To Table of Contents knew to get out of the house the minute they heard his car pull up outside . Mom would allow the dogs inside to please us even though there was a strict no dogs in the house rule enforced by dad . He was strict but fair . I did not dare talk back to my dad until I was well in my forties and that happened just once .
Mornings were for mom to feed us , dress us and make sure we were ready in time so my dad could take us to school on his way to work . She and Pluma took care of the house while we were at school and they would prepare lunch , which Pluma would finish , while she picked us up from school in whatever beat up old car she was driving at the time .
Afternoons after homework was playtime and playtime was done outside with the neighborhood kids . Our house was always the gathering spot . It was also the loudest , with sometimes up to 10 kids running around in the yard . Between us 4 , the neighborhood kids and friends coming over for playdates , there was never a shortage of kids to play with .
Our house was on a main road with a dirt road on the side , perfect for speeding up and down with our BMX bikes , until I fell and slid on gravel . I got scraped up quite badly , so I gave up biking for “ teaching ”. My dad bought a few school benches from a school that was remodeling and we set up the garage as my new pretend school . I was of course the teacher , always ruler in hand . Our pretend school did not last long though . My brother and sisters together with the neighborhood kids shortened my tyranny with an unexpected coup and my Head Mistress days at our pretend school were short lived .
TV was a no-no in the afternoon . We had to play outside and use our imagination and boy , did we do that . There was the haunted house we “ built ” out of bush and sticks that grew over the fence , the swimming pool we dug up ourselves and the dress up parties in our parents clothes and shoes , the dogs and cats took the roles of our kids . They would get dressed up and carried around like babies . My brother with his friends even pretended to be funeral home directors once and buried my Barbie dolls . To this day he cannot remember the exact location of the burial site and I never saw my dolls again .
Evenings were for dinner , homework was checked by dad , we were allowed TV for a few hours of which one was dedicated to the evening news , which my dad insisted we watched to keep us up to date with what was going on in the world .
As for weekends , those were spent mostly as a family before we all entered puberty . But when we were little my dad would take us to the nearest VHS store on Fridays after work and each week one of the 4 of us would get to choose two movies and our dad got to choose one , which was most of the time either a Clint Eastwood or a Charles Bronson movie . Saturday morning , dad would take us biking in the neighborhood , sometimes all the way to the beach or he would take us for long drives in what he called his weekend car . It was a Toronado that he every free minute working on . Sundays was of course for the Church but after the mandatory and boring hour-long sermon by a Ctaholic priest we were usually rewarded with one scoop each at Baskin Robbins .
Vacations were to neighboring islands of Bonaire and Aruba or mainland cities like Caracas , Amsterdam or Orlando . Like I mentioned before , we were definitely not rich , far from it actually , but dad worked really hard and my mom was super savvy when it came to running the house . One regular pack of