How Little Our Parents Tells Us; My First Naked Breast

I took the day off and went with my mother to a memorial service for her friend Ruth, who died suddenly a couple of weeks ago. She was one of "the trio."

Now I always assumed that, by "trio," they meant that they were three inseparable friends.

It was only today that I found out that Mom, Ruth, and the other woman had sung as a trio.

And this is the type of stuff that our parents should tell us: How they, their friends, their family, are all connected beyond this generation. I probably know more about my best friend from High School-or even my best adult friend-than I do about my own mother and father. It seems that we are at best strangers. Connected, but strangers.

I always asked my father to write down some of his stories from WWII and he never did. I guess he didn't want to think about it much. He did tell us about getting drunk and then having to sneak back into camp. But that was it.

After the service, it was about dinner time and Mom suggested that we go to a local Mexican fast food place and get some tacos. I then suggested that I take her home and then get takeout from El Serape (Spanish for "the serape"), a restaurant that has been in this city for decades and has always been a favorite among local folk. I'm sure that I first ate there when I was around 5. And, through the years, it has changed little. Same subdued lighting. Same red booths. Same paintings of conquistadors, Aztec Princes with half-naked women draped across their arms, as well as various potteries and plants.

It was the Aztec and half-naked women that I remember most. Whenever we went there as a family, I tried very hard to sit where I could talk to my mother and father while checking out those paintings without having to turn from them. What can I say? I was very young and in love.

When I arrived to pick up our order, I looked around. Almost everything was exactly the same. What was different was the paintings. Someone had painted clothes on most of the women in the pictures. One picture had been partially spared. The woman, in a passionate embrace with her Aztec lover, still had her one perfect breast exposed.

But the nipple had been painted over with a flesh tone. What has this country come to?