Happy Birthday Buelo!!!

Today is my dad’s birthday. As a friend of mine described him, “He’s everyone’s Buelo!”

Let’s take a look at some of the more interesting highlights of Buelo’s life, in honor of his birthday.

-He grew up very poor in a very large family in Puerto Rico. Growing up, we heard many stories about how poor he was. How he would fight to get the chicken foot to eat. No, not the leg, the foot.

-He was a rebel from the start. He once convinced his agriculture class to strike because the teacher wouldn’t get down off his horse and work with them. See, I knew I would end up having to edit this! It was a tractor that the teacher was using and the students had to work by hand. He was 14.

-He was going to be a priest. He was even in a seminary. Obviously that didn’t happen.

-When he first moved to NY, he took his car to drive two blocks to get some milk. Five hours later, he had been in every borough of the city and for years after he could drive somewhere with my mom and say “I know this place! I was here when I got lost!”

-Contrariwise, he makes a great tour guide. He can give you the whirlwind tour of New York City or Puerto Rico and you are bound to learn something about the place. Of course, tours usually begin at midnight, so make sure you nap beforehand.

-He encouraged my mother to breastfeed. She would have bottle fed, since that was common practice back then.

-He taught me about UFO’s (space aliens like Puerto Rico), pyramid power (I never understood why my science project didn’t win), herbal and natural remedies (“Just drink it gloo-gloo! You won’t even taste it!”), acupressure (“You have a headache? Let me squeeze it out!), and yoga.

-He really can fall asleep while playing his cuatro.