Column by Ramon Renteria/El Paso Times Online/Jan. 11, 2008
Reprinted from the El Paso Times (http://www.elpasotimes.com/)
It's not the kind of news you want to hear.
The e-mails rolled in a while back saying Joe Olvera had lost his other leg to diabetes, the disease that maims and kills so many Mexican-Americans.
Olvera is an old-school Chicano, a former newspaperman who worked at the El Paso Times and the now-defunct El Paso Herald-Post. He said he is the first Chicano who worked in El Paso television news.
Olvera upset readers with his in-your-face commentaries on El Paso life and politics and references to racism and other social maladies on the United States-Mexico border. He ended his columns with his signature sin fin, loosely translated as "without end."
Olvera's friends assumed he would spend his golden years writing, maybe spending lots of time with his large extended family. He wrote a memoir about his journalism adventures and struggle with diabetes. He once ran an unsuccessful mayoral campaign.
Olvera is not the type to ask for charity or the type to wallow in self-pity.
So, it was difficult for those who know him to respond. Some of Olvera's friends, led by Del Pueblo Press publisher Reyes Mata, started trying to figure out how they could help.
La Fe Clinic first offered to build a ramp at Olvera's mobile home so he could have easier wheelchair access. La Fe also sponsored an account at Bank of the West (account No. 1099051) to help raise $10,000 to help him buy a prosthetic limb.
With mounting medical problems, Olvera disclosed that he, too, was affected by the mortgage loan mess. Creditors threatened to foreclose on his mortgage.
The naysayers will complain that it was his fault, that he should have set aside enough for retirement and that he shouldn't have to rely on the rest of us to bail him out. Saving for retirement isn't so easy in a city where many of us live paycheck to paycheck.
If we set aside the depressing thoughts that nag us day in and day out, we might conclude the situation is looking brighter for Joe Olvera in 2009.
Organizers say the city of El Paso will honor him Tuesday with its Star on the Mountain Award, its highest civilian recognition. Olvera recently told friends: "I'm flattered, honored and humbled."
Del Pueblo Press has lined up Hispanic civic leaders, artists, writers, activists and others to pay tribute to Olvera and hand him its Chicano Lifetime Achievement Award at 4 p.m. Saturday (Jan. 17, 2009) at The Percolator Cafe, 217 N. Stanton. The public is invited.
We all know somebody having a tough time making ends meet. And those of us who can usually will extend a helping hand, whether it's a homeless person, a neighbor or strangers who lost their house in a fire. Or the Olveras in our lives.
May el sin fin smile again.
Ramón Rentería may be reached at rrenteria@elpasotimes.com; 546-6146.
[Joe Olvera's book "Sin Fin; Chicano! Memoirs of a Chicano Journalist" ($19.95) will be available at the Percolator event.]
