Tag Archives: friends

Richard the Lionhearted

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My heart is heavy today. Today I learned that my friend of over 57 years, as well as my former law office partner, passed away after an extended battle with cancer. I have lost a few friends and acquaintances lately, but this one really hurts. This one has a deeper meaning than any loss other than my parents. 

In March 1967, my dad moved us from the Sunset Heights area of El Paso to the Lakeside neighborhood. That meant starting a new school for my brother and me. Mr. Rhymes directed me to sit at the back of his 5th grade classroom at Ascarate Elementary. That was the beginning of a new chapter in my life, and I met some people who are part of it today. One was Hugo Echavarri, who complained that day because I sat in front of his desk and he could not put his feet up on the empty desk. He and I have been best friends since that day. I met others in that corner: Albert Avila, Ted Watson, and Luis Amaya. 

During the first break, a short, chubby kid came up to me and introduced himself. He said, “Hi, I am Richard Contreras, but you can call me Richard the Lionhearted!” My first thoughts were, “Who is this kid?” What I found out was that this guy did indeed have a big heart. I learned to appreciate and love him like a brother.

We went to grade school and high school together. We spent more than one night working late on a project on the kitchen table at his house. His wonderful mom always made sure we were well fed and well-behaved as well. We always had a bit of a quiet rivalry, but I can tell you he always had my back.

When I started high school, I was only 5′ 1″ tall and weighed 95 pounds. For some reason, I thought I should play football on the freshman team. A lot of the football jocks picked on me, but Richard stood up to them and told them to leave me alone. I will never forget that.

I took the quick path to get out of UTEP and started law school at the University of Texas in 1977. Richard followed there in 1978. When I got accepted to law school, Richard bought me a book about Trial Tactics and Methods.  It is a book that still sits proudly on my bookshelf today.

When I decided I wanted to move back to El Paso after working as a prosecutor in Laredo, Texas, Richard invited me to come visit him and set up an office together. Together, we worked on setting up a nice little practice that we shared at various times with his brother Dave and our mutual friend Tony Gonzalez. When I unsuccessfully ran for Municipal Court Judge on two occasions, Richard ran my campaign. When our practice first started and we had no clients coming in, we would drive to Las Cruces for lunch just to get out of the office.

As often happens, we had some disagreements, and we ended up not working together after several years. Our friendship, however, has always remained strong. After my divorce and the relocation of my kids to Austin, which is 600 miles away, I eventually left El Paso and moved to San Antonio. Each time I returned to El Paso, a visit to Richard’s office was on the agenda. We would catch up, reminisce about our past, and wish each other well as we parted. 

We last visited a year ago, in April. It was an honest and open discussion about many things in our past, including an acknowledgment from each of us that we were a bit jealous of each other in certain aspects of our lives growing up.  We hugged and parted as we usually did, with the thought we would see each other again. 

Rick messaged me a couple of months ago to tell me his cancer had gotten aggressive. I posted on Facebook and other forums a request for prayers for him as he went through his struggle. Our last message exchange consisted of him thanking me for that and making a promise that he would fight this thing as hard as possible.

The message I got from my friend Genaro telling me of his passing shook me to the core. What was the one thing I should have told him that I didn’t? I should have told him that I loved him. I think we both knew we loved each other like brothers, but our egos probably did not let us say it out loud. 

Why do we do that? Why do we wait to tell those who mean a lot to us how we feel about them? I don’t know. It’s something I need to work on.  I love you Bro.   I will miss you.  

The death of part of my childhood – RIP Dennis

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I grew up in a much simpler time when kids could play outside for hours at a time without parents having to worry. We knew that we would be at each other’s parents house and no one worried. When it was time to come home, our parents would yell out the door for us to come home. Sometimes it took calling us by our full name, middle name included, to get us home, but we went home, and we were safe.

In fifth grade we moved from the Sunset Heights area in El Paso to the Lakeside area, all the way across town. Normally that kind of move would be tough, but for me, and for my brother Art, it meant the start of a great set of friendships. The first day of school I went to my class with Mr. Rhymes, and sat in front of someone who would be my best friend for the next 49 years, Hugo Echavarri. Across the street and down about three houses lived the Romero family, with a young boy my brothers age, named Dennis. The four of us would spend the better part of several years playing street football, Monopoly, Stratomatic football, cards and a number of other games. Sometimes we would start early morning and play till it was time to go to bed.

We invented a game called Calvin Hill, where we would throw a football up in the air and whoever caught it had to get to one side of the end zone (our lawn) with the other three tackling them. We did this during the heat of summer, on rainy days, and even a couple of times when it snowed. We would be banged up, scratched and bleeding at times, but we kept on going.
Our street football games would go on forever, and sometimes included Dennis’ sister Donna. We hated it when she got all girlie on us and quit playing because she would break a nail. Sometimes a kid from down the street named Louie would join us as well. When Dennis and I were playing on the same team we made up an audible system to call plays depending on where Hugo and Art lined up. Did we use numbers? Nope, we used cartoon characters.

We played a lot of tennis, we “experimented” with blowing things up with a balloon full of acetylene gas and oxygen from my dad’s welding torch. We even came up with a way to use a battery and steel wool to set off the balloons. One time Art and Dennis blew a big hole in the back yard with their little experiment.

These were fun times, and innocent times. But as happens, as we got older, we kind of lost touch. Hugo and I remain best friends, and of course I keep in touch with my brother, but Dennis and I lost touch. We managed to find each other on Facebook a few years back, and spoke maybe three or four times since that time.

About ten days ago I was driving to Round Rock to take my granddaughter to a Daddy-Daughter dance. My phone went off, and it was a message from Donna, Dennis’ sister, advising me that Dennis had passed away that morning, peacefully, in his sleep.
Certainly I am sorry that we had not kept in contact more often, but I choose not to linger on that. We had a lot of good times together, and those memories will always remain. But I can’t help but think that a little part of my childhood died when I learned of his death. I will miss you my friend, but our good times will always be in my heart.

dennis