Una mañana Canutito was looking through el catalog para ver what kinds of toys there were en esta season. Grampo Caralampio walked in and found him deseando and drooling over all the cool toys en el catálogo.

"When I was un chamaquito," he said, "there was un show en el TV in the morning llamado 'el Captain Billy.' I would write to him porque I wanted him to send me un 'spot-gun' if he drew mi nombre out of una box with letters from kids who wanted toys. Pero el carajo never drew out my letter de la caja so I sent my request to another show. Este show se llamaba 'el Dick Bills'. Él era un singing cowboy que cantaba cosas como: 'Riding down the trail to Albuquerque, saddle bags are filled con beans y jerky, headin' por K-Circle-B; TV ranch por you and me. K-Circle-B en Albuquerque'. Y luego he would hacer yodel."

"That sounds way cool, grampo," Canutito remarked. "I bet que el Dick Bills sent you your spot-gun."

"No," Grampo Caralampio stated flatly. "It occurred to me, años después de que maybe he didn't send it porque I sent him my request en Español y el cowboy didn't understand Spanish. De todas maneras, I never got mi spot-gun."

"I sure wish I could get some of estos toys in the catalog," said Canutito looking back at the inventorio before him.

"¿Por qué no haces earn a little money?" Grampo Caralampio asked him.

"What could I do para earn un poco de dinero, grampo?" Canutito asked him.

"Pues, cuando yo estaba todo little," Grampo began, "I would vender salvia del brand name de 'Cloverine' or 'Rosebud'. Todos los neighbors would buy salve in those days porque it was la única skin treatment que there was."

"I don't think that the people de hoy would buy salvia,' Canutito said. "Today people just se ponen lotions of all kinds on their skin."

"Another cosa that I would do cuando yo era young," Grampo Caralampio continued, "era de vender el GRIT."

"What in the world era el GRIT, grampo?" Canutito asked him, somewhat intrigued.

"Oh, era un kind of a newspaper," Grampo Caralampio replied. "It used to have a couple of serious stories in it pero también it also had some weird news in it."

"¿Como what kind of weird news, grampo?" Canutito asked him.

"Pues I remember un article that said que la 'Jacqueline Kennedy married un sheepherder de Tres Piedras' y there was un otro article que decía que 'la Virgen de Guadalupe appeared by some corrales near La Lama'."

"They sound just like los tabloids como el 'National Enquirer' en las tiendas que report 'aliens building una bomba under the sea' or that 'a diver is ravished by a sea turtle', grampo," Canutito said.

"You meant to tell me que esas cosas aren't true?" Grampo Caralampio questioned the little boy, somewhat surprised. "But in any case I didn't sell el GRIT for too long porque everybody in town was comprando el 'Taos News' and that put an end to my career as a seller of el GRIT. Next I decided to sell 'un ponche'."

"What is 'el ponche', grampo?" Canutito asked him.

"My mother ordered it for me from the back de un comic book," grampo said. "Era un piece of cardboard con números on a grid and people would buy chances to punch out two numbers. If the números matched, entonces you got un prize, como un quarter. So I used to go from house to house vendiendo 'el ponche'. It was como gambling en los días before there was gambling. A veces I would even try to sell Easter Seals for the nuns in Catholic school pero since they got to keep todo el dinero I wasn't terribly interested in it. And I wouldn't even tell you about trying to sell seeds to people que no estaban interesãos in planting."

Canutito decided que perhaps he'd better get educated so that he wouldn't have to end up vendiendo all of those fregaderas out in the street …

¿Le gustaría compartir sus propias anécdotas o comentar con Torres sobre esta columna? Envíele un correo electrónico a lartor@unm.edu