Actually, some can learn from me. My great grandfather Florencio Contreras (left) was a blacksmith who put on horseshoes in Houston, Texas, for Black, white, and Mexican American cowboys. Four of his sons, including my grandfather, served in WWII. I come from the heart of America https://twitter.com/ranchy08/status/1290058044731043840

Here a Feb 1936 Houston Chronicle story on great grandfather Florencio Contreras that details how he was an "actor" in Mexico while training horses and how he stayed a blacksmith despite the new invention of the automobile. He was a cowboy.

My great grandfather Florencio Contreras also owned a semi-pro baseball team with Mexican American players and he helped refugees from Mexico get settled in Houston. The player in front of him is Isabel Ramos -- a future Korean War soldier and a man who would adopt my mother.

One of Florencio Contreras' sons, Ciprian, was injured three times in WWII, twice at Iwo Jima. I wrote about him for my July 4th story this year. He's a 1945 story on him. https://apnews.com/d2e7ef2f3848171587f1794f8768fd00

Florencio Contreras wld become a US citizen 5 years before his death. According to elder Mexican Americans who remember his work as a blacksmith, they say he could turn over a mule with one arm and castrate it. Now one of his great-grandsons castrates misinformation for a living

Another great-grandson, Billy Contreras, refurbished Florencio's old fiddle and played it at The Grand Ol Opry with Marty Stuart in 2018. Another great-grandson, Cruz, is the frontman for Knoxville, Tennessee, Appalachian-rock band, The Black Lillies

And here's the mother of Florencio Contreras. We believe she may be a descendent of a runaway Black slave who fled to Mexico from the US via the Underground Railroad to Mexico. But that...is another story. (Look for that one soon). --END--