Click on this frog for a brief overview of our sites. This frog is a coqui, which like me is 100 per cent Puerto Rican. Like the Southern Bob White, it screams its name. I adapted this design from an aboriginal engraving found at the Taino ceremonial mounds in Utuado, the birthplace of the Mendez side of my family.

Cuentos de mi familia - Lydia

(Some may know the author as my sister Lydia. She has volunteered to get the ball rolling by writing down some of her memories of our family. Please feel free to send me whatever your thoughts are on the topic. These and other stories are also on her page. Click)

Ode to New York

by

Doña Coquijota de la Mancha de Platano       Click on this frog for a brief overview of our sites. This frog is a coqui, which like me is 100 per cent Puerto Rican. Like the Southern Bob White, it screams its name. I adapted this design from an aboriginal engraving found at the Taino ceremonial mounds in Utuado, the birthplace of the Mendez side of my family.

New York, New York, it's a wonderful place. At least New York was a wonderful place when I was growing up there. I grew up in a mixed neighborhood. Mainly Italians, Irish, Germans and a sprinkling of Jewish and Spanish. It was great! I think that's where I get my love for different nationalities. I loved the Italians with their warm outgoing nature their gusto for life, their smiles, their food. We lived in tall buildings and as you went up each floor you could smell what everyone was having that night. I still believe that Irish eyes do smile. When Mrs. Murphy talked with that lovely brogue, I thought she was saying magical words. It was English but that lilt made it sound playful like she knew something no one else did. I learned a lot about Ireland through her. I love tea, Irish lace, Irish soda bread, And I loved Father McCarthy. Talk about laughing eyes even when he was being stern, his eyes took the sting out of it. What a priest. They don't make them like him anymore. The Germans I knew were not Nazi Germans. They were friendly polite helpful people who greeted you warmly and always stopped to say something nice. My Jewish teachers were extremely patient and helpful. I learned about Broadway shows, music, art and history, not just everyday stuff but, things that I would not of know about in our socio-economical working class sphere.

Click on this frog for a brief overview of our sites. This frog is a coqui, which like me is 100 per cent Puerto Rican. Like the Southern Bob White, it screams its name. I adapted this design from an aboriginal engraving found at the Taino ceremonial mounds in Utuado, the birthplace of the Mendez side of my family.

And then there was us. Just a few of us at that time, the Spanish. We weren't called latinos then. And in that neighborhood and at that time we all got along pretty well. The clashes came later on. You see my neighborhood was West 68th street were West Side Story was filmed. When I watch that movie I can actually see the apartment we lived in and my old elementary school P.S. 94. When we left West 68th things were beginning to change, I'm glad I can remember my old neighborhood when it was still a tightly knit community. It was a great place to grow up in. My children grew up in New Jersey in a home of their own, their own backyard, their own rooms, a pool, pool table, alas all the amenities that form part of the American dream. I think they were happy, I certainly hope that they were. I slept with my sister in a Castro convertible sofa in the living room. Our pool was the fire hydrant the adults would open for us in the summer time until the cops would come and shut it down, though lots of times they would turn a blind eye. It was great! I belonged to a community center in the summer. We would take field trips to the museum, library, and Central Park. After I was married I came back to central park. I looked all over the park trying to find the statue of a German shepherd dog I used to talk to and hug as a child. I found him and I was so glad! It wasn't just a dream.

Click on this frog for a brief overview of our sites. This frog is a coqui, which like me is 100 per cent Puerto Rican. Like the Southern Bob White, it screams its name. I adapted this design from an aboriginal engraving found at the Taino ceremonial mounds in Utuado, the birthplace of the Mendez side of my family.

We played hopscotch on the street, red light-green light, roller skated, rode bicycles .and just plain old sat on the stoops and talked. We used to go on the roof tops and jump from one roof to another. I would put myself in the dumbwaiter {where people would put their garbage to lower it down to the furnace} and pull myself up, I must have been crazy! Or young, very young. At Harrington's candy store you could buy hours of bliss for a nickel and meet everyone in the neighborhood too. In my bed I could hear the fog horns from the boats on the Hudson. They always sounded so sad, even though they made me think of all the far away places I would visit someday. There's nothing like walking around the city when it's snowing at Christmas time seeing the vegetable stands brimming with pumpkins and pomegranates in October or all the people dress up in their best for Sunday mass at Easter or stopping at a soda fountain for an egg cream or a Sabbrett street hot dog. They just taste better from the vendor. People often say New Yorkers are jaded. I don't think so it's just that they are familiar and used to a lot more variety. They are exposed to so many cultures so may people so many cuisines. that they develop a matter-of-fact attitude. But they appreciate New York. They love it. They are grateful. ASK ANY NEW YORKER! I certainly do! NEW YORK , NEW YORK (what a wonderful place)

