Is it just me, or did October 2024 get here in like 2.5 seconds? This year is absolutely flying by, and it genuinely feels like if we blink even once, it will be Christmas morning. This October, I’ve got goals on my mind. I have a big birthday this month– the kind of milestone birthday I used to set goals when I was a freshman in college when the number seemed REALLY far away. I haven’t achieved all the goals I set when I was younger, but I’ve accomplished a lot more that I never imagined back then and if there’s one thing I’ve realized, it’s that though I was born during football season, I am allowed to move my life’s goal posts whenever I want. I can even tear them up completely and choose to play a different game if I feel like it. And if I don’t like the game, I can take my ball and go home. Goals are meant to change and grow with us. They are not written in stone or the stars. So, as Halloween creeps up on us and the leaves start to change, view your hopes, dreams, and self with kindness, knowing the story still has many pages yet to be written. And it will all happen in due time.
Lizz Daniels Creative Director
COVERSHOT
Teatro De Artes student, Halen Barrientos wears her Tabasco vestuario with Calaveras makeup for Dia De Los Muertos in downtown Seguin. Makeup by Deanna Barrientos.
Photo by Lizz Daniels
How a cochlear implant changed a local doctor’s life
Family traditions & Dia De Los Muertos
Community
GENERAL MANAGER
Darren Dunn
CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Lizz Daniels
ADVERTISING MANAGER
Nick Spence
WRITERS
Cindy Aguirre-Herrera
Chris Austin
Lizz Daniels
ADVERTISING CONSULTANTS
Laurie Ann Heideke
Linda Duncan
Jarred Kindles
OFFICE MANAGER
Priscilda Rodriguez
The Gift of HEARING
How a Cochlear implant procedure changed Dr. Solomon’s life
Story by Cindy Aguirre-Herrera
Listen carefully. What do you hear? Is it the sliding door of a UPS truck down the street? Is it the keyboard strokes of your coworker in the next cubicle? Or is it simply the sounds of your own voice?
Those sounds are part of everyday life for most of us, no matter what we hear. However, for Dr. Howard Solomon, a local urologist, those sounds have been missing for over 30 years.
And before you question, yes, Dr. Solomon is a doctor, and yes, most of his 50 years of practicing medicine have all been accomplished while deaf.
Just last year, Dr. Solomon contemplated retiring, but not because he no longer loved being a doctor. It was because of profound hearing loss. Fast forward to this year, and retirement is no longer on the table for Dr. Solomon. That’s all thanks to his decision to receive a cochlear implant earlier this year.
As part of his 79th birthday celebration in July, Dr. Solomon shared further details about his journey, saying his implant is a “life-changing gift.”
He says the gift comes almost eight years after Dr. Amy Trost with Advanced Hearing in Seguin, who up until that time was able to keep him on top of all the latest in hearing aids, said that he could no longer benefit from conventional hearing aids.
Following a visit with a neurologist in San Antonio, Dr. Solomon says they notified him that a cochlear implant was the only way to improve his hearing.
“I was hesitant for the following reasons,” Solomon said. “I was able to practice medicine in a situation where I control the conversation which that happens in my office and it’s a quiet environment with no background noise. If I can control a conversation, I can get by and it was satisfactory to me, but it continued to get worse and ultimately, I had to use an app on my cell phone that when the patient was talking to me, I could read what he was saying.”
However, after returning to San Antonio, Dr. Solomon said he had nothing to lose because out of a 100-word exam, he missed every one of them.
“They said you are deaf, and without reading lips, I just couldn’t go on, and I thought, well, this might be what puts me on the shelf,” he said. “I’m 79 and retirement has never been my goal. I assumed at some point, my health would decline, or I would just not want to practice medicine anymore but then it became obvious that it was going to be my hearing that was going to retire me and my colleagues all agreed that it was not going to be my cognitive skills or my technical skills. It was going to be my hearing.”
