Adrian Mora, grieving from his father’s death, went on Facebook Friday to ask this: Does anyone remember him? He was “the original elote man” who drove through Santa Ana selling fresh corn on the cob in the 1980s.
Turned out that, yes, many long-time residents do indeed recall Servando Mora and his sweet corn.
“Of course I remember him,” wrote one resident on Facebook. “… (M)y mom and dad would love to get corn from him. Deepest condolences to you and your family. What an amazing father, great entrepreneurial spirit and (he) made a great product.”
Most of the hundreds of comments people posted on Facebook since Jan. 29, when Servando Mora died of COVID-19, expressed condolences. Some also shared stories about the deaths of their own relatives. And Adrian Mora comforted them as well.
But it was the comments from people who clearly remembered his dad that brought Adrian Mora great joy.
Some shared memories from their youth, running up to Mora’s two-tone truck bearing fresh corn. One person remembers the older Mora selling corn at Madison Park during Little League games. Several remember how Mora announced himself on a megaphone in Spanish, “They’ve arrived, they’ve arrived; warm, with chile and lemon.”
“This is what makes me happy,” Mora wrote in response to one comment. “As a kid, I thought my dad was a hero in the community.”
Servando Mora was born in San Marcos, Jalisco on Nov. 23, 1936. He never had a shot at an education. By the time he was 6, he was working the fields, planting seeds and picking produce as early as 4 a.m.
In the 1960s, Mora was married and living in Tijuana, but with a work visa he crossed the border daily to pick fruit in Orange County. In 1964, he brought his young family to join his parents and other relatives in Santa Ana, soon gaining a green card and later U.S. citizenship. Over the next two decades, he shifted from farm work to construction.
Then, in 1984, in a work-related accident, he broke both arms. With Mora unable to work, the family lost their home and he had to figure out a new way to support the family, Adrian Mora said.
That’s how the idea of selling corn from the back of his truck was born.
“I was 12 and I remember we used to go to San Juan Capistrano with my brothers. The farmer sold only to markets, except for my dad. And it wasn’t yellow corn. It was white corn.”
The white corn was part of the allure. So was the fact that he drove from neighborhood to neighborhood in his truck, selling 12 cobs for a $1. Every day ended in the Minnie Street neighborhood, which at the time was heavily Asian. “They loved his corn,” Adrian Mora said. “They would empty out his truck.”
The following year, Mora decided he could make more by selling cooked corn. So the family heated the corn at home, in giant cauldrons in the family’s backyard fire pit. Though there were variations, Mora’s specialty was corn with chile and lemon.
One resident on the Facebook page, “You know you’re from Santa Ana if…” wrote this: “Every Saturday afternoon, I looked forward to stopping him front of my house on Oak Street and Warner.”
Adrian Mora remembers once being embarrassed as a teenager when his father dropped him off at Santa Ana High School. To teach his son a lesson, he got on his megaphone and announced his corn, 12 for a $1. “As he drove off, my friends ran up because they wanted to buy some,” he said laughing.
“That night, he told me, ‘Don’t ever be embarrassed by what you do for your family, as long as you have food in your belly and a roof over your head.’”
“Rent was $400 a month back then,” Adrian Mora added. “For him to pay that rent and support us by selling corn, I don’t know how he did it. It amazes me.”
Mora almost never took a day off, his son said. Sometime in the late 1980s, he began selling cookware at swap meets, first at Orange Coast College, then in Fontana and eventually at the Van Buren Drive-in Theater swap meet in Riverside, the city he moved to in 1990 after remarrying.
Last November, he had a mild stroke. But a few weeks later he was back, working the Riverside swap meet.
“To work til you’re 84, and not sit on your butt, that’s amazing,” the son said.”He was my Superman.”
The elder Mora started feeling sick last month. On Jan. 4 he checked into Riverside Community Hospital. Within a week, he needed help breathing and was connected to a ventilator. The only time his family was allowed to see him at the hospital, through a glass window, was last Thursday, Jan. 28. By then, his organs were failing.
The next day, the hospital arranged a phone call to say goodbye.
“We were telling him what a great father he was. Our girls were telling him what a great grandpa he was.”
Adrian Mora, 48, a Lake Elsinore resident who works in the mortgage industry, said he continued working last week in homage to his father. The last days of the month are busy for mortgages.
“If my dad would never take a day off, I wouldn’t take a day off.”
Servando Mora is the latest of five relatives who have died of COVID-19, Adrian Mora said. Another was Timothy Tellez, a 47-year-old Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputy who died in December.
The deaths have devastated the large extended family, which includes hundreds of cousins, aunts and uncles. Mora is survived by his wife, Maria Mora, his children, Dago, Ernie, Patricia, Adrian and Jaime Mora, his former wife, Natalia Mora, 10 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.
With a backlog at funeral homes, it’s unlikely that the family will be able to bury Mora until mid-March. In the meantime, Adrian Mora takes comfort in the memories of strangers from his hometown of Santa Ana.
He wanted to know if they remember his dad. They do.
"original" - Google News
February 03, 2021 at 09:31AM
https://ift.tt/3aoEUFM
Words of remembrance for Santa Ana’s “original elote man” help ease son’s grief - OCRegister
"original" - Google News
https://ift.tt/32ik0C4
https://ift.tt/35ryK4M
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Words of remembrance for Santa Ana’s “original elote man” help ease son’s grief - OCRegister"
Post a Comment