Growing up on Green Street in Laredo, Texas, Ricardo Palacios made the wilderness his playground. The woods, the nearby creek, and the vastness of Chacon Creek Canyon transported him and his young friends away from the strife and poverty of the barrio and into the splendor of nature.

Looking back on his life, Palacios reflects on seventy years of memories-from his birth through his days at the all-male St. Joseph's Academy Catholic school, capturing the powerful camaraderie he shared with his classmates and his experiences playing high school football. He next takes a hard look at his college years, during which he flunked out twice before finally making the commitment to graduate with honors and obtain a law degree.

Palacios places his life experiences under a microscope, sharing periods of heavy alcohol use, very stressful years as a rookie attorney, and tales from the trenches about the pitfalls, successes, and failures of his legal practice. He describes his twenty-eight-year marriage, pondering how and why it failed, and tells of wonderful years raising his children on a cattle ranch, with plenty of opportunities for hunting and camping.

Green Street Kid is more than the story of one man's life. It is a portrait of the life and culture of South Texas, where the majority of the population is Hispanic and conflicts sometimes develop between Hispanics and Anglos. It is a story of falling down and rising up again.

Growing up on Green Street in Laredo, Texas, Ricardo Palacios made the wilderness his playground. The woods, the nearby creek, and the vastness of Chacon Creek Canyon transported him and his young friends away from the strife and poverty of the barrio and into the splendor of nature.

Looking back on his life, Palacios reflects on seventy years of memories-from his birth through his days at the all-male St. Joseph's Academy Catholic school, capturing the powerful camaraderie he shared with his classmates and his experiences playing high school football. He next takes a hard look at his college years, during which he flunked out twice before finally making the commitment to graduate with honors and obtain a law degree.

Palacios places his life experiences under a microscope, sharing periods of heavy alcohol use, very stressful years as a rookie attorney, and tales from the trenches about the pitfalls, successes, and failures of his legal practice. He describes his twenty-eight-year marriage, pondering how and why it failed, and tells of wonderful years raising his children on a cattle ranch, with plenty of opportunities for hunting and camping.

Green Street Kid is more than the story of one man's life. It is a portrait of the life and culture of South Texas, where the majority of the population is Hispanic and conflicts sometimes develop between Hispanics and Anglos. It is a story of falling down and rising up again.

One of the best tie-down calf ropers ever to come out of South Texas, Juan Salinas grew up on a 15,000-acre ranch near Laredo, with the finest of horses to ride and hundreds of head of cattle to practice on. He roped in Texas rodeos large and small from the mid-1920s to 1935. From 1936 to 1946, he followed the national rodeo circuit, competing from Texas to New York's Madison Square Garden. At the time, few if any other Mexican Americans competed in rodeo, and Salinas drew a lot of attention. Salinas also operated his family's Texas ranch, where he ran cattle and raised prize roping quarter horses. In this account of his life and career, Salinas's nephew, Ricardo Palacios, recounts the many tales his uncle told him--tales of friendship with Gene Autry, going to Sally Rand's wedding reception, riding on the Rodeo Train, and sponsoring seven-time world champion tie-down calf roper Toots Mansfield. He also narrates life on the range, with his uncle riding across a pasture at full speed, gingerly holding the reins and a thirty-five foot coil of rope in his left hand while swinging the roping loop overhead with his right hand as he chased a three-hundred-pound calf for the throw. The story of Juan Salinas is also the story of the people of Mexican origin who live on the ranches of the South Texas brush country. Strong, rugged, independent, and hard-working, they knew social and economic success that has all too seldom been chronicled. Tio Juan was the family cowboy, the hero, the rodeo star, and Palacios tells his uncle's story with warmth and admiration. In 1991 Salinas was inducted into the Rodeo Hall of Fame of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. He was also named Rancher ofthe Year by Laredo's Borderfest and won the Ranching Heritage Award given by the King Ranch and Texas A&M-Kingsville. In 1993, he was inducted into the Lulac International Sports Hall of Fame. These were, Palacios writes, "fitting tributes to a champion and fine additions to his collection of trophy roping saddles, silver trophies, and champion's buckles."