Juancho, the Slangmaster

From El Catrin in San Anto, Jaime Castillo

Although I was only a couple of years behind John at UTEP, we didn't become close until we crossed paths at the San Antonio Express-News. John and I immediately gravitated to each other around our shared El Paso roots and our allegiance to the Miners in football and basketball. We would often communicate in the "El Chuco" version of border slang that left our colleagues from the Rio Grande Valley wondering what the heck we were talking about.

When Letty and I were dating before we got married, John would refer to her as "La Hyna," or my girlfriend. Our apartments were our "chantes" and John's sea green Ford Escort was "la ranfla."

One day, John came into the newsroom wearing a new sportcoat. I commented, "Mira que guapo." Without missing a beat, John responded, "Me lo caipié." (For the record, I'm not even sure how to spell "caipiar," but, in El Paso, it means to steal or "kipe.")

John always loved to plan lunches, pitting disparate people together just for the fun of it. Once, he asked me to go to lunch with some colleagues, who I knew, of course, but not very well. At the last minute, he pulled out of the deal, saying he had an interview. I always thought he did it on purpose, just to see what my reaction would be.

John loved stirring it up, in the best sense of the phrase. Once, he started a rumor that our colleague, Nora Lopez, had a tattoo of a rose, which bore the words "La Beauty." After spreading it around, John sat back in the corner and watched with great delight as one reporter after another asked Nora to see a tattoo that never existed.

I already miss the little bit of joyful chaos that Juancho brought to the world.

Te guacho cabron,

Jaime Castillo