JOHN HARVEY

 Spanish Music.com 

BURRS IN THE STREET

We were in Hebbronville, Texas. my Grandfather was going to build a fence over there.  We were going to a hardware store.  We parked and we were just about to go into the hardware store when he said, “Let’s go to that little store across the street.”  They had side walks of boards, that old style. I was probably about 8 years old.  He said, “Let’s go to that store over there first and then we’ll come back over here.” 

 




 John's Grandfather, don Juan


So we reached the end of the walkway of boards, I stepped down and I stepped down on some burrs. I said, “Oh.”  I pulled one out of my foot and I noticed there were more.  He said, “You don’t have your shoes on.  Well I’ll carry you across the street.”  So he lifted me up and he had me in one arm.  And he started walking across.
 

Then he started getting a smile on his face. And I thought, “Oh boy, something funny is going on.”  He always got a smile when he thought of something.  He said, “See those men across the street over there.”  I looked across the street and saw three men leaning on the wall outside of the store.  They had one foot up against the wall.  I said, “Yeah, I see them.”  He said, “You know what they’re thinking right?’  I said, “No.”  He said, “They’re thinking, I wonder why that little boy is carrying that grown man across the street.”  I go, “Put me down, put me down right now.”  “No,” he said, “There are a lot of those burrs.”  I said, “Put me down.” I kept looking at those men.  They weren’t even looking our way.  He hurried across and he put me on the other walk way. 

I was upset, I thought, how could he do that to me.  How could he embarrass me like that in front of those guys?  Those guys are thinking, “Why is that little boy carrying that grown man across the street.”  I thought I was a grown man.  I fell for it.  After we finished in that store and we were going to go back to the hardware store, he had to go and get the pickup truck and park it in front of the walkway.  I wouldn’t let him carry me back and I didn’t have my shoes on.  I told him,  “I’m not going back across the street.”  He said, "Let me go and get the truck."  He backed up the truck and parked in front of the wooden sidewalk, I got in and then we drove to the other side of the street again.  I said, “How could you do that.  You knew that was wrong.”  He said, “I don’t know, I just thought maybe that is what they were thinking.  “I wonder why that little boy is carrying that grown man across the street.”

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