that previous picture of adolfo iv was in a field we stopped at on our way back from picking up sra. mercado in edinburg. it had been a long time since i had made a field stop during a trip to the valley.

i left home right after high school to start school in edinburg at UT Pan American. My step-father had given me the blazer as a graduation gift, i used it most of the time anyway, and had done a lot of the maitenance on it through high school. I remember the day i packed up all my belongings (there weren't that many) in the back of the truck and left home. I hardly felt the six hours it took to get down south.

I made the trip between houston and the rio grande valley frequently. my favorite time was during the autumn; september and october specifically. from weslaco i would take a series of backroads my father had showed me to get to 77N which would lead me, eventually to houston. along these roads were seemingly endless fields: sorghum, cotton, corn, cabbage, onions, and my favorite, sugar cane.

in the autumn, they burn the sugar cane in order to harvest it. and it's beautiful. it smells beautiful (although, i can imagine that the insectiside ridden smoke is pretty bad for you) - like the way coke feels good when it burns it's trail down your throat.

and i would stop and watch them burn the fields. i kick myself that i never got a photo of this. not a one.