{"id":17526,"date":"2018-05-12T18:00:54","date_gmt":"2018-05-12T18:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jackdogwelch.com\/?p=17526"},"modified":"2018-05-12T18:00:54","modified_gmt":"2018-05-12T18:00:54","slug":"a-special-amigo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jackdogwelch.com\/?p=17526","title":{"rendered":"A Special Amigo"},"content":{"rendered":"

I met Jose Cruz in 1981-82 thereabouts at a Board of Directors meeting for the Portland Indoor Track Meet.\u00a0 I wasn’t invited.<\/p>\n

But the event had sucked so bad, I just had to see for myself who was responsible.\u00a0 Turned out to be a good group of folks, the best of whom was a Mexican-American with more energy in his off hand than I have in my entire body.\u00a0 Guy was like a whirlwind.\u00a0 He personally fabricated a new, brightly-painted, sharply-banked fast<\/em> wooden track and I brought in – with Nike’s help – a bunch of major stars.\u00a0 Big success.\u00a0 He took no credit.<\/p>\n

Later, Jose helped me move.\u00a0 Twice.<\/p>\n

He stored a chair of mine for twenty years.\u00a0 Then shipped it cross-country when I finally settled down.<\/p>\n

Jose does have cliche calves the size of cantaloupes and a warm heart as big as a summer moon.<\/p>\n

Here’s his story.\u00a0 A first draft of the early years.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Wild Dog with ever reclusive Jose Cruz<\/p>\n

Our family was from Mexico.\u00a0 They came to the United States in the 1930s.<\/em><\/p>\n

I was raised\u00a0 in Orange County, California with my four sisters.\u00a0 We were poor.\u00a0 My dad worked as a common laborer, picking oranges, lemons, any work he could get.\u00a0 There wasn’t any steady income.<\/em><\/p>\n

More than once that I can remember, we spent the summer picking plums, apricots, and walnuts.\u00a0 In later years, our mother would tell her friends “we took the kiddies on vacation.”<\/em><\/p>\n

In El Modena, the educational system was segregated.\u00a0 The white kids went to the new school, Roosevelt, while we went to the old school, Lincoln.\u00a0 Our teachers were great.\u00a0 We learned the basic courses, but we were not allowed to speak Spanish anywhere on school grounds.<\/em><\/p>\n

But in the colony, everyone spoke Spanish.\u00a0 We went to movie shows in Spanish.\u00a0 The stores, everyone spoke Spanish.\u00a0 We only spoke English when our teacher asked us a question.<\/em><\/p>\n

In the seventh grade, they started to allow the top kids in our school to be in the white classes.\u00a0 I was not one of them.<\/em><\/p>\n

That year we moved to a white neighborhood in the city of Orange a few miles from the colony.\u00a0 My parents wanted us to graduate with the kids we grew up with, so they made arrangements to have one of the teachers take us to school every morning.<\/em><\/p>\n

There were about thirty students in my graduating class.\u00a0 Only five of us went to high school.\u00a0 None of the girls.<\/em><\/p>\n

Funny thing happened in my freshman year.\u00a0 My former classmates would not associate with us because we had moved away to the white neighborhood.\u00a0 Of course, we had yet to be accepted by our new white neighbors.<\/em><\/p>\n

My Aunt Lupe was the first person in our family to have a steady job in a small grocery store.\u00a0 She got me a job as a box boy after school my freshman year, but I was let go because I was too small.\u00a0 Only five-feet-three-inches.<\/em><\/p>\n

The box boy who replaced me was a friend of the store’s owner.\u00a0 But he did not know how to work.\u00a0 So, I was hired back.\u00a0 I am my father’s son and so I have always known how to work hard.\u00a0 I worked every day after school and all day Saturday.<\/em><\/p>\n

On Sundays I worked on a farm, cleaning up after the animals.<\/em><\/p>\n

I remember as a freshman in high school, first thing that happens, I had to have an appendectomy.\u00a0 My mother would not let me do anything for the next two months.\u00a0 On top of that, they discovered I had asthmatic condition.<\/em><\/p>\n

