Jose Olivas

 

No picture available. Don Jose was an entrepreneur as I remember him. He owned cattle and leased hundreds of acres in the Sierra Madres to graze them. When I was a child, I remember that he ran a small grocery store in Chuichupa, Chihuahua, Mexico. He would let me tend to the shoppers in the afternoons while he took a nap in the back. (The one or two shoppers that might need flour or corn.) He showed me how to work the old scales with the counterweights, how to weigh the flour or whatever and how to roll butcher paper into a cone so that it made a neat container. He sold homemade "dulce de leche" (candy) and it came sealed in little plastic bags. They were sealed shut like most food products are sealed today. This was quite an accomplishment in a small village of a coupla hundred people...it caused quite some talk and mystery. One year, he showed me the secret. He took plastic sheeting and cut it to fit and he would seal the edges by pressing it against a file or serrated edge and running it over a candle! I remember how proud I was to be entrusted with his secret. I was the envy of all the grandchildren. I never told anybody about that secret.....until now.

Here's the other mystery about Don Jose or "Papa Pepe" as we used to call him: He lived at the store where he worked. He never went home and he never talked to his wife Maria. She would dutifully make his lunch everyday and one of us (grand kids) would deliver it. Growing up we always speculated about what could've happened in their marriage to cause this. The adults would never talk about it...at least not while us kids were around.

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