Raquel Martina Martinez

Some folks are born made to wave the flag, Ooh, they’re red, white, and blue. Yeah!
The year is 1969 and over half of the young men who graduated with me from high school last year are serving in Vietnam.  Everyone talks patriotism; everyone waves the flag, but the war in Vietnam is raging and not everyone gets drafted by the Selective Service.  
The fortunate ones get deferred or find a way to get deferred.  Unable to afford college and unwilling to marry and start a family at such a young age, those who do not qualify for a Selective Service System deferment are classified 1-A and get drafted. The Selective Service lives up to its name; it selects men mostly from the middle and the lower middle class.
It ain’t me, it ain’t me, I ain’t no senator’s son, son. It ain’t me, it ain’t me; I ain’t no fortunate one, no.
The following year, 1970, my brother is home from his “tour of duty.”  It sounds like spending a year of his life in Vietnam was a vacation; war is anything but. Many of his p…

When I walked into her classroom on the first day of 4th grade, I was immediately drawn to her.She was Hispanic like me.My father had been encouraging me to do well in school and aspire to college one day, but I had not really thought of my future at that age.I dreamt of being a ballerina or a cowgirl, but here was a real life Hispana and she was a teacher.
I always liked school.  Scratch that, I always liked to learn. Sometimes I knew that I would have to do more on my own than the teacher could teach me; sometimes I knew I would have to stay on my toes to keep up with the class. Mrs. Galindo was one of those teachers.
She pushed us all to do better, learn more, ask questions. She would call us, one by one, to her desk during silent reading time to counsel us on our grades.  I beamed when she praised me for my work and it encouraged me to work harder.
On occasion, she caught me passing notes, whispering to my girlfriends, and winking at boys.  She would gently remind me to wait until l…

                                 Book Sale New and Gently Used
Proceeds to Benefit Feed My Starving Children
Monday, May 19, 2014                                   6-8 pm    First Baptist Church of Universal City Peace Auditorium 1401 Pat Booker Road Universal City, Texas 78148
Sponsored by  the Christian Writers Group of San Antonio

I was twenty-four when I had my first child.  The doctor and my Lamaze instructor warned me that it would take several hours for a first birth.  It took all of six for my son to see light. At our Lamaze reunion, I was the hateful showoff, the one who didn’t abide by the rules.  I was twenty-nine when I had my second child.  My office mates planned a baby shower for me on April twenty-second, but I had to call and cancel.  My baby due on June 6th came early.  It took me three hours to deliver a healthy but premature 5lb 3oz little girl. Once again I broke the rules. I worried for nine months when I was pregnant with my third child.  According to my body’s track record, I kept cutting delivery times by halvsies.  I should have taken bets on that because number three got here in less than the anticipated one hour and a half.  I am not exaggerating; from first pain to birth, he was here in forty-five minutes. I was still fully clothed, except for underpants, delivering my baby with my Can…

Episode One: The introduction of characters 

Scene One: They each dress in their own homes and travel to the Dairy Queen for their first meeting. There’s the local, a married woman in her early sixties who can trace her family’s lineage back several generations to the founding of the towns in the area.  She is married to a man with the same proud heritage. There’s the transplant, a married woman in her late sixties who settled in the area with her husband after they both retired from successful careers “up north.” Used to being the hub, they introduced themselves into the local society by joining all and every group that was taking volunteers. There’s the newcomer, a woman of their age who has moved here from the nearby city. To her the area is nothing more than a bedroom community, a thirty minute drive to the closest city, Kohl’s, or Olive Garden. Scene Two: The Local arrives in her Ford F150.  The Transplant arrives in her Chrysler 300.  The Newcomer in her Prius V. They eye each othe…