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Abe Peña's  "From the Past" newspaper column  

All material used with the kind permission of the author, given to me personally.

"Monday, August 25, 2008 5:27 PM MDT

El Portalito - the gathering place for San Mateo boys

El Portalito was the gathering place for boys in San Mateo when we were growing up. By sundown, weather permitting, we were at El Portalito (a small porch) visiting, telling stories, and whistling at the girls passing by. We were between the ages of 13 and 17 and the porch was something like our den. Other villages had their own “portalitos”.

In our case, el portalito was the entrance to a dance hall situated in the middle of the village facing the main street. It was built of four by four inch posts supporting a four by four inch beam supporting two by four inch rafters covered by a corrugated tin roof. The floor was about three feet off the ground with steps leading up to it, 10 feet wide and about 20 feet long. It had no railing and we pushed each other playfully off the porch. We sat facing the street with our feet dangling down.

Here we learned to tell jokes, listen to and tell stories, and keep an eye on the girls. I remember Kate Michael. She was a pretty girl and didn't mind the whistles. Sometimes we teased her by singing, “Kity Ki Katy, my beautiful Katy, you're the only Kity Ki Kate that I adore.”

Across the street and behind Sina Isidora Castillo's house was the village acequia, irrigation ditch, which also provided water for our homes. At dusk, the girls came with buckets from their houses to haul water and we met them there.

I remember helping Adelita Gonzales carry her buckets, which gave us a chance to talk while walking very slowly back to her house. After seeing her home, I returned back to el portalito. Some of the other guys who had walked their girlfriends home also returned, then went home. In the 1930s, we did not have cars or access to cars. We walked everywhere.

Sometimes in the summer, when several girls arrived at the acequia at the same time, a water fight started between the boys and the girls, and after a bit it became a free for all. On those evenings, we tried to sneak into the house so that our parents wouldn't see us all wet. The girls with their longer hair and pretty dresses had a harder time appearing to be dry when they got home.

Looking back to those days, I'm pretty sure our parents had similar experiences in their youth. Teenage boys and girls through the ages have always found ways to meet, and steal a hug or a kiss in the fading light of day.

Many years later, I recall in a rural village in Bolivia in South America the boys walking clockwise around the plaza and the girls walking counter-clockwise in the evening. As they passed, the boy almost imperceptibly nodded his head and smiled at his favorite girl and kept on walking, and the girl smiled and acknowledged his gaze.

In the Hispanic villages of New Mexico, there were still some vestiges of the chaperone system, and the idea of a “date” was unknown. As we grew older, the place to meet and talk to a girl was at the dance on Saturday night or on feast days.

The group at el portalito kept changing as the older boys grew up and usually left by age l7 and younger boys reaching age 13 kept coming in. In my day, I believe the oldest of the boys was Anastacio Baca.

Anastacio's younger brother Rosalio was my age and we hung around together. Anastacio kept us at a distance at el portalito and elsewhere. Older brothers have always tried to keep younger brothers at a distance.

The automobile changed our courting patterns altogether. For example, I had a great uncle who had several attractive daughters, and when they started dating he was asked how he kept track of them. He said, “I sit by the front window in the evening and when a car drove up and blew its horn one of my daughters ran out I marked down the license plate, then another car drove up and another daughter ran out and I kept writing down license numbers just in case they don't come back.” When asked how his system worked he said, “Thank God they all came back.” I don't remember uncle Abran Chavez, but he must have been quite a character.

El portalito remains a fine memory of my youth in San Mateo.

Abe Peña is a local author and historian whose award-winning books Memories of Cibola and Villages & Villagers are available at bookstores throughout New Mexico."