Today is cleaning lady day, so I am on the patio with thermos of coffee, flip-top bottle of water, phone, Nook Book and magic writing machine. The guns are out of sight. Rosa might be comfortable around guns, but I have not asked. It is better to assume she is not. A month ago she used the word “pistola” while sweeping and talking on the phone. I did not catch any other words, but I wasn’t really listening. Some words or phrases pique my interest. Mention of guns is one of those.
It’s like
newspaper work, when the police scanner is nearby and you work the cop shop.
Your mind filters most calls, once you get the 10 code down. “Major 10-50” was
the most common call that drew attention. Those calls, you grab a photographer
and go.
Some calls
are not what they seem. While editing a story at the city desk at the Fort
Worth Star-Telegram in the late 1970s, I plainly heard “Officer down” on the
scanner, which was not six feet away. I said to City Editor Lou Hudson, “Somebody
called officer down.” Lou listened, and he got the attention of Doug Clarke,
who was working cop shop. We all listened, waiting for an address and other
information. After a few seconds, dispatch said, “Inform Officer Downs…”
Sometimes it is better to hear it wrong than not hear it at all.
Rosa is from
Mexico. She is as proficient in English as my wife and I are in Spanish. She
also cleans for one of our neighbors, who was born in Cuba. Maria (the
neighbor) translated hiring transactions between my wife and Rosa.
This area of
Florida has many migrant farm workers. The number might grow less as more and
more farm acreage gives way to houses and 7-Eleven stores, Publix, Subway and
just about every other name brand. We have two Publix stores within two miles
of each other, and a third not five miles away.
The 1990
population of Parrish was 3,644. The 2020 population is a 615% increase,
26,050. Most accents are New York (including Brooklyn), New Jersey,
Pennsylvania, Illinois and Wisconsin. Around 80% of residents identify as
white, with 12% Hispanic ethnicity. My wife and I are the only Texans in the
neighborhood. There has to be some leavening.
I thought the new yorkers went to the east coast and the mid westerners to the west coast. When I'm down in okeechobee a lot of our neighbors come from the midwest or south. Come to think of it we have whole enclaves of french Canadiens too.
ReplyDeleteHere on the west coast, friends my wife and I have made generally are from south New Jersey and New York. We know a few people from Illinois. I had heard that Atlantic-side refugees were from NY.
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