COQUI COQUI COQUI

Click on this frog for a brief overview of our sites. This frog is a coqui, which like me is 100 per cent Puerto Rican. Like the Southern Bob White, it screams its name. I adapted this design from an aboriginal engraving found at the Taino ceremonial mounds in Utuado, the birthplace of the Mendez side of my family.!Hello! Carlitos I am a little frog from Puerto Rico. Happy to make your acquaintance. That means am happy to meet you. I was there the day your daddy was born. My compadres and I did a lot of hooping and hollering, frog style: rippit rippit. Of course we said coqui coqui, cause that's how Puerto Rican frogs do. We did that cause we were happy to meet your dad and we knew he was someone special just like you. When you were born we sang rippit rippit for you too. You know what Carlito, frogs come from a lot of countries. There's a special frog page on the internet called froggy pages that will tell you all about us. Visit us sometime. Now I am going to tell a little bit about me. I live in a beautiful island.

Click on this frog for a brief overview of our sites. This frog is a coqui, which like me is 100 per cent Puerto Rican. Like the Southern Bob White, it screams its name. I adapted this design from an aboriginal engraving found at the Taino ceremonial mounds in Utuado, the birthplace of the Mendez side of my family.It's very green. (And you know how we frogs like the color green!) It has palm trees and coconuts and lots of pretty flowers. The sand on our beaches is very white and the water very blue and warm so you can just hop in....Oops! excuse me, I mean you can just dive in. (Although hopping in is fun too. Rippit.) You can crack a coconut and drink the water or you can eat the coconut. Yum! Or you can have great snow cones called piraguas in any flavor you want. We have a beautiful rain forest called El Yunque That's an Indian name ‘cause we used to have a lot of Indians here years ago. They were called Tainos. They're not here anymore but we still remember them. Well, Carlitos I'll tell you some more stuff someday. But, for now, remember when you come to Puerto Rico I'll be here and at night I will serenade you that means I'll sing for you. And this is what I'll sing, COQUI COQUI COQUI Your happy to meet you friend Mr. Coqui (or just Coqui to my friends) bye !

Christmas past

Click on this frog for a brief overview of our sites. This frog is a coqui, which like me is 100 per cent Puerto Rican. Like the Southern Bob White, it screams its name. I adapted this design from an aboriginal engraving found at the Taino ceremonial mounds in Utuado, the birthplace of the Mendez side of my family.Remembering when I was a child and how all of our big family got together, it struck me how far apart we've all become. That's not a moral judgment, just an observation. As a Puerto Rican child growing up in the states I think we had an extra dimension. We knew all about Santa Claus Rudolph, Frosty, "The Night Before Christmas," "The Nutcracker Suite," "It's A Wonderful life," "Miracle on 34th St.," etc., But we also knew about the three kings and how at Christmas time in our parents' homeland they would bring gifts for all the children, in exchange the children would leave them straw for their camels. We knew that people there would go to church at midnight Christmas eve, called la misa de gallo. Everyone would talk about Christmas dinners, punch and gifts family reunions and all the lovely amenities that make up Christmas. I remember listening as the adults would discuss who would buy and roast the pig. Who would get to make the coquito {a Spanish eggnog made with coconut}, who would get together with whom to make the famous Puerto Rican pasteles {they look like a tamale but they are made with plantains and a delicious spiced pork stew, um, good!}, who would make the cuchifrito. Then there was turron (nouget candy} nuts, bread pudding, and the special arroz con dulce {spanish rice pudding}, pan sobao, which is great with cafe con leche, lots of Puerto Rican rum, and, of course, tons of music. There was a type of music they would love to listen to called aguinaldos {Puerto Rican folk music}

Click on this frog for a brief overview of our sites. This frog is a coqui, which like me is 100 per cent Puerto Rican. Like the Southern Bob White, it screams its name. I adapted this design from an aboriginal engraving found at the Taino ceremonial mounds in Utuado, the birthplace of the Mendez side of my family.It's funny when I was a kid I thought It was so hokey, Now whenever I hear it my heart fills with a kind of sad happiness, sad cause most of them are no longer here, happy because I remember all the good times and what they all strived so hard to impart to us, a great sense of family togetherness, honesty, pride in our Puerto Rican heritage, lovingness, caring, loyalty and, most of all, humor. They were always laughing. Oh, there were times of turmoil. Tempers would flare. Who hurt who's feelings and who was ungrateful. They were passionate people. They fought passionately, loved passionately, and played with the same intensity. There is something special about this Mendez clan. I'm sure lots of people may feel that way about their family and they are probably right! But then I'm speaking of the ones I know best. I often think how it must have been for them coming here from a different country, different language, culture to raise your family, eek out a living and still maintain your sense of who you are and what's meaningful to you. All in all, I think they did well. Now the baton has been passed to us and I hope we do as well or better. I hope we never forget the values they instilled in us and that we build on them. I hope we remember {LA FAMILIA} And who knows maybe this Christmas we can get together and find out who's making the pasteles, who's roasting the pig, who's bringing the rum and - while listening to aguinaldos over a cup of coquito - we can toast to the ones that made it all possible