Finally, after realizing he had nothing to lose, Dr. Solomon underwent the implantation procedure this past January. Before the device was activated, he was told that it would take three to six months for his brain to get used to the frequencies – frequencies that he had not heard for decades. They also told him that what he was going to hear would likely be unintelligible.
Yet, to Dr. Solomon’s surprise, once the device was activated, he realized he had received his gift.
Photos by Lizz Daniels
“The day that it was activated, it was like a miracle, and it was not only not unintelligible –– I could hear.” Solomon said. “Coming home, I could hear the turn signal in the car and I could carry on a conversation in the car which up until then, I could not converse in the car because of the road noise and when I went back to work the next day, I no longer needed the app that would record and transcribe the conversation and walking my dog in the morning for the first time since I could remember. I could hear birds chirping and it was quite frankly a wonderful moment for me, and I could hear things. For example, the microwave when it was done. I never realized that it sent a signal and I was in the next room and I heard a beeping in the kitchen and I went and I realized it was the microwave – the same with the toaster oven. It made a noise when it was done but prior to that, I just had to look at my watch when I knew it was going to be done.”
More importantly, it made practicing medicine much easier, and struggling to hear was no longer stressful.
Beyond work, Dr. Solomon’s hearing loss impacted the rest of his life. As a record-holding angler and avid hunter, Dr. Solomon’s travels became difficult. He couldn’t hear airport PA systems and found himself in trouble trying to communicate when he missed a connecting flight. He says he had to have a “set of ears” with him to explain to other anglers and hunters that he’s not unfriendly and that he just couldn’t hear them. Travel is now a breeze, and he’s back to enjoying time with family and friends.
Now when Dr. Solomon wraps up another day in the office, he says it just becomes another victory because he was a deaf man who can practice medicine.
“It’s no longer a struggle,” he said. “I converse normally and I do not feel stressed in conversations, and it’s been not less than a miracle for me and something that is shocking is that the hearing loss which is required for Medicare to approve the procedure. There is a form and the people that are eligible -- only five percent go on to have the implant and I suppose they are fearful and incidentally there is absolutely no pain. I never took a pain pill, and it could not have been an easier procedure. It is done under general anesthesia, and it takes a couple of hours as an outpatient and it’s been wonderful and I would encourage anybody that if they are not satisfied with conventional hearing aids, that they should at least investigate if they are a candidate and not be fearful of the procedure and I would be happy to talk to anybody that was contemplating it. I was told my results were not average. It is much better than average so everybody does not get the same results that I did but I would encourage everybody that they don’t have to live as a deaf person and that it is possible that they would qualify for cochlear implants.”
Dr. Solomon has since extended his contract with Guadalupe Regional Medical Center and says he no longer has any reason to retire any time soon.
To learn more visit, www.cochlear.com/us. • 9
A Day with the A with
Spirits Spirits
Familial traditions & CELEBRATING Dia De Los Muertos
Let’s talk about death. It’s one of those things we all eventually face, but how we approach it varies widely from person to person. Some people face death head-on, embracing that life is short, while others avoid it at all costs.
Death has a scandalous reputation in media as tearing families apart when a reading of the will goes south, but in reality, death brings families together pretty often, too. When a loved one dies, we gather for a funeral or a wake and mourn with others who understand the loss.
In the household of Seguin resident Cindy Rangel, though the dead are passed, they are not really gone, and each year, they return for Dia De Los Muertos. On a late September day, she was at home working to set up her ofrenda (altar) for the coming months. It’s a tradition she started twenty-five years ago to honor her father, but the tradition’s roots run deep in Hispanic and Latin American culture.
“Dia De Los Muertos is an old traditional celebration that dates back to the Aztecs and
the Mayans,” Rangel said. “It is to honor and to celebrate our dead. We believe, if there’s still somebody alive to remember you, your spirit is still here, so we honor them to invite them home for the day.”
