"Rodriguez"

Wanna know an embarassin' lil factoid bout me?

Course you do.

When my mother was pregnant with me she wanted to name me.........Christopher Robin.

Yeah.

She wanted to name me after the guy that's friends with Winnie the Pooh, Eeyore, and Tigger too.

Dad stepped in and decided that might get me beat up a bit too often. He decided to name me Alejandro Rodriguez instead. (Yeah, that is my real name. I'll put it up here mostly 'cause the people that read this already know me.)

Do you know what that name means?

Defender of mankind, Son of the great king.

Helluva handle ain't it? I love that. It's a good name I think. Though it's not really mine, not exactly.

There are a lotta families that can trace their families back for centuries. They get all the papers to prove who they are and where they come from. I can't do that on my dad's side of the family. I know my father, I know my grandfather, and I've heard of a great-grandfather. Beyond that there's nuthin. Not a damn thing that I'm aware of. Like these Rodriguez people just appeared outta nowhere on the face of the earth.

My great-grandfather was born towards the beginning of the 20th century. There are no official papers I'm aware of that prove he existed. My father has seen one picture of him and heard a few stories about him. Apparently, he was 6'4"ish (Or at least tall enough to stand next to his horse for the picture with his elbow on it's back. You ever stand next to a horse? I have and that one came up to my shoulder.) with tanned skin and had red hair. He was s'posed to be Mexican but I've never seen any Mexican that looked like that. I'm 6' myself and have a few strands of red hair so maybe there's a ring of truth to that.

The way it was told to me, no one had ever seen him before he came ridin' into a small town on a horse. Like sumthin' out of a western. The stranger rides into town on an unfamiliar horse with an unfamilar face. He keeps to himself and isn't friendly with anyone. People know him by a name that most likely isn't his. "Rodriguez" is the name on his saddle and it's the name he gives but no one really believes it. (It was the only kind of I.D. the man had. Even if he had a paper one it wouldn't have done much to prove who he was. Dad found his I.D. from 1968 the other day and it was just a paper with a name and address. No picture or anything and he said half the information on it was wrong anyway.)

In this small town he met a girl and they got married and she gave birth to my grandfather. From what my grandfather has said, his father was a good man. He was stern and didn't talk much. He rarely talked about himself or his family. Practically never really. One day while the first Rodriguez was out in town there was some kind of dispute. I'm not sure what it was about. I don't know who was involved. What I do know is that another man's horse bucked and kicked my great-grandfather in his chest breaking' his ribs and puncturin' vital organs. He suffered a few minutes and died. It's not quite certain if this was done on purpose or not.

Years later, Dad did a bit of research and figured out there's a tribe of natives in the Colorado area that were bein' forced on to reservations about the time my great-grandfather would've been born. He suspects that our relative was much like ourselves and didn't like bein' told where he could and could not go. He may have high-tailed it outta the rez and went to see the country. Along the way he might've stolen the horse and saddle. He may have even killed for it. That would easily give him an excuse to not talk about himself.

Dad's theory was somewhat supported by a very odd happening when he was growin' up. He was with his aunt and uncle for the summer and they went to this Native American like craft fair or sumthin' like that on a reservation in Iowa. It was a place where you could go and see Natives do their thing in the ways of their culture. They'd dance, show off the traditional clothing, and cook foods. Well my father wandered away from his aunt and into a small shack where an old woman was makin' sumthin'. He could see the old woman's milky white eyes and knew she was clearly blind. Before he said anything to her she speaks, "I knew you would come back."

My dad of course was confused. He asked the woman what she was talkin' 'bout. She explained that he left his people years ago but would return as a great chief to lead them into greatness. She said his family was hidin' his true roots from him. My father was about 10 when this happened and hadn't heard anythin' about our possible heritage. He asked his aunt about it and she said the old woman was just crazy, that his family came from Mexico.

When he was 17 and had heard the stories I mentioned earlier he returned to the reservation only to find it desolate and empty. The old woman wasn't there. He never found out exactly what is true and what isn't about our family.

If I dug deep enough and liked technology more than I do (which isn't very much really) I could probably find out the truth about our family. I don't care to. I like that that section of my heritage is shrouded in mystery. To me it makes for an interestin' story and really no good would come of knowin' for sure. I either would find out that my great-grand father was a thief and killer or that we do in fact come from a long line of rather decent but unspectacular Mexicans. But if this is all uncertain it could be anything. It could be as the old woman said and there is some purpose my family is meant for or we could've just appeared outta nowhere when the red headed stranger rode into town and said his name was "Rodriguez."

The world is a big place and people think we know so much about it. We don't know anything. The universe is vast and mysterious. I like those mysteries. It's in those shadowy spots of our lives that there exists all the things that those who know better say don't exist. In these dark corners is love, magic, fear, danger, adventure, and discovery. I hope we never run out of mysteries to investgate and I hope sometimes we can just leave a few of them alone. Let the mystery be and we will always know a good scare and a bit of excitement. Life would be boring without it.