Still on a "Mandado" through the Westside

                                                                                   

On a "mandado" in Santa Monica, painting by Daniel Alonzo

     I was about six years old when my uncle Yndalecio would say, “Ahorita vengo. Voy por un mandado,” only he’d pronounce it, “mandao,” like a Cuban or an Andaluz Spaniard.

     I’d ask if I could go along on his errand. I knew he’d stop at Gallegos' Market where they had a rack filled with kid’s toys. Sometimes he relented. Most of the time, he’d say, emphatically, “No!” That’s when I knew he was stopping by Charley’s Barber Shop and the pool hall on Olympic Boulevard to gab with his friends before stopping at the market.

     To relieve my parents from one of five kids stuffed into a small two-bedroom house, my childless uncle and aunt would often pick me up after they left work, or on weekends, and take me home with them, where I'd spend a night or two. They lived in Santa Monica, my mother's birthplace and hometown. At the time, my grandmother still lived on 22nd Street. My aunt and uncle had bought an old but charming one-and-a-half-bedroom house, probably once a shanty, on 12^th Street, which I guess meant twelve blocks from Ocean Avenue, overlooking the Pacific coastline.

     Back in the 40’s and into the 50s, living near the beach wasn’t a big deal, not like today, where people pay millions to build monster homes to get a whiff of the Pacific. At one time, living too close to the beach meant having to settle for small shack, or a stucco cottage, a lot of cold overcast days, mildew throughout the house, and closets reeking of salt.

     The businessmen, doctors and lawyers lived farther north, up above Wilsire Boulevard nearer to the mountains, and wealthier Angelenos (man I hate that name) chose homes more inland, in warmer climates and upscale developed neighborhoods, like Brentwood, Westwood, Rancho Park, Cheviot Hills, and, for the superrich, Beverly Hills. Mostly working-class families lived in the basin, near the beach. It was less developed and a lot of shacks for the Mexicans who worked the beanfields, packing sheds, and brickyards. That’s why, after its heydays in the 1920s and 30s, much of Venice deteriorated, oil derricks ruled, and property values crashed. Beatniks, paupers, and winos took up residence along the boardwalk and arcades, the same with portions of Santa Monica's boardwalk.

     Santa Monica may have been one of the true barrios on L.A.'s westside. Unlike other neighborhoods of mixed ethnicity, the majority of the people who lived in Santa Monica's Pico neighborhood were Mexicans, mostly migrated from Jalisco, Los Altos, near the cities of San Juan de Los Lagos and Jalostotitlan, major centers of commerce going back to silver strikes of Zacatecas and Guanajuato and the founding of Guadalajara in the 1600s. Mexicans had been traveling north into Alta California since the 1700s, where many settled in and around Santa Monica.

     In a journal, a Franciscan friar, Crespi, I think it was, wrote how his expedition had stopped to rest at an Indian encampment on a bluff so many leagues from the ocean, where a spring swelled and provided the villagers with fresh drinking water. His description sounded much like the spring that flowed on the present-day site of University High School. The friar wrote how the springs reminded him of the tears St. Monica shed for her wayward son, Augustine. So, he named the area Las Lagrimas de Santa Monica, and the name stuck.

     Okay, so back to mandado. According to the dictionary, mandado is a complex word, with origins in the word “manda,” which means a promise, a gift, to bequeath, or a religious vow. Then there’s the verb “mandar,” which means more of an order, a command, or decree. It can also mean to dominate, to start, to deliver, as in a “blow,” or to throw, as in throw a stone. In Cuba and Chile, it can mean to leave or go away. In Mexico, Argentina, and Uruguay it can mean to offer a drink, or to offer to undertake an errand.

     Man, I wonder if in my uncle’s mind when he said “mandado,” it could have meant so much more to him than it meant to me, an English dominant and Spanish deficient American kid. When he told me he was going on a “mandado, "I knew he was off to see his friends, and he’d return with a bag of Mexican bread (pan dulce) tortillas, maybe that white cheese that smelled awful. Sometimes he'd buy a hard cylinder of chocolate. It was to make hot chocolate, but I’d eat like Hershey's candy.     

     Sometimes these thoughts pop up into my head, like remembering my uncle's mandados, not out of nowhere, something triggers them, like when I walk my dog Phoebe and end up on Venice Boulevard about three blocks from my home. Mostly, we just walk, but there are times I go on a mandado, like my uncle Andy.

     I stop for bolillos, milk, or fruit at the Camaguey Market, originally a Cuban grocery store that now caters to Latinos, USC and UCLA students, and a growing population of Muslims, Hindus, and some Africans. There’s a butcher in the back, all kinds of exotic fruits and spices, a wall full of ointments and salves, candles imprinted with the Virgin Mary, and some stuff that might be used in Santeria ceremonies, all topped off with two women cooking Brazilian food in a small kitchen off to one side. Go figure.

     Next door to Camaguey, which the local kids call “Cama-gooey” is the Venice Bakery. It carries fresh breads, birotes and bolillos, baked goods, like tres leches, choco-flan, all sorts of pan dulce, orejas, blueberry muffins, and birthday cakes. In the past few years, it's doubled as a restaurant, a delicious fusion of Cuban, Mexican, and Central American cuisine.

     The place started as a bakery and catered to older Cuban men in the neighborhood, most have passed on. They liked to sit outside and drink their expressos and cafes con leche, play dominoes, and loudly complain about Fidel and his brother. I wouldn’t doubt if some of them had been at la bahia de los cochinos. 

     Like many Cubans, they were a gregarious bunch, cheerful, laughing heartily, and welcoming me, a Chicano-pocho into their den. I guess I was as interesting to them as they were to me. So, it was a pleasant surprise when the bakery began serving breakfast, then lunch, a plastic basket with bolillos on each table, a choice of pinto or black beans, rice, enchiladas, chilaquiles, sopes, posole, and some unknown dishes, probably Salvadoran. As Phoebe and I stroll pass, especially on weekends, we notice a long line awaits the casual diner. A few feet away, a woman sells hot tamales out of a temperature- controlled chest. 

     Mandado, yes, now I understand. When my uncle said he was going on a “mandado,” it might or might not have been an errand. For him, it was more like a cruise without a car. It could have been a wayward stroll, an exploratory expedition into a different neighborhood. It might have been an unplanned stop at a friend’s house. He may have just wanted to walk around Memorial Park, to wander, to think, and to breathe in the afternoon ocean air. 

     That’s what I do now. Each morning and afternoon, I go on a mandado, except when my wife asks, I simply answer, “I’m taking Phoebe on a walk,” and who knows where I’ll end up, where my mandado will take me? What I know is that it gives me the peace of mind and the space I need to see me through one more day and to appreciate this eclectic neighborhood I've come to call home.