Lauburu: Mother’s Milk

“You get me three cigarettes!”

Dad heard his father and wondered how on earth he’d do it. He was about 12 years old then and still in the Basque Country of Spain. The Second World War was raging. Food was scarce, and cigarettes scarcer still.

Dad turned to his mother, Timotéa. She dug coins out of the flour, and put them in dad’s front pocket, the one without the holes. She told him to bring milk.

He picked up the four empty bottles near the wood burning stove, and put them in a burlap sack that draped over his bony shoulder. Then he started his walk of several miles into Lekeitio.

At a first house, he knew the owner had goats, many goats, but there was no milk on this day, at least none the owner could spare. He walked to a second house. No milk. And to a third. No milk.

Tired, frustrated, he sat on the ground. His belly ached. He pulled off a shoe to remove rocks that had wormed their way through the sole.

A little luck, that’s what I need, he said to himself, whispering the words, hoping someone was listening.

The whispers worked. At the fourth house, an old man with two goats said he had milk to sell.

“Four,” dad smiled, handing over the empty bottles carefully to avoid dropping them.

The old man filled the sack as dad fished in his pocket for the flour coins. He held back a few for the cigarettes and gave over the rest.

“Not enough,” said the old man.

Dad held out the remaining coins in his palm and the old man took them all. He gave dad the bag of milk and shut the door.

Lord, thought dad, what to do, what to do, milk without cigarettes and all the money gone.

On the quiet road, alone, he had an idea. Dad walked two more miles to a house he’d visited before. An old woman lived there.

Once when he had passed, he had seen her in the yard tending a garden and she had waved at him. He had stopped and talked for what seemed like an hour. She had been friendly and kind, and by the look of her home, better off than most. As dad had bid her farewell, she had given him a piece of chocolate. It was old and hard but melted in his mouth. Nothing had ever tasted so perfect to him. He always remembered the experience.

When he came to her big house, he did not see her in the yard. He passed through a gate to her door and knocked. No one came, so he knocked again.

“Who’s there?” asked a meek voice.

“I’m the boy,” said dad, “the boy you gave a chocolate.”

“What do you want?” said the voice.

“I have milk to sell.”

“I have no money,” said the woman.

“I can trade.”

“Trade? Trade for what?”

“Milk for chocolate.”

The door opened slightly. Dad showed one of his bottles. Then the door shut, and moments later, opened again.

Through the crack, the woman extended a piece of chocolate cupped in her thin, gnarled hand. Dad took it and gave her a bottle of milk.

With the chocolate tucked in his pocket, he headed home, but not by the same route. He would pass the Lekeitio harbor where he knew there’d be guards, Franco’s men, la guardía civil, who patrolled and searched boats from the Iberian Sea.

His momma had told him to avoid these men at all times, and knowing their often treacherous deeds, he knew enough to listen to her. So when he spotted one, smoking, propped up against a market wall, his heart pounded out of his chest, his fear consuming him, and yet with courage, his little feet marched him right over to confront the soldier.

“Could I have a cigarette?” he asked meekly.

The soldier puffed, shifted a gun strap on his shoulder, and stared at this audacious 12 year old boy. He pulled out a cigarette and gave it to him.

“May I have two more?”

“No!” spit the soldier.

“I can trade.”

“You have nothing.”

Dad pulled out the chocolate. “I got chocolate. Two more for chocolate,” he said.

The soldier puffed twice and gave over two cigarettes. Dad turned away and quickened his feet to a near run, fearing the soldier might reconsider and demand something more.

At home, dad gave his momma three bottles of milk, and lied about the fourth, saying it had dropped on the road, and then handed three cigarettes to his father, who palmed them like rare jewels.

Six years later, dad would go to America, cross a continent, and end up in Nevada where he’d herd sheep, become a businessman, and raise a family.

As unique as his journey was from Spain to America, he was an archetype of so many who came before him and since. He was a clever man, a hard working man, an idea man. He often encountered the impossible yet found a way to chart a solution.

That, in many ways, is the story of America — a country that invites the courageous, men and women with ideas, the hard workers, the clever souls, the ambitious visionaries; a country that embraces talent, and asks only that those who grace our shores fulfill their potential and give back to the land and people that gave so much to them.

When dad was gathering milk and chocolate, he didn’t know he’d be among other immigrants who would cast their fortunes and take their skills across the Atlantic. He was in such good company — Albert Einstein, Nikola Tesla, Audrey Hepburn, Andrew Carnegie, Henry Kissinger, Bruce Willis, Wernher von Braun, Sergey Brin, Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and countless others.

Dad’s story is America’s story, the mother’s milk of our extraordinary past, and if we are clever enough in this age of challenge, dad’s story will remain America’s story, the mother’s milk of our glorious future.