“Don’t let that comedy act fool you. Brother Estrada is a deep thinker.” Those words of Kenneth Dull, circuit overseer, tumbled around in my mind as I came up to the housing project. The persistent Gulf breeze made the clothes on the line swing almost horizontal and back down again. Nearly every clothes line in the Harlingen project had swinging clothes. Estrada came out quickly, gesturing with a small space between his thumb and index finger. The “un momentito” gesture. “Just a little while longer” in English. Ignacio “Nacho” Estrada was dressed impeccably in what looked to be a tailor made suit, but was not. Perfectly groomed, with long black wavy hair and a pencil thin mustache, he had the look of a Mexican movie star.
In more than “un momentito” his wife and two year old daughter came out, dressed in matching leopard skin patterned jump suits. Nacho carried a collapsed stroller. Sister Estrada was an Anglo, one of the Bell girls. The Bells were one of many Anglo Witness families who relocated to the Rio Grande Valley in the 60’s to serve where the need was great. Most returned to their “up north” origins after a year or two, such was the difficulty of adjusting economically, if not culturally to this land stolen in the Mexican-American War. Other families stayed and adjusted.
My thought was that once the Estradas settled in to my Volkswagen bug for the 120 mile trip to Alice, Texas, “Nacho” and I could work out a smooth transition between our assigned symposium talks for the upcoming circuit assembly. I thought wrong.
“Nacho” burst into song. He sang an entire Dean Martin album and then another. He wasn’t mimicking. He was Dean. Every voice inflection, every hand gesture, every raised eyebrow. He would direct a line or two to his wife, a couple more lines to his daughter and then the most inappropriate words to me: “Your love made it well worth waiting for someone like you!” It was hard to dislike Nacho Estrada.
I did learn a few things about Nacho. Like me, he was Regular Pioneer. His wife was not. He worked part-time for a Jewish clothier, who paid him $1.70 an hour, .10 above minimum wage in 1968. He wanted to be a Congregation Overseer. He had moved to Harlingen because he was not taken seriously in Weslaco. He incorporated Bible characters into his one liners in a way that made them seem like real people, no better or worse than us. He was quick to puncture any “airs” you might put on, but in a gentle, non-malicious way.
I learned a few months later that the Estradas had moved from Harlingen.
I just wonder if he was ever taken seriously.
TMS