David Hernandez

David Hernandez was born (1928) of Mexican parents, political refugees from the Mexican Revolution of 1910, and raised by a widowed mother of six children in a Chicago barrio. In an atmosphere of Catholicism, with St. Francis of Assisi church at the hub of the neighborhood and its school, where most of the Hernandez kids went to primary school, it was only natural that they would be profoundly influenced by their surroundings. The four younger boys became altar boys.

But as most children do, over and beyond their free wills, they grew up. They radiated in mostly different directions on going to high school, essentially having to cross over on the "white side of the tracks." At Jungman, a two-year school, now defunct, is where he met a new buddy, a lad who shocked him with a few questions he put to him about religion in general and Catholicism in particular. David was especially disturbed, not so much that he had no answers to the questions, as that he was annoyed that such questions had never come up or considered in all the years he had gone to church and the Catholic church at the corner of Newberry and Roosevelt Road. If they had, he would have answers to the questions his buddy put to him. Thenceforth he was determined to search for the answers to those questions.

Even before David started high school, the oldest male of the family, Tony, decided he wanted to form "the great Hernandez dance band." It was at that point that David plunged into a regimen of practice that forswore any kind of recreation or educational assignments that would interfere with his first duty: to practice every wakeful hour. His prime goal was to become good enough to sit in a famous dance band, like those he had learned to love during the 1930s and up to the late 1950s. Thus he ignored all school assignments and homework, even though most of his schoolmates and teachers must have thought of him as just another "dumb Mexican."

With years of dedicated practice, even after graduating, he felt he was nowhere near ready to audition for a place in a top band. He, therefore, plowed through another six years of practice to come ever closer to his goal. It was by pure chance, as most of life is, that when playing tennis with another buddy, who convinced him to go to college, and that was only because at The School of Music, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana there was a good chance of finding the key to overcoming his slow progress, perhaps a secret genie would slip into his brain by osmosis, and because there would be various dance bands in the campus area in which he could play and improve his playing.

David's intention for going to college to wait for the day when he could finally believe he would be ready to play for a great dance band. Since is purpose was not to study academically for obtaining a degree, he continued his routine of forsaking homework and assignments. It nearly cost him his college career because he barely squeaked through his Basic College English course on a D minus. He slid along through his courses through is first two years of "study" at college, until the fatal day: when he made a shocking discovery. For despite all his love and passion for his music, relentless practice, his obsession with his ultimate goal, the dance band possessed warrior, he now knew he would never reach his objective because he had no musical talent. It was a shattering reality he had to stomach, something that would prod any number of people to commit suicide. But David would not take defeat lying down. His will to succeed prodded him instead to transmute a negative to a positive.

For another year stumbling along the halls of ivy in search of fruitful path, turning to one major after another until by purest accident he made another fabulous discovery: READING. At the age of 27, he had yet to read a book in his life, but now that would be a whole new world for him. Just as he had labored all his wakeful hours practicing, now he would read everything that would give him the broad education his musical mission had robbed him of: literatures of the world, including that of the Orient, philosophy, psychology, the arts, a broader classical view, politics, and world religions. Though with his music he had not intended or expected to graduate with a degree, now he was determined to study without interruption for a Ph. D. Nothing less would do for David Hernandez, who as a youth gave the vivid impression of a wholesale ignoramus for abstaining from study. It was during this enlightenment that by purest chance he met a pretty English lass, Wendy, and married in England. They had three children, two girls followed by a boy.

As he had grown up from a child to an adult through the forces of nature, now David's own children grew up too. But as fortune would have it, Wendy had a disastrous closed head injury in a car accident, leaving her blind, mentally dysfunction, and consigned to a nursing home needing maximum care for 18 years. Determined to do all he could for her, he cared for her as much as possible: giving her a bit of exercise, helped feed her, cleaned her up when she got soiled, changed her linen, etc., things that the aids were supposed to do but he insisted on doing during the couple of hours he was with her. The Medical Examiner gave as his report: death by Alzheimer's disease. The debilitating disease was behind her actually choking to death from her inability to swallow her breakfast one morning.

After spending years in Wendy's care and taking part time teaching jobs, David gave some time to writing, mostly plays and some articles. During these years he met a Mexican widow, Senorina, whom he married. A growing discontent with national and world affairs, caused mainly by greed, lack of respect, little understanding of the basic humanity most religions taught, and practically know understanding of the meaning of love. His growing passion in this discontent led him to write non-politically correct articles to various newspapers, all of whom rejected his work. It dawned on him that the only way he could reach the people who ought to read and consider seriously these issues was to write books

From the time David discovered reading and began his new study regimen, he began to make more substantial discoveries that would help answer the questions his high school buddy had placed before him. And as the years went by his views broadened enough so that he could write books on such diverse subjects as Destroying America, The Greatest Story Ever Forged (Curse of the Christ Myth), Hispanic Profiles (Of Great Figures Little Known in America, and Broken Face in the Mirror (Crooks and Fallen Stars That Look Very Much Like Us).

As in any life, fickle fortune will bring us joyous times but also very painful moments. It was now Senorina's turn at the wheel of fortune: she was recently diagnosed with cancer of the breasts. After undergoing many tests, a series of chemotherapy, surgery (lumpectomy), radiation, medication for sundry ailments, and continuing tests, she reached remission. The ongoing future will tell where our fortunes will go next and tell the whole story.