The year was about 1960 and my father, Louis Trejo Sr,. was 27 when he bought his first business.  It was a pool hall and bar and he called the “Carioca Cantina” which was located down in the west side which was known as the “West Side Flatts.” If any of you know St. Paul, it’s where the industrial park is now next to the Mississippi River.

I was seven years old when I started playing professionally on weekends at the bar, playing Tejano music with some of my uncles and the musicians my dad hired. I remember my mother and father bought me sticks, snare drum, and stand at about three going on four, and I remember I caught the snare on the stand and ripped the bottom skin. All my Uncles were musicians, including my dad who played trumpet, but got into a motorcycle accident and had to stop cuz he knocked out his front teeth. So that’s where the interest and the journey started was from my family.

Not sure who the kids are in the picture below, but if you zero in you can see the name of my dad’s bar on the front.

1962 photo courtesy Minnesota Historical Society

The picture below is “Pepe Carioca,” the parrot which was my dad’s logo for the bar, and check this out….instead of having signs painted on his 1956 Ford pickup truck he actually mounted them on to the doors.!!. You go dad!! My dad was really into advertising.

Image courtesy Junior Trejo

The pictures on the bottom are of me playing one night at the bar and it was so funny cuz grown ups would walk by my drum set and think how cute I was playing being so young and reach in their pockets and throw me some money! Most of the time I made more money than the musicians.

Image courtesy Junior Trejo

The color picture was enhanced by my friend Gabriel Rios.

Image courtesy Junior Trejo

Here’s a funny part of the story is that I was the fill-in drummer when they couldn’t find somebody but the musicians used to tell my father that they liked playing with me because I was pretty steady for being seven years old except every now and then they would laugh because they’d start playing mostly the last set and I wouldn’t be on the drum set because I would be too tired probably cuz it was midnight and just walk off and head towards the bar where my dad had made me a little bed underneath and go to sleep!

Wow!! Thank the Lord for watching over me on this crazy journey but let me tell you…..I’ve had a wonderful life so far and the best is yet to come. With many stories to tell and maybe one day I’ll take the time and write a book. I think it would it be called something like……”I was only seven when my dream became REALITY!!”