Monico Lopez, my old friend

Years ago, I had the good fortune to spend a great deal of time with Monico Lopez Sr., father to Anastacio, Fidel, Monico Jr., and Sabino. Some of my best memories were made with Monico and his boys.
The Lopez family had nicknames for everyone they met. They would pick a name based on a prominent trait or its opposite.
Mine was “Bigotes,” Spanish for mustache. They called DeReese Nielson “El Nuevo,” Spanish for “The New One,” because, in their minds, he was old.
My dad, Lisle, was known as “Hippie,” pronounced “heepee” with a Spanish accent, due to his bald head.
Although I never knew why, David Adams was known as “El Grandote Feo,” or “The Big Ugly One.” I’m not sure why; only that laughter was a core family value.
I loved working with them all. The days never got too long, nor too hot, nor too cold, they loved to work hard and were good at it.
Monico had just turned 60 when we first met, and I was less than half that. He was as proficient in English as I was in Spanish, which was very little.
Each day, working together, we gave each other language lessons. I must have said “¿Como se dice esto?” hundreds of times each day, Spanish for “How do you say this?”
In those lessons, Monico insisted that I use proper pronunciation. It was his way of helping me sound less like a gringo. Whenever he would teach me a new word, he insisted that I watch closely as he formed the word with his lips.
One day, we were eating hot dogs for lunch, and while pointing at my plate, I said, “¿Como se dice esto?”
He waited until I was looking at him with undivided attention and slowly said “WEENIES”, taking great care to exaggerate the shape of his lips as the sound emerged. I burst into laughter and watched as the confused look spread across his face.
He then asked me for the English word. My response, “WEENIES,” with equally careful diction. I guess we knew more of each other’s language than we thought.
During his six decades, he had known how things were done in simpler times. We had a short stretch of fence to build one day.
The challenge was that the posts were to be set in solid sandstone. To drill the holes for the steel posts, we rented a compressor and a jackhammer.
After we’d finished, in his unique blend of Spanish words he knew I understood and his colorful sign language, he told us how two men drilled holes in rock in the old days with a piece of drill steel and a sledge hammer.
The man with the greatest nerve held the steel, while the stronger of the two hit it with the sledgehammer. He must have thought we were wimps.
At the summer camp on David Adams’ ranch, there was a reservoir surrounded by rich, black, productive, mountain soil. Years before my time, David’s family fenced off a small garden plot where each year we planted red potatoes.
We all looked forward to suppers in the late fall that included beef, accompanied by grilled onions and those incredibly sweet, high-altitude red potatoes.
Monico took special pride in that patch of potatoes. One year, when the weeds started to take over, we brought a gas-powered rototiller to the ranch to control them.
Monico took one look at it, shaking his head, proceeded to tell us we were foolish to use that modern contraption. He was sure that using it would ruin the crop.
The next day, he showed us an old horse-drawn cultivator he’d cobbled together from pieces found in a pile of what I thought was junk that had been lying around the ranch for decades. He proceeded to tell us how much better it was than our modern machine.
Fortunately, there was Pete, a gentle old horse we knew had never been harnessed, but also knew he wouldn’t create much of a rodeo.
With Monico on the cultivator while Pete dragged him through the garden, we managed to get rid of the weeds and produce a fine crop of potatoes that year. More important than the potatoes was the rich cultural experience we all witnessed.
Monico lived well into his 90s. I saw him for the last time a few years before he passed away on a summer evening.
After not seeing him for 20 years, I knocked on his screen door. From inside, he hollered something in Spanish, and I responded, “Soy Bigotes.”
The door instantly flew open, and I was met with the warm embrace of an old friend.
Monico, I will never forget you and your family!