The TBA was granted a 501(c)(3) approval by the IRS on December 26, 1979. Other things were happening around us simultaneously. By ‘simultaneously’ I mean it was like an accordion, one moment the ends stretching out away from each other slowly and then suddenly all coming together and overlapping at once creating harmonious music or noise.
Among the daily traumas, one of the nicer events we shared was the contribution from the Mennonites who volunteered three of their young men for half a year to help with any physical labor, soon after the Creative Teen Power and what was to come next, and the Mennonites were well behaved. They knew what to do and expected no credit, no recognition, and no rewards. A simple smile would go a long way with them. Such pure beauty in the human soul! They helped over twenty homes with critical maintenance that owners could not afford on their own.
In a world full of crime, gangs, drug cartels, and terrorists, killing each other, these people create a valuable balance in the world of good and evil that we seldom see. One of their many accomplishments was to save a poor man whose toilet had fallen through the rotten floor of his house with him sitting on it. The three young men went to his aid and rebuilt his entire bathroom with a new solid plywood floor on new 2”x10” supported by new footings, full plumbing, running water, new toilet, new sink, and a working window. Then they got him unstuck from the toilet seat. Just kidding! This was far more than anyone had ever done for the poor man.
With our new tax-exempt funding leverage, we undertook a car-wash fundraiser by asking the City Mayor and the Chief of Police to volunteer to wash cars, and they accepted. We advertised it with “Come and Have the City Mayor and Police Chief Wash Your Car.” Along with curious citizens responding to our flyers, every policeman came to get their car washed by their boss, who got his car washed by his boss, rubbing shoulders with the help of the kids from the Barrio of course.
(I did not get my pickup washed so as to have no conflict of interest here.)
We did very well. When the Chief arrived at the carwash, he came to shake my hand as I was next to my pickup truck. The officer accompanying him was the cop that gave me all the parking tickets at Café Olé. We looked each other in the eyes and neither said a word, but somehow, I knew I could now go back to parking without getting any more tickets for missing a few minutes. These little perks are dangerous! They lead to the desire for increasingly larger favors due to having the right connections; it leads to cronyism, resulting in massive corruption. However, when they are only minor and cause no harm, they spice life with simple joys to counteract the painful ones.