During Dia De Los Muertos, it is believed the veil between living and dead is thinnest, thus allowing spirits to pass back into the world of the living to visit. To celebrate the spirits and lure them home, an ofrenda is built with photos of the dead and offerings of their favorite items.
After building her ofrenda for over two decades, Rangel now showcases one hundred photos of beloved friends and family who have died. The table sits in a dining room just off of Rangel’s main living room. Front and center is a photo of her father, while in between photos, Calaveras peer out with dark eyes as a bowl of salt sits nearby.
On the highest tier, a Virgin Mary statue looks down over the altar photos while candles flicker gently around her. Each and
every piece on the altar has meaning and is intended to be an offering for the spirits, to remind them of their life.
“On the altar, I have whiskey or beer for the ones who liked it,” she laughed. “I also have my grandfather’s glasses and a little shell with a cross on it that was my grandmother’s. I have some cotton that was my great grandfather’s –– he was a farmer, so that was his thing. Very recently, my uncle Mario passed, and I have his glasses as well. My aunt Stella brought Calaveras for her, and my uncle Juan and her son. So, every year I put those right by their pictures. There are four candles at the top of the altar that represent the cardinal directions, and then three skulls on the second level representing the holy trinity, and then a big one in the middle, which is for the giver of life. There’s a lot of symbolism going on.”
On November 2, Rangel and her family will gather in her home to celebrate all the loved ones on the ofrenda with food, libations, and a telling of stories.
Story & Photos by Lizz Daniels
On the altar, I have whiskey or beer for the ones who liked it. I also have my grandfather’s glasses and a little shell with a cross on it that was my grandmothers.
- Cindy Rangel -
“I have a PowerPoint presentation that shows everyone’s pictures on the table, including some of our pets. When a picture pops up of a particular loved one, somebody will tell a story, and we laugh and we cry. My great grandchildren love to celebrate. I think for them, that’s real special and takes me back to what my dad felt. They enjoy seeing people they don’t usually get to see, and sit through the whole presentation.”
Gathered in Rangel’s tiny living room, the living speak the dead back to life with an oral history shared from one generation to the next. It’s a tradition that helps with grief while creating magical moments of remembrance.
This November, Rangel is most looking forward to honoring her late uncle Mario who passed away during the summer.
“Uncle Mario never married, so his nieces and nephews were his kids,” Rangel said. “We tell all the kids that he loved bananas because they have no bones, which is silly. So all the kids would go around saying they love bananas because they have no bones. Uncle Mario loved the children, so this year we’re really going to celebrate him.”
As the season shifts and Dia De Los Muertos approaches, Rangel and her living family are ready to visit with family members who have gone to the afterlife. They’ll share pan de muerto and light the altar candles while feeling the presence of their ancestors because the dead are never really gone when remembered by the living. •
OCTOBER
Featured Events
First United Church Pumpkin Patch
The First Methodist Church of Seguin Pumpkin Patch 2024 will be open daily, Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., and noon to 7 p.m. Sundays in October at 710 N. Austin St. A second load of pumpkins will arrive on October 12. For more information call 830-379-4112.
October 10
Guadalupe County Fair
The Guadalupe County Fair & PRCA Rodeo will be held from Thursday, Oct. 10 to Sunday, Oct. 13 at the Seguin Events Complex. Follow the fair on Facebook and Instagram @ GuadalupeCo.FairAssociation. For a complete listing of events visit www. gcfair.org.
October 17
A Toast to Crime Stoppers
The TLU Jessie S. and Jack Harold The Guadalupe County Crime Stoppers will have its Second Annual Wine and Cigar Soiree at 6 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 17 at the Lake Breeze Ski Lodge, located at 225 Ski Lodge Road in McQueeney. There will be 4 wine tastings, 2 cigars and a seated dinner included with ticket purchase. A cash bar will also be available. For more information, call 210-771-5755 or 830-481-7824.
