He did so by "becoming a 'cholo' (or a 'pachuco,' or a low rider or street tough).... I dressed like a cholo and talked with a Mexican accent; I stopped hanging out with the white kids and all my friends were Mexican." His nickname was (and still is) Señor Felipe, who these days hosts "LA Sounds with Sr. Felipe" on Chico's KZFR.org. (Earlier he managed Chico Natural Foods and produced a line of organic salsas.)
How Elkins got from there to here is the subject of a series of autobiographies. The latest is "Running From The Fire" ($16 in paperback, published by Señor Felipe Press, P.O. Box 364, Forest Ranch, 95942; djsrfelipe@aol.com) taking Elkins from his early years through high school and some community college, and then, in 1966, being drafted into the Army at nineteen. As the book ends, he is preparing for Vietnam.
It's a raw yet oddly wistful tale of friendships, fistfights, girlfriends, making out, pregnancies, marriages, screwups and mishaps, seasoned with enough barnyard cussing to fill an oversized duffel bag. "Ahh, the joys of becoming an adult," Elkins writes. "What a long, difficult, complicated, and confusing road that seems to be."
Outside his circle he wasn't much accepted by the Mexican community, but he also didn't "know much about being Jewish" (apart from rampant anti-Semitism). His parents were a presence in his life (mostly his mom) but he leaned to fend for himself, more or less. At times, mostly less.
"All I really got out of basic training," Elkins writes, "was experiencing what it was like to be constantly tormented and threatened with 'going over to the jungles of Vietnam where many of you will die, hopefully as quickly and as painlessly as possible.'" His sadistic drill sergeant did not have a way with words.
But Elkins does. Saucy and savory, they tell an amazing story.
