Chapter 73

The Story of Rose(s),

The first time Rose Sanchez saw Gary "Jake" Zalewski, she looked at her sister, Rosalie. Rosalie was looking at her. They nodded.

Jake wasn't a prize by any means. He wasn't tall ... he wasn't short ... he absolutely wasn't pretty. He was medium tan. Since he came from the mountainous north of India his skin was a lot lighter than the southerners. He was by no means fair, but he wasn't truly dark. But, you know ... he was what they hadn't found in ... oh ... since puberty.

For ten yeas they had been looking for a man who would take them both to wife. Jake was India Hindu. The girls were Balinese Hindi Animists Catholic ... not an unknown mix. Their mom, Nyoman, was Hindi Animist Catholic ... no harder to believe than Voudun Catholic

Felix Sanchez was German, Scotch-Irish, a little bit of Italian and lot of Catalonian Spanish. He was European ... not Mexican. His ancestors fought Mexicans to free Texas. Europeans who lived in Spanish Texas were called Texians or Texicans. Today, a Texican is a second generation Texan. The girls were Texicans ... a Texican father and a Balinese mother. (Although, I'd argue the point ... they weren't RAISED in Texas ... believe me ... RAISED in Texas makes all the difference.)

The Sanchez Catalonian progenitors had been inhabitants of the town of Llivia, located in the Pyrenees, in the Cerdanya valley. The district is totally surrounded by France. Problems with Castilian Spain in the 1620's saw the family pack up and move by sea to Texas in the general area of what would be Galveston/Houston two hundred and fifty years later.

"As a 'bonus' for getting out of my hair and leaving me in peace I'm giving you this land grant for twenty five thousand labor of land," (four million, four hundred twenty-five thousand acres) said the King of Spain ... he was smiling as he wrote out the grant. Actually, he was laughing inside, he usually gave land grants for two hundred fifty thousand labor. It was such a hoot ... half the land he was giving to the Sanchez' was in French Louisiana.

(That's 6,914 square miles ... somewhere between New Jersey and Hawaii in size ... just in case you're curious.)

I suppose they were grateful ... Andrea could go back and find out. She doesn't.

Nyoman was of the last Javanese migration to Bali. About a hundred years before the Sanchez' were run out of Spain Nyoman's aristocratic ancestors fled Java to avoid the Muslims. Bali was already heavily Hindi ... the animistic religion of the original Balinese fit right in with the first migration of Javanese.

(Heck. Geology Lesson. I've been on and on about the lowered sea level during the current ice age and some of you can just skip this part ... but I hope you don't ... it's important.

Forty four thousand years ago the Malay people spread out across the land mass uncovered by the polar icecaps. (I'm still a 600 foot lower sea level guy but the general consensus of practicing archaeologists during the 1980's was 150 feet.) At least the recent maps of the land masses show a 350 foot lowering. Bali was part of Java was part of Malay was part of southeast Asia ... and like that.

In between that Bali peninsula and the island of Lombok was ... and still is ... a very deep channel. As the ice caps melted and the oceans rebounded, by 18,000 years ago Bali was an island cut off from Java. The first migration happened while Bali was still attached.)