.

JS: Yeah. So, so, gosh, yeah. I think, you know, the lifelong friendships is probably the biggest outcome-- and there used to be Winter League softball too, I don't know if anyone told you about the Winter League fastpitch, because you had your, well-- 'cause all we're talking about is summer.

JM: I remember seeing it at the park.

JS: Yeah, 'cause the summer, you know, it was, it was roughly April, May, June, July, August, was the softball league, and then you had September, October, November, December to January, for, for Winter League. So in Winter League, we didn't have a team, so we all-- whoever wanted to play Winter League would go with different teams, because the Hawks didn't play Winter League. But even-- and that happened for a few years, but a lot of people don't know that. At Santa Rita field number one, the city used to have mush ball instead of fastpitch. So for, so for a few seasons, a lot of the fastpitch softball players played mush ball during the winter league, and the mush ball was-- only one player on the team has a glove, so-- usually it's first base. Okay, the ball is like this, and it's kind of mushy, so it doesn't go-- you can't hit home runs, but you can hit long fly balls. So as an outfielder, when a ball comes to you, you either catch it like this, or either- hitch your hands and kind of do this and then catch it. So there are some techniques, yeah, but the city of Tucson had mush ball leagues in the winter instead of fastpitch softball. Did that for a few years, we played mush ball, and then--

JM: That wouldn't be that bad, that'd be--

JS: Yes, yeah, it's easier. Yeah, it's a cool game, you know? But when you hit the ball, man, it's hard, you know, it goes-- yeah, exactly, because it's mushy, yeah, they call it mush ball. So, so the city did that for a few years, and then went to Winter League fastpitch, you know? So, so the fields were being used basically year round.

JM: Yeah.

JS: And all the top tournaments were there.

JS: The, the reason we left Santa Rita Park was because of the homeless situation.

JM: Yeah, I know.

JS: The Senior League that we have. We've been playing at Santa Rita Park for the last few years, you know. So it became a-- and it became more of a burden for the ladies that went to the park, you know, and having to deal with this. So that's why we moved out of there. When we were playing fast pitch back in the day. There were still-- some of a homeless situation, but these were mostly guys who would come up to train from Nogales, you know, and they would get off at the park, right? So they're using the train system.

JM: Yeah.

JS: And so, they're mostly Mexicanos, right? And they pretty much stayed to themselves, never an issue.

MB: I want to thank you for your time and for sharing a bit about what the park meant to you. This concludes our interview with Juan Soto.