Kineño Remembers: From the King Ranch to the White House

4. Vallejo

C H A P T E R 4 3 Vallejo Next to my parents, the person most responsible for shaping my early childhood was Vallejo. I list him as one of my great teachers. It was in 1936 that I first met Vallejo. I was nine years old, and I will never forget the first time I saw him. He was a slightly stocky man, about five feet, eight inches tall or so, and in his early twenties. I watched as he pushed his bicycle into our backyard. His mixture of Spanish and Indian heritage came out strongly in his physical appearance. His skin was brown, his hair straight and black; a scraggly black mustache turned down as it followed the contour of his lip. He had piercing brown eyes, was broadshouldered , and had rather short, but well-muscled arms. His hands were rough from a lifetime of work. Like most of the men on the ranch, he wore khakis. Unlike most of the men on the ranch, though, he was not wearing boots,but high-top work shoes.His hat,a rather worn and somewhat soiled white Stetson,was slightly pulled to one side.A blackand -white collie-shepherd mix followed him. The first time I encountered Vallejo, he was a complete stranger to me. He greeted me in Spanish and asked who I was. I told him I was Laurie, the son of Don Lauro, and I asked his name. When he told me his name was Maxcimilíano García but that everyone on the ranch called him Vallejo, I told him that was a strange name. I asked why people called him that, and he said it was because he came from an area in Mexico known as Vallejo. Vallejo told me that the ranch bosses had sent him to work in our home, to do whatever my mother, la madama, told him to do. Through decades of association, Vallejo and I never conversed in English,alwaysinSpanish,eventhoughVallejounderstoodEnglishand had some facility in the language. Still, I respected Vallejo’s preference for Spanish. It was the primary language of most of those working on the ranch. Over the years, a number of ranch hands had held the same job as Vallejo. Usually they worked outside in the yard or about the house. Mother would assign jobs each day. Most men stayed only a year or two and then transferred to other jobs on the ranch. I am sure many were glad to leave our place, because Mother was a tough taskmaster. She had high expectations regarding the quality of work she expected the men to do. As I was getting acquainted with Vallejo, I pointed to his dog and asked what his name was.Vallejo replied,“Togoah.”I thought the dog’s name was even stranger than Vallejo’s. When I asked what that meant, Vallejo said it was the Spanish word for“robed.”I was still puzzled, so I asked why he had given the dog that name. Vallejo told me to look at the dog and tell him what I saw.All I could see was a black-and-white dog.ButVallejo pointed out that the dog had a wide band of white around the neck and shoulders, and he thought it looked like the dog was wearing a robe or toga. So he named his dog Togoah. Although I had no idea what a toga was,afterVallejo had explained why he called his dogTogoah,I understood.In time,Dick and I came to believe thatTogoahwasoneof the finesthunting dogs we had ever seen. Soon we learned we had to speak toTogoah in Spanish because the dog did not understand commands given in English. Most of the time we had five or six fox terriers about the yard. Our terriers, unlike Togoah, were bilingual dogs. They were not as disciplined or trained as Togoah and were capable of ignoring or obeying our commands in either English or Spanish. Vallejo was a survivor. He stayed with us as long as Dad and Mother lived.To us, he became part of our family, and we cared deeply 86 C H A P T E R 4 about him.Although at times Mother would fuss at him about some issue or how a job was done,he appeared to listen,nod his head with a“Sí, señora,” or“Sí, madama,” smile, and quietly go on his...