I had stated that there was an interesting story concerning the life of Alex Renteria whose funeral I attended this morning,.

When his father, Procopio Renteria was murdered 49 years ago I met little Alex who was 5 years old. I met him at the Wake for his father. The wake was held in the home of Procopio's mom. Procopio was the father of 9 children and they were all at the wake. Everyone was decorating the house for the arrival of the body. The home was festooned with crepe flower bouquets of all colors plus streamers of colored crepe paper were draped everywhere. This was all being done by the women in the family. All were laughing and carrying on doing the decorating as if it was a party. All at once the hearse drove up in the front of the house and like magic there was deathly silence. Everyone in the house was transfixed looking out the window at the hearse. The mortuary attendants brought the casket in through the front door head first, As soon as the head of the casket entered the door there was weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. Several of those mourning women were extremely overweight and they promptly passed out in the doorways so that the attendants could not get through. Other women came with smelling salts and it fell the lot of me and several other men and women to start applying and rubbing the stimulant on the women's chests and under their noses. Soon they would recover and we would get them on their feet and they would pass out again.....It reminded me of the paid mourners it describes so well in one of the books of the Bible. Finally some control was gained and the casket was propped open for the viewing. Procopio had been shot in the mouth so consequently there was a terrific wax build up in that area. With 9 children who were almost out of their minds with grief all hovering over their Dad's body in the casket and kissing him on the lips it was not long before I noticed that his wax upper lip was now lying on his chin. The mortuary attendants were gone by then and the body was to remain in the living room all night because Procopio's old drinking buddies were supposed to come roaring in from Bakersfield, CA at midnight.....which they did right on time. Things finally began to start quieting down and after so much explaining to the children they stopped kissing their Dad and hovering over his body. Most of the Bakersfield bunch were drunk but all the women had prepared gallons of coffee and made dozens of hot cross buns. All the food and coffee had a sobering effect on everyone. About 2AM Juanita and I decided to leave for home. On our trip home we constantly talked about the beautiful little 5 year old boy named Alex Renteria. He was physically gorgeous and how was Irene, their Mom, going to support them. You talk about poor.....they were poor with a capital "P".

The next day we gathered at Procopio's mothers's home for a lunch before going to the cemetery. Even then we were stunned by the sadness. Procopio's 19 year old son was there in shackles and guarded by two Arizona State Prison guards. The young man was having extreme difficulty eating lunch and finally one hand was unshackled so that it was less difficult for him. His wife and infant child were there but she was not speaking to him because his imprisonment had something to do with another young woman.

Finally we left for the cemetery where Procopio's body was comitted to the earth amid a loud display of histrionics.

But what of Alex? Our hearts bled for that beautiful little boy. Juanita and I could not stop thinking and talking of him. But what to do? We just decided to take the bull by the horns and make an appointment with Irene and broach the subject of our adopting Alex.

Now I'll l'll stop for now and let Kim send this out for me and do the rest of the story in the next e-mail.