Many years ago, 1989 to be exact, I bought a house in an older neighborhood in Sacramento. Most of the homes were small Victorians with elderly owners who had been there for years. Some previous owner had put an addition onto the house, planning to have an in home business, but the county put a stop to that. So, I had two front doors one at each end of the house facing the street. Lack of openness by the seller, I soon discovered there were drug dealers next door. Took me near a year to get rid of them, and I open carried every time I worked in my yard.

There was a young Hispanic couple in the house on the other side of the druggies, with a small little girl. They called her Chiquita, a cute two- or three-year-old. I made it a point to get acquainted with them, and they helped me organize a “Neighborhood Watch” group so we could help the older folks if they needed, and we were able to stop the druggies from terrorizing the neighborhood. I became extremely fond of this young family, from Guatemala, who were in the country legally. The wife had already obtained her citizenship, but hubby was having difficultly with his English. All my grandchildren called me Kay Grandma, to keep me separated from all their other grandmas and great grandmas. So, Chiquita started calling me Kay grandma, and soon both her mom and dad were calling me Kay Grandma. They had another little one, a boy, they gave him an English name.