To promote your event on this page contact advertising at 830-379-2234 or email communitycalendar@kwed1580.com
October 14
Registration Deadline
The City of Seguin Parks and Recreation Department will have a Starcke Park Adventure Course (Youth Event) on Saturday, Nov. 9. The event is for ages 5-12. The cost is $15 per participant and includes a T-shirt. Registration closes on Monday, Oct. 14. For more information and to register, visit tinyurl.com/stxspya
October 19
Kiki Camarena Run
The Guadalupe Valley Young Marines will have its 5th Annual Kiki Camarena Run – Ride to Be Drug Free from 9 to 4 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 19 at the Veterans Outreach Center, located at 205 E. Weinert St. in Seguin. There will be a motorcycle run, chili-dog plate sale, silent auction, and vendors. For more information, contact Dina Dillon at 423-227-9610 or email gvyoungmarines@gmail.com
October 17
Boots & Butterflies Event
The Thriving Hearts Crisis Center will have its Boots & Butterflies Event beginning with check in at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 17 at the Seguin Coliseum, located at 950 S. Austin St. in Seguin. The attire is cowboy chic and or purple. For more information, email impact@thrivingheartscc.org.
October 19
Seguin Fall Festival
There will be a Seguin Fall Festival from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 19 at Central Park in downtown Seguin. There will be a car show, food, music, games, live entertainment, bounce houses, arts & crafts vendors, pet costume contest, beer garden, and pumpkin patch. All proceeds benefit local fire departments. For more information, email seguinfallfestival@gmail.com.
DIY: Recipe to Try Pumpkin Spice
(but make it cheesecake!)
Pumpkin Cheesecake with Gingersnap Crust
Serves 8 to 10
Crust
1 1/2 cups gingersnap cookie crumbs
1/2 cup finely chopped hazelnuts
6 tbsp unsalted butter, melted 1/4 cup sugar
Filling
1 1/2 lbs cream cheese, at room temp
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 large egg yolks
1 1/2 tbsp all-purpose flour
2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1 cup solid-pack pumpkin purée (not pumpkin pie mix)
1/2 cup créme fraîche, homemade (see below) or store-bought, or sour cream
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Lightly butter an 8- or 81/2-inch springform pan.
2. To make the crust: Stir together all of the ingredients in a medium bowl until the crumbs are moistened. Press the mixture over the bottom and up the sides of the pan. Bake the crust for 10 minutes. Let cool completely on a wire rack. Increase the oven temperature to 425 F.
3. To make the filling: With an electric mixer on medium speed, beat the cream cheese, brown sugar and granulated sugar in a large deep bowl until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs and then the egg yolks one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the flour and pumpkin pie spice and beat on low speed until just combined. Add the pumpkin purée, créme fraîche and
vanilla, and beat until just combined. Pour the filling into the shell.
4. Place the cheesecake on a baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes. Reduce the oven temperature to 250 F and continue baking for 1 hour.
5. Turn the oven off and let the cheesecake cool in the oven for 2 1/2 hours. Then transfer to a wire rack and let cool to room temperature. Refrigerate, tightly covered, for at least 10 hours, until thoroughly chilled and set, or for up to 2 days.
Créme Fraîche
Makes about 1/2 cup
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream 1/2 cup créme fraîche or sour cream with live cultures
Pour the cream into a glass jar with a tight-fitting lid and spoon in the créme fraîche. Let sit on the counter, with the lid slightly ajar, until the mixture thickens, from 4 to 24 hours, depending on the weather. Refrigerate, tightly covered, until ready to use.
6. To serve, run a knife around the side of the cheesecake and remove the side of the pan. Serve slightly chilled or at room temperature, cut into thin wedges with a sharp knife dipped into hot water and wiped dry after each cut.
