When I was born I was loud, sleepy, and demanding of everyone’s time. And many of my friends today will say that I still am! I was a male Prima Donna, I was told. Well…I think that’s still true…

Here’s one thing that holds true: my family isn’t as together as it was when I was born. My mom, dad, and I lived in a small house in northern Arizona, a few miles away from the Grand Canyon! And what a place that was when I was growing up…

It was around midnight that I first came out into the world. Ten minutes after midnight, if you want to be accurate, on the morning of September 24^th, 1985. The thing was, I was five days early. So no one was expecting me to make my "guest appearance" until much later.

Not only that, but no one knew what to name me. My parents were actually expecting a girl! When I was born, they really gave little thought to a boy’s name. Eventually, my mother decided on my name when she heard one of her favorite songs on the radio: "Black Magic Woman" by Santana. She turned to my dad and said, "Why don’t we name him Carlos?"

"Why’s that, August?" my dad asked.

"The first thing I hear is Santana. As in, Carlos Santana. I think Carlos Ramon would be a fitting name for the boy."

And that’s how I got my name.

THE Flagstaff News—Births

September 22-28, 1985

Boys:

Carlos Ramon

8lbs, 5oz

12"

Parents: August and Daniel Ramon

This is the Ramon’s first child. Congratulations on your newfound joy.

The announcement of my birth, as recorded in "The Flagstaff News".

As a baby, I was easily bored. I wanted to see how everything worked, so I was constantly breaking things left and right. Dad went ballistic, but Mom didn’t seem to mind nearly as much. "He’s just playing, Danny," she would often tell Dad.

My parents did get concerned in one aspect of my life: if I would ever walk. By the time I was half a year old, I was still crawling around. Not once had I attempted to stand on my own two legs. When I was a year old, however, my parents got a breakthrough.

During a visit to the Grand Canyon, my mom was holding me in her arms while my dad went inside to get some lunch. I must have been squirming around a lot, since my dad kept looking out the Grand Canyon Lodge windows to see my mom trying to maintain a solid hold on me. (This is how he recounts the story to me.) Eventually, my mom got somewhat tired of my fooling around and gave me my pacifier, thinking that would calm me down. Needless to say, it didn’t. I bumped it with my hand and sent it a good five feet away from my mom.

"Carlos, why can’t you stay still for five seconds?" she asked me. (Dad says that Mom always asked me this, so he could see her lips forming the same words from inside.) She picked herself up and walked to get the pacifier, me still squirming in her arms.

"Dad, did you ever find out why I was so jittery?" I asked him later.

"Hold on, son, you’re getting ahead of the story. When your mother bent down to get it, you somehow slipped out of her arms and fell on the sidewalk. She wasn’t too far up from the ground and you only fell on your behind. Anyway, she went nuts and tried to grab you before you got too far away from her or fell into the canyon. She had her hand one inch away from you when you put your hand on your mother’s head, pushed yourself up, and walked five feet before falling back on your behind."

Everyone around the area looked at the little baby and his mother with awe and pride. When my father came out, Mom had me in her arms and everybody was applauding me! Then, to everyone’s surprise, I stood up again, walked to a flower bush, picked a weed (of all things!), and fell down again. This time, I turned around to my mom and held the weed out for her to look at. She was so happy that she started crying.

I don’t really care what people say about my mother. She was—and looking at the pictures of her, she still is—one of the most beautiful women I know. I wish I could remember her more clearly before my little brother showed up…