In the sixth grade, I began to play the trumpet.\u00a0 I played in the high school band.\u00a0 The summer before our senior year, the band went to a camp in the Arrowhead Lake Mountains.\u00a0 On the way, the bus broke down a few miles from our destination.\u00a0 Two of our drummers, two brothers, were on the cross-country team.\u00a0 They asked me to race them to the camp.\u00a0 It was about two miles uphill but I said I’d give it a try.\u00a0 I beat them both.\u00a0 I had never run before so I was in shock.\u00a0 I decided right then to go out for cross-country the next season.\u00a0 Which was coming right up.<\/em><\/p>\n

I had to get a new job that would allow me to work on Saturday and Sunday, because I now had practice in the afternoon after school.<\/em><\/p>\n

Running became a goal in my life.\u00a0 The first goal I ever had.\u00a0 And running was perfect for me.\u00a0 I could run by myself at any time I wanted.\u00a0 I could be alone and I could enjoy the freedof my time, time to think, time to plan.<\/em><\/p>\n

Speaking of time, I don’t recall mine for the mile, something around 5:10.\u00a0 Not fast.\u00a0 But I did believe if I could train more, I could be a good runner.<\/em><\/p>\n

I went to a small college across the street from our home in Orange.\u00a0 Had fun there, but my running showed little improvement.\u00a0 I discovered I was not ready for college.\u00a0 My grades were bad and I did not even know why.\u00a0 I would study for hours but I was unable to perform in class.<\/em><\/p>\n

And there was no work for the summer.\u00a0 I knew I had to take the next step.\u00a0 I joined the Marine Corps.<\/em>In the Marine Corps, I learned to love this country.\u00a0 First time that I thought about it, given it any thought at all, to be honest.\u00a0 I’d been too busy with my own life to understand – truly – how great this country really is.<\/em><\/p>\n

Being a Marine taught me, if you fail to achieve your goal, you learn from that.\u00a0 Then you try again until you get where you reach your goal.\u00a0 TGhen you continue.<\/em><\/p>\n

In boot camp, you only had two books to read: The Marine Corps Manual and the Bible.\u00a0 Those two only.<\/em><\/p>\n

Following boot camp, I guess I could see this coming, I was assigned to the USMC Drum & Bugle School.\u00a0 I did not was to be a bugler.\u00a0 After two months, I asked for a transfer.<\/em><\/p>\n

They put me in Headquarters (HQ) Company where I cooked twelve hours a day.<\/em><\/p>\n

I was cooking one day and a Navy Lieutenant came walking by.\u00a0 Like he was inspecting or something, checking out the kitchen.\u00a0 Of course, a private in the Corps does not ask a Navy Lieutenant, what are you looking at?<\/em><\/p>\n

He said they were planning to build a new restaurant for the enlisted men.\u00a0 I asked him, “Do you need a draftsman?”\u00a0 I took drafting in school for four years and was not too bad.\u00a0 “Yes,” he said.\u00a0 “Come to my office after work.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Within two weeks I was officially a draftsman for the Navy.\u00a0 And that’s where I spent my remaining time in the Corps.<\/em><\/p>\n

One of my supervisors was the wife of a naval officer who was planning to retire in three years.<\/em><\/p>\n

She taught me to have good manners at the dinner table.\u00a0 She taught me good manners generally.\u00a0 She died three years later.<\/em><\/p>\n

After leaving active duty in the Corps, I enrolled at a junior college.\u00a0 Just to run..\u00a0 That’s it.\u00a0 No goals, just be a good runner.<\/em><\/p>\n

I was walking down the street, headed to school one day, and I looked into an office window and saw a few drafting tables, so I went in and asked for a job.<\/em><\/p>\n

