Lorenzo H. Flores
By Lorenzo T. Flores
Memorial Day, Veteran’s Day, and Flag Day — every time he had the chance, my father would unravel his Stars and Stripes and place it carefully in the brass rack on the front porch. Whenever the Pledge of Allegiance was recited as a part of PTA protocol, my father was the first one to stand with his hand over his heart. He carefully pronounced each word with a conviction that, at times, would cause a tear to well in his eyes. My father was proud to be an American.
My father’s life embodies the true pioneering spirit of this country. At sixteen, he yearned for freedom and ran away from an orphanage, only to find himself in Kansas working on the railroad. Later, he wandered through Oklahoma and Arkansas and witnessed the Great Depression in Texas. He worked at various odd jobs in Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico. He picked apples in Washington, milked cows in Oregon, and ended up in California picking sugar beets. In the late thirties he found religion, and when the War came in the forties, his belief’s prevented him from taking arms to kill in the name of freedom. Nevertheless, he enlisted in the U.S Army as a conscientious objector and took on perhaps one of the most dangerous jobs in the military — he was a medical assistant who drove an ambulance and provided first aid to wounded G.I.’s. When someone cried out for a medic, my father was the one who pulled that person to safety. After the Allies won the war in Europe, he gladly went to the South Pacific and was one of the few American soldiers who saw both theaters of World War II.
Dad met Mom, the daughter of farm laborers from then rural Culver City, a few years after the war. They moved to West L.A. and finally settled in Venice, where my sisters and I were raised. Dad landed a position as Gardener/Caretaker with the City of Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks. For thirty years he cleaned up after Sunday afternoon family picnics and chalked straight lines for baseball diamonds. But his favorite job was volunteering for pyrotechnic duty setting off one of the city-sponsored firework shows on the Fourth of July.
Dad never took his duties as a citizen lightly either. He voted in every election. Every year he paid his fair share of taxes — after all, he trusted the government to use the money wisely and keep the nation he loved strong. I remember asking him what “they” would do with the money. He explained, “It’s for programs like the War on Poverty to help people who aren’t as lucky as us.”
Dad gave to his country gladly. The only thing he asked in return was to have an American can flag draped over his coffin when he died. So, in 1985, we made sure that along with a Catholic crucifix, he had those Stars and Stripes at his funeral. After all, he loved to see that flag over his front porch, waving gently in a summer breeze.
Today, there are “Americans” who question the integrity of people like my father. You see, Dad was a “wetback”: he waded across the Rio Grande and entered this country illegally in 1926 to escape the poverty of Mexico. He dodged whizzing bullets to earn his citizenship in 1945 and was bestowed the honor of calling himself an American during a ceremony at a military encampment in Paris, France. While his life may not have been a Horatio Alger story, he was a loyal, voting, tax-paying, freedom-loving, flag-waving American.
Even though my father, Lorenzo H. Flores, said the Pledge of Allegiance with a thick Spanish accent, he knew the true definition of each word: he learned the meaning the hard way. To him, it was a solemn oath.