This story originally ran in the Seguin Daily News on September 16, 2024
Ruben Perez & the CHICANO SQUAD
Story by Cindy Aguirre-Herrera
TV viewers will want to note the role that one Seguin native plays in the recently released A&E documentary series Chicano Squad. The twoepisode documentary, rated one of the top shows today, originally premiered Sept. 2-3 and chronicles the work, sacrifice, and determination of the first-ever Latin homicide investigative unit purposely pulled together in 1979 to tackle the hundreds of unsolved murders in Houston’s Latin neighborhoods.
Among those who worked alongside the team in the DA’s office was Segunite Ruben Perez, who at the time had just come on board serving as a city of Houston assistant attorney. Perez is now a Harris County Assistant District Attorney who serves as the Special Crimes Bureau Chief.
Although he credits all the work to the bilingual patrol officers who were pulled off their beats to work as detectives, Perez says he feels honored to have seen this revolutionized community policing team come together and surpass the Houston PD’s expectations.
“My association with the Chicano Squad happened because I was one of the few Spanish speaking ADA’s who knew the language, the slang and culture of the Latino community, which was similar to the members of the Chicano Squad. They overcame all these obstacles, and yes, they didn’t know
the law, but I’m trained. I’m a lawyer so whatever assistance I could give them to navigate the criminal justice system, I was there to help them as a lawyer. I don’t want to take away from all the ADA’s in the office, but I was one of the few ADA’s that came from the barrio from the Juana Heights there in Seguin, and I knew the slang. So that certainly helped in not only helping the Chicano Squad but also in prosecuting these cases in court because a lot of the victims, a lot of the witnesses were Spanish speakers, and at the time, we did not have translation services, and that was a great great advantage in going to court,” said Perez. I worked alongside them investigating and prosecuting many cases including Spanish defendants, witnesses and victims. Our association was a natural fit,” said Perez.
Dubbed as the Chicano Squad by Houston media, the team consisted of five detectives: Jim Montero, Jose Selvera, Raymond Gonzales, U.P. Hernandez, and Cecil Mosqueda. In its quest to solve crime, the Houston PD extended the five bilingual Mexican department rookies only 90 days to solve all open Latin murder cases. Not only was it seen as a way to bring closure to cases but to “regain the trust of the community and assist in any new crimes involving Spanish-speaking people.”
“Back in the days, the law enforcement community was not exactly a bastion of equal opportunity. The ranks in law enforcement were not very diverse. Advancement could be very difficult,” said Perez.
Having no prior homicide experience, Perez says the crime fighters who also experienced their own plight of racism and discrimination within the department, in the end, proved successful having cleared 80 percent of their cases.
“I am so happy that the Chicano Squad achievements and struggles were finally documented and told. The Chicano Squad members as is documented in the docuseries faced many challenges such as few resources, very little training, and racism. I think they were set up for failure but in spite of these obstacles, because of their passion for seeking justice for victims, they succeeded. Passion for this line of work cannot be taught. The community could feel the genuineness of these men and thus the community trusted them. The Chicano Squad earned the trust of the community. I hope that that this documentary illustrates to young men and women that hard work and perseverance can overcome obstacles to whatever goal you wish to accomplish. I have been fortunate to travel to many countries of the world where opportunities can be very minimal whereas opportunities notwithstanding many obstacles in our country are available,” said Perez.
Even though the Chicano Squad inspired similar units across the country, the concept quickly dissolved as police departments became more diverse. Despite the circumstances of the unit and the years that have since passed, Perez says some of its many lessons still exist today.
“What I learned was that as a person of color, I had to be twice as good and work twice as hard not to be considered better but just to be considered just as good,” said Perez.
Inspired to tell the story of the Chicano Squad via the documentary was Sergio Selvera, the son of one of the squad members Jose Selvera.
45th anniversary of the
of
The documentary remains available on A&E and other streaming services. •
The historic contributions of the Chicano Squad were also recently recognized by the city of Houston. Included in that original team were people like Perez, who played an essential role in helping the squad bring justice to the victims' families. The release of the documentary was done in honor of the
