Happy Birthday to My Dad

Today would have been my Dad's 69th birthday. He died at 33, so it's hard to imagine him that old. I always wonder what it would have been like if he had lived longer. Judging by his smile in this photo, I think the years may have turned out good for him.

And the Beat Goes On

My father played alto saxophone. Unfortunately, I don't have any memories of him playing, but several people have told me he could play a lot of jazz.

My father also wrote poetry and many of his poems had musical themes. Here is one I found the other day in one of his undated notebooks. It reminds me of the old days when my parents were young and their lives were consumed with art---something I can remember myself. Of course, my Mom's ["Chris" below] life still is filled with creativity (see her here blowing my dad's horn, some years after his death).

Duos

I am overcome by a madness,
A Jazz madness,
A madness in which I feel
I must blow everything.
From the word by Trane and Bird...
To things Chris would sing.
Bop and Blues are my obsession
My only love the open session.

--Rex Gallegos

Nevada Ave., East LA, March 16, 1940

This is my grandmother, Gram Toni, and my dad when he was a little older than one. I really like this picture. Everyone looks so happy back when East LA had dirt sidewalks and driveways (don't know if the roads were paved yet, but I bet they were).

Beatniks, Los Angeles 1962

My Mom and Dad. She was 20, he was 23. I was one.

Click it to see full size.

March 16, 1940

I'm still into these old family photos that I just received from my Mom and Irene, so please bear with me....

This is the Amadisto and Gallegos family on March 16, 1940. Noting the presence of the rabbit and how dressed up everyone is, I thought it would have been Easter Sunday, but I checked the date and Easter wasn't for another eight days that year.

From left to right, top row: Probably Pascual Rivas, my great grandmother Rita's uncle; Rita Rivas Amadisto, my great grandmother (her picture from about 40 years eariler is here); and Edward Amadisto, my great grandfather.

From left to right, bottom row: Antonia Gallegos, my "Gram Toni;" the baby Rex Gallegos, my dad; the rabbit; and my grandfather Benjamin Gallegos who went to San Quentin about 1944 for murder. (This is a story that I am still trying to find out more about.)

I guess my grandmother's sister Laura took the picture because you would think she would be there, but she isn't in this picture or any of the others I have from that day.

This is at our family house at 154 Nevada Ave. in East Los Angeles. Four generations of us spent our childhoods in that house, ending with my brother and I. It's the same house you can see behind me in this picture.

My Dad's First Job

Today would have been my Dad's 68th birthday. I first saw this picture only a couple of years ago and I really love it. It was taken in April 1952 when my father was 14. I brings me a lot of joy to think that somebody in his family was so proud of my Dad's new job that they went down and took this picture.

This soda counter was at a pharmacy, just a few blocks from our house (my brother and I lived in the same house where my Dad grew up) in East LA. I believe it was at the corner of N. Record Ave. and Brooklyn (now Cesar Chavez Ave.), right across the street from East LA Self-Help Graphics.

Not too many years later after this picture was taken, my Dad would be taking me to the same place and buy me a few Batman and Aquaman comics. Just that little memory brings a smile to my face.

Rex Gallegos

Meet my Dad. This picture was taken in the early 60s, probably at our house in City Terrace, which is part of East LA. My father was just 33 when he died of alcoholism on this date (or was it Sept. 15?) in 1972.

For many years I've wondered about him. I only saw him twice between the time he died and when my Mom and my brother and I left him in the 1969 or 1970. I have my memories, but they are vague and ghostly, like remembering a dream you had a long time ago. Some of my memories are centered on minutiae like the feel of his whiskers on my cheek or the smell of his breath after he had been drinking. Others are more specific, remembering word for word short conversations he and I had. But mostly they are just filled with fleeting images.

My reflections about him have changed since I've become a father. My thoughts about him used to be more romantic, imagining the crazy life of an artistic, poetic East LA Chicano in the 1960s. But now I'm stuck on thinking about him as a father and I'm mystified that he didn't take better care of himself for the sake of us, his kids.

I wish he could have known us. I wish he could have known his grandkids. I wish I could have known him. But that was not to be.