The ballad of El Burrito

In the beginning, my dad never actually intended to become a photographer. He went to UMKC in the late 60s/early 70s and got his degree in English (!) and economics before becoming a traveling salesman. He got his start when he shot a few polaroids at a wedding, more out of curiosity than anything.

When he started his business my grandfather told him that he'd never make money taking pictures; he told him that he should get a "real" job.

A couple years before that, and before his stint as a salesman, Dad'd had a "real" job in San Jose at a gas station on the outskirts of the city, near the desert. He wasn't sure what he was doing there, exactly; he'd moved to Cali with my mom to check out west coast living for a while.

On his first day of work, he asked the guy who'd been running the place for eleven years when the last time was that he'd been robbed. Guy says, we've never been robbed.

Two weeks later, at two o'clock in the morning, a shirtless man is standing over my father (facedown in the candy aisle) with a machete to the back of his neck telling him to count to twenty-five; if you get up before twenty-five, I will come right back here and kill you dead. The man ran out the door.

Dad didn't quit this "real" job, though.

His next brush with crime came a couple weeks later, in the afternoon. It's hot. Dad's mopping the aisle next to the foodstuffs when he notices a Mexican migrant worker standing nervously in front of the microwave. Dad asks if he could use any help, and the guy doesn't reply. He starts fidgeting. Dad walks over to him and looks in the microwave and realizes that the man is trying to microwave approximately forty burritos at once.

Dad laughs. "You have to do them one at a time."

The migrant worker doesn't say anything, and Dad makes hand motions. One at a time.

At this, the migrant worker immediately flings open the door of the microwave and dumps all the still-cold burritos into a plastic sack and sprints out the door without paying.

Dad runs after him.

With a baseball bat.

My father had a scholarship offer to play tailback at Brown. He was an all-state sprinter. But the little short guy with a plastic sack full of burritos actually starts getting away. There's a Buick with five passengers (three in front, two in back) out in the parking lot with the engine running and a door open, everyone from the car shouting for him to ondele.

When he realizes that he won't catch him, Dad stops, cocks his arm, and hammer-tosses the baseball bat instead. 

He misses the guy-- but he hits the car. BANG. And the driver, who must have been thinking my dad had a gun, immediately panics and punches the gas-- neglecting to make sure that his buddy had actually made it inside the vehicle.

Hombre was being dragged down the street, one hand on the handle of the door, the other on the trailing bag of burritos. He wouldn't let go of either. The driver only figured out what was happening a block later, stopping long enough to get his buddy in the car.

My father watched them drive away. It was 1973. He had a "real" job. He was getting minimum wage.