Of course, they checked out my skills, tested my printing.\u00a0 It was not an architecture office, it was an engineering office.\u00a0 That’s different.\u00a0 They did planning for land developers, sub-divisions, street designs, water and sewer designs, etc.\u00a0 I realized right away, I would have set some new goals real fast.\u00a0 I started taking math classes, working my way up from basic to calculus.\u00a0 I did that in two years while also studying land surveying.<\/em><\/p>\n

A friend from high school was awarded a scholarship to run at Oregon State, so I went to Corvallis with him.\u00a0 The track coach was Sam Bell.\u00a0 I wasn’t a good enough runner to merit an athletic scholarship, so Coach arranged a job for me as a draftsman for CH2M, a top-quality engineering company nor far from campus.<\/em><\/p>\n

I worked after school and on weekends.\u00a0 In the summer, I returned to California for a higher-paying position.\u00a0 One summer, my first boss I had at the engineering company said, “if I ever quit school to work for him, he would fire me.”\u00a0 I will never forget Mr. Hugh Halderman.<\/em><\/p>\n

Now a twenty-five-year-old junior at Oregon State, I had not forgotten my goal.\u00a0 I did my utmost to be a good runner.\u00a0 I would run an average of one-hundred-and-twenty to one-hundred-fifty miles weekly.\u00a0 120-150.<\/em><\/p>\n

We would run ten miles in the morning and hit the track hard in the afternoon.\u00a0 I weighed one-hundred-and-forty (140) pounds.<\/em><\/p>\n

I did not make the team.<\/em><\/p>\n

In the early 1960s, the OSU track & field squad was one of the top five in the country.\u00a0 More than once, my teammates would tell me, “Jose, you leave your race on the practice field.”\u00a0 I would be in front of the pack at the eight-mile mark and then completely fall apart in the latter stages of the run.<\/em><\/p>\n

Later in life, I learned I had been on the wrong diet.\u00a0 Nutritional science has come a long way.\u00a0 I was running long distances on one meat protein after another.\u00a0 I would drink any water two hours before a practice or race.<\/em><\/p>\n

I believed water would cause me to gain weight.\u00a0 Made sense to me at the time.<\/em><\/p>\n

But I kept running and running and running.\u00a0 Never did get fast.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I was twenty-seven years old when I got married.\u00a0 My daughter Maria was born the same year.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

Having a family of my own changed my direction in life.\u00a0 Until now, my major had been whatever it took to stay eligible for the track team.\u00a0 A wife and child gave me the focus I needed to concentrate on my studies.<\/em><\/p>\n

In 1968, armed with a Bachelor of Science degree, I returned to California to begin my career.\u00a0 My son, Todd, was born.\u00a0 Goals had to be bigger.<\/em><\/p>\n

I decided to go to the University of Oregon in Eugene for a Masters degree in urban planning.\u00a0 I taught drafting classes at Cottage Grove High School in the morning one year of the program.\u00a0 the second year I worked for a developed, planning and designing tract houses.<\/em><\/p>\n

I received my Masters degree in 1973 and immediately became planning director for a large engineering firm in Portland.\u00a0 Where I designed sub-divisions for housing, battled over zone changes and offered sage advice at public hearings.<\/em><\/p>\n

Still wish I’d been a faster runner.<\/em><\/p>\n

Probably hard to get in all the necessary training, would be my guess.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Pancho & Lefty<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I met Jose Cruz in 1981-82 thereabouts at a Board of Directors meeting for the Portland Indoor Track Meet.\u00a0 I wasn’t invited. But the event had sucked so bad, I just had to see for myself who was responsible.\u00a0 Turned out to be a good group of folks, the best of whom was a Mexican-American…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-running-free"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12581,"url":"https:\/\/www.jackdogwelch.com\/?p=12581","url_meta":{"origin":17526,"position":0},"title":"All The Way, Jose","author":"JDW","date":"August 15, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other\u2019s life. - Richard Bach Over forty years ago, together we saved the Portland Indoor track meet. \u00a0 I had Nike and he had a hammer and a saw and paint.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Running Free"","block_context":{"text":"Running Free","link":"https:\/\/www.jackdogwelch.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.jackdogwelch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/20170811_212753-e1502806658631-1024x576.jpeg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.jackdogwelch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/20170811_212753-e1502806658631-1024x576.jpeg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.jackdogwelch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/20170811_212753-e1502806658631-1024x576.jpeg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.jackdogwelch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/20170811_212753-e1502806658631-1024x576.jpeg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":17565,"url":"https:\/\/www.jackdogwelch.com\/?p=17565","url_meta":{"origin":17526,"position":1},"title":"Jose Cruz: The Early Years","author":"JDW","date":"February 19, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Yes? How may I help you?\" The way Jose Cruz answers his phone should give you some small idea about his personality. Affirmative, friendly, helpful. Been friends for over four decades. He's given me far more than he's gotten back. When I met him, shortly thereafter maybe, he had his\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Odds & Ends"","block_context":{"text":"Odds & Ends","link":"https:\/\/www.jackdogwelch.com\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.jackdogwelch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/April-2019-Site-mage-3.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":42848,"url":"https:\/\/www.jackdogwelch.com\/?p=42848","url_meta":{"origin":17526,"position":2},"title":"Mother The Others (We Welcome All Refugees)","author":"JDW","date":"March 26, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Who would run our motels, drive the cab or invent the next global-changing technology? - Barker Ajax Jos\u00e9 Sanabria illustration from Refugees. Sanabria, born in Columbia, lives in Argentina. An accomplished artist, illustrator & writer, his books are published worldwide. (Palazzo Editions Ltd.) As millions of people flee bombing in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Odds & Ends"","block_context":{"text":"Odds & Ends","link":"https:\/\/www.jackdogwelch.com\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/aIXyKmElvv8\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13469,"url":"https:\/\/www.jackdogwelch.com\/?p=13469","url_meta":{"origin":17526,"position":3},"title":"Couch Potato Coverage of 1986 Chicago Marathon","author":"JDW","date":"October 8, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"October 26. \u00a0I missed the start of America's Marathon, the one every runner calls Chicago. \u00a0In fact, I missed the first nine miles.You see, I live on the West Coast and the marathon was being televised \"same-day tape coverage.\" And I thought I'd cover the race from the comfort of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Running Free"","block_context":{"text":"Running Free","link":"https:\/\/www.jackdogwelch.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":59002,"url":"https:\/\/www.jackdogwelch.com\/?p=59002","url_meta":{"origin":17526,"position":4},"title":"Chicago Marathon 1986","author":"JDW","date":"October 11, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"It\u2019s the most audacious thing I\u2019ve seen in the sport since Frank Shorter made a break at 15K in the \u201972 Olympics. Original Title: Couch Potato Coverage of 1986 Chicago Marathon October 26. \u00a0I missed the start of America\u2019s Marathon, the one every runner calls Chicago. \u00a0In fact, I missed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Running Free"","block_context":{"text":"Running Free","link":"https:\/\/www.jackdogwelch.com\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.jackdogwelch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/image-7.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.jackdogwelch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/image-7.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.jackdogwelch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/image-7.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.jackdogwelch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/image-7.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":26063,"url":"https:\/\/www.jackdogwelch.com\/?p=26063","url_meta":{"origin":17526,"position":5},"title":"Art Class #7 (Robert Colescott)","author":"JDW","date":"September 21, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"\"The way that one serves is to serve art first; the way you serve art is by being true to yourself.\" Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder, 1979. Acrylic on canvas Robert H. Colescott\u00a0(August 26, 1925 \u2013 June 4, 2009) was an American\u00a0painter. He is known for\u00a0satirical\u00a0genre and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Odds & Ends"","block_context":{"text":"Odds & Ends","link":"https:\/\/www.jackdogwelch.com\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jackdogwelch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jackdogwelch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jackdogwelch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jackdogwelch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jackdogwelch.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17526"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/www.jackdogwelch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17526\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17695,"href":"https:\/\/www.jackdogwelch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17526\/revisions\/17695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jackdogwelch.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jackdogwelch.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jackdogwelch.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}