{"id":1574,"date":"2015-04-17T09:08:15","date_gmt":"2015-04-17T14:08:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/?p=1574"},"modified":"2015-04-17T11:32:58","modified_gmt":"2015-04-17T16:32:58","slug":"reconnecting-with-my-compadre-jaime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/reconnecting-with-my-compadre-jaime\/","title":{"rendered":"Reconnecting With My Compadre, Ja\u00ecme"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The heavily accented Spanish voice speaking as I answered my cellphone was familiar and welcomed. \u201cHallo, Meester Gary. It\u2019s Ja\u00ecme. How are you?\u201d I haven\u2019t heard from my compadr\u00e8<\/em> since my birthday in 2010, when he called to remind me I was turning 55. \u201cMuy viejo<\/em>,\u201d he joked at the time. Very old.<\/p>\n

Ja\u00ecme and I became acquainted 15 years ago in Nacogdoches, when I was looking for someone to help out on weekends doing yard work. Day laborers gather each morning at a park just south of downtown. When one drives up, usually a dozen or so men run over. Ja\u00ecme beat the crowd to my Jeep, climbed in, and immediately began speaking rapid-fire Spanish. Despite four years of high school Spanish and a couple of night non-credit courses, my Spanish skills are marginal. I know lots of nouns and verbs, but conjugation has always remained a mystery.<\/p>\n

\u201cHabla despacio, por favor<\/em>,\u201d I said. Speak slowly, please. The torrent did recede, but Ja\u00ecme is a talker. He believes, apparently, that if he speaks Spanish long enough the person to whom he is talking will learn it by osmosis. And actually, I did learn a lot more Spanish in the years we worked together, and I worked on teaching him English as well. We became friends, who worked together on painting rent houses, fixing fences during my ill-fated foray into raising cattle, once rebuilt a bridge over a creek, planed lumber when I built furniture, and shared meals.<\/p>\n

Ja\u00ecme sports a thick, black moustache and equally dense hair, a modest paunch and a ready smile. He was the hardest, most efficient worker I have known. I have hired many people, both in the workplace and to help around the house. Ja\u00ecme gets more done in less time while making it look easy. He would tackle any project with an unflappable cheerfulness and a Rain Man ability to recall dates of past events. Often he would remark, \u201cMr. Gary, four years ago today, I started repainting that first house you bought in Longview.\u201d Ja\u00ecme was such a good worker that on weekends in Longview, I paid him to drive up from Nacogdoches to work around the old house I had bought and was remodeling.<\/p>\n

Like many Mexican men, he came here to earn money for his family back home, in the village of Paso del Correo, located near the Rio Tecolutla, south of Papantla in the state of Veracruz. The money sent home allowed him to remotely direct remodeling his home. He eagerly awaited photos of the progress from his wife, and snapshots of his son and daughter.<\/p>\n

In late 2009, Ja\u00ecme returned to Mexico for good. His daughter was about to hold her quincea\u00f1era<\/em>, to mark her turning 15, the transition in that culture from childhood to becoming a young woman. His son was growing up as well, and he was missing out on their lives, not to mention living apart from his wife for years. It was time to return to his small ranch, where he raises a few cows and chickens, and a vegetable garden. I had not heard from him in nearly five years until the other day.<\/p>\n

Ja\u00ecme said he had lost my cellphone number but finally got it from someone else he used to work for in Nacogdoches. He said he and his family are doing well. As always, he was speaking 90-to-nothing and I had to ask him to slow down. Both of his children are attending university, and he is in good health. I pointed out he would soon turn 55, and he tartly replied that meant I was about to hit 60. We both laughed about that. I asked him if he planned to return to East Texas anytime soon. I have been fruitlessly searching for someone like him since he departed. My Beautiful Mystery Companion and I often lament, \u201cWe need another Ja\u00ecme,\u201d as I embark on a home repair project alone.<\/p>\n

Alas, he has no plans to come back. I told him I planned to come visit him sometime, to visit the nearby pyramids of El Tajin, a Mesoamerican city that flourished from the early 9th<\/sup> to the early 13th<\/sup> century. Photos found online show intricately carved seven-story structures still relatively intact. Ja\u00ecme lives about 30 miles south of the ruins.<\/p>\n

Maybe next year, I told him, I would fly to the city of Veracr\u00f9z and take a bus to Papantla. From there, perhaps he could show me his house, and we could visit the pyramids together. I think he replied that would be great, and he would call again.<\/p>\n

At least that is what I thought I heard. Between Ja\u00ecme\u2019s rapid patter and our language barrier, I can\u2019t be sure.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Print this entryThe heavily accented Spanish voice speaking as I answered my cellphone was familiar and welcomed. \u201cHallo, Meester Gary. It\u2019s Ja\u00ecme. How are you?\u201d I haven\u2019t heard from my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[50,38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-50","category-columns"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1574"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1576,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1574\/revisions\/1576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}