Mariano y Pita

Mariano y Pita

Established Dec 1, 1945

Note: My grandma died eight years ago. I wrote this for a class after my grandparents 60th wedding anniversary. I’ve been thinking of my grandparents a lot lately so I dug it up and I’m publishing it here for the first time.

My grandpa’s home-made tattoo has long since dissolved into a formless green blob on the loose skin and wrinkles of his left forearm.

I asked him once as we were working together at his shoe-repair what the tattoo had been when he originally sketched it with needle and ink into his skin. He sat back in his chair behind his sewing machine with the large wooden handle and foot pedal, looked up at me and laughed a little.

My grandpa’s full head of thick black hair turned white like cotton in his 50’s. He wears a denim smock over jeans, cowboy boots and a button-down dress shirt with short sleeves, when he’s working. Around his neck hang magnifying glasses so he can see the thread and seams of the shoes and purses he works on. He looks like Geppetto from Disney’s Pinocchio, and when he’s getting ready to tell a good story or a good joke, he leans in a little bit with the same kind of twinkle in his eye.

“It was a cross, and in the middle I put a girl’s name inside it. So when I met your grandma I had to scratch it out and put her name over it,” he said and winked at me.

I laughed because it’s the kind of story my grandpa’s known for. Could be true, but it could just be a joke he thought up to deflect questioning from a boring story to a more interesting one.

One thing is for sure, previous girlfriend or not, two constants have ruled my grandpa’s life: shoe repair and Pita Mendoza, my grandma.

Sixty years ago, on Dec. 1, 1945, my grandma and grandpa became The Ortegas: Mariano y Pita, said almost as one word: marianoypita. They became an establishment, the base from which they raised six kids and two grandkids.

Last weekend, between puffs of oxygen she needs for her emphysema, my grandma told me the story of how they met.

At 12 years old my grandpa quit school to start working at the shoe repair near the plaza in Santa Fe, New Mexico. My grandma worked as a soda jerk at the Pay Less drugstore around the corner, where the famous Woolworth’s used to be.

“He used to bring all his girlfriends by and everything,” my grandma told me. “Then one day he called me up and invited me to the picture show.”

He was 14 and she was 16. They’ve been together ever since.

“My mother wouldn’t let him in so he would stand at the corner by the telephone pole and wait for me. So everybody at the shop would ask if I ever married the guy at the telephone post,” my grandma laughed. She had one leg curled under her, like a little girl. With one hand she griped the mask to her face and with the other she slapped her knee.

“My family didn’t like him. They called him a ‘lucenito’, meaning he was from the wrong side of the tracks,” she said. After four years of secret dating he was drafted into the United States Army, and they decided to marry.

“Our tradition is…. That the parents of the guy go to the parents of the girl and ask permission for the two to be married… but his family didn’t like me either so he asked my mother himself. She asked why his parents weren’t doing the asking and he told her, ‘because my parents aren’t the ones who want to marry her. I do’”

Grandma’s mom must have been impressed, and they were married at a ceremony in her house. Four days later my grandpa was sent to boot camp, then to Japan, where for two years he repaired the boots of the men stationed there after World War II.

The day of their 60th wedding anniversary party I arrived at the dance hall early to help my aunts and cousins set up. When my dad and I showed up my grandpa pulled in behind us.

“Is it true you’re going to have another wedding today?” I asked him.

“Oh yeah, we’re going to get married again today,” my grandpa said, then leaned in a little, “I’m about to make the same mistake twice.”

The party started at 4, but my grandparents didn’t arrive until 5. He wore a suit and she wore black slacks, black moccasins and a shiny gold and black top that left gold glitter on her forehead and nose. They held hands and walked slowly around the tables to greet the hundreds of family and friends who were eating tamales, chile, posole and enchiladas. She’s about half a foot shorter than he and throughout the night she would rest her head on his chest.

The thought of laying my head on one man’s chest for my entire life is foreign to me. I may have said yes to tattoos, but I am far too cynical to tattoo anyone’s name in visible places.

I do not understand what fortitude it would take to make a commitment like that, at such a young age, then stick with it. I think of the guy I was dating at 16 and count myself lucky that I’m unable to make that kind of commitment.

I wonder whether that’s all it was. They got lucky.

In the middle of the dance hall, surrounded by family and friends, my grandpa recited the vows he wrote for the occasion.

After 60 years of marriage I’m not afraid to say in public how I feel about this woman, he told the crowd. Turning to my grandma he said:

“My love for you surrounds my heart like the sky surrounds the sun.”

Maybe it was romance, and not luck that kept them together after all.

“And I thought he was going to make fun of me,” my grandma told me later. “That man is always saying something crazy.”