Interview with my Grandfather – Rosalio Ibarra

Rosalio Ibarra, an elderly man of 65 years, is my grandfather who has been living in Eagle Rock for the past 4 years. He was born in Mexico in his mother’s house and lived there for quite a while. My grandpa is an honest hard-working man who has been working for food since he was fifteen. My grandpa has never slacked off and will always be a hard worker. Although he didn’t get much of an education, he rarely talks about regretting his choices. In fact, he tells people not to worry about school, to work hard in life and “you’ll succeed.” He began traveling at just the mere age of three and was fascinated by it. The first flights that actually were successful began in the early 1950s. Switching to planes from ships certainly made a difference in the world.

The difference between traveling by ship and airplane is so big that the trips to Europe would take ten to twelve days and now they take ten to twelve hours by airplane. Meaning, by ships, [trips] would take up to two weeks and nowadays you can travel anywhere to Europe. The trips in, for example from Mexico to here in the United States, they’d, [my family and I] would take a week by car and now by plane it’s 3 hours.

We were young and my father would take us in in a truck, well, and and we’d travel, we would leave our house at dawn and we would come back until the night, until the 13 or 14 hours after traveling about at least 100 miles or 80 or 90. We would spend the whole day through the bad freeways that were lanes were only one car would pass and then if another one was coming, you’d had to move to the side and let it pass. Many times you would use a sort of flag and we’d go up the hill, all of us, and the last car carried the flag and then when the last one was there, all of the other cars would start coming down. So then it was all like a, well it was all one big tragedy because well there were a lot of problems. And the cars, I have a lot of nice memories of when I was a kid because for example, in one of the trips the soil was very hot and well my sister, well the bus couldn’t go up the hill anymore because before the little busses would have a hard time trying to go up, and and well we’d do nice things also like eat. We’d eat the three, four lunches in the freeways and in the areas of palm trees and all of those places.

The first times I went to Puerto Vallarta we were all traveling with the farm animals, a bunch of pigs and chickens and goats and everything and all mixed up, and there I remember there weren’t any flight attendants. I don’t think there even were flight attendants the first time I got on an airplane. You would just get in all by yourself and you’d find a spot and that’s it, the captain and the pilot they’d just be there. Forty, fifty years ago there wouldn’t be any flight attendants in Mexican airlines, maybe here in the U.S. there were, but no not over there. With the flight attendants there is a big difference still in the actual world.

The airlines, like the European airlines for example, where where there’s only Spanish or European flight attendants, there’s an attention given to you that’s more efficient than say the ones from Mexico. And here, only the international flights, in many other flights there isn’t, there isn’t good attention to you still.

To pick up luggage before, well the way before was, was a bit more simple because the people would just put it there, and there were no bands that carried it, no bands to give them out, they’d just put them there and you would pick up your own [luggage] because there were fewer, because of less people.

Also, customs from now are way too strict and now they, they check so many things. Well, simply they even check shoes now and well the shoes, you have to take them off, even your clothes so they can check you. And you you need, they need to check your luggage a lot so that you’re not carrying any scissors or any cutlery. Before, you would be able to take knives or anything you wanted. Back then customs, there weren’t, there weren’t umm problems.

  Besides customs being stricter, it is actually a lot easier to travel now and a lot more secure because, because before it was each trip was, actually the airplanes didn’t have the place where the motor wouldn’t sound loud and it was very bad and you would also feel the “bags of the air” in the sky and then the falling down and going up, you’d feel that constantly. And also traveling back then was a pain because there were long lines for everything. And because the airplanes you couldn’t repair them anywhere like you do now, and until you would bring the needed piece from faraway. For example, an airplane would fail in Guadalajara and sometimes you would need to travel all the way here to the U.S. to get the piece to repair it, so then very easily airplanes would be delayed. Flights would be delayed and yes it would be a lot harder to travel back then, 100% harder. It was also harder because, well it was more restricted for the richer people, only rich people in fact, the trips to Europe would be only for rich people. I had I had umm friends who had never left their town because they didn’t have a pass to be able to go to a city of 200 miles away. Also, it wasn’t comfortable at all, it was very uncomfortable because all of the seats, everything was very hard. And actually me, the first airplanes I got on were made of wood, it was the most uncomfortable thing to travel and the trips that would be made in trucks would also have benches of hardwood. So then you would arrive home in a lot of pain. Sometimes the backs of people would rub against the back of the seats, and because the springs were very old, it would rub and make them bleed. You’d have your back rubbing against it and you’d forget, so when you remembered, from so many bumps in the road, your back would bleed.

The good thing actually was that it was cheaper. The power, the power of the coin was very big. That I do say was very cheap because the coin was worth a lot, you understand me? With very little money you would travel. What happened was that there wouldn’t be a lot of people who had money, mostly everyone didn’t have enough money to travel.

I  liked  [traveling] only because of my age. When you’re young, everything is beautiful and you can do a lot more things, now I don’t like to travel anymore because of my health, being young is what makes traveling a pleasure. It’s better to be real hungry, than to have good food.

 Interviewed by